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THE HARVARD CLASSICS

The Five-Foot Shelf of Books

THE HARVARD CLASSICS
EDITED BY CHARLES W. ELIOT, LL.D.

English Essays

From Sir Philip Sidney to Macaulay

W/V^ Introductions and Notes
Yo/ume 27

P. F. Collier & Son Corporation

NEW YORK

Copyright, 1910
By p. F. Collier & Son

manufactured in u. s. a.

CONTENTS

PAGE

The Defense of Poesy 5

bv sir philip sidney

On Shakespeare 55

by ben jonson

On Bacon 5^

by ben jonson

Of Agriculture 6i

by abraham cowley

The Vision of Mirza 73

by joseph addison

Westminster Abbey 78

by joseph addison

The Spectator Club 83

by sir richard steele

Hints Towards an Essay on Conversation 91

by jonathan swift

A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding 99

BY JONATHAN SWIFT

A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet 104

by jonathan swift

On the Death of Esther Johnson [Stella] 122

by jonathan swift

The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters 133

by daniel defoe

The Education of Women 148

by daniel defoe

Life of Addison, 1672-1719 155

by samuel johnson

Of the Standard of Taste 203

by david hume

I

2 CONTENTS

PAGE

Fallacies of Anti-Reformers 225

by sydney smith

On Poesy or Art 255

by samuel taylor coleridge

Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen 267

BY WILLIAM HAZLITT

Deaths of Little Children 285

BY LEIGH hunt

On the Realities of Imagination 289

BY LEIGH hunt

On the Tragedies of Shakspere 299

by charles lamb

Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow 319

by thomas de quincey

A Defence of Poetry 329

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Machiavelli 363

BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Sir Philip Sidney, for three centuries the type of the English gentle-
man, was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, lord deputy of Ireland under
Queen Elizabeth, and Lady Mary Dudley, daughter of the Duke of
Northumberland. He was born at Penshurst, Kent, November 30, 1554,
and was named after his godfather, Philip II of Spain, then consort of
Queen Mary. He was sent to Oxford at fourteen, where he was noted
as a good student; and on leaving the university he obtained the Queen's
leave to travel on the Continent. He went to Paris in the train of the
ambassador to France, saw much of court society there, and was in the
city at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Proceeding to Ger-
many he met, at Frankfort, the Protestant scholar Hubert Languet, with
whom, though Languet was thrice his age, he formed an intimate and
profitable friendship. He went on to Vienna, Hungary, Italy, and back
by the Low Countries, returning to England at the age of twenty, an
accomplished and courtly gentleman, with some experience of practical
diplomacy, and a first-hand knowledge of the politics of the Continent.

Sidney's introduction to the court of Elizabeth took place in 1575, and
within two years he was sent back to the Continent on a number of
diplomatic commissions, when he used every opportunity for the fur-
thering of the interests of Protestantism. He seems everywhere to have
made the most favorable impression by both his character and his abili-
ties. During the years between 1578 and 1585 he was chiefly at court and
in Parliament, and to this period belong most of his writings. In 1585
he left England to assume the office of Governor of Flushing, and in the
next year he was mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen, dying on
October 17, 1586. All England went into mourning, and the impression
left by his brilliant and fascinating personality has never passed away.

Sidney's literary work was all published after his death, some of it
against his express desire. The "Arcadia," an elaborate pastoral romance
written in a highly ornate prose mingled with verse, was composed for
the entertainment of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. The collec-
tion of sonnets, "Astrophel and Stella," was called forth by Sidney's
relation to Penelope Devereux, daughter of the Earl of Essex. While
they were both little more than children, there had been some talk of a
marriage between them; but evidence of any warmth of feeling appears
chiefly after Penelope's unhappy marriage to Lord Rich. There has been
much controversy over the question of the sincerity of these remarkable

4 INTRODUCTION

poems, and over the precise nature of Sidney's sentiments toward the
lady who inspired them, some regarding them as undisguised outpour-
ings of a genuine passion, others as mere conventional hterary exercises.
The more recent opinion is that they express a platonic devotion such as
was common in the courtly society of the day, and which was allowed by
contemporary opinion to be compatible with the marriage of both parties.
In 1579 Stephen Gosson published a violent attack on the arts, called
"The School of Abuse," and dedicated it without permission to Sidney.
It was in answer to this that Sidney composed his "Defense of Poesy,"
an eloquent apology for imaginative literature, not unmingled with
humor. The esthetic theories it contains are largely borrowed from
Italian sources, but it is thoroughly infused with Sidney's own person-
ality; and it may be regarded as the beginning of literary criticism in
England.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY

By Sir Philip Sidney

WHEN the right virtuous Edward Wotton and I were at
the Emperor's' court together, we gave ourselves to learn
horsemanship of John Pietro Pugliano, one that with
great commendation had the place of an esquire in his stable; and
he, according to the fertileness of the Italian wit, did not only afford
us the demonstration of his practice, but sought to enrich our
minds with the contemplations therein which he thought most
precious. But with none I remember mine ears were at any time
more loaden, than when — either angered with slow payment, or
moved with our learner-like admiration — he exercised his speech in
the praise of his faculty. He said soldiers were the noblest estate of
mankind, and horsemen the noblest of soldiers. He said they were
the masters of war and ornaments of peace, speedy goers and strong
abiders, triumphers both in camps and courts. Nay, to so unbelieved
a point he proceeded, as that no earthly thing bred such wonder to a
prince as to be a good horseman; skill of government was but a
pedanteria^ in comparison. Then would he add certain praises, by
telling what a peerless beast the horse was, the only serviceable cour-
tier without flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage,
and such more, that if I had not been a piece of a logician before I
came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished
myself a horse. But thus much at least with his no few words he
drave into me, that self-love is better than any gilding to make that
seem gorgeous wherein ourselves be parties.

Wherein if Pugliano's strong affection and weak arguments will

not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example of myself, who,

I know not by what mischance, in these my not old years and idlest

times, having slipped into the title of a poet, am provoked to say some-

* Maximilian II. (i 527-1 576). ^ pig^g of pedamry.

O SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

thing unto you in the defense of that my unelected vocation, which
if I handle with more good will than good reasons, bear with me,
since the scholar is to be pardoned that followeth the steps of his
master. And yet I must say that, as I have just cause to make a
pitiful defense of poor poetry, which from almost the highest esti-
mation of learning is fallen to be the laughing-stock of children,
so have I need to bring some more available proofs, since the former
is by no man barred of his deserved credit, the silly' latter hath had
even the names of philosophers used to the defacing of it, with great
danger of civil war among the Muses.

And first, truly, to all them that, professing learning, inveigh
against poetry, may justly be objected that they go very near to
ungratefulness, to seek to deface that which, in the noblest nations
and languages that are known, hath been the first light-giver to
ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled
them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledges. And will they
now play the hedgehog, that, being received into the den, drave out
his host? Or rather the vipers, that with their birth kill their parents?
Let learned Greece in any of her manifold sciences be able to show
me one book before Muszus, Homer, and Hesiod, all three nothing
else but poets. Nay, let any history be brought that can say any
writers were there before them, if they were not men of the same
skill, as Orpheus, Linus, and some other are named, who, having
been the first of that country that made pens deliverers of their
knowledge to their posterity, may justly challenge to be called their
fathers in learning. For not only in time they had this priority —
although in itself antiquity be venerable — but went before them
as causes, to draw with their charming sweetness the wild untamed
wits to an admiration of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to
move stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be
listened to by beasts, — indeed stony and beastly people. So among
the Romans were Livius Andronicus and Ennius; so in the Italian
language the first that made it aspire to be a treasure-house of
science were the poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch; so in our
English were Gower and Chaucer, after whom, encouraged and
delighted with their excellent foregoing, others have followed to

^ Weak, poor.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 7

beautify our mother-tongue, as well in the same kind as in other arts.

This did so notably show itself, that the philosophers of Greece
durst not a long time appear to the world but under the masks of
poets. So Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides sang their natural
philosophy in verses; so did Pythagoras and Phocylides their moral
counsels; so did Tyrtaeus in war matters, and Solon in matters of
policy; or rather they, being poets, did exercise their delightful
vein in those points of highest knowledge which before them lay
hidden to the world. For that wise Solon was directly a poet it is
manifest, having written in verse the notable fable of the Atlantic
Island which was continued by Plato. And truly even Plato who-
soever well considereth, shall find that in the body of his work
though the inside and strength were philosophy, the skin as it were
and beauty depended most of poetry. For all standeth upon dia-
logues; wherein he feigneth many honest burgesses of Athens to
speak of such matters that, if they had been set on the rack, they
would never have confessed them; besides his poetical describing
the circumstances of their meetings, as the well-ordering of a banquet,
the delicacy of a walk, with interlacing mere tales, as Gyges' Ring
and others, which who knoweth not to be flowers of poetry did
never walk into Apollo's garden.

And even historiographers, although their lips sound of things
done, and verity be written in their foreheads, have been glad to bor-
row both fashion and perchance weight of the poets. So Herodotus
entituled his history by the name of the nine Muses; and both he
and all the rest that followed him either stole or usurped of
poetry their passionate describing of passions, the many particularities
of battles which no man could affirm, or, if that be denied me, long
orations put in the mouths of great kings and captains, which it is
certain they never pronounced.

So that truly neither philosopher nor historiographer could at the
first have entered into the gates of popular judgments, if they had
not taken a great passport of poetry, which in all nations at this day,
where learning flourisheth not, is plain to be seen; in all which they
have some feeling of poetry. In Turkey, besides their lawgiving di-
vines they have no other writers but poets. In our neighbor country
Ireland, where truly learning goeth very bare, yet are their poets held

8 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

in a devout reverence. Even among the most barbarous and simple
Indians, where no writing is, yet have they their poets, who make
and sing songs (which they call areytos), both o£ their ancestors'
deeds and praises of their gods, — a sufficient probability that, if ever
learning come among them, it must be by having their hard dull wits
softened and sharpened with the sweet delights of poetry; for until
they find a pleasure in the exercise of the mind, great promises of
much knowledge will little persuade them that know not the fruits
of knowledge. In Wales, the true remnant of the ancient Britons,
as there are good authorities to show the long time they had poets
which they called bards, so through all the conquests of Romans,
Saxons, Danes, and Normans, some of whom did seek to ruin all
memory of learning from among them, yet do their poets even to this
day last; so as it is not more notable in soon beginning, than in long
continuing.

But since the authors of most of our sciences were the Romans,
and before them the Greeks, let us a little stand upon their authori-
ties, but even* so far as to see what names they have given unto this
now scorned skill. Among the Romans a poet was called vates, which
is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words,
vaticinium and vaticinari, is manifest; so heavenly a title did that ex-
cellent people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowledge. And so
far were they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought
in the chanceable hitting upon any such verses great fore-tokens of
their following fortunes were placed; whereupon grew the word of
Sortes VirgiliancE, when by sudden opening Virgil's book they
lighted upon some verse of his making. Whereof the Histories of
the Emperors' Lives are full: as of Albinus, the governor of our
island, who in his childhood met with this verse,

Arma amens capio, nee sat rationis in armis,

and in his age performed it. Although it were a very vain and godless
superstition, as also it was to think that spirits were commanded by
such verses — whereupon this word charms, derived of carmina, Com-
eth — so yet serveth it to show the great reverence those wits were held
in, and altogether not^ without ground, since both the oracles of Del-
* Only. 5 Not altogether.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 9

phos and Sibylla's prophecies were wholly delivered in verses; for
that same exquisite observing of number and measure in words,
and that high-flying liberty of conceit^ proper to the poet, did seem
to have some divine force in it.

And may not I presume a little further to show the reasonableness
of this word vates, and say that the holy David's Psalms are a divine
poem ? If I do, I shall not do it without the testimony of great learned
men, both ancient and modern. But even the name of Psalms will
speak for me, which, being interpreted, is nothing but Songs; then,
that it is fully written in metre, as all learned Hebricians agree,
although the rules be not yet fully found; lastly and principally, his
handling his prophecy, which is merely poetical. For what else is
the awaking his musical instruments, the often and free changing
of persons, his notable prosopopoeias, when he maketh you, as it were,
see God coming in His majesty, his telling of the beasts' joyfulness
and hills' leaping, but a heavenly poesy, wherein almost he showeth
himself a passionate lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty
to be seen by the eyes of the mind, only cleared by faith ? But truly
now having named him, I fear I seem to profane that holy name,
applying it to poetry, which is among us thrown down to so ridicu-
lous an estimation. But they that with quiet judgments will look a
little deeper into it, shall find the end and working of it such as,
being rightly appUed, deserveth not to be scourged out of the church
of God.

But now let us see how the Greeks named it and how they deemed
of it. The Greeks called him iroiriTiiv, which name hath, as the most
excellent, gone through other languages. It cometh of this word itoiuv,
which is "to make"; wherein I know not whether by luck or wisdom
we Englishmen have met with the Greeks in calling him a maker.
Which name how high and incomparable a title it is, I had rather
were known by marking the scope of other sciences than by any
partial allegation. There is no art delivered unto mankind that hath
not the works of nature for his principal object, without which they
could not consist, and on which they so depend as they become actors
and players, as it were, of what nature will have set forth. So doth
the astronomer look upon the stars, and, by that he seeth, set down

^ Invention.

10 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

what order nature hath taken therein. So do the geometrician and
arithmetician in their divers sorts of quantities. So doth the musician
in times tell you which by nature agree, which not. The natural
philosopher thereon hath his name, and the moral philosopher stand-
eth upon the natural virtues, vices, and passions of man; and "follow
nature," saith he, "therein, and thou shalt not err." The lawyer saith
what men have determined, the historian what men have done. The
grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech, and the rhetorician
and logician, considering what in nature will soonest prove and
persuade, thereon give artificial rules, which still are compassed
within the circle of a question, according to the proposed matter. The
physician weigheth the nature of man's body, and the nature of
things helpful or hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, though it be
in the second and abstract notions, and therefore be counted super-
natural, yet doth he, indeed, build upon the depth of nature.

Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted
up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow, in effect, into
another nature, in making things either better than nature bringeth
forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in nature, as the
heroes, demi-gods, cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like; so as he
goeth hand in hand with nature, not enclosed within the narrow war-
rant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit.
Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have
done; neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flow-
ers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more
lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.

But let those things alone, and go to man — for whom as the other
things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed —
and know whether she have brought forth so true a lover as Thea-
genes; so constant a friend as Pylades; so valiant a man as Orlando;
so right a prince as Xenophon's Cyrus; so excellent a man every way
as Virgil's iEneas? Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because
the works of the one be essential, the other in imitation or fiction; for
any understanding knoweth the skill of each artificer standeth in
that idea, or fore-conceit of the work, and not in the work itself.
And that the poet hath that idea is manifest, by delivering them forth
in such excellency as he hath imagined them. Which delivering

THE DEFENSE OF POESY II

forth, also, is not wholly imaginative, as we are wont to say by them
that build castles in the air; but so far substantially it worketh, not
only to make a Cyrus, which had been but a particular excellency,
as nature might have done, but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world to
make many Cyruses, if they will learn aright why and how that
maker made him. Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to
balance the highest point of man's wit with the efficacy of nature;
but rather give right honor to the Heavenly Maker of that maker,
who, having made man to His own likeness, set him beyond and
over all the works of that second nature. Which in nothing he
showeth so much as in poetry, when with the force of a divine breath
he bringeth things forth far surpassing her doings, with no small
argument to the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam, —
since our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our
infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it. But these arguments
will by few be understood, and by fewer granted; thus much I hope
will be given me, that the Greeks with some probability of reason
gave him the name above all names of learning.

Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the truth
may be the more palpable; and so, I hope, though we get not so
unmatched a praise as the etymology of his names will grant, yet his
very description, which no man will deny, shall not justly be barred
from a principal commendation.

Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it
in his word |ii//jj(ns, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or
figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture, with
this end, — to teach and delight.

Of this have been three general kinds. The chief, both in antiquity
and excellency, were they that did imitate the inconceivable excellen-
cies of God. Such were David in his Psalms; Solomon in his Song
of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes and Proverbs; Moses and Deborah in
their Hymns; and the writer of Job; which, beside other, the learned
Emanuel Tremellius and Franciscus Junius do entitle the poetical
part of the Scripture. Against these none will speak that hath the
Holy Ghost in due holy reverence. In this kind, though in a full
wrong divinity, were Orpheus, Amphion, Homer in his Hymns, and
many other, both Greeks and Romans. And this poesy must be used

12 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

by whosoever will follow St. James' counsel in singing psalms when
they are merry; and I know is used with the fruit of comfort by
some, when, in sorrowful pangs of their death-bringing sins, they
find the consolation of the never-leaving goodness.

The second kind is of them that deal with matters philosophical,
either moral, as Tyrtseus, Phocylides, and Cato; or natural, as Lucre-
tius and Virgil's Georgics; or astronomical, as Manilius and Pon-
tanus; or historical, as Lucan; which who mislike, the fault is in their
judgment quite out of taste, and not in the sweet food of sweedy
uttered knowledge.

But because this second sort is wrapped within the fold of the pro-
posed subject, and takes not the free course of his own invention,
whether they properly be poets or no let grammarians dispute, and
go to the third, indeed right poets, of whom chiefly this question
ariseth. Betwixt whom and these second is such a kind of difference
as betwixt the meaner sort of painters, who counterfeit only such
faces as are set before them, and the more excellent, who having no
law but wit, bestow that in colors upon you which is fittest for the
eye to see, — as the constant though lamenting look of Lucretia, when
she punished in herself another's fault; wherein he painteth not
Lucretia, whom he never saw, but painteth the outward beauty of
such a virtue. For these third be they which most properly do imi-
tate to teach and delight; and to imitate borrow nothing of what
is, hath been, or shall be; but range, only reined with learned discre-
tion, into the divine consideration of what may be and should
be. These be they that, as the first and most noble sort may justly
be termed vates, so these are waited on in the excellentest languages
and best understandings with the fore-described name of poets. For
these, indeed, do merely make to imitate, and imitate both to
delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that goodness
in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger;
and teach to make them know that goodness whereunto they are
moved: — which being the noblest scope to which ever any learning
was directed, yet want there not idle tongues to bark at them.

These be subdivided into sundry more special denominations.
The most notable be the heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic,
elegiac, pastoral, and certain others, some of these being termed

THE DEFENSE OF POESY I3

according to the matter they deal with, some by the sort of verse
they Hked best to write in, — for indeed the greatest part of poets have
apparelled their poetical inventions in that numberous kind of
writing which is called verse. Indeed but apparelled, verse being but
an ornament and no cause to poetry, since there have been many
most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm many
versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets. For Xeno-
phon, who did imitate so excellently as to give us effigiem justi
imperii— the portraiture of a just empire under the name of Cyrus
(as Cicero saith of him) — made therein an absolute heroical poem;
so did Heliodorus in his sugared invention of that picture of love in
Theagenes and Chariclea; and yet both these wrote in prose. Which
I speak to show that it is not riming and versing that maketh a poet
— no more than a long gown maketh an advocate, who, though he
pleaded in armor, should be an advocate and no soldier — ^but it is that
feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that
delightful teaching, which must be the right describing note to know
a poet by. Although indeed the senate of poets hath chosen verse
as their fittest raiment, meaning, as in matter they passed all in all,
so in manner to go beyond them; not speaking, table-talk fashion,
or like men in a dream, words as they chanceably fall from the
mouth, but peizing' each syllable of each word by just proportion,
according to the dignity of the subject.

Now, therefore, it shall not be amiss, first to weigh this latter sort
of poetry by his works, and then by his parts; and if in neither of
these anatomies he be condemnable, I hope we shall obtain a more
favorable sentence. This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory,
enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly
we call learning, under what name soever it come forth or to what
immediate end soever it be directed, the final end is to lead and
draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse
by their clay lodgings, can be capable of. This, according to the
inclination of man, bred many-formed impressions. For some that
thought this felicity principally to be gotten by knowledge, and no
knowledge to be so high or heavenly as acquaintance with the stars,
gave themselves to astronomy; others, persuading themselves to be

' Weighing.

14 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

demi-gods if they knew the causes of things, became natural and
supernatural philosophers. Some an admirable delight drew to
music, and some the certainty of demonstration to the mathematics;
but all, one and other, having this scope: — to know, and by knowl-
edge to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body to the
enjoying his own divine essence. But when by the balance of
experience it was found that the astronomer, looking to the stars,
might fall into a ditch, that the inquiring philosopher might be
blind in himself, and the mathematician might draw forth a straight
line with a crooked heart; then lo! did proof, the overruler of
opinions, make manifest, that all these are but serving sciences,
which, as they have each a private end in themselves, so yet are they
all directed to the highest end of the mistress-knowledge, by the
Greeks called apxtreKTococi?, which stands, as I think, in the knowl-
edge of a man's self, in the ethic and politic consideration, with
the end of well-doing, and not of well-knowing only: — even as the
saddler's next end is to make a good saddle, but his further end to
serve a nobler faculty, which is horsemanship; so the horseman's to
soldiery; and the soldier not only to have the skill, but to perform
the practice of a soldier. So that the ending end of all earthly
learning being virtuous action, those skills that most serve to bring
forth that have a most just title to be princes over all the rest; wherein,
if we can show, the poet is worthy to have it before any other
competitors.

Among whom as principal challengers step forth the moral philos-
ophers; whom, me thinketh, I see coming toward me with a sullen
gravity, as though they could not abide vice by daylight; rudely
clothed, for to witness outwardly their contempt of outward things;
with books in their hands against glory, whereto they set their names;
sophistically speaking against subtility; and angry with any man in
whom they see the foul fault of anger. These men, casting largess
as they go of definitions, divisions, and distinctions, with a scornful
interrogative do soberly ask whether it be possible to find any path
so ready to lead a man to virtue, as that which teacheth what virtue
is, and teacheth it not only by delivering forth his very being, his
causes and effects, but also by making known his enemy, vice, which
must be destroyed, and his cumbersome servant, passion, which

THE DEFENSE OF POESY I5

must be mastered; by showing the generalities that contain it,
and the specialities that are derived from it; lastly, by plain setting
down how it extendeth itself out of the limits of a man's own
little world, to the government of families, and maintaining of
public societies?

The historian scarcely giveth leisure to the moralist to say so
much, but that he, loaden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing
himself for the most part upon other histories, whose greatest authori-
ties are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay; having much
ado to accord differing writers, and to pick truth out of partiality;
better acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present
age, and yet better knowing how this world goeth than how his own
wit runneth; curious for antiquities and inquisitive of novelties, a
wonder to young folks and a tyrant in table-talk; denieth, in a great
chafe,* that any man for teaching of virtue and virtuous actions is
comparable to him. "I am testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita
memoricE, magistra vitce, nuntia vetustatis. * The philosopher," saith
he, "teacheth a disputative virtue, but I do an active. His virtue is
excellent in the dangerless Academy of Plato, but mine showeth forth
her honorable face in the battles of Marathon, Pharsalia, Poitiers,
and Agincourt. He teacheth virtue by certain abstract considerations,
but I only bid you follow the footing of them that have gone before
you. Old-aged experience goeth beyond the fine-witted philosopher;
but I give the experience of many ages. Lastly, if he make the song-
book, I put the learner's hand to the lute; and if he be the guide, I
am the light." Then would he allege you innumerable examples,
confirming story by story, how much the wisest senators and princes
have been directed by the credit of history, as Brutus, Alphonsus of
Aragon — and who not, if need be ? At length the long line of their
disputation maketh"" a point in this, — ^that the one giveth the precept,
and the other the example.

Now whom shall we find, since the question standeth for the
highest form in the school of learning, to be moderator? Truly, as
me seemeth, the poet; and if not a moderator, even the man that
ought to carry the title from them both, and much more from all

* Anger, irritation.

'"The witness of time, the light of truth, the life of memory, the directress of life,
the herald of antiquity." — Cicero, "De Orat.," 2. 9. 36. '" Comes to.

l6 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

other serving sciences. Therefore compare we the poet with the
historian and with the moral philosopher; and if he go beyond them
both, no other human skill can match him. For as for the divine,
with all reverence it is ever to be excepted, not only for having his
scope as far beyond any of these as eternity exceedeth a moment, but
even for passing each of these in themselves. And for the lawyer,
though Jus be the daughter of Justice, and Justice the chief of
virtues, yet because he seeketh to make men good rather formidine
paencE^^ than virtutis amore^''' or, to say righter, doth not endeavour
to make men good, but that their evil hurt not others; having no
care, so he be a good citizen, how bad a man he be; therefore, as our
wickedness maketh him necessary, and necessity maketh him hon-
orable, so is he not in the deepest truth to stand in rank with these,
who all endeavor to take naughtiness away, and plant goodness even
in the secretest cabinet of our souls. And these four are all that any
way deal in that consideration of men's manners, which being the
supreme knowledge, they that best breed it deserve the best
commendation.

The philosopher therefore and the historian are they which would
win the goal, the one by precept, the other by example; but both not
having both, do both halt. For the philosopher, setting down with
thorny arguments the bare rule, is so hard of utterance and so misty
to be conceived, that one that hath no other guide but him shall wade
in him till he be old, before he shall find sufficient cause to be honest.
For his knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and general that
happy is that man who may understand him, and more happy that
can apply what he doth understand. On the other side, the historian,
wanting the precept, is so tied, not to what should be but to what is,
to the particular truth of things, and not to the general reason of
things, that his example draweth no necessary consequence, and
therefore a less fruitful doctrine.

Now doth the peerless poet perform both; for whatsoever the
philosopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of it in
some one by whom he presupposeth it was done, so as he coupleth
the general notion with the particular example. A perfect picture, I
say; for he yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that
" Fear of punishment. '^ Lgyg q£ virtue.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 1 7

whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, which
doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul so much
as that other doth. For as, in outward things, to a man that had
never seen an elephant or a rhinoceros, who should tell him most
exquisitely all their shapes, color, bigness, and particular marks; or
of a gorgeous palace, an architector, with declaring the full beauties,
might well make the hearer able to repeat, as it were by rote, all he
had heard, yet should never satisfy his inward conceit with being
witness to itself of a true lively'' knowledge; but the same man, as
soon as he might see those beasts well painted, or that house well in
model, should straightways grow, without need of any description,
to a judicial comprehending of them; so no doubt the philosopher,
with his learned definitions, be it of virtues or vices, matters of public
policy or private government, replenisheth the memory with many
infallible grounds of wisdom, which notwithstanding lie dark before
the imaginative and judging power, if they be not illuminated or
figured forth by the speaking picture of poesy.

Tully taketh much pains, and many times not without poetical
helps, to make us know the force love of our country hath in us.
Let us but hear old Anchises speaking in the midst of Troy's flames,
or see Ulysses, in the fulness of all Calypso's delights, bewail his
absence from barren and beggarly Ithaca. Anger, the Stoics said, was
a short madness. Let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage,
killing and whipping sheep and oxen, thinking them the army of
Greeks, with their chieftains Agamemnon and Menelaus, and tell
me if you have not a more familiar insight into anger, than finding
in the schoolmen his genus and difference. See whether wisdom and
temperance in Ulysses and Diomedes, valor in Achilles, friendship
in Nisus and Euryalus, even to an ignorant man carry not an
apparent shining. And, contrarily, the remorse of conscience, in
CEdipus; the soon-repenting pride of Agamemnon; the self-
devouring cruelty in his father Atreus; the violence of ambition in
the two Theban brothers; the sour sweetness of revenge in Medea;
and, to fall lower, the Terentian Gnatho and our Chaucer's Pandar
so expressed that we now use their names to signify their trades;
and finally, all virtues, vices, and passions so in their own natural

" Living.

l8 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

States laid to the view, that we seem not to hear o£ them, but clearly
to see through them.

But even in the most excellent determination o£ goodness, what
philosopher's counsel can so readily direct a prince, as the feigned
Cyrus in Xenophon ? Or a virtuous man in all fortunes, as JEneas in
Virgil? Or a whole commonwealth, as the way of Sir Thomas
More's Utopia? I say the way, because where Sir Thomas More
erred, it was the fault of the man, and not of the poet; for that way
of patterning a commonwealth was most absolute, though he, per-
chance, hath not so absolutely performed it. For the question is,
whether the feigned image of poesy, or the regular instruction of
philosophy, hath the more force in teaching. Wherein if the philoso-
phers have more rightly showed themselves philosophers than the
poets have attained to the high top of their profession, — as in truth,

Mediocribus esse poetis
Non Dii, non homines, non concessere columnae, — '*

it is, I say again, not the fault of the art, but that by few men that
art can be accomplished.

Certainly, even our Saviour Christ could as well have given the
moral commonplaces of uncharitableness and humbleness as the
divine narration of Dives and Lazarus; or of disobedience and
mercy, as that heavenly discourse of the lost child and the gracious
father; but that his through-searching wisdom knew the estate of
Dives burning in hell, and of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, would
more constantly, as it were, inhabit both the memory and judgment.
Truly, for myself, me seems I see before mine eyes the lost child's
disdainful prodigality, turned to envy a swine's dinner; which by
the learned divines are thought not historical acts, but instructing
parables.

For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth
obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him; that is to say,
he teacheth them that are already taught. But the poet is the food
for the tenderest stomachs; the poet is indeed the right popular
philosopher. Whereof iEsop's tales give good proof; whose pretty

1* "Neither gods nor men nor booksellers permit poets to be mediocre." — ^Horace,
"Ars Poet.," 372-3.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY I9

allegories, stealing under the formal tales of beasts, make many,
more beastly than beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue from
those dumb speakers.

But now it may be alleged that if this imagining of matters be so
fit for the imagination, then must the historian needs surpass, who
bringeth you images of true matters, such as indeed were done, and
not such as fantastically" or falsely may be suggested to have been
done. Truly, Aristotle himself, in his Discourse of Poesy, plainly
determineth this question, saying that poetry is ipCSoaoipwrepov and
airovhaibTtpov, that is to say, it is more philosophical and more studi-
ously serious than history. His reason is, because poesy dealeth with
KoBoKov, that is to say with the universal consideration, and the
history with koJB' UaaTov, the particular.

"Now," saith he, "the universal weighs what is fit to be said or
done, either in likelihood or necessity — which the poesy considereth
in his imposed names; and the particular only marketh whether
Alcibiades did, or suffered, this or that:" thus far Aristotle. Which
reason of his, as all his, is most full of reason.

For, indeed, if the question were whether it were better to have a
particular act truly or falsely set down, there is no doubt which is
to be chosen, no more than whether you had rather have Vespasian's
picture right as he was, or, at the painter's pleasure, nothing resem-
bling. But if the question be for your own use and learning, whether
it be better to have it set down as it should be or as it was, then
certainly is more doctrinable" the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon than
the true Cyrus in Justin; and the feigned ^neas in Virgil than the
right iEneas in Dares Phrygius; as to a lady that desired to fashion
her countenance to the best grace, a painter should more benefit
her to portrait a most sweet face, writing Canidia upon it, than to
paint Canidia as she was, who, Horace sweareth, was foul and
ill-favored.

If the poet do his part aright, he will show you in Tantalus, Atreus,
and such like, nothing that is not to be shunned; in Cyrus, ^neas,
Ulysses, each thing to be followed. Where the historian, bound to
tell things as things were, cannot be liberal — without he will be
poetical— of a perfect pattern; but, as in Alexander, or Scipio him-

'5 Imaginatively. ^^ Instructive.

20 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

self, show doings, some to be liked, some to be misliked; and then
how will you discern what to follow but by your own discretion,
which you had without reading Quintus Curtius? And whereas a
man may say, though in universal consideration of doctrine the poet
prevaileth, yet that the history, in his saying such a thing was done,
doth warrant a man more in that he shall follow, — the answer is
manifest: that if he stand upon that was, as if he should argue,
because it rained yesterday therefore it should rain to-day, then
indeed it hath some advantage to a gross conceit. But if he know an
example only informs a conjectured likelihood, and so go by reason,
the poet doth so far exceed him as he is to frame his example to
that which is most reasonable, be it in warlike, politic, or private
matters; where the historian in his bare was hath many times that
which we call fortune to overrule the best wisdom. Many times he
must tell events whereof he can yield no cause; or if he do, it must
be poetically.

For, that a feigned example hath as much force to teach as a true
example — ^for as for to move, it is clear, since the feigned may
be tuned to the highest key of passion — let us take one example
wherein a poet and a historian do concur. Herodotus and Justin do
both testify that Zopyrus, king Darius' faithful servant, seeing his
master long resisted by the rebellious Babylonians, feigned himself
in extreme disgrace of his king; for verifying of which he caused
his own nose and ears to be cut off, and so flying to the Babylonians,
was received, and for his known valor so far credited, that he did
find means to deliver them over to Darius. Muchlike matter doth
Livy record of Tarquinius and his son. Xenophon excellently
feigneth such another stratagem, performed by Abradatas in Cyrus'
behalf. Now would I fain know, if occasion be presented unto you
to serve your prince by such an honest dissimulation, why do you not
as well learn it of Xenophon's fiction as of the other's verity? and,
truly, so much the better, as you shall save your nose by the bargain;
for Abradatas did not counterfeit so far.

So, then, the best of the historian is subject to the poet; for what-
soever action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war-stratagem

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 21

the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet, if he list, with his
imitation make his own, beautifying it both for further teaching and
more delighting, as it pleaseth him; having all, from Dante's Heaven
to his Hell, under the authority of his pen. Which if I be asked
what poets have done ? so as I might well name some, yet say I, and
say again, I speak of the art, and not of the artificer.

Now, to that which is commonly attributed to the praise of history,
in respect of the notable learning is gotten by marking the success,
as though therein a man should see virtue exalted and vice pun-
ished, — truly that commendation is peculiar to poetry and far off
from history. For, indeed, poetry ever setteth virtue so out in her
best colors, making Fortune her well-waiting handmaid, that one
must needs be enamored of her. Well may you see Ulysses in a
storm, and in other hard plights; but they are but exercises of
patience and magnanimity, to make them shine the more in the near
following prosperity. And, of the contrary part, if evil men come to
the stage, they ever go out — as the tragedy writer answered to one
that -misliked the show of such persons — so manacled as they little
animate folks to follow them. But the historian, being captived to
the truth of a foolish world, is many times a terror from well-doing,
and an encouragement to unbridled wickedness. For see we not
vahant Miltiades rot in his fetters? The just Phocion and the accom-
plished Socrates put to death like traitors? The cruel Severus live
prosperously? The excellent Severus miserably murdered? Sylla
and Marius dying in their beds? Pompey and Cicero slain then,
when they would have thought exile a happiness? See we not
virtuous Cato driven to kill himself, and rebel Czsar so advanced
that his name yet, after sixteen hundred years, lasteth in the highest
honor? And mark but even Cassar's own words of the forenamed
Sylla — who in that only did honestly, to put down his dishonest
tyranny — literas nescivit:" as if want of learning caused him to do
well. He meant it not by poetry, which, not content with earthly
plagues, deviseth new punishments in hell for tyrants; nor yet by

''He was without learning. Sidney here seems to miss the point of a joke of
Caesar's reported by Suetonius.

22 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

philosophy, which teacheth occidendos esse;^^ but, no doubt, by skill
in history, for that indeed can afford you Cypselus, Periander, Pha-
laris, Dionysius, and I know not how many more of the same kennel,
that speed well enough in their abominable injustice or usurpation.

I conclude, therefore, that he excelleth history, not only in furnish-
ing the mind with knowledge, but in setting it forward to that which
deserveth to be called and accounted good; which setting forward,
and moving to well-doing, indeed setteth the laurel crown upon the
poet as victorious, not only of the historian, but over the philosopher,
howsoever in teaching it may be questionable. For suppose it be
granted — that which I suppose with great reason may be denied —
that the philosopher, in respect of his methodical proceeding, teach
more perfectly than the poet, yet do I think that no man is so much
^iXoi/'tXoo-o^os" as to compare the philosopher in moving with
the poet. And that moving is of a higher degree than teaching, it
may by this appear, that it is well nigh both the cause and the effect
of teaching; for who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire
to be taught? And what so much good doth that teaching bring
forth — I speak still of moral doctrine — as that it moveth one to do
that which it doth teach.? For, as Aristotle saith, it is not tvojo-ij^"
but TpSfis^' must be the fruit; and how Tpa^is cannot be, with-
out being moved to practise, it is no hard matter to consider. The
philosopher showeth you the way, he informeth you of the particu-
larities, as well of the tediousness of the way, as of the pleasant
lodging you shall have when your journey is ended, as of the many
by-turnings that may divert you from your way; but this is to no
man but to him that will read him, and read him with attentive,
studious painfulness; which constant desire whosoever hath in him,
hath already passed half the hardness of the way, and therefore is
beholding to the philosopher but for the other half. Nay, truly,
learned men have learnedly thought, that where once reason hath so
much overmastered passion as that the mind hath a free desire to
do well, the inward light each mind hath in itself is as good as a
philosopher's book; since in nature we know it is well to do well,
and what is well and what is evil, although not in the words of art
which philosophers bestow upon us; for out of natural conceit the
" That they are to be killed. !» A friend to the philosopher. 20 Knowledge. 21 Practice.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 23

philosophers drew it. But to be moved to do that which we know,
or to be moved with desire to know, hoc opus, hie labor est.

Now therein of all sciences — I speak still of human, and according
to the human conceit — is our poet the monarch. For he doth not
only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way as
will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey
should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster
of grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass further. He
beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the mar-
gent''^ with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness.
But he Cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either
accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of
music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale
which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-
corner, and, pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the
mind from wickedness to virtue; even as the child is often brought
to take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other as to
have a pleasant taste, — which, if one should begin to tell them the
nature of the aloes or rhubarb they should receive, would sooner take
their physic at their ears than at their mouth. So is it in men, most
of which are childish in the best things, till they be cradled in their
graves, — glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles,
Cyrus, iEneas; and, hearing them, must needs hear the right descrip-
tion of wisdom, valor, and justice; which, if they had been barely,
that is to say philosophically, set out, they would swear they be
brought to school again.

That imitation whereof poetry is, hath the most conveniency to
nature of all other; insomuch that, as Aristotle saith, those things
which in themselves are horrible, as cruel battles, unnatural monsters,
are made in poetical imitation delightful. Truly, I have known men,
that evpn with reading Amadis de Gaule, which, God knoweth,
wanteth much of a perfect poesy, have found their hearts moved to
the exercise of courtesy, liberality, and especially courage. Who
readeth ^neas carrying old Anchises on his back, that wisheth not
it were his fortune to perform so excellent an act? Whom do not

^^ "This is the work, this the labor." — Virgil, "^neid," VI., 129.
^' Margin.

24 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

those words of Turnus move, the tale of Turnus having planted his
image in the imagination ?

Fugientem haec terra videbit?
Usque adeone mori miserum est?^^

Where the philosophers, as they scorn to delight, so must they be
content little to move — saving wrangling whether virtue be the chief
or the only good, whether the contemplative or the active life do
excel — which Plato and Boethius well knew, and therefore made
Mistress Philosophy very often borrow the masking raiment of Poesy.
For even those hard-hearted evil men who think virtue a school-
name, and know no other good but indulgere genio^^ and therefore
despise the austere admonitions of the philosopher, and feel not the
inward reason they stand upon, yet will be content to be delighted,
which is all the good-fellow poet seemeth to promise; and so steal
to see the form of goodness — which seen, they cannot but love — ere
themselves be aware, as if they took a medicine of cherries.

Infinite proofs of the strange effects of this poetical invention
might be alleged; only two shall serve, which are so often remembered
as I think all men know them. The one of Menenius Agrippa, who,
when the whole people of Rome had resolutely divided themselves
from the senate, with apparent show of utter ruin, though he were,
for that time, an excellent orator, came not among them upon trust
either of figurative speeches or cunning insinuations, and much less
with far-fet maxims of philosophy, which, especially if they were
Platonic, they must have learned geometry before they could well
have conceived; but, forsooth, he behaves himself like a homely and
familiar poet. He telleth them a tale, that there was a time when all
the parts of the body made a mutinous conspiracy against the belly,
which they thought devoured the fruits of each other's labor; they
concluded they would let so unprofitable a spender starve. In the
end, to be short — for the tale is notorious, and as notorious that it
was a tale — with punishing the belly they plagued themselves. This,
applied by him, wrought such effect in the people, as I never read
that ever words brought forth but then so sudden and so good an

2* "Shall this land see him fleeing? Is it so very wretched to die?" — Virgil,
"^neid," XII., 645-6.
25 "Xo give way to one's inclination."

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 25

alteration; for upon reasonable conditions a perfect reconcilement
ensued.

The other is of Nathan the prophet, who, when the holy David
had so far forsaken God as to confirm adultery with murder, when
he was to do the tenderest office of a friend, in laying his own shame
before his eyes, — sent by God to call again so chosen a servant, how
doth he it but by telling of a man whose beloved lamb was ungrate-
fully taken from his bosom? The application most divinely true,
but the discourse itself feigned; which made David (I speak of the
second and instrumental cause) as in a glass to see his own filthiness,
as that heavenly Psalm of Mercy well testifieth.

By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think it may be
manifest that the poet, with that same hand of delight, doth draw
the mind more effectually than any other art doth. And so a
conclusion not unfitly ensueth: that as virtue is the most excellent
resting-place for all worldly learning to make his end of, so poetry,
being the most familiar to teach it, and most princely to move
towards it, in the most excellent work is the most excellent workman.

But I am content not only to decipher him by his works — although
works in commendation or dispraise must ever hold a high authority
— but more narrowly will examine his parts; so that, as in a man,
though all together may carry a presence full of majesty and beauty,
perchance in some one defections piece we may find a blemish.

Now in his parts, kinds, or species, as you list to term them, it is
to be noted that some poesies have coupled together two or three
kinds, — as tragical and comical, whereupon is risen the tragi-comical;
some, in the like manner, have mingled prose and verse, as Sannaz-
zaro and Boethius; some have mingled matters heroical and pastoral;
but that Cometh all to one in this question, for, if severed they be
good, the conjunction cannot be hurtful. Therefore, perchance for-
getting some, and leaving some as needless to be remembered, it
shall not be amiss in a word to cite the special kinds, to see what
faults may be found in the right use of them.

Is it then the pastoral poem which is misliked? — for perchance
where the hedge is lowest they will soonest leap over. Is the poor
pipe disdained, which sometimes out of Melibceus' mouth can show
the misery of people under hard lords and ravening soldiers, and

26 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

again, by Tityrus, what blessedness is derived to them that lie lowest
from the goodness of them that sit highest? sometimes, under the
pretty tales of wolves and sheep, can include the whole considera-
tions of wrong-doing and patience; sometimes show that contention
for trifles can get but a trifling victory; where perchance a man may
see that even Alexander and Darius, when they strave who should
be cock of this world's dunghill, the benefit they got was that the
after-livers may say:

Hxc memini et victum frustra contendere Thyrsim;
Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis.^'

Or is it the lamenting elegiac, which in a kind heart would move
rather pity than blame; who bewaileth, with the great philosopher
Heraclitus, the weakness of mankind and the wretchedness of the
world; who surely is to be praised, either for compassionate ac-
companying just causes of lamentation, or for rightly painting out
how weak be the passions of wofulness?

Is it the bitter and wholesome iambic, who rubs the galled mind,
in making shame the trumpet of villainy with bold and open crying
out against naughtiness?'

Or the satiric? who

Omne vafer vitium ridenti tangit amico;"

who sportingly never leaveth till he make a man laugh at folly, and
at length ashamed to laugh at himself, which he cannot avoid with-
out avoiding the folly; who, while circum prcecordia ludit}^ giveth
us to feel how many headaches a passionate life bringeth us to, —
how, when all is done.

Est Ulubris, animus si nos non deficit acquus.^'

No, perchance it is the comic; whom naughty play-makers and
stage-keepers have justly made odious. To the argument of abuse

^^ "Such things I remember, and that the conquered Thyrsis strove in vain. From
that time Corydon is with us the Corydon." — Virgil, "Eclogues," VII., 69-70.

^' "The sly fellow touches every vice while he makes his friend laugh." — Condensed
from Persius, "Sat.," I., 116.

^ "He plays about his heartstrings." — ^Idem.

^'"If we do not lack the equable temper, it is in Ulubrae" [that we may find hap-
piness]. Ulubrae was noted for its desolation. — Adapted from Horace, "Epict.," I.,
II, 30.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 27

I will answer after. Only thus much now is to be said, that the
comedy in an imitation of the common errors of our life, which he
representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be, so
as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one.
Now, as in geometry the oblique must be known as well as the
right, and in arithmetic the odd as well as the even; so in the actions
of our life who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil
to perceive the beauty of virtue. This doth the comedy handle so,
in our private and domestical matters, as with hearing it we get, as
it were, an experience what is to be looked for of a niggardly Demea,
of a crafty Davus, of a flattering Gnatho, of a vain-glorious Thraso;
and not only to know what effects are to be expected, but to know
who be such, by the signifying badge given them by the comedian.
And little reason hath any man to say that men learn evil by seeing
it so set out; since, as I said before, there is no man living, but by the
force truth hath in nature, no sooner seeth these men play their
parts, but wisheth them in pistrinum^" although perchance the sack
of his own faults lie so behind his back, that he seeth not himself to
dance the same measure, — whereto yet nothing can more open his
eyes than to find his own actions contemptibly set forth.

So that the right use of comedy will, I think, by nobody be
blamed, and much less of the high and excellent tragedy, that
openeth the greatest wounds, and showeth forth the ulcers that are
covered with tissue; that maketh kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants
manifest their tyrannical humors; that with stirring the effects of
admiration and commiseration teacheth the uncertainty of this
world, and upon how weak foundations gilden roofs are builded;
that maketh us know:

Qui sceptra sxvus dure imperio regit.
Timet timentes, metus in auctorem redit.^'

But how much it can move, Plutarch yieldeth a notable testimony
of the abominable tyrant Alexander Pherseus; from whose eyes a
tragedy, well made and represented, drew abundance of tears, who
without all pity had murdered infinite numbers, and some of his

^^ "In the mill," where slaves were sent for punishment.

" "The savage king who wields the sceptre with cruel sway fears those who fear
him, the dread returns upon the author's head." — Seneca, "CEdipus," 705-6.

28 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

own blood; so as he that was not ashamed to make matters for
tragedies, yet could not resist the sweet violence of a tragedy. And
if it wrought no further good in him, it was that he, in despite of
himself, withdrew himself from hearkening to that which might
mollify his hardened heart. But it is not the tragedy they do mislike,
for it were too absurd to cast out so excellent a representation of
whatsoever is most worthy to be learned.

Is it the lyric that most displeaseth, who with his tuned lyre and
well-accorded voice, giveth praise, the reward of virtue, to virtuous
acts; who giveth moral precepts and natural problems; who some-
times raiseth up his voice to the height of the heavens, in singing the
lauds of the immortal God? Certainly I must confess mine own
barbarousness; I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas
that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet; and yet
it is sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than
rude style; which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobwebs
of that uncivil age, what would it work, trimmed in the gorgeous
eloquence of Pindar? In Hungary I have seen it the manner of
all feasts, and other such meetings, to have songs of their ancestors'
valor, which that right soldierlike nation think the chiefest kindlers
of brave courage. The incomparable Lacedaemonians did not only
carry that kind of music ever with them to the field, but even at
home, as such songs were made, so were they all content to be
singers of them; when the lusty men were to tell what they did, the
old men what they had done, and the young men what they would
do. And where a man may say that Pindar many times praiseth
highly victories of small moment, matters rather of sport than virtue;
as it may be answered, it was the fault of the poet, and not of the
poetry, so indeed the chief fault was in the time and custom of
the Greeks, who set those toys at so high a price that Philip of
Macedon reckoned a horserace won at Olympus among his three
fearful felicities. But as the unimitable Pindar often did, so is that
kind most capable and most fit to awake the thoughts from the sleep
of idleness, to embrace honorable enterprises.

There rests the heroical, whose very name, I think, should daunt
all backbiters. For by what conceit can a tongue be directed to speak
evil of that which draweth with it no less champions than Achilles,

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 29

Cyrus, yEneas, Turnus Tydeus, Rinaldo? who doth not only teach
and move to a truth, but teacheth and moveth to the most high and
excellent truth; who maketh magnanimity and justice shine through
all misty fearfulness and foggy desires; who, if the saying of Plato
and Tully be true, that who could see virtue would be wonderfully
ravished with the love of her beauty, this man setteth her out to
make her more lovely, in her holiday apparel, to the eye of any that
will deign not to disdain until they understand. But if anything
be already said in the defense of sweet poetry, all concurreth to the
maintaining the heroical, which is not only a kind, but the best and
most accomplished kind of poetry. For, as the image of each action
stirreth and instructeth the mind, so the lofty image of such worthies
most inflameth the mind with desire to be worthy, and informs with
counsel how to be worthy. Only let iEneas be worn in the tablet
of your memory, how he governeth himself in the ruin of his
country; in the preservmg his old father, and carrying away his
religious ceremonies; in obeying the god's commandment to leave
Dido, though not only all passionate kindness, but even the human
consideration of virtuous gratefulness, would have craved other of
him; how in storms, how in sports, how in war, how in peace, how
a fugitive, how victorious, how besieged, how besieging, how to
strangers, how to allies, how to enemies, how to his own; lastly,
how in his inward self, and how in his outward government; and
I think, in a mind most prejudiced with a prejudicating humor, he
will be found in excellency fruitful, — yea, even as Horace saith,
melius Chrysippo et Crantore?^ But truly I imagine it falleth out
with these poet-whippers as with some good women who often are
sick, but in faith they cannot tell where. So the name of poetry is
odious to them, but neither his cause nor effects, neither the sum
that contains him nor the particularities descending from him, give
any fast handle to their carping dispraise.

Since, then, poetry is of all human learnings the most ancient and
of most fatherly antiquity, as from whence other learnings have taken
their beginnings; since it is so universal that no learned nation doth
despise it, nor barbarous nation is without it; since both Roman and

'^ "Better than Chrysippus and Grantor" — two distinguished philosophers. — ^Horace,
"Epict.," I. 2, 4.

30 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Greek gave divine names unto it, the one of "prophesying," the other
of "making," and that indeed that name of "making" is fit for him,
considering that whereas other arts retain themselves within their
subjects, and receive, as it were, their being from it, the poet only
bringeth his own stuff, and doth not learn a conceit out of a matter,
but maketh matter for a conceit; since neither his description nor his
end containeth any evil, the thing described cannot be evil; since his
effects be so good as to teach goodness, and delight the learners of it;
since therein — namely in moral doctrine, the chief of all knowl-
edges — he doth not only far pass the historian, but for instructing is
well nigh comparable to the philosopher, and for moving leaveth him
behind him; since the Holy Scripture, wherein there is no unclean-
ness, hath whole parts in it poetical, and that even our Saviour Christ
vouchsafed to use the flowers of it; since all his kinds are not only
in their united forms, but in their several dissections fully com-
mendable; I think, and think I think rightly, the laurel crown
appointed for triumphant captains doth worthily, of all other learn-
ings, honor the poet's triumph.

But because we have ears as well as tongues, and that the lightest
reasons that may be will seem to weigh greatly, if nothing be put in
the counter-balance, let us hear, and, as well as we can, ponder, what
objections be made against this art, which may be worthy either of
yielding or answering.

First, truly, I note not only in these nicrotwhaoi, poet-haters, but in
all that kind of people who seek a praise by dispraising others, that
they do prodigally spend a great many wandering words in quips
and scoffs, carping and taunting at each thing which, by stirring the
spleen, may stay the brain from a through-beholding the worthiness
of the subject. Those kind of objections, as they are full of a very
idle easiness — since there is nothing of so sacred a majesty but that
an itching tongue may rub itself upon it — so deserve they no other
answer, but, instead of laughing at the jest, to laugh at the jester. We
know a playing wit can praise the discretion of an ass, the com-
fortableness of being in debt, and the jolly commodity of being sick
of the plague. So of the contrary side, if we will turn Ovid's verse,

Ut lateat virtus proximitate mali,
"that good lie hid in nearness of the evil," Agrippa will be as merry

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 3 1

in showing the vanity of science, as Erasmus was in commending o£
folly; neither shall any man or matter escape some touch of these
smiling railers. But for Erasmus and Agrippa, they had another
foundation than the superficial part would promise. Marry, these
other pleasant fault-finders, who will correct the verb before they
understand the noun, and confute others' knowledge before they
confirm their own, I would have them only remember that scoffing
cometh not of wisdom; so as the best title in true English they get
with their merriments is to be called good fools, — for so have our
grave forefathers ever termed that humorous kind of jesters.

But that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning humor is
riming and versing. It is already said, and as I think truly said, it
is not riming and versing that maketh poesy. One may be a poet
without versing, and a versifier without poetry. But yet presuppose
it were inseparable — as indeed it seemeth Scaliger judgeth — truly it
were an inseparable commendation. For if oratio next to ratio,
speech next to reason, be the greatest gift bestowed upon mortaUty,
that cannot be praiseless which doth most polish that blessing of
speech; which considereth each word, not only as a man may say
by his forcible quality, but by his best-measured quantity; carrying
even in themselves a harmony, — without, perchance, number,
measure, order, proportion be in our time grown odious.

But lay aside the just praise it hath by being the only fit speech
for music — music, I say, the most divine striker of the senses — thus
much is undoubtedly true, that if reading be foolish without re-
membering, memory being the only treasurer of knowledge, those
words which are fittest for memory are likewise most convenient for
knowledge. Now that verse far exceedeth prose in the knitting up
of the memory, the reason is manifest; the words, besides their de-
light, which hath a great affinity to memory, being so set, as one
cannot be lost but the whole work fails; which, accusing itself,
calleth the remembrance back to itself, and so most strongly con-
firmeth it. Besides, one word so, as it were, begetting another, as, be
it in rime or measured verse, by the former a man shall have a near
guess to the follower. Lastly, even they that have taught the art of
memory have showed nothing so apt for it as a certain room divided
into many places, well and thoroughly known; now that hath the

32 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

verse in effect perfectly, every word having his natural seat, which
seat must needs make the word remembered. But what needeth
more in a thing so known to all men? Who is it that ever was a
scholar that doth not carry away some verses of Virgil, Horace, or
Cato, which in his youth he learned, and even to his old age serve
him for hourly lessons ? as :

Percontatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est."

Dum sibi quisque placet, credula turba sumus.'*

But the fitness it hath for memory is notably proved by all delivery
of arts, wherein, for the most part, from grammar to logic, mathe-
matic, physic, and the rest, the rules chiefly necessary to be borne
away are compiled in verses. So that verse being in itself sweet and
orderly, and being best for memory, the only handle of knowledge,
it must be in jest that any man can speak against it.

Now then go we to the most important imputations laid to the
poor poets; for aught I can yet learn they are these.

First, that there being many other more fruitful knowledges, a
man might better spend his time in them than in this.

Secondly, that it is the mother of lies.

Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many
pestilent desires, with a siren's sweetness drawing the mind to the
serpent's tail of sinful fancies, — and herein especially comedies give
the largest field to ear,'^ as Chaucer sait^; how, both in other nations
and in ours, before poets did soften us, we were full of courage, given
to martial exercises, the pillars of manlike liberty, and not lulled
asleep in shady idleness with poets' pastimes.

And, lastly and chiefly, they cry out with an open mouth, as i£
they had overshot Robin Hood, that Plato banished them out
of his Commonwealth. Truly this is much, if there be much truth
in it.

First, to the first, that a man might better spend his time is a
reason indeed; but it doth, as they say, but petere prtncipium.'^ For

'' "Avoid an inquisitive man, for he is sure to be a prattler." — Horace, "Epist ," I
i8. 69.

^^ "While each is pleasing himself, v/e are a credulous crowd." — Ovid, "Rem.
Amoris," 686. '^ Plough. ^^ Beg the question.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 33

if it be, as I affirm, that no learning is so good as that which teacheth
and moveth to virtue, and that none can both teach and move thereto
so much as poesy, then is the conclusion manifest that ink and paper
cannot be to a more profitable purpose employed. And certainly,
though a man should grant their first assumption, it should follow,
methinks, very unwillingly, that good is not good because better is
better. But I still and utterly deny that there is sprung out of earth
a more fruitful knowledge.

To the second, therefore, that they should be the principal liars,
I answer paradoxically, but truly, I think truly, that of all writers
under the sun the poet is the least liar; and though he would, as a
poet can scarcely be a liar. The astronomer, with his cousin the
geometrician, can hardly escape when they take upon them to
measure the height of the stars. How often, think you, do the
physicians lie, when they aver things good for sicknesses, which
afterwards send Charon a great number of souls drowned in a
potion before they come to his ferry ? And no less of the rest which
take upon them to affirm. Now for the poet, he nothing affirmeth,
and therefore never lieth. For, as I take it, to lie is to affirm that to
be true which is false; so as the other artists, and especially the
historian, affirming many things, can, in the cloudy knowledge of
mankind, hardly escape from many lies. But the poet, as I said
before, never affirmeth. The poet never maketh any circles about
your imagination, to conjure you to believe for true what he writeth.
He citeth not authorities of other histories, but even for his entry
calleth the sweet Muses to inspire into him a good invention; in
troth, not laboring to tell you what is or is not, but what should or
should not be. And therefore though he recount things not true,
yet because he telleth them not for true he lieth not; without we will
say that Nathan lied in his speech, before alleged, to David; which,
as a wicked man durst scarce say, so think I none so simple would
say that ^sop lied in the tales of his beasts; for who thinketh that
^sop wrote it for actually true, were well worthy to have his name
chronicled among the beasts he writeth of. What child is there that,
coming to a play, and seeing Thebes written in great letters upon
an old door, doth believe that it is Thebes ? If then a man can arrive
at that child's-age, to know that the poet's persons and doings are

34 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

but pictures what should be, and not stories what have been, they
will never give the lie to things not affirmatively but allegorically
and figuratively written. And therefore, as in history looking for
truth, they may go away full-fraught with falsehood, so in poesy
looking but for fiction, they shall use the narration but as an imagina-
tive ground-plot of a profitable invention. But hereto is replied that
the poets give names to men they write of, which argueth a conceit
of an actual truth, and so, not being true, proveth a falsehood. And
doth the lawyer lie then, when, under the names of John of the Stile,
and John of the Nokes, he putteth his case? But that is easily
answered: their naming of men is but to make their picture the
more lively, and not to build any history. Painting men, they can-
not leave men nameless. We see we cannot play at chess but that
we must give names to our chess-men; and yet, me thinks, he were a
very partial champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a
piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop. The poet nameth Cyrus
and iEneas no other way than to show what men of their fames,
fortunes, and estates should do.

Their third is, how much it abuseth men's wit, training it to
wanton sinfulness and lustful love. For indeed that is the principal,
if not the only, abuse I can hear alleged. They say the comedies
rather teach than reprehend amorous conceits. They say the lyric is
larded with passionate sonnets, the elegiac weeps the want of his
mistress, and that even to the heroical Cupid hath ambitiously
climbed. Alas! Love, I would thou couldst as well defend thyself
as thou canst offend others! I would those on whom thou dost attend
could either put thee away, or yield good reason why they keep thee!
But grant love of beauty to be a beastly fault, although it be very
hard, since only man, and no beast, hath that gift to discern beauty;
grant that lovely name of Love to deserve all hateful reproaches,
although even some of my masters the philosophers spent a good
deal of their lamp-oil in setting forth the excellency of it; grant, I
say, whatsoever they will have granted, — that not only love, but lust,
but vanity, but, if they list, scurrility, possesseth many leaves of the
poets' books; yet think I when this is granted, they will find their
sentence may with good manners put the last words foremost, and
not say that poetry abuseth man's wit, but that man's wit abuseth

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 35

poetry. For I will not deny, but that man's wit may make poesy,
which should be elKaarucii, which some learned have defined, fig-
uring forth good things, to be <l>avTacTTiKri, which doth contrariwise
infect the fancy with unworthy objects; as the painter that should
give to the eye either some excellent perspective, or some fine picture
fit for building or fortification, or containing in it some notable ex-
ample, as Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, Judith kilUng Holo-
fernes, David fighting with Goliath, may leave those, and please
an ill-pleased eye with wanton shows of better-hidden matters. But
what! shall the abuse of a thing make the right use odious? Nay,
truly, though I yield that poesy may not only be abused, but that
being abused, by the reason of his sweet charming force, it can do
more hurt than any other army of words, yet shall it be so far from
concluding that the abuse should give reproach to the abused, that
contrariwise it is a good reason, that whatsoever, being abused, doth
most harm, being rightly used — and upon the right use each thing
receiveth his title — doth most good. Do we not see the skill of
physic, the best rampire to our often-assaulted bodies, being abused,
teach poison, the most violent destroyer? Doth not knowledge of
law, whose end is to even and right all things, being abused, grow
the crooked fosterer of horrible injuries? Doth not, to go in the
highest, God's word abused breed heresy, and his name abused
become blasphemy? Truly a needle cannot do much hurt, and as
truly — with leave of ladies be it spoken — it cannot do much good.
With a sword thou mayst kill thy father, and with a sword thou
mayst defend thy prince and country. So that, as in their calling
poets the fathers of lies they say nothing, so in this their argument
of abuse they prove the commendation.

They allege herewith, that before poets began to be in price our
nation hath set their hearts' delight upon action, and not upon
imagination; rather doing things worthy to be written, than writing
things fit to be done. What that before-time was. I think scarcely
Sphinx can tell; since no memory is so ancient that hath the pre-
cedence of poetry. And certain it is that, in our plainest homeliness,
yet never was the Albion nation without poetry. Marry, this argu-
ment, though it be levelled against poetry, yet is it indeed a chain-
shot against all learning, — or bookishness, as they commonly term it.

36 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Of such mind were certain Goths, of whom it is written that, having
in the spoil of a famous city taken a fair hbrary, one hangman —
behke fit to execute the fruits of their wits — who had murdered a
great number of bodies, would have set fire in it. "No," said another
very gravely, "take heed what you do; for while they are busy about
these toys, we shall with more leisure conquer their countries." This,
indeed, is the ordinary doctrine of ignorance, and many words some-
times I have heard spent in it; but because this reason is generally
against all learning, as well as poetry, or rather all learning but
poetry; because it were too large a digression to handle, or at least
too superfluous, since it is manifest that all government of action is
to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best by gathering many
knowledges, which is reading; I only, with Horace, to him that is of
that opinion

Jubeo stultum esse libenter;"

for as for poetry itself, it is the freest from this objection, for poetry
is the companion of the camps. I dare undertake, Orlando Furioso
or honest King Arthur will never displease a soldier; but the quiddity
of ens, and prima materia, will hardly agree with a corselet. And
therefore, as I said in the beginning, even Turks and Tartars are
delighted with poets. Homer, a Greek, flourished before Greece
flourished; and if to a slight conjecture a conjecture may be opposed,
truly it may seem, that as by him their learned men took almost
their first light of knowledge, so their active men received their
first motions of courage. Only Alexander's example may serve, who
by Plutarch is accounted of such virtue, that Fortune was not his
guide but his footstool; whose acts speak for him, though Plutarch
did not; indeed the phoenix of warlike princes. This Alexander left
his schoolmaster, living Aristode, behind him, but took dead Homer
with him. He put the philosopher Callisthenes to death for his
seeming philosophical, indeed mutinous, stubbornness; but the chief
thing he was ever heard to wish for was that Homer had been alive.
He well found he received more bravery of mind by the pattern of
Achilles, than by hearing the definition of fortitude. And therefore
if Cato misliked Fulvius for carrying Ennius with him to the field,
''"I gladly bid him be a fool." — ^Adapted from Horace, "Sat.," I., i, 61,

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 37

it may be answered that if Cato misliked it, the noble Fulvius Hked
it, or else he had not done it. For it was not the excellent Cato
Uticensis, whose authority I would much more have reverenced; but
it was the former, in truth a bitter punisher of faults, but else a man
that had never sacrificed to the Graces. He misliked and cried out
upon all Greek learning; and yet, being fourscore years old, began
to learn it, belike fearing that Pluto understood not Latin. Indeed,
the Roman laws allowed no person to be carried to the wars but he
that was in the soldiers' roll. And therefore though Cato misliked
his unmustered person, he misUked not his work. And if he had,
Scipio Nasica, judged by common consent the best Roman, loved
him. Both the other Scipio brothers, who had by their virtues no
less surnames than of Asia and Afric, so loved him that they caused
his body to be buried in their sepulchre. So as Cato's authority being
but against his person, and that answered with so far greater than
himself, is herein of no vahdity.

But now, indeed, my burthen is great, that Plato's name is laid
upon me, whom I must confess, of all philosophers I have ever
esteemed most worthy of reverence; and with great reason, since of
all philosophers he is the most poetical; yet if he will defile the
fountain out of which his Howing streams have proceeded, let us
boldly examine with what reasons he did it.

First, truly, a man might maliciously object that Plato, being a
philosopher, was a natural enemy of poets. For, indeed, after the
philosophers had picked out of the sweet mysteries of poetry the
right discerning true points of knowledge, they forthwith, putting
it in method, and making a school-art of that which the poets did
only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn at their
guides, like ungrateful prentices were not content to set up shops
for themselves, but sought by all means to discredit their masters;
which by the force of delight being barred them, the less they could
overthrow them the more they hated them. For, indeed, they found
for Homer seven cities strave who should have him for their citizen;
where many cities banished philosophers, as not fit members to live
among them. For only repeating certain of Euripides' verses, many
Athenians had their lives saved of the Syracusans, where the Athe-
nians themselves thought many philosophers unworthy to live.

38 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Certain poets as Simonides and Pindar, had so prevailed with Heiro
the First, that of a tyrant they made him a just king; where Plato
could do so little with Dionysius, that he himself of a philosopher
was made a slave. But who should do thus, I confess, should requite
the objections made against poets with like cavillations against phi-
losophers; as likewise one should do that should bid one read
Phaedrus or Symposium in Plato, or the Discourse of Love in
Plutarch, and see whether any poet do authorize abominable filthi-
ness, as they do.

Again, a man might ask out of what commonwealth Plato doth
banish them. In sooth, thence where he himself alloweth community
of women. So as belike this banishment grew not for effeminate
wantonness, since little should poetical sonnets be hurtful when a
man might have what woman he listed. But I honor philosophical
instructions, and bless the wits which bred them, so as they be not
abused, which is likewise stretched to poetry. Saint Paul himself,
who yet, for the credit of poets, allegeth twice two poets, and one
of them by the name of a prophet, setteth a watchword upon phi-
losophy, — ^indeed upon the abuse. So doth Plato upon the abuse,
not upon poetry. Plato found fault that the poets of his time filled
the world with wrong opinions of the gods, making light tales of
that unspotted essence, and therefore would not have the youth
depraved with such opinions. Herein may much be said; let this
suffice: the poets did not induce such opinions, but did imitate those
opinions already induced. For all the Greek stories can well testify
that the very religion of that time stood upon many and many-
fashioned gods; not taught so by the poets, but followed according
to their nature of imitation. Who list may read in Plutarch the
discourses of Isis and Osiris, of the Cause why Oracles ceased, of
the Divine Providence, and see whether the theology of that nation
stood not upon such dreams, — which the poets indeed superstitiously
observed; and truly, since they had not the light of Christ, did much
better in it than the philosophers, who, shaking off superstition,
brought in atheism.

Plato therefore, whose authority I had much rather justly construe
than unjustly resist, meant not in general of poets, in those words of
which Julius Scaliger saith, Qua authoritate barbari quidam atque

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 39

hispidi, abuti velint ad poetas e republica exigendos;^ but only meant
to drive out those wrong opinions of the Deity, whereof now, without
further law, Christianity hath taken away all the hurtful belief, per-
chance, as he thought, nourished by the then esteemed poets. And
a man need go no further than to Plato himself to know his mean-
ing; who, in his dialogue called Ion, giveth high and rightly divine
commendation unto poetry. So as Plato, banishing the abuse, not
the thing, not banishing it, but giving due honor unto it, shall be
our patron and not our adversary. For, indeed, I had much rather,
since truly I may do it, show their mistaking of Plato, under whose
lion's skin they would make an ass-like braying against poesy, than
go about to overthrow his authority; whom, the wiser a man is, the
more just cause he shall find to have in admiration; especially since
he attributeth unto poesy more than myself do, namely to be a very
inspiring of a divine force, far above man's wit, as in the forenamed
dialogue is apparent.

Of the other side, who would show the honors have been by the
best sort of judgments granted them, a whole sea of examples would
present themselves: Alexanders, Caesars, Scipios, all favorers of poets;
Laelius, called the Roman Socrates, himself a poet, so as part of
Heautontimoroumenos in Terence was supposed to be made by him.
And even the Greek Socrates, whom Apollo confirmed to be the
only wise man, is said to have spent part of his old time in putting
^sop's Fables into verses; and therefore full evil should it become
his scholar, Plato, to put such words in his master's mouth against
poets. But what needs more? Aristotle writes the Art of Poesy; and
why, if it should not be written? Plutarch teacheth the use to be
gathered of them; and how, if they should not be read? And who
reads Plutarch's either history or philosophy, shall find he trimmeth
both their garments with guards'' of poesy. But I list not to defend
poesy with the help of his underling historiography. Let it suffice
that it is a fit soil for praise to dwell upon; and what dispraise may
set upon it, is either easily overcome, or transformed into just com-
mendation.

So that since the excellencies of it may be so easily and so justly

38 "Which authority [/. e., Plato's] some barbarous and rude persons wish to
abuse, in order to banish poets from the state." — Scaliger, "Poetics," 5. a, i.
3' Ornaments.

4© SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

confirmed, and the low-creeping objections so soon trodden down:
it not being an art of lies, but of true doctrine; not of effeminateness,
but of notable stirring of courage; not of abusing man's wit, but of
strengthening man's wit; not banished, but honored by Plato; let
us rather plant more laurels for to engarland our poets' heads — which
honor of being laureate, as besides them only triumphant captains
were, is a sufficient authority to show the price they ought to be held
in — than suffer the ill-savored breath of such wrong speakers once
to blow upon the clear springs of poesy.

But since I have run so long a career in this matter, methinks, be-
fore I give my pen a full stop, it shall be but a little more lost time
to inquire why England, the mother of excellent minds, should be
grown so hard a stepmother to poets; who certainly in wit ought
to pass all others, since all only proceedeth from their wit, being
indeed makers of themselves, not takers of others. How can I but
exclaim,

Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso?*"

Sweet poesy! that hath anciently had kings, emperors, senators,
great captains, such as, besides a thousand others, David, Adrian,
Sophocles, Germanicus, not only to favor poets, but to be poets; and
of our nearer times can present for her patrons a Robert, King of
Sicily; the great King Francis of France; King James of Scotland;
such cardinals as Bembus and Bibbiena; such famous preachers and
teachers as Beza and Melancthon; so learned philosophers as
Fracastorius and Scaliger; so great orators as Pontanus and Muretus;
so piercing wits as George Buchanan; so grave counsellors as — be-
sides many, but before all — that Hospital of France, than whom, I
think, that realm never brought forth a more accomplished judg-
ment more firmly builded upon virtue; I say these, with numbers of
others, not only to read others' poesies but to poetize for others'
reading. That poesy, thus embraced in all other places, should
only find in our time a hard welcome in England, I think the
very earth lamenteth it, and therefore decketh our soil with fewer
laurels than it was accustomed. For heretofore poets have in England

*" "O Muse, recall to me the causes by which her divine will had been insulted." —
Virgil, "JEneid," I. 12.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 4 1

also flourished; and, which is to be noted, even in those times when
the trumpet of Mars did sound loudest. And now that an over-faint
quietness should seem to strew the house for poets, they are almost
in as good reputation as the mountebanks at Venice. Truly even
that, as of the one side it giveth great praise to poesy, which, like
Venus — ^but to better purpose — hath rather be troubled in the net
with Mars, than enjoy the homely quiet of Vulcan; so serves it for
a piece of a reason why they are less grateful to idle England, which
now can scarce endure the pain of a pen. Upon this necessarily
foUoweth, that base men with servile wits undertake it, who think
it enough if they can be rewarded of the printer. And so as
Epaminondas is said, with the honor of his virtue to have made an
office, by his exercising it, which before was contemptible, to be-
come highly respected; so these men, no more but setting their
names to it, by their own disgracefulness disgrace the most graceful
poesy. For now, as if all the Muses were got with child to bring
forth bastard poets, without any commission they do post over the
banks of Helicon, till they make their readers more weary than post-
horses; while, in the meantime, they,

Queis meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan,^'

are better content to suppress the outflowings of their wit, than by
publishing them to be accounted knights of the same order.

But I that, before ever I durst aspire unto the dignity, am ad-
mitted into the company of the paper-blurrers, do find the very true
cause of our wanting estimation is want of desert, taking upon us
to be poets in despite of Pallas.^^ Now wherein we want desert were
a thank-worthy labor to express; but if I knew, I should have mended
myself. But as I never desired the title, so have I neglected the means
to come by it; only, overmastered by some thoughts, I yielded an
inky tribute unto them. Marry, they that delight in poesy itself should
seek to know what they do and how they do; and especially look
themselves in an unflattering glass of reason, if they be inclinable
unto it. For poesy must not be drawn by the ears, it must be gently
led, or rather it must lead; which was partly the cause that made the

*'Upon hearts the Titan has formed from better clay." — Adapted from "Juvenal,"
XIV. 34-5. *^ Though lacking inspiration.

42 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

ancient learned affirm it was a divine gift, and no human skill, since
all other knowledges lie ready for any that hath strength of wit, a
poet no industry can make if his own genius be not carried into it.
And therefore is it an old proverb: Orator fit, poeta nascitur.^^ Yet
confess I always that, as the fertilest ground must be manured,"* so
must the highest-flying wit have a Daedalus to guide him. That
Djedalus, they say, both in this and in other, hath three wings to
bear itself up into the air of due commendation: that is, art, imita-
tion, and exercise. But these neither artificial rules nor imitative
patterns, we much cumber ourselves withal. Exercise indeed we do,
but that very fore-backwardly, for where we should exercise to know,
we exercise as having known; and so is our brain delivered of much
matter which never was begotten by knowledge. For there being
two principal parts, matter to be expressed by words, and words to
express the matter, in neither we use art or imitation rightly. Our
matter is quodlibet indeed, though wrongly performing Ovid's verse,

Quicquid conabar dicere, versus erat;"^

never marshalling it into any assured rank, that almost the readers
cannot tell where to find themselves.

Chaucer, undoubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus and Cressida;
of whom, truly, I know not whether to marvel more, either that he
in that misty time could see so clearly, or that we in this clear age
walk so stumbhngly after him. Yet had he great wants, fit to be for-
given in so reverend antiquity. I account the Mirror of Magistrates
meetly furnished of beautiful parts; and in the Earl of Surrey's lyrics
many things tasting of a noble birth, and worthy of a noble mind.
The Shepherd's Calendar hath much poetry in his eclogues, indeed
worthy the reading, if I be not deceived. That same framing of his
style to an old rustic language I dare not allow, since neither
Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazzaro in Italian did
affect it. Besides these, I do not remember to have seen but few (to
speak boldly) printed, that have poetical sinews in them. For proof
whereof, let but most of the verses be put in prose, and then ask
the meaning, and it will be found that one verse did but beget

^ "The orator is made, the poet is born." ^ Cultivated.

^ "Whatever I tried to say was poetry." — Changed from Ovid, "Tristia," IV. lo, 26.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 43

another, without ordering at the first what should be at the last;
which becomes a confused mass of words, with a tinkling sound of
rime, barely accompanied with reason.

Our tragedies and comedies not without cause cried out against,
observing rules neither of honest civility nor of skilful poetry, ex-
cepting Gorboduc, — again I say of those that I have seen. Which
notwithstanding as it is full of stately speeches and well-sounding
phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca's style, and as full o£ notable
morality, which it doth most delightfully teach, and so obtain the
very end of poesy; yet in truth it is very defections in the circum-
stances, which grieveth me, because it might not remain as an exact
model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and time, the
two necessary companions of all corporal actions. For where the
stage should always represent but one place, and the uttermost time
presupposed in it should be, both by Aristotle's precept and common
reason, but one day; there is both many days and many places in-
artificially imagined.

But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest? where
you shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so
many other under-kingdoms, that the player, when he cometh in,
must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be
conceived. Now ye shall have three ladies walk to gather flowers,
and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we
hear news of shipwreck in the same place, and then we are to blame
if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that comes out a
hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable be-
holders are bound to take it for a cave. While in the mean time two
armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then
what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field ?

Now of time they are much more liberal. For ordinary it is that
two young princes fall in love; after many traverses she is got with
child, delivered of a fair boy, he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in
love, and is ready to get another child, — and all this in two hours'
space; which how absurd it is in sense even sense may imagine, and
art hath taught,and all ancient examples justified, and at this day the
ordinary players in Italy will not err in. Yet will some bring in an
example of Eunuchus in Terence, that containeth matter of two

44 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

days, yet far short of twenty years. True it is, and so was it to be
played in two days, and so fitted to the time it set forth. And though
Plautus have in one place done amiss, let us hit with him, and not
miss with him. But they will say, How then shall we set forth a
story which containeth both many places and many times? And
do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not
of history; not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either
to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most
tragical conveniency? Again, many things may be told which can-
not be showed, — if they know the difference betwixt reporting and
representing. As for example I may speak, though I am here, of
Peru, and in speech digress from that to the description of Calicut;
but in action I cannot represent it without Pacolet's horse. And so
was the manner the ancients took, by some Nuntius^^ to recount
things done in former time or other place.

Lastly, if they will represent a history, they must not, as Horace
saith, begin ab ovo," but they must come to the principal point of
that one action which they will represent. By example this will be
best expressed. I have a story of young Polydorus, delivered for
safety's sake, with great riches, by his father Priamus to Polymnestor,
King of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after some years,
hearing the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure his own
murdereth the child; the body of the child is taken up by Hecuba;
she, the same day, findeth a sleight to be revenged most cruelly of
the tyrant. Where now would one of our tragedy writers begin, but
with the delivery of the child ? Then should he sail over into Thrace,
and so spend I know not how many years, and travel numbers of
places. But where doth Euripides? Even with the finding of the
body, leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus. This needs
no further to be enlarged; the dullest wit may conceive it.

But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither
right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not
because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head
and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither
decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commisera-
tion, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy

*^ Messenger. *'' From the egg.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 45

obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing
recounted with space of time, not represented in one moment; and I
know the ancients have one or two examples o£ tragi-comedies, as
Plautus hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find
that they never, or very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals. So
falleth it out that, having indeed no right comedy in that comical
part of our tragedy, we have nothing but scurrility, unworthy of any
chaste ears, or some extreme show of doltishness, indeed fit to lift
up a loud laughter, and nothing else; where the whole tract of a
comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy should be still
maintained in a well-raised admiration.

But our comedians think there is no delight without laughter,
which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight,
yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause
of laughter; but well may one thing breed both together. Nay,
rather in themselves they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For
delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to
ourselves, or to the general nature; laughter almost ever cometh of
things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Delight hath
a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful
tickling. For example, we are ravished with delight to see a fair
woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter. We laugh at
deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot delight. We de-
light in good chances, we laugh at mischances. We delight to hear
the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy
to be laughed at that would laugh. We shall, contrarily, laugh
sometimes to find a matter quite mistaken and go down the hill
against the bias, in the mouth of some such men, as for the respect
of them one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so
is rather pained than delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not but
that they may go well together. For as in Alexander's picture well
set out we delight without laughter, and in twenty mad antics we
laugh without delight; so in Hercules, painted, with his great beard
and furious countenance, in woman's attire, spinning at Omphale's
commandment, it breedeth both delight and laughter; for the repre-
senting of so strange a power in love, procureth delight, and the
scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.

46 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be
not upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mixed with
it that delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great
fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by
Aristotle, is that they stir laughter in sinful things, which are rather
execrable than ridiculous; or in miserable, which are rather to be
pitied than scorned. For what is it to make folks gape at a wretched
beggar or a beggarly clown, or, against law of hospitality, to jest at
strangers because they speak not English so well as we do.? what do
we learn? since it is certain:

Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,
Quam quod ridicules homines facit.*'

But rather a busy loving courtier; a heartless threatening Thraso;
a self -wise-seeming schoolmaster; a wry transformed traveller: these
if we saw walk in stage-names, which we play naturally, therein
were delightful laughter and teaching delightfulness, — as in the
other, the tragedies of Buchanan do justly bring forth a divine
admiration.

But I have lavished out too many words of this playmatter. I do
it, because as they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so
much used in England, and none can be more pitifully abused;
which, like an unmannerly daughter, showing a bad education,
causeth her mother Poesy's honesty to be called in question.

Other sorts of poetry almost have we none, but that lyrical kind
of songs and sonnets, which, Lord if he gave us so good minds, how
well it might be employed, and with how heavenly fruits both private
and public, in singing the praises of the immortal beauty, the im-
mortal goodness of that God who giveth us hands to write, and wits
to conceive! — of which we might well want words, but never matter;
of which we could turn our eyes to nothing, but we should ever
have new-budding occasions.

But truly, many of such writings as come under the banner of
unresistible love, if I were a mistress would never persuade me they
were in love; so coldly they apply fiery speeches, as men that had

*' "Unhappy poverty has nothing in it harder than this, that it makes men ridicu-
lous." — ^Juvenal, "Satires," III. 152-3.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 47

rather read lovers' writings, and so caught up certain sweUing
phrases — which hang together Hke a man which once told me the
wind was at north-west and by south, because he would be sure to
name winds enough — than that in truth they feel those passions,
which easily, as I think, may be bewrayed by that same forcibleness,
or energia (as the Greeks call it) of the writer. But let this be a
sufficient, though short note, that we miss the right use of the
material point of poesy.

Now for the outside of it, which is words, or (as I may term it)
diction, it is even well worse, so is that honey-flowing matron
eloquence apparelled or rather disguised, in a courtesan-like painted
affectation: one time with so farfet"^ words, that many seem mon-
sters — but must seem strangers — to any poor Englishman; another
time with coursing of a letter,*" as if they were bound to follow the
method of a dictionary; another time with figures and flowers ex-
tremely winter-starved.

But I would this fault were only peculiar to versifiers, and had not
as large possession among prose-printers, and, which is to be mar-
velled, among many scholars, and, which is to be pitied, among
some preachers. Truly I could wish — if at least I might be so bold
to wish in a thing beyond the reach of my capacity — the diligent
imitators of Tully and Demosthenes (most worthy to be imitated)
did not so much keep Nizolian paper-books of their figures and
phrases, as by attentive translation, as it were devour them whole,
and make them wholly theirs. For now they cast sugar and spice
upon every dish that is served to the table; like those Indians, not
content to wear ear-rings at the fit and natural place of the ears, but
they will thrust jewels through their nose and lips, because they will
be sure to be fine. Tully, when he was to drive out Catiline as it
were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often used that figure of
repetition, as Vivit. Vivit? Immo vera etiam in senatum venitf^ etc.
Indeed, inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have his
words, as it were, double out of his mouth; and so do that artificially,
which we see men in choler do naturally. And we, having noted
the grace of those words, hale them in sometime to a familiar epistle,

^' Far-fetched. '"^ Alliteration.
^' "He lives. Lives? Ay, he even comes to the Senate." — Cicero, "Catiline," I. 2.

48 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

when it were too much choler to be choleric. How well store of
similiter cadences^^ doth sound with the gravity of the pulpit, I
would but invoke Demosthenes' soul to tell, who with a rare dainti-
ness useth them. Truly they have made me think of the sophister
that with too much subtility would prove two eggs three, and though
he might be counted a sophister, had none for his labor. So these
men bringing in such a kind of eloquence, well may they obtain an
opinion of a seeming fineness, but persuade few, — which should be
the end of their fineness.

Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses, I think all
herbarists, all stories of beasts, fowls, and fishes are rifled up, that
they may come in multitudes to wait upon any of our conceits,
which certainly is as absurd a surfeit to the ears as is possible. For
the force of a similitude not being to prove any thing to a contrary
disputer, but only to explain to a willing hearer; when that is done,
the rest is a most tedious prattling, rather overswaying the memory
from the purpose whereto they were applied, than any whit inform-
ing the judgment, already either satisfied or by similitudes not to
be satisfied.

For my part, I do not doubt, when Antonius and Crassus, the
great forefathers of Cicero in eloquence, the one (as Cicero testifieth
of them) pretended not to know art, the other not to set by it, be-
cause^^ with a plain sensibleness they might win credit of popular
ears, which credit is the nearest step to persuasion, which persuasion
is the chief mark of oratory, — I do not doubt, I say, but that they
used these knacks, very sparingly; which who doth generally use
any man may see doth dance to his own music, and so be noted by
the audience more careful to speak curiously than truly. Un-
doubtedly (at least to my opinion undoubtedly) I have found in
divers small-learned courtiers a more sound style than in some
professors of learning; of which I can guess no other cause, but
that the courtier following that which by practice he findeth fittest
to nature, therein, though he know it not, doth according to art,
though not by art; where the other, using art to show art and not to
hide art — as in these cases he should do — flieth from nature, and in-
deed abuseth art.

'^£. g., rhyme. ''In order that.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 49

But what! me thinks I deserve to be pounded for straying from
poetry to oratory. But both have such an affinity in the wordish con-
sideration, that I think this digression will make my meaning re-
ceive the fuller understanding: — which is not to take upon me to
teach poets how they should do, but only, finding myself sick among
the rest, to show some one or two spots of the common infection
grown among the most part of writers; that, acknowledging our-
selves somewhat awry, we may bend to the right use both of matter
and manner: whereto our language giveth us great occasion, being,
indeed, capable of any excellent exercising of it.

I know some will say it is a mingled language. And why not so
much the better, taking the best of both the other.? Another will
say it wanteth grammar. Nay, truly, it hath that praise that it
wanteth not grammar. For grammar it might have, but it needs it
not; being so easy in itself, and so void of those cumbersome
differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses, which, I think, was
a piece of the Tower of Babylon's curse, that a man should be put
to school to learn his mother-tongue. But for the uttering sweetly
and properly the conceits of the mind, which is the end of speech,
that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world; and is
particularly happy in compositions of two or three words together,
near the Greek, far beyond the Latin, — which is one of the greatest
beauties that can be in a language.

Now of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the other
modern. The ancient marked the quantity of each syllable, and
according to that framed his verse; the modern observing only
number, with some regard of the accent, the chief life of it standeth
in that like sounding of the words, which we call rime. Whether of
these be the more excellent would bear many speeches; the ancient
no doubt more fit for music, both words and tune observing quan-
tity; and more fit lively to express divers passions, by the low or lofty
sound of the well-weighed syllable. The latter likewise with his rime
striketh a certain music to the ear; and, in fine, since it doth delight,
though by another way, it obtaineth the same purpose; there being
in either, sweetness, and wanting in neither, majesty. Truly the
English, before any other vulgar language I know, is fit for both
sorts. For, for the ancient, the Italian is so full of vowels that it

50 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

must ever be cumbered with elisions; the Dutch so, of the other
side, with consonants, that they cannot yield the sweet sliding fit
for a verse. The French in his whole language hath not one word
that hath his accent in the last syllable saving two, called ante-
penultima, and little more hath the Spanish; and therefore very
gracelessly may they use dactyls. The English is subject to none of
these defects. Now for rime,*^ though we do not observe quantity,
yet we observe the accent very precisely, which other languages
either cannot do, or will not do so absolutely. That caesura, or
breathing-place in the midst of the verse, neither Italian nor Spanish
have, the French and we never almost fail of.

Lastly, even the very rime itself the Italian cannot put in the last
syllable, by the French named the masculine rime, but still in the
next to the last, which the French call the female, or the next before
that, which the Italians term sdrucciola. The example of the former
is buono: suono; of the sdrucciola is jemina: semina. The French,
of the other side, hath both the male, as bon: son, and the female,
as plaise: taise; but the sdrucciola he hath not. Where the English
hath all three, as due: true, father: rather, motion: potion; with much
more which might be said, but that already I find the triflingness of
this discourse is much too much enlarged.

So that since the ever praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue-breeding
delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name
of learning; since the blames laid against it are either false or feeble;
since the cause why it is not esteemed in England is the fault of
poet-apes, not poets; since, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honor
poesy, and to be honored by poesy; I conjure you all that have had
the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the name
of the Nine Muses, no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of poesy; no
more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next
inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the reverend title of "a rimer";
but to believe, with Aristotle, that they were the ancient treasurers
of the Grecians' divinity; to believe, with Bembus, that they were
first bringers-in of all civility; to believe, with Scaliger, that no phi-
losopher's precepts can sooner make you an honest man than the
reading of Virgil; to believe, with Clauserus, the translator of

** Rhythm is meant.

THE DEFENSE OF POESY 5I

Cornutus, that it pleased the Heavenly Deity by Hesiod and Homer,
under the veil of fables, to give us all knowledge, logic, rhetoric,
philosophy natural and moral, and quid non? to believe, with me,
that there are many mysteries contained in poetry which of purpose
were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be abused; to
believe, with Landino, that they are so beloved of the gods, that
whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury; lastly, to believe
themselves, when they tell you they will make you immortal by
their verses.

Thus doing, your name shall flourish in the printers' shops. Thus
doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface. Thus doing,
you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all; you shall dwell
upon superlatives. Thus doing, though you be libertino patre natusf^
you shall suddenly grow Herculea proles^

Si quid mea cartnina possunt.^"

Thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's Beatrice or
Virgil's Anchises.

But if — fie of such a but! — you be born so near the dull-making
cataract of Nilus, that you cannot hear the planet-like music of
poetry; if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself
up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain,
will become such a mome,''* as to be a Momus of poetry; then,
though I will not wish unto you the ass's ears of Midas, nor to be
driven by a poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself; nor to
be rimed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland; yet thus much
curse I must send you in the behalf of all poets: — that while you
live you live in love, and never get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet;
and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an
epitaph.

^ "The son of a freedman." ^ "Herculean offspring."

'' "If my verses can do aught." — Virgil, "jEneid," IX. 446.

^ Blockhead.

ON SHAKESPEARE
ON BACON

BY
BEN JONSON

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Ben Jonson, after Shakespeare the most eminent writer for the
Elizabethan stage, was born in 1573, and died in 1635. He was the
founder of the so-called "Comedy of Humours," and throughout the
reign of James I was the dominating personality in English letters. A
large number of the younger writers were proud to confess themselves
his "sons." Besides dramas of a variety of kinds, Jonson wrote much
lyrical poetry, some of it of the most exquisite quality. His chief prose
work appears in his posthumously published "Explorata, Timber or
Discoveries, made upon men and matter," a kind of commonplace book,
in which he seems to have entered quotations and translations from
his reading, as well as original observations of a miscellaneous character
on men and books. The volume has little or no structure or arrangement,
but is impressed everywhere with the stamp of his vigorous personality.
The following passages on Bacon and Shakespeare are notable as a per-
sonal estimate of these two giants by the man who, perhaps, approached
them in the field of intellect more closely than any other contemporary.

BEN JONSON ON SHAKESPEARE

DE SHAKESPEARE NOSTRAT[I]^

I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor
to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he
never blotted out a Hne. My answer hath been, "Would he had
blotted a thousand," which they thought a malevolent speech. I had
not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circum-
stance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to
justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his
memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, hon-
est, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave no-
tions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that
sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. "Sufflaminandus
erat"'^ as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power;
would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those
things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of
Csesar, one speaking to him: "Caesar, thou dost me wrong." He
replied: "Csesar did never wrong but with just cause;"' and such
like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his
virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be
pardoned.

* "Of our countryman, Shakespeare."
^ "He should have been clogged."

'The speech is not found in this form in our version of Shakespeare's "Julius
Czsar."

-55

BEN JONSON ON BACON

DOMINUS VERULAMIUS'

ONE, though he be excellent and the chief, is not to be imi-
tated alone; for never no imitator ever grew up to his
author; likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there hap-
pened in my time one noble speaker,' who was full of gravity in his
speaking; his language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was
nobly censorious.'' No man ever spake more neatly, more presly,'
more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he
uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces.
His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss.
He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and
pleased at his devotion.^ No man had their affections more in his
power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should
make an end.

Scriptorum catalogusj' — Cicero is said to be the only wit that the
people of Rome had equalled to their empire. Ingenium par imperio.
We have had many, and in their several ages (to take in but the
former seculum^) Sir Thomas More, the elder Wyatt, Henry Earl
of Surrey, Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, B[ishop] Gardiner, were for
their times admirable; and the more, because they began eloquence
with us. Sir Nico[las] Bacon was singular, and almost alone, in
the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's times. Sir Philip Sidney and
Mr. Hooker (in different matter) grew great masters of wit and
language, and in whom all vigor of invention and strength of
judgment met. The Earl of Essex, noble and high; and Sir Walter
Raleigh, not to be contemned, either for judgment or style; Sir
Henry Savile, grave, and truly lettered; Sir Edwin Sandys, excellent
in both; Lo[rd] Egerton, the Chancellor, a grave and great orator,

1 Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. ^ Severe. ' Concisely. * Choice, disposal.
* Catalogue o£ writers. ' Century.

56

ON BACON 57

and best when he was provoked; but his learned and able, though
unfortunate, successor^ is he who hath filled up all numbers, and
performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred
either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his
view, and about his times, were all the wits born that could honor
a language or help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow down-
ward, and eloquence grows backward; so that he may be named
and stand as the mark and aK/xij^ of our language.

De augmentis scientiarum? — I have ever observed it to have been
the office of a wise patriot, among the greatest affairs of the State,
to take care of the commonwealth of learning. For schools, they are
the seminaries of State; and nothing is worthier the study of a
statesman than that part of the republic which we call the advance-
ment of letters. Witness the care of Julius Ca:sar, who, in the heat of
the civil war, writ his books of Analogy, and dedicated them to Tully.
This made the late Lord S[aint] Alban'° entitle his work Novum
Organum; which, though by the most of superficial men, who can-
not get beyond the title of nominals," it is not penetrated nor under-
stood, it really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a
book

Qui longum noto scriptori porriget aevum."

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his
place or honors. But I have and do reverence him for the greatness
that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by
his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration,
that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God
would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither
could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no acci-
dent could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.

^ Bacon. ' Acme. ® Concerning the advancement of the sciences. '" Bacon.

" Names of things.

*^ "Which extends to the famous author a long future." — Horace, Ars. Poet., 346.

OF AGRICULTURE

BY
ABRAHAM COWLEY

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was educated at Westminster School
and later at Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he was ejected with
most of the Masters and Fellows for refusing to sign the Solemn League
and Covenant in 1644. In the same year he crossed to France in the
suite of Lord Jermyn, Queen Henrietta Maria's chief officer, and re-
mained with the royal family in exile for twelve years. After the Restora-
tion he became a doctor of medicine, and was one of the first members
of the Royal Society. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Cowley's most popular work in his own day was the collection of love
poems called "The Mistress," and his so-called "Pindaric Odes" were
also highly esteemed. With the decline of the taste which produced the
poetry of the "Metaphysical School" to which he belonged, Cowley
ceased to be read; nor is it likely that the frigid ingenuity which marks
his poetic style will ever again come into favor. His "Essays," on the
other hand, are written with great simplicity and naturalness, and exhibit
his temperament in a most pleasing light. He is one of the earliest
masters of a clear and easy English prose style, and few writers of the
familiar essay surpass Cowley in grace and charm. His essay "Of Agri-
culture" is a delightful example of his quality. "We may talk what we
please," he cries in his enthusiasm for the oldest of the arts, "of lilies,
and lions rampant, and spread eagles, in fields d'or or d'argent; but, if
heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would be the
most noble and ancient arms."

OF AGRICULTURE

THE first wish of Virgil (as you will find anon by his verses)
was to be a good philosopher, the second, a good husband-
man: and God (whom he seem'd to understand better than
most of the most learned heathens) dealt with him just as he did
with Solomon; because he prayed for wisdom in the first place, he
added all things else, which were subordinately to be desir'd. He
made him one of the best philosophers and the best husbandmen;
and, to adorn and communicate both those faculties, the best poet.
He made him, besides all this, a rich man, and a man who desired
to be no richer —

"O fortunatus nimium, et bona qui sua novit!"'

To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philoso-
pher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is
man's, into the world, as it is God's.

But, since nature denies to most men the capacity or appetite, and
fortune allows but to a very few the opportunities or possibility of
applying themselves wholly to philosophy, the best mixture of
humane^ affairs that we can make, are the employments of a
country life. It is, as Columella calls it, "Res sine dubitatione proxima,
et quasi consanguinea sapientis," the nearest neighbour, or rather
next in kindred, to philosophy. Varro says, the principles of it are
the same which Ennius made to be the principles of all nature,
Earth, Water, Air, and the Sun. It does certainly comprehend more
parts of philosophy, than any one profession, art, or science, in the
world besides: and therefore Cicero says, the pleasures of a husband-
man, "mihi ad sapientis vitam proxime videntur accedere," come
very nigh to those of a philosopher. There is no other sort of life

* "O fortunate exceedingly, who knew his own good fortune." — Adapted from
Virgil, "Georgics," II., 458.
^ Human.

61

62 ABRAHAM COWLEY

that affords so many branches of praise to a panegyrist: the utility of
it, to a man's self; the usefulness, or rather necessity, of it to all
the rest of mankind; the innocence, the pleasure, the antiquity, the
dignity.

The utility (I mean plainly the lucre of it) is not so great, now
in our nation, as arises from merchandise and the trading of the
city, from whence many of the best estates and chief honours of
the kingdom are derived: we have no men now fetcht from the
plow to be made lords, as they were in Rome to be made consuls
and dictators; the reason of which I conceive to be from an evil
custom, now grown as strong among us as if it were a law, which is,
that no men put their children to be bred up apprentices in agri-
culture, as in other trades, but such who are so poor, that, when
they come to be men, they have not wherewithal to set up in it, and
so can only farm some small parcel of ground, the rent of which
devours all but the bare subsistence of the tenant: whilst they who
are proprietors of the land are either too proud, or, for want of
that kind of education, too ignorant, to improve their estates, though
the means of doing it be as easie and certain in this, as in any other
track of commerce. If there were always two or three thousand
youths, for seven or eight years, bound to this profession, that they
might learn the whole art of it, and afterwards be enabled to be
masters in it, by a moderate stock, I cannot doubt but that we should
see as many aldermen's estates made in the country, as now we do
out of all kind of merchandizing in the city. There are as many
ways to be rich, and, which is better, there is no possibility to be
poor, without such negligence as can neither have excuse nor pity;
for a little ground will, without question, feed a Uttle family, and
the superfluities of life (which are now in some cases by custom
made almost necessary) must be supplyed out of the superabundance
of art and industry, or contemned by as great a degree of philosophy.

As for the necessity of this art, it is evident enough, since this can
live without all others, and no one other without this. This is like
speech, without which the society of men cannot be preserved; the
others, like figures and tropes of speech, which serve only to adorn it.
Many nations have Uved, and some do still, without any art but this:
not so elegantly, I confess, but still they live; and almost all the other

OF AGRICULTURE 63

arts, which are here practised, are beholding to this for most of their
materials.

The innocence of this life is the next thing for which I commend
it; and if husbandmen preserve not that, they are much to blame,
for no men are so free from the temptations of iniquity. They live
by what they can get by industry from the earth; and others, by
what they can catch by craft from men. They live upon an estate
given them by their mother; and others, upon an estate cheated
from their brethren. They live, like sheep and kine, by the allow-
ances of nature; and others, like wolves and foxes, by the acquisitions
of rapine. And, I hope, I may affirm (without any offence to the
great) that sheep and kine are very useful, and that wolves and
foxes are pernicious creatures. They are, without dispute, of all
men, the most quiet and least apt to be inflamed to the disturbance
of the commonwealth: their manner of life inclines them, and
interest binds them, to love peace: in our late mad and miserable
civil wars, all other trades, even to the meanest, set forth whole
troops, and raised up some great commanders, who became famous
and mighty for the mischiefs they had done: but I do not remember
the name of any one husbandman, who had so considerable a share
in the twenty years' ruine of his country, as to deserve the curses of
his countrymen.

And if great delights be joyn'd with so much innocence, I think
it is ill done of men not to take them here, where they are so tame,
and ready at hand, rather than hunt for them in courts and cities,
where they are so wild, and the chase so troublesome and dangerous.

We are here among the vast and noble scenes of nature; we are
there among the pitiful shifts of policy: we walk here in the light
and open ways of the divine bounty; we grope there in the dark
and confused labyrinths of humane' malice: our senses are here
feasted with the clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are
all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with
their contraries. Here, pleasure looks (methinks) like a beautiful,
constant, and modest wife; it is there an impudent, fickle, and
painted harlot. Here, is harmless and cheap plenty; there, guilty
and expenceful luxury.

* Human.

64 ABRAHAM COWLEY

I shall only instance in one delight more, the most natural and best-
natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the husbandman;
and that is, the satisfaction of looking round about him, and seeing
nothing but the effects and improvements of his own art and dili-
gence; to be always gathering of some fruits of it, and at the same
time to behold others ripening, and others budding: to see all his
fields and gardens covered with the beauteous creatures of his own
industry; and to see, like God, that all his works are good: —

Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Orcades; ipsi

Agricolae taciturn pertentant gaudia pectus.*

On his heart-string a secret joy does strike.

The antiquity of his art is certainly not be contested by any other.
The three first men in the world, were a gardener, a plowman, and
a grazier; and if any man object, that the second of these was a
murtherer, I desire he would consider, that as soon as he was so, he
quitted our profession, and turn'd builder. It is for this reason, I
suppose, that Ecclesiasticus forbids us to hate husbandry; 'because
(says he) the Most High has created it.' We were all born to this
art, and taught by nature to nourish our bodies by the same earth
out of which they were made, and to which they must return, and
pay at last for their sustenance.

Behold the original and primitive nobility of all those great
persons, who are too proud now, not only to till the ground, but
almost to tread upon it. We may talk what we please of lillies, and
lions rampant, and spread-eagles, in fields d'or or d'argent; but, if
heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would
be the most noble and antient arms.

All these considerations make me fall into the wonder and com-
plaint of Columella, how it should come to pass that all arts or
sciences (for the dispute, which is an art, and which a science, does
not belong to the curiosity of us husbandmen) metaphysick, physick,
morality, mathematicks, logick, rhetorick, &c. which are all, I grant,
good and useful faculties, (except only metaphysick which I do not
know whether it be anything or no;) but even vaulting, fencing,
dancing, attiring, cookery, carving, and such like vanities, should

*"On this side and on that gather the Orkneys; joys pervade the silent breast of
the farmer." — A parody of Virgil's "^Eneid," I. 500, 503.

OF AGRICULTURE 65

all have publick schools and masters, and yet that we should never
see or hear of any man, who took upon him the profession of teach-
ing this so pleasant, so virtuous, so profitable, so honourable, so
necessary art.

A man would think, when he's in serious humour, that it were
but a vain, irrational, and ridiculous thing for a great company of
men and women to run up and down in a room together, in a
hundred several postures and figures, to no purpose, and with no
design; and therefore dancing was invented first, and only practised
antiently, in the ceremonies of the heathen religion, which consisted
all in mummery and madness; the latter being the chief glory of the
worship, and accounted divine inspiration: this, I say, a severe
man would think; though I dare not determine so far against so
customary a part, now, of good-breeding. And yet, who is there
among our gentry, that does not entertain a dancing-master for his
children, as soon as they are able to walk? But did ever any father
provide a tutor for his son, to instruct him betimes in the nature
and improvements of that land which he intended to leave him.?
That is at least a superfluity, and this a defect, in our manner of
education; and therefore I could wish (but cannot in these times
much hope to see it) that one coUedge in each university were erected,
and appropriated to this study, as well as there are to medicine and
the civil law : there would be no need of making a body of scholars
and fellows with certain endowments, as in other colledges; it would
suffice, if, after the manner of halls in Oxford, there were only four
professors constituted (for it would be too much work for only one
master, or principal, as they call him there) to teach these four parts
of it: First, Aration, and all things relating to it. Secondly, Pasturage.
Thirdly, Gardens, Orchards, Vineyards, and Woods. Fourthly, all
parts of Rural Oeconomy, which would contain the government of
Bees, Swine, Poultry, Decoys, Ponds, &c. and all that which Varro
calls villaticas pastionesi' together with the sports of the field (which
ought to be looked upon not only as pleasures, but as parts of house-
keeping), and the domestical conservation and uses of all that is
brought in by industry abroad. The business of these professors
should not be, as is commonly practised in other arts, only to read
*The keeping of farm animals, etc.

66 ABRAHAM COWLEY

pompous and superficial lectures, out of Virgil's Georgicks, Pliny,
Varro, or Columella; but to instruct their pupils in the whole
method and course of this study, which might be run through per-
haps, with diligence, in a year or two: and the continual succession
of scholars, upon a moderate taxation^ for their diet, lodging and
learning, would be a sufficient constant revenue for maintenance of
the house and the professors, who should be men not chosen for the
ostentation of critical literature, but for solid and experimental knowl-
edge of the things they teach; such men, so industrious and publick-
spirited, as I conceive Mr. Hartlib to be, if the gentleman be yet alive:
but it is needless to speak further of my thoughts of this design, un-
less the present disposition of the age allowed more probability of
bringing it into execution. What I have further to say of the country
life, shall be borrowed from the poets, who were always the most
faithful and affectionate friends to it. Poetry was born among the
shepherds.

Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine Musas
Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui.

The Muses still love their own native place;
'T has secret charms, which nothing can deface.

The truth is, no other place is proper for their work; one might
as well undertake to dance in a crowd, as to make good verses in
the midst of noise and tumult.

As well might corn, as verse, in cities grow;
In vain the thankless glebe we plow and sow;
Against th' unnatural soil in vain we strive;
'Tis not a ground, in which these plants will thrive.

It will bear nothing but the nettles and thorns of satyre, which grow
most naturally in the worst earth; and therefore almost all poets,
except those who were not able to eat bread without the bounty of
great men, that is, without what they could get by flattering of them,
have not only withdrawn themselves from the vices and vanities of
the grand world,

pariter vitiisque jocisque

Altius humanis exeruere caput,^

' Charge. ' "They have raised their head above both human vices and vanities." —
Ovid, "Fasti," I. 300.

OF AGRICULTURE 67

into the innocent happiness of a retired hfe; but have commended
and adorned nothing so much by their ever-hving poems. Hesiod
was the first or second poet in the world that remains yet extant (if
Homer, as some think, preceded him, but I rather beheve they were
contemporaries); and he is the first writer too of the art of hus-
bandry: "and he has contributed (says Columella) not a little to our
profession;" I suppose, he means not a little honour, for the matter of
his instructions is not very important: his great antiquity is visible
through the gravity and simplicity of his stile. The most acute of
all his sayings concerns our purpose very much, and is couched in
the reverend obscurity of an oracle.

nX«oi' T^nLffu iravT^s^ The half is more than the whole. The occasion
of the speech is this : his brother Perses had, by corrupting some great
men (/3ao-iX^os boipo^dyovs, great bribe-eaters he calls them), gotten
from him the half of his estate. It is no matter (says he) ; they have
not done me so much prejudice, as they imagine.

N^TTtot, oi)5' t(ra(nv 6a(fi irXkov fjiiuTV Traprdst
0{id' 6<rov h> fjtakaxv tc koI a(T<l>ode\<^ nky' 6v€tap,
'Kpiflj/avTis yap ix^vai Oeoi ^lov apdpoyirobat.

Unhappy they, to whom God ha'n't reveal'd,
By a strong light which must their sense controul,
That half a great estate's more than the whole.
Unhappy, from whom still conceal'd does lye,
Of roots and herbs, the wholesom luxury.

This I conceive to be honest Hesiod's meaning. From Homer, we
must not expect much concerning our affairs. He was blind, and
could neither work in the country nor enjoy the pleasures of it; his
helpless poverty was likeliest to be sustained in the richest places;
he was to delight the Grecians with fine tales of the wars and ad-
ventures of their ancestors; his subject removed him from all com-
merce with us, and yet, methinks, he made a shift to shew his good-
will a little. For, though he could do us no honour in the person
of his hero Ulysses (much less of Achilles), because his whole time
was consumed in wars and voyages; yet he makes his father Laertes
a gardener all that while, and seeking his consolation for the absence
of his son in the pleasure of planting, and even dunging his own

' Hesiod, "Works and Days," 40.

68 ABRAHAM COWLEY

grounds. Ye see, he did not contemn us peasants; nay, so far was
he from that insolence, that he always stiles Eumaeus, who kept the
hogs, with wonderful respect, Slov v<t>opP6v, the divine swine herd; he
could ha' done no more for Menelaus or Agamemnon. And Theo-
critus (a very antient poet, but he was one of our own tribe, for he
wrote nothing but pastorals) gave the same epithete to an husband-
man, — rifieiPeTo 8los aypoKxres. The divine husbandman replyed to
Hercules, who was but Slos himself. These were civil Greeks, and
who understood the dignity of our calling!

Among the Romans we have, in the first place, our truly divine
Virgil, who, though, by the favour of Maecenas and Augustus, he
might have been one of the chief men of Rome, yet chose rather to
employ much of his time in the exercise, and much of his immortal
wit in the praise and instructions, of a rustique life; who, though he
had written, before, whole books of pastorals and georgics, could
not abstain, in his great and imperial poem, from describing Evander,
one of his best princes, as living just after the homely manner of an
ordinary countryman. He seats him in a throne of maple, and lays
him but upon a bear's skin; the kine and oxen are lowing in his
court-yard; the birds under the eves of his window call him up in
the morning, and when he goes abroad, only two dogs go along with
him for his guard: at last, when he brings ^neas into his royal
cottage, he makes him say this memorable complement, greater
than even yet was spoken at the Escurial, the Louvre, or our
Whitehal:

Hsec (inquit) limina victor

Alcides subiit, hxc ilium regia cepit:

Aude, hospes, contemnere opes: et te quoque dignum

Finge Deo, rebusque veni non asper egenis.

This humble roof, this rustick court, (said he)
Receiv'd Alcides, crown'd with victorie:
Scorn not, great guest, the steps where he has trod;
But contemn wealth, and imitate a God.

The next man, whom we are much obliged to, both for his
doctrine and example, is the next best poet in the world to Virgil,
his dear friend Horace; who, when Augustus had desired Mscenas

OF AGRICULTURE 69

to perswade him to come and live domestically and at the same
table with him, and to be secretary of state of the whole world under
him, or rather jointly with him, for he says, "ut nos in epistolis
scribendis adjuvet,'" could not be tempted to forsake his Sabin, or
Tiburtin mannor, for so rich and so glorious a trouble. There was
never, I think, such an example as this in the world, that he should
have so much moderation and courage as to refuse an offer of such
greatness, and the emperor so much generosity and good-nature as
not to be at all offended with his refusal, but to retain still the same
kindness, and express it often to him in most friendly and familiar
letters, part of which are still extant. If I should produce all the
passages of this excellent author upon the several subjects which I
treat of in this book, I must be obliged to translate half his works;
of which I may say more truly than, in my opinion, he did of Homer.

Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Planius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.'"

I shall content myself upon this particular theme with three only,
one out of his Odes, the other out of his Satires, the third out of
his Epistles; and shall forbear to collect the suffrages of all other
poets, which may be found scattered up and down through all their
writings, and especially in Martial's. But I must not omit to make
some excuse for the bold-undertaking of my own unskilful pencil
upon the beauties of a face that has been drawn before by so many
great masters; especially, that I should dare to do it in Latine verses,
(though of another kind), and have the confidence to translate them.
I can only say that I love the matter, and that ought to cover many
faults; and that I run not to contend with those before me, but follow
to applaud them.

* "That he may assist us in writing letters."

'" "Who says, more plainly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor, what is beauti-
ful, what base, what useful, what the opposite of these." — Horace, "Epist." I. 2. 4.
Chrysippus and Crantor were noted philosophers.

THE VISION OF MIRZA

AND

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

BY
JOSEPH ADDISON

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) divided his energies between literature
and politics. He was educated at the Charterhouse and at Oxford with
a view to holy orders, but the Earl of Halifax saw in him valuable
political material, obtained for him a pension, and sent him abroad to
prepare for a diplomatic career. His travels in France and Italy con-
firmed his classical tastes, and his critical writings show abundant traces
of French influence.

On his return to England he published his "Campaign," which laid
the foundation of his career. He entered Parliament, and finally rose
to be Secretary of State. In spite of the bitterness of political feeling in
his time, Addison kept the esteem of men of all parties, and enjoyed a
universal popularity such as has been bestowed on few men of letters
and fewer politicians.

Addison's fame to-day rests mainly on his writings in the "Tader" and
the "Spectator." In the essays and articles published in these two period-
icals, he not only produced a succession of pieces unsurpassed in their
kind, but exerted an influence as wholesome as it was powerful upon the
manners and morals of society in the London of Queen Anne. His style
remains the great classic' example of that combination of ease and
elegance which is the characteristic merit of the prose of the period; and
the imaginative moralizing which is exemplified in "The Vision of
Mirza" and "Westminster Abbey" reveals something of the gentle per-
suasiveness with which he sought to lead his generation to higher levels
of living and thinking.

A more detailed account of the life and work of Addison will be
found in the "Life" by Dr. Johnson in the present volume.

THE VISION OF MIRZA'

Omnem, quce nunc obducta tuenti
Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circum
Caligat, nubem eripiam?

— Virgil, "^neid," ii. 604,

WHEN I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several oriental
manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I
met with one entitled "The Visions of Mirza," which I
have read over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the public
when I have no other entertainment for them, and shall begin with
the first vision, which I have translated word for word, as follows : —
"On the fifth day of the moon, which according to the custom of
my forefathers I always keep holy, after having washed myself and
offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of
Bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.
As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into
a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life, and passing
from one thought to another, 'Surely,' said I, 'man is but a shadow,
and life a dream.' Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards
the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered
one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in
his hand. As I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, and began
to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought
into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious and alto-
gether different from anything I had ever heard. They put me in
mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of
good men upon their first arrival in Paradise, to wear out the im-
pressions of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of
that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures.

'Published in "The Spectator," September i, 1711.

^ "Every cloud which now drawn before thee dulls thy mortal vision and sends mists
around thee, I shall snatch away."

73

74 JOSEPH ADDISON

"I had often been told that the rock before me was the haunt of
a genius; and that several had been entertained with music who had
passed by it, but never heard that the musician had before made
himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts by those transport-
ing airs which he played, to taste the pleasures of his conversation,
as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and
by the waving of his hand directed me to approach the place where
he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior
nature; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating
strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The genius
smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affability that
familiarized him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the
fears and apprehensions with which I approached him. He lifted
me from the ground, and taking me by the hand, 'Mirza,' said he,
'I have heard thee in thy soliloquies; follow me.'

"He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing
me on the top of it, 'Cast thy eyes eastward,' said he 'and tell me
what thou seest.' 'I see,' said I, 'a huge valley and a prodigious tide
of water rolling through it.' 'The valley that thou seest,' said he,
'is the Vale of Misery, and the tide of water that thou seest is part
of the great tide of eternity.' 'What is the reason,' said I, 'that the tide
I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in
a thick mist at the other?' 'What thou seest,' said he, 'is that portion
of eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and reach-
ing from the beginning of the world to its consummation. Examine
now,' said he, 'this sea that is thus bounded by darkness at both ends,
and tell me what thou discoverest in it.' 'I see a bridge,' said I, 'stand-
ing in the midst of the tide.' 'The bridge thou seest,' said he, 'is
human life; consider it attentively.' Upon a more leisurely survey
of it I found that it consisted of more than threescore and ten entire
arches, with several broken arches, which, added to those that were
entire, made up the number to about a hundred. As I was counting
the arches, the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of
a thousand arches; but that a great flood swept away the rest, and
left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. 'But tell
me further,' said he, 'what thou discoverest on it.' 'I see multitudes
of people passing over it,' said I, 'and a black cloud hanging on each

THE VISION OF MIRZA 75

end of it.' As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the pas-
sengers dropping through the bridge into the great tide that flowed
underneath it; and upon further examination, perceived there were
innumerable trap-doors that lay concealed in the bridge, which the
passengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell through them into
the tide and immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were
set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people
no sooner broke through the cloud, but many of them fell into them.
They grew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and lay
closer together towards the end of the arches that were entire.

"There were indeed some persons, but their number was very
small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken arches,
but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with
so long a walk.

"I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful struc-
ture, and the great variety of objects which it presented. My heart
was filled with a deep melancholy to see several dropping unex-
pectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything
that stood by them to save themselves. Some were looking up
towards the heavens in a thoughtful posture, and in the midst of a
speculation stumbled and fell out of sight. Multitudes were very
busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced
before them, but often when they thought themselves within the
reach of them their footing failed and down they sunk. In this confu-
sion of objects,! observed some with scimitars in their hands, and
others with urinals, who ran to and fro upon the bridge, thrusting
several persons on trap-doors which did not seem to lie in their way,
and which they might have escaped had they not been thus forced
upon them.

"The genius, seeing me indulge myself on this melancholy pros-
pect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it. 'Take thine eyes off
the bridge,' said he, 'and tell me if thou seest anything thou dost
not comprehend.' Upon looking up, 'What mean,' said I, 'those
great flights of birds that are perpetually hovering about the bridge,
and settling upon it from time to time? I see vultures, harpies,
ravens, cormorants, and among many other feathered creatures
several little winged boys that perch in great numbers upon the

*](> JOSEPH ADDISON

middle arches.' 'These,' said the genius, 'are Envy, Avarice, Super-
stition, Despair, Love, with the Hke cares and passions that infest
human Hfe.'

"I here fetched a deep sigh. 'Alas,' said I, 'man was made in vain:
how is he given away to misery and mortality, tortured in life, and
swallowed up in death!' The genius being moved with compassion
towards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a prospect. 'Look no
more,' said he, 'on man in the first stage of his existence, in his
setting out for eternity; but cast thine eye on that thick mist into
which the tide bears the several generations of mortals that fall into
it.' I directed my sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the
good genius strengthened it with any supernatural force, or dis-
sipated part of the mist that was before too thick for eye to penetrate)
I saw the valley opening at the farther end, and spreading forth into
an immense ocean that had a huge rock of adamant running through
the midst of it, and dividing it into two equal parts. The clouds still
rested on one half of it, insomuch that I could discover nothing in
it; but the other appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innu-
merable islands, that were covered with fruits and flowers, and inter-
woven with a thousand little shining seas that ran among them. I
could see persons dressed in glorious habits with garlands upon their
heads, passing among the trees, lying down by the sides of fountains,
or resting on beds of flowers; and could hear a confused harmony
of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and musical instru-
ments. Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so delightful a
scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle that I might fly away to
those happy seats; but the genius told me there was no passage to
them except through the gates of death that I saw opening every
moment upon the bridge. 'The islands,' said he, 'that lie so fresh
and green before thee, and with which the whole face of the ocean
appears spotted as far as thou canst see, are more in number than
the sands on the seashore; there are myriads of islands behind those
which thou here discoverest, reaching farther than thine eye, or
even thine imagination can extend itself. These are the mansions
of good men after death, who, according to the degree and kinds of
virtue in which they excelled, are distributed among these several
islands, which abound with pleasures of different kinds and degrees

THE VISION OF MIRZA 77

suitable to the relishes and perfections of those who are settled in
them; every island is a paradise accommodated to its respective
inhabitants. Are not these, O Mirza, habitations worth contending
for? Does life appear miserable that gives thee opportunities of
earning such a reward ? Is death to be feared that will convey thee
to so happy an existence? Think not man was made in vain who
has such an eternity reserved for him.' I gazed with inexpressible
pleasure on these happy islands. At length, said I, 'Show me now,
I beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds which
cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of adamant.' The gen-
ius making me no answer, I turned me about to address myself to him
a second time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned again
to the vision which I had been so long contemplating; but, instead
of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw
nothing but the long valley of Bagdad, with oxen, sheep, and camels
grazing upon the sides of it."

The end of the first vision of Mirza.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY'

Pallida mors cequo palsat pede pauperam tabernas

Regumque tares, O beati Sexti,
Vitce summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longami

Jam te premet nox, jabulceque manes,
Et domus exilis Plutonia.- — Hor.^

WHEN I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by
myself in Westminster Abbey, where the gloominess of
the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the
solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie
in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather
thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole
afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing
myself with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with" in
those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing
else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day, and
died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended
in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I
could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of
brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who
had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and
that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned
in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them,
for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated
for nothing but being knocked on the head.

T\avKbv T( Mtdovrd re QepaiXoxi" Te, HoM.
Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque. Virg.
The life of these men is finely described in Holy Writ by "the path
of an arrow," which is immediately closed up and lost.

iPubiished in "The Spectator," March 30, 1711.

^ "Pale death knocks with impartial foot at the huts of the poor and at the towers
of kings, O happy Sextus. The shortness of the span of life forbids us to cherish
remote hope; already night overtakes thee, and the fabled shades, and the wretched
house of Pluto."

78

WESTMINSTER ABBEY 79

Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the
digging of a grave; and saw in every shovelful of it that was thrown
up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixt with a kind of fresh
mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the
composition of a human body. Upon this, I began to consider with
myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused to-
gether under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and
women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and
prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended
together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth,
with old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the
same promiscuous heap of matter.

After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortality, as
it were, in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts
which I found on several of the monuments which are raised in
every quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were covered with
such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person
to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which
his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively
modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in
Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood once in
a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who
had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed
indeed that the present war had filled the church with many of these
uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory
of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blen-
heim, or in the bosom of the ocean.

I could not but be very much delighted with several modern
epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and
justness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well
as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the
ignorance or politeness of a nation, from the turn of their public
monimients and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal
of men of learning and genius, before they are put in execution.
Sir Cloudesly Shovel's monument has very often given me great
offence : instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the
distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented

8o JOSEPH ADDISON

on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and
reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The
inscription is answerable to the monument; for instead of celebrating
the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his
country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which
it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The Dutch, whom
we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an infinitely greater
taste of antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this
nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The
monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the
public expense, represent them like themselves; and are adorned
with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of
seaweed, shells, and coral.

But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our
English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall
find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that
entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal
thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but for my
own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to
be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep
and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and
delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those
objects, which others consider with terror. When I look upon the
tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read
the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when
I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts
with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I
consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly
follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I
consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided
the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and
astonishment on the little competitions, factions and debates of man-
kind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died
yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day
when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance
together.

THE SPECTATOR CLUB

BY
SIR RICHARD STEELE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729), Addison's chief collaborator in the
"Tatler" and the "Spectator," was born in Dublin of an English father
and an Irish mother. He made Addison's acquaintance at school, and
they were at Oxford together. Steele left the University to enter the army,
and opened his literary career, while still a soldier, with "The Christian
Hero." In 1702 he began to write for the stage, and was of notable
influence in redeeming the English drama from the indecency which had
marked much of it since the Restoration. Like Addison, he combined
politics with literature, and in 171 5 was knighted as a reward for his
services to the Hanoverian party.

The chief glory of the "Spectator" is, of course, the club, and it was
in the essay which follows that Steele first sketched the characters com-
posing it. The Spectator himself was Addison's creation, and Addison
also elaborated Sir Roger, though Steele originated him. Whatever may
be the respective claims of Addison and Steele to the credit for the suc-
cess of the "Spectator," it is to Steele that the honor belongs of having
founded its predecessor, the "Tatler," and so of originating the periodical
essay.

Steele was a warm-hearted, impulsive man, full of sentiment, im-
provident, and somewhat weak of will. These qualities are reflected in
his writings, which are inferior to Addison's in grace and finish, but
are marked by greater spontaneity and invention. Probably no piece of
writing of equal length has added so many portraits to the gallery of
our literature as the first sketch of the Spectator Club which is here
printed.

THE SPECTATOR CLUB'

Ast alii sex
Et plures uno conclamant ore.

— ]uvenal, "Satires," vii. i66.

Six more at least join their consenting voice.

THE first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of
an ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger de
Coverley. His great-grandfather was inventor of that famous
country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire
are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger.
He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behavior, but his
singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to
the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the
wrong. However, this humor creates him no enemies, for he does
nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to
modes and forms makes him but the readier and more capable to
please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town he lives
in Soho Square. It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he
was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county
to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call
a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and
Sir George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town,
and kicked bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling him
youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned widow, he was
very serious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being
naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself
and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and
doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his
repulse, which, in his merry humors, he tells us, has been in and
out twelve times since he first wore it. It is said Sir Roger grew
humble in his desires after he had forgot his cruel beauty, insomuch
that it is reported he has frequently offended with beggars and
'Published Ln "The Spectator," March i, 1711.
83

84 SIR RICHARD STEELE

gypsies; but this is looked upon, by his friends, rather as matter of
raillery than truth. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay,
and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great
lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behavior,
that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his
servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him,
and the young men are glad of his company. When he comes into
a house, he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way
upstairs to a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the
quorum; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great
abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause, by ex-
plaining a passage in the Game Act.

The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us is another
bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple, a man of great
probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of
residence rather to obey the direction of an old humorsome father
than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study
the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in
those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better under-
stood by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every
post questions relating to marriage-articles, leases, and tenures, in
the neighborhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to
answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions
themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates among
men which arise from them. He knows the argument of each of
the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the re-
ports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool; but none,
except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This
turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable. As few
of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit
for conversation. His taste for books is a little too just for the age he
lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity
with the customs, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients,
makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the
present world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is
his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New-Inn,
crosses through Russell<ourt, and takes a turn at Will's till the play

THE SPECTATOR CLUB 85

begins; he has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the
barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for the good of the audience
when he is at the play, for the actors have an ambition to please him.

The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Freeport, a
merchant of great eminence in the city of London; a person of
indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His
notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has
usually some sly way of jesting, which would make no great figure
were he not a rich man) he calls the sea the British Common. He
is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you that
it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms; for
true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue
that, if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain
from one nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him
prove that diligence makes more lasting acquisitions than valor, and
that sloth has ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in
several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favorite is, "A
penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense is
pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having
a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives
the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his
fortune himself; and says that England may be richer than other
kingdoms by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other
men; though at the same time I can say this of him, that there is
not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is an
owner.

Next to Sir Andrew in the clubroom sits Captain Sentry, a gentle-
man of great courage, good understanding, but invincible modesty.
He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at
putting their talents within the observation of such as should take
notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself
with great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges;
but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir
Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably
to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier.
I have heard him often lament that, in a profession where merit
is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better

86 SIR RICHARD STEELE

of modesty. When he has talked to this purpose, I never heard him
make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world
because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an even regular
behavior are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through
crowds, who endeavor at the same end with himself, the favor of a
commander. He will, however, in his way of talk excuse generals
for not disposing according to men's dessert, or inquiring into it;
for, says he, that great n^an who has a mind to help me has as many
to break through to come to me as I have to come at him: therefore
he will conclude that the man who would make a figure, especially
in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his
patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper
assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be
backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military
fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candor
does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same frank-
ness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life
has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which
he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing,
though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below
him; nor ever too obsequious, from an habit of obeying men highly
above him.

But that our society may not appear a set of humorists,^ un-
acquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have
amongst us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, accord-
ing to his years, should be in the decline of his life; but having ever
been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune,
time has made but a very little impression either by wrinkles on his
forehead, or traces on his brain. His person is well turned, and of a
good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which
men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well,
and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when one
speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every
mode, and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches
our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair,
that way of placing their hoods; whose frailty was covered by such a
^ whimsical characters.

THE SPECTATOR CLUB 87

sort of a petticoat, and whose vanity to show her foot made that
part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his con-
versation and knowledge have been in the female world. As other
men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said
upon such and such an occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of
Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was then smitten, an-
other was taken with him at the head of his troop in the park. In
all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received
a kind glance, or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother
of the present Lord Such-a-one. If you speak of a young commoner
that said a Hvely thing in the House, he starts up, "He has good
blood in his veins; Tom Mirable begot him; the rogue cheated me
in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog
than any woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of
his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate
turn, and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who
rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of a man who is
usually called a well-bred fine gentleman. To conclude his character,
where women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy man.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him, whom I am next to
speak of, as one of our company; for he visits us but seldom, but
when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself.
He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great
sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the mis-
fortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently cannot
accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function
would oblige him to; he is therefore among divines what a chamber-
counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the
integrity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or loud
advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon;
but we are so far gone in years that he observes, when he is among
us, an earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he
always treats with much authority, as one who has no interest in
this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my
ordinary companions.

HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY ON
CONVERSATION

A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS
AND GOOD BREEDING

A LETTER OF ADVICE TO A
YOUNG POET

ON THE DEATH OF

ESTHER JOHNSON

[STELLA]

BY
JONATHAN SWIFT

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Jonathan Swift (i 667-1 745), one of the greatest of English satirists,
was born in DubUn and educated for the church at Trinity College in
the same city. At the age of twenty-two he became secretary to Sir
William Temple, to whom he was related, and whose works he edited.
During his residence with Temple he wrote his "Tale of a Tub" and the
"Battle of the Books"; and on Temple's death he returned to Ireland,
where he held several livings. During his secretaryship he had gained a
knowledge of English politics, and in 1710 he left the Whig party and
went over to the Tories, becoming their ablest pen at a time when
pamphleteering was an important means of influencing politics. He was
appointed Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, by Queen Anne in 1713, and on
the fall of the Tories he retired to Ireland. He continued to write
voluminously on political, literary, and ecclesiastical topics, his best
known work, "Gulliver's Travels," being a political allegory. Several
years before his death his brain became diseased, and he suffered ter-
ribly till his mind was almost totally eclipsed.

A fuller account of Swift's life and an estimate of his character will
be found in the essay by Thackeray in another volume of the Harvard
Classics.

In the first three of Swift's writings here printed will be found good
examples of his treatment of social and literary questions. The ironical
humor running through these frequently became, when he dealt with
subjects on which he felt keenly, incredibly savage and at times extremely
coarse; but for the power of his invective and the effectiveness of his
sarcasm there is hardly a parallel in the language. The fourth paper
deals with the death of Esther Johnson, the "Stella" of his Journal, whom
he had known from the days when he lived with Temple, and to whom
it has been supposed that he was married.

HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY
ON CONVERSATION

I HAVE observed few obvious subjects to have been so seldom,
or, at least, so slightly handled as this; and, indeed, I know
few so difficult to be treated as it ought, nor yet upon which
there seemeth so much to be said.

Most things, pursued by men for the happiness o£ public or private
life, our wit or folly have so refined, that they seldom subsist but
in idea; a true friend, a good marriage, a perfect form of govern-
ment, with some others, require so many ingredients, so good in
their several kinds, and so much niceness in mixing them, that for
some thousands of years men have despaired of reducing their
schemes to perfection. But, in conversation, it is, or might be other-
wise; for here we are only to avoid a multitude of errors, which,
although a matter of some difficulty, may be in every man's power,
for want of which it remaineth as mere an idea as the other. There-
fore it seemeth to me, that the truest way to understand conversation,
is to know the faults and errors to which it is subject, and from thence
every man to form maxims to himself whereby it may be regulated,
because it requireth few talents to which most men are not born, or
at least may not acquire without any great genius or study. For
nature hath left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not
of shining in company; and there are an hundred men sufficiently
qualified for both, who, by a very few faults, that they might correct
in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.

I was prompted to write my thoughts upon this subject by mere
indignation, to reflect that so useful and innocent a pleasure, so fitted
for every period and condition of life, and so much in all men's
power, should be so much neglected and abused.

And in this discourse it will be necessary to note those errors that
are obvious, as well as others which are seldomer observed, since

91

92 JONATHAN SWIFT

there are few so obvious, or acknowledged, into which most men,
some time or other, are not apt to run.

For instance: Nothing is more generally exploded than the folly
of talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen five people
together, where some one among them hath not been predominant
in that kind, to the great constraint and disgust of all the rest. But
among such as deal in multitudes of words, none are comparable to
the sober deliberate talker, who proceedeth with much thought and
caution, maketh his preface, brancheth out into several digressions,
findeth a hint that putteth him in mind of another story, which he
promiseth to tell you when this is done; cometh back regularly to
his subject, cannot readily call to mind some person's name, holding
his head, complaineth of his memory; the whole company all this
while in suspense; at length says, it is no matter, and so goes on.
And, to crown the business, it perhaps proveth at last a story the
company hath heard fifty times before; or, at best, some insipid
adventure of the relater.

Another general fault in conversation is, that of those who affect
to talk of themselves: Some, without any ceremony, will run over
the history of their lives; will relate the annals of their diseases, with
the several symptoms and circumstances of them; will enumerate
the hardships and injustice they have suffered in court, in parliament,
in love, or in law. Others are more dexterous, and with great art
will lie on the watch to hook in their own praise: They will call a
witness to remember they always foretold what would happen in
such a case, but none would believe them; they advised such a man
from the beginning, and told him the consequences, just as they
happened; but he would have his own way. Others make a vanity
of telling their faults; they are the strangest men in the world; they
cannot dissemble; they own it is a folly; they have lost abundance
of advantages by it; but, if you would give them the world, they
cannot help it; there is something in their nature that abhors in-
sincerity and constraint; with many other insufferable topics of the
same altitude.

Of such mighty importance every man is to himself, and ready
to think he is so to others; without once making this easy and
obvious reflection, that his affairs can have no more weight with

ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 93

Other men, than theirs have with him; and how Httle that is, he is
sensible enough.

Where company hath met, I often have observed two persons
discover, by some accident, that they were bred together at the
same school or university, after which the rest are condemned to
silence, and to listen while these two are refreshing each other's
memory with the arch tricks and passages of themselves and their
comrades.

I know a great officer of the army, who will sit for some time
with a supercilious and impatient silence, full of anger and contempt
for those who are talking; at length of a sudden demand audience,
decide the matter in a short dogmatical way; then withdraw within
himself again, and vouchsafe to talk no more, until his spirits
circulate again to the same point.

There are some faults in conversation, which none are so subject
to as the men of wit, nor ever so much as when they are with each
other. If they have opened their mouths, without endeavouring to
say a witty thing, they think it is so many words lost: It is a torment
to the hearers, as much as to themselves, to see them upon the rack
for invention, and in perpetual constraint, with so little success. They
must do something extraordinary, in order to acquit themselves, and
answer their character, else the standers-by may be disappointed and
be apt to think them only like the rest of mortals. I have known two
men of wit industriously brought together, in order to entertain the
company, where they have made a very ridiculous figure, and pro-
vided all the mirth at their own expense.

I know a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can be
allowed to dictate and preside: he neither expecteth to be informed
or entertained, but to display his own talents. His business is to be
good company, and not good conversation; and therefore, he
chooseth to frequent those who are content to listen, and profess
themselves his admirers. And, indeed, the worst conversation I ever
remember to have heard in my life, was that at Will's coffeehouse,
where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble; that
is to say, five or six men, who had writ plays, or at least prologues,
or had share in a miscellany, came thither, and entertained one
another with their trifling composures, in so important an air, as if

94 JONATHAN SWIFT

they had been the noblest efforts of human nature, or that the fate of
kingdoms depended on them; and they were usually attended with
an humble audience of young students from the inns oi court, or the
universities, who, at due distance, listened to these oracles, and re-
turned home with great contempt for their law and philosophy, their
heads filled with trash, under the name of politeness, criticism and
belles lettres.

By these means the poets, for many years past, were all overrun
with pedantry. For, as I take it, the word is not properly used; be-
cause pedantry is the too frequent or unseasonable obtruding our
own knowledge in common discourse, and placing too great a value
upon it; by which definition, men of the court or the army may be as
guilty of pedantry as a philosopher or a divine; and, it is the same
vice in women, when they are over copious upon the subject of their
petticoats, or their fans, or their china. For which reason, although it
be a piece of prudence, as well as good manners, to put men upon
talking on subjects they are best versed in, yet that is a liberty a
wise man could hardly take; because, beside the imputation of ped-
antry, it is what he would never improve by.

The great town is usually provided with some player, mimic or
buffoon, who hath a general reception at the good tables; familiar
and domestic with persons of the first quality, and usually sent for
at every meeting to divert the company; against which I have no
objection. You go there as to a farce or a puppetshow; your business
is only to laugh in season, either out of inclination or civility, while
this merry companion is acting his part. It is a business he hath
undertaken, and we are to suppose he is paid for his day's work.
I only quarrel, when in select and private meetings, where men of
wit and learning are invited to pass an evening, this jester should be
admitted to run over his circle of tricks, and make the whole com-
pany unfit for any other conversation, besides the indignity of con-
founding men's talents at so shameful a rate.

Raillery is the finest part of conversation; but, as it is our usual
custom to counterfeit and adulterate whatever is too dear for us, so
we have done with this, and turned it all into what is generally
called repartee, or being smart; just as when an expensive fashion
Cometh up, those who are not able to reach it, content themselves

ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 95

with some paltry imitation. It now passeth for raillery to run a man
down in discourse, to put him out of countenance, and make him
ridiculous, sometimes to expose the defects of his person or under-
standing; on all which occasions he is obliged not to be angry, to
avoid the imputation of not being able to take a jest. It is admirable
to observe one who is dexterous at this art, singling out a weak ad-
versary, getting the laugh on his side, and then carrying all before
him. The French, from whence we borrow the word, have a quite
different idea of the thing, and so had we in the politer age of our
fathers. Raillery was to say something that at first appeared a re-
proach or reflection; but, by some turn of wit unexpected and sur-
prising, ended always in a compliment, and to the advantage of the
person it was addressed to. And surely one of the best rules in con-
versation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can
reasonably wish we had rather left unsaid; nor can there anything
be well more contrary to the ends for which people meet together,
than to part unsatisfied with each other or themselves.

There are two faults in conversation, which appear very different,
yet arise from the same root, and are equally blameable; I mean, an
impatience to interrupt others, and the uneasiness of being inter-
rupted ourselves. The two chief ends of conversation are to enter-
tain and improve those we are among, or to receive those benefits
ourselves; which whoever will consider, cannot easily run into either
of those two errors; because when any man speaketh in company,
it is to be supposed he doth it for his hearers' sake, and not his own;
so that common discretion will teach us not to force their attention, if
they are not willing to lend it; nor on the other side, to interrupt him
who is in possession, because that is in the grossest manner to give the
preference to our own good sense.

There are some people, whose good manners will not suffer them
to interrupt you; but, what is almost as bad, will discover abundance
of impatience, and lie upon the watch until you have done, because
they have started something in their own thoughts which they long to
be delivered of. Meantime, they are so far from regarding what
passes, that their imaginations are wholly turned upon what they
have in reserve, for fear it should slip out of their memory; and thus
they confine their invention, which might otherwise range over a

g6 JONATHAN SWIFT

hundred diings full as good, and that might be much more naturally
introduced.

There is a sort of rude familiarity, which some people, by practising
among their intimates, have introduced into their general conversa-
tion, and would have it pass for innocent freedom or humour, which
is a dangerous experiment in our northern climate, where all the
litde decorum and politeness we have are purely forced by art, and are
so ready to lapse into barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the
raillery of slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It
seemeth to have been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by
preferring the scum of the people, made it a court entertainment, of
which I have heard many particulars; and, considering all things
were turned upside down, it was reasonable and judicious: Although
it was a piece of policy found out to ridicule a point of honour in the
other extreme, when the smallest word misplaced among gentlemen
ended in a duel.

There are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided with
a plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon occasion
in all companies; and, considering how low conversadon runs now
among us, it is not altogether a contemptible talent; however, it is
subject to two unavoidable defects; frequent repetition, and being
soon exhausted; so that whoever valueth this gift in himself, hath
need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company,
that he may not discover the weakness of his fund; for those who
are thus endowed, have seldom any other revenue, but live upon
the main stock.

Great speakers in public, are seldom agreeable in private conver-
sation, whether their faculty be natural, or acquired by practice, and
often venturing. Natural elocution, although it may seem a para-
dox, usually springeth from a barrenness of invention and of words,
by which men who have only one stock of notions upon every sub-
ject, and one set of phrases to express them in, they swim upon the
superfices, and offer themselves on every occasion; therefore, men
of much learning, and who know the compass of a language, are
generally the worst talkers on a sudden, until much practice hath
inured and emboldened them, because they are confounded with
plenty of matter, variety of notions, and of words, which they can-

ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 97

not readily choose, but are perplexed and entangled by too great a
choice; which is no disadvantage in private conversation; where, on
the other side, the talent of haranguing is, of all others, most in-
supportable.

Nothing hath spoiled men more for conversation, than the char-
acter of being wits, to support which, they never fail of encouraging
a number of followers and admirers, who list themselves in their
service, wherein they find their accounts on both sides, by pleasing
their mutual vanity. This hath given the former such an air of
superiority, and made the latter so pragmatical, that neither of
them are well to be endured. I say nothing here of the itch of dis-
pute and contradiction, telling of lies, or of those who are troubled
with the disease called the wandering of the thoughts, that they
are never present in mind at what passeth in discourse; for whoever
labours under any of these possessions, is as unfit for conversation
as a madman in Bedlam.

I think I have gone over most of the errors in conversation, that
have fallen under my notice or memory, except some that are merely
personal, and others too gross to need exploding; such as lewd or
profane talk; but I pretend only to treat the errors of conversation
in general, and not the several subjects of discourse, which would be
infinite. Thus we see how human nature is most debased, by the
abuse of that faculty, which is held the great distinction between
men and brutes; and how little advantage we make of that which
might be the greatest, the most lasting, and the most innocent, as
well as useful pleasure of life. In default of which, we are forced to
take up with those poor amusements of dress and visiting, or the
more pernicious ones of play, drink, and vicious amours, whereby
the nobility and gentry of both sexes are entirely corrupted both in
body and mind, and have lost all notions of love, honour, friendship,
generosity; which, under the name of fopperies, have been for some
time laughed out of doors.

This degeneracy of conversation, with the pernicious consequences
thereof upon our humours and dispositions, hath been owing, among
other causes, to the custom arisen, for sometime past, of excluding
women from any share in our society, further than in parties at play,
or dancing, or in the pursuit of an amour. I take the highest period

98 JONATHAN SWIFT

of politeness in England (and it is of the same date in France) to
have been the peaceable part of King Charles the First's reign; and
from what we read of those times, as well as from the accounts I
have formerly met with from some who lived in that court, the
methods then used for raising and cultivating conversation, were al-
together different from oiu's. Several ladies, whom, we find cele-
brated by the poets of that age, had assemblies at their houses, where
persons of the best understanding, and of both sexes, met to pass the
evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable subjects were
occasionally started; and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime
platonic notions they had, or personated in love and friendship, I
conceive their refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a
little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt
the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate
into everything that is sordid, vicious and low. If there were no
other use in the conversation of ladies, it is sufficient that it would
lay a restraint upon those odious topics of immodesty and indecencies,
into which the rudeness of our northern genius is so apt to fall. And,
therefore, it is observable in those sprightly gentlemen about the
town, who are so very dexterous at entertaining a vizard mask in
the park or the playhouse, that, in the company of ladies of virtue
and honour, they are silent and disconcerted, and out of their
element.

There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit them-
selves and entertain their company with relating of facts of no con-
sequence, nor at all out of the road of such common incidents as
happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among
the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit
the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of dis-
course, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and
phrases, as well as accent and gesture, peculiar to that country,
would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in company to talk much;
but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the majority of those
who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, the conversation
will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them, who can
start new subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but
leaveth room for answers and replies.

A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS
AND GOOD BREEDING

GOOD manners is the art of making those people easy with
• whom we converse.
Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred
in the company.

As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best manners.
And as some lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into
common law, so likewise many teachers have introduced absurd
things into common good manners.

One principal point of this art is to suit our behaviour to the three
several degrees of men; our superiors, our equals, and those below us.

For instance, to press either of the two former to eat or drink is
a breach of manners; but a farmer or a tradesman must be thus
treated, or else it will be difficult to persuade them that they are
welcome.

Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of
ill manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave
himself ill for want of experience; or of what, in the language of
fools, is called knowing the world.

I defy any one to assign an incident wherein reason will not
direct us what we are to say or do in company, if we are not misled
by pride or ill nature.

Therefore I insist that good sense is the principal foundation of
good manners; but because the former is a gift which very few
among mankind are possessed of, therefore all the civilized nations
of the world have agreed upon fixing some rules for common be-
haviour, best suited to their general customs, or fancies, as a kind
of artificial good sense, to supply the defects of reason. Without
which the gentlemanly part of dunces would be perpetually at cuffs,
as they seldom fail when they happen to be drunk, or engaged in

99

100 JONATHAN SWIFT

squabbles about women or play. And, God be thanked, there hardly
happens a duel in a year, which may not be imputed to one of those
three motives. Upon which account, I should be exceedingly sorry
to find the legislature make any new laws against the practice of
duelling; because the methods are easy and many for a wise man to
avoid a quarrel with honour, or engage in it with innocence. And I
can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes,
to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the
law hath not been able to find an expedient.

As the common forms of good manners were intended for regu-
lating the conduct of those who have weak understandings; so they
have been corrupted by the persons for whose use they were con-
trived. For these people have fallen into a needless and endless way
of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely trouble-
some to those who practise them, and insupportable to everybody else:
insomuch that wise men are often more uneasy at the over civility
of these refiners, than they could possibly be in the conversations of
peasants or mechanics.

The impertinencies of this ceremonial behaviour are nowhere
better seen than at those tables where ladies preside, who value
themselves upon account of their good breeding; where a man
must reckon upon passing an hour without doing any one thing he
has a mind to; unless he will be so hardy to break through all the
settled decorum of the family. She determines what he loves best, and
how much he shall eat; and if the master of the house happens to
be of the same disposition, he proceeds in the same tyrannical
manner to prescribe in the drinking part: at the same time, you
are under the necessity of answering a thousand apologies for your
entertainment. And although a good deal of this humour is pretty
well worn off among many people of the best fashion, yet too much
of it still remains, especially in the country; where an honest gentle-
man assured me, that having been kept four days, against his will,
at a friend's house, with all the circumstances of hiding his boots,
locking up the stable, and other contrivances of the like nature, he
could not remember, from the moment he came into the house to
the moment he left it, any one thing, wherein his inclination was
not directly contradicted; as if the whole family had entered into
a combination to torment him.

A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS lOI

But, besides all this, it would be endless to recount the many
foolish and ridiculous accidents I have observed among these un-
fortunate proselytes to ceremony. I have seen a duchess fairly
knocked down, by the precipitancy of an officious coxcomb running
to save her the trouble of opening a door. I remember, upon a birth-
day at court, a great lady was utterly desperate by a dish of sauce
let fall by a page directly upon her head-dress and brocade, while
she gave a sudden turn to her elbow upon some point of ceremony
with the person who sat next her. Monsieur Buys, the Dutch envoy,
whose politics and manners were much of a size, brought a son with
him, about thirteen years old, to a great table at court. The boy and
his father, whatever they put on their plates, they first offered round
in order, to every person in the company; so that we could not get a
minute's quiet during the whole dinner. At last their two plates
happened to encounter, and with so much violence, that, being
china, they broke in twenty pieces, and stained half the company
with wet sweetmeats and cream.

There is a pedantry in manners, as in all. arts and sciences; and
sometimes in trades. Pedantry is properly the overrating any kind
of knowledge we pretend to. And if that kind of knowledge be a
trifle in itself, the pedantry is the greater. For which reason I look
upon fiddlers, dancing-masters, heralds, masters of the ceremony,
&c. to be greater pedants than Lipsius, or the elder Scaliger. With
these kind of pedants, the court, while I knew it, was always
plentifully stocked; I mean from the gentleman usher (at least)
inclusive, downward to the gentleman porter; who are, generally
speaking, the most insignificant race of people that this island can
afford, and with the smallest tincture of good manners, which is
the only trade they profess. For being wholly illiterate, and con-
versing chiefly with each other, they reduce the whole system of
breeding within the forms and circles of their several offices; and as
they are below the notice of ministers, they live and die in court
under all revolutions with great obsequiousness to those who are in
any degree of favour or credit, and with rudeness or insolence to
everybody else. Whence I have long concluded, that good manners
are not a plant of the court growth: for if they were, those people
who have understandings directly of a level for such acquirements,
and who have served such long apprenticeships to nothing else,

I02 JONATHAN SWIFT

would certainly have picked them up. For as to the great officers,
who attend the prince's person or councils, or preside in his family,
they are a transient body, who have no better a title to good man-
ners than their neighbours, nor will probably have recourse to
gentlemen ushers for instruction. So that I know Uttle to be learnt
at court upon this head, except in the material circumstance of
dress; wherein the authority of the maids of honour must indeed
be allowed to be almost equal to that of a favourite actress.

I remember a passage my Lord Bolingbroke told me, that going
to receive Prince Eugene of Savoy at his landing, in order to conduct
him immediately to the Queen, the prince said, he was much con-
cerned that he could not see her Majesty that night; for Monsieur
Hoffman (who was then by) had assured his Highness that he could
not be admitted into her presence with a tied-up periwig; that his
equipage was not arrived; and that he had endeavoured in vain to
borrow a long one among all his valets and pages. My lord turned
the matter into a jest, and brought the Prince to her Majesty; for
which he was highly censured by the whole tribe of gentlemen
ushers; among whom Monsieur Hoffman, an old dull resident of
the Emperor's, had picked up this material point of ceremony; and
which, I beUeve, was the best lesson he had learned in five-and-
twenty years' residence.

I make a difference between good manners and good breeding;
although, in order to vary my expression, I am sometimes forced to
confound them. By the first, I only understand the art of remem-
bering and applying certain setded forms of general behaviour. But
good breeding is of a much larger extent; for besides an uncommon
degree of literature sufficient to qualify a gentleman for reading a
play, or a political pamphlet, it takes in a great compass of knowl-
edge; no less than that of dancing, fighting, gaming, making the
circle of Italy, riding the great horse, and speaking French; not to
mention some other secondary, or subaltern accomplishments, which
are more easily acquired. So that the difference between good breed-
ing and good manners lies in this, that the former cannot be attained
to by the best understandings, without study and labour; whereas a
tolerable degree of reason will instruct us in every part of good man-
ners, without other assistance.

A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS IO3

I can think of nothing more useful upon this subject, than to point
out some particulars, wherein the very essentials of good manners are
concerned, the neglect or perverting of which doth very much dis-
turb the good commerce of the world, by introducing a traffic of
mutual uneasiness in most companies.

First, a necessary part of good manners, is a punctual observance
of time at our own dwellings, or those of others, or at third places;
whether upon matter of civility, business, or diversion; which rule,
though it be a plain dictate of common reason, yet the greatest
minister I ever knew was the greatest trespasser against it; by which
all his business doubled upon him, and placed him in a continual
arrear. Upon which I often used to rally him, as deficient in point
of good manners. I have known more than one ambassador, and
secretary of state with a very moderate portion of intellectuals, exe-
cute their offices with good success and applause, by the mere force
of exactness and regularity. If you duly observe time for the service
of another, it doubles the obligation; if upon your own account,
it would be manifest folly, as well as ingratitude, to neglect it. If
both are concerned, to make your equal or inferior attend on you,
to his own disadvantage, is pride and injustice.

Ignorance of forms cannot properly be styled ill manners; because
forms are subject to frequent changes; and consequently, being not
founded upon reason, are beneath a wise man's regard. Besides, they
vary in every country; and after a short period of time, very fre-
quently in the same; so that a man who travels, must needs be at first
a stranger to them in every court through which he passes; and
perhaps at his return, as much a stranger in his own; and after all,
they are easier to be remembered or forgotten than faces or names.

Indeed, among the many impertinencies that superficial young men
bring with them from abroad, this bigotry of forms is one of the
principal, and more prominent than the rest; who look upon them
not only as if they were matters capable of admitting of choice, but
even as points of importance; and are therefore zealous on all
occasions to introduce and propagate the new forms and fashions
they have brought back with them. So that, usually speaking, the
worst bred person in the company is a young traveller just returned
from abroad.

A LETTER OF ADVICE TO A
YOUNG POET

Sir,

AS I have always professed a friendship for you, and have there-

l-\ fore been more inquisitive into your conduct and studies
JL .m. than is usually agreeable to young men, so I must own I am
not a little pleased to find, by your last account, that you have entirely
bent your thoughts to English poetry, with design to make it your
profession and business. Two reasons incline me to encourage you
in this study; one, the narrowness of your present circumstances;
the other, the great use of poetry to mankind and society, and in
every employment of life. Upon these views, I cannot but com-
mend your wise resolution to withdraw so early from other un-
profitable and severe studies, and betake yourself to that, which, if
you have good luck, will advance your fortune, and make you an
ornament to your friends, and your country. It may be your justi-
fication, and farther encouragement, to consider, that history, ancient
or modern, cannot furnish you an instance of one person, eminent in
any station, who was not in some measure versed in poetry, or at
least a well wisher to the professors of it. Neither would I despair
to prove, if legally called thereto, that it is impossible to be a good
soldier, divine, or lawyer, or even so much as an eminent bellman,
or ballad-singer, without some taste of poetry, and a competent skill
in versification. But I say the less of this, because the renowned
Sir Philip Sidney has exhausted the subject before me, in his "De-
fence of Poesie,'" on which I shall make no other remark but this,
that he argues there as if he really believed himself.

For my own part, having never made one verse since I was at
school, where I suffered too much for my blunders in poetry, to have
any love to it ever since, I am not able from any experience of my
own, to give you those instructions you desire; neither will I declare

' See the first essay in this volume.
104

TO A YOUNG POET IO5

(for I love to conceal my passions) how much I lament my neglect
of poetry in those periods of my life, which were properest for im-
provements in that ornamental part of learning; besides, my age and
infirmities might well excuse me to you, as being unqualified to be
your writing-master, with spectacles on, and a shaking hand. How-
ever, that I may not be altogether wanting to you in an affair of so
much importance to your credit and happiness, I shall here give you
some scattered thoughts upon the subject, such as I have gathered
by reading and observation.

There is a certain little instrument, the first of those in use with
scholars, and the meanest, considering the materials of it, whether
it be a joint of wheaten straw, (the old Arcadian pipe) or just three
inches of slender wire, or a stripped feather, or a corking-pin.
Furthermore, this same diminutive tool, for the posture of it, usually
reclines its head on the thumb of the right hand, sustains the fore-
most finger upon its breast, and is itself supported by the second.
This is commonly known by the name of a fescue; I shall here there-
fore condescend to be this little elementary guide, and point out some
particulars which may be of use to you in your hornbook of poetry.

In the first place, I am not yet convinced, that it is at all necessary
for a modern poet to believe in God, or have any serious sense of
religion; and in this article you must give me leave to suspect your
capacity; because religion being what your mother taught you, you
will hardly find it possible, at least not easy, all at once to get over
those early prejudices, so far as to think it better to be a great wit
than a good Christian, though herein the general practice is against
you; so that if, upon enquiry, you find in yourself any such softnesses,
owing to the nature of your education, my advice is, that you forth-
with lay down your pen, as having no further business with it in
the way of poetry; unless you will be content to pass for an insipid,
or will submit to be hooted at by your fraternity, or can disguise
your religion, as well-bred men do their learning, in complaisance to
company. For poetry, as it has been managed for some years past,
by such as make a business of it, (and of such only I speak here;
for I do not call him a jxiet that writes for his diversion, any more
than that gentleman a fiddler, who amuses himself with a violin)
I say our poetry of late has been altogether disengaged from the

106 JONATHAN SWIFT

narrow notions of virtue and piety, because it has been found by
experience of our professors, that the smallest quantity of religion,
like a single drop of malt liquor in claret, will muddy and dis-
compose the brightest poetical genius.

Religion supposes heaven and hell, the word of God, and sacra-
ments, and twenty other circumstances, which, taken seriously, are
a wonderful check to wit and humour, and such as a true poet
cannot possibly give in to, with a saving to his poetical licence; but
yet it is necessary for him, that others should believe those things
seriously, that his wit may be exercised on their wisdom, for so
doing: For though a wit need not have religion, religion is necessary
to a wit, as an instrument is to the hand that plays upon it: And for
this the moderns plead the example of their great idol Lucretius, who
had not been by half so eminent a poet (as he truly was), but that
he stood tiptoe on religion, Religio pedibus subjecta, and by that
rising ground had the advantage of all the poets of his own or
following times, who were not mounted on the same pedestal.

Besides, it is further to be observed, that Petronius, another of
their favourites, speaking of the qualifications of a good poet, insists
chiefly on the liber spiritus; by which I have been ignorant enough
heretofore to suppose he meant, a good invention, or great compass
of thought, or a sprightly imagination: But I have learned a better
construction, from the opinion and practice of the moderns; and
taking it literally for a free spirit, i^. a spirit, or mind, free or dis-
engaged from all prejudices concerning God, religion, and another
world, it is to me a plain account why our present set of poets are,
and hold themselves obliged to be, free thinkers.

But although I cannot recommend religion upon the practice of
some of our most eminent English poets, yet I can justly advise you,
from their example, to be conversant in the Scriptures, and, if
possible, to make yourself entirely master of them: In which, how-
ever, I intend nothing less than imposing upon you a task of piety.
Far be it from me to desire you to believe them, or lay any great
stress upon their authority, (in that you may do as you think fit)
but to read them as a piece of necessary furniture for a wit and a
poet; which is a very different view from that of a Christian. For I
have made it my observation, that the greatest wits have been the

TO A YOUNG POET IO7

best textuaries. Our modern poets are, all to a man, almost as well
read in the Scriptures as some of our divines, and often abound more
with the phrase. They have read them historically, critically, musi-
cally, comically, poetically, and every other way, except religiously,
and have found their account in doing so. For the Scriptures are
undoubtedly a fund of wit, and a subject for wit. You may, accord-
ing to the modern practice, be witty upon them or out of them.
And to speak the truth, but for them I know not what our play-
wrights would do for images, allusions, similitudes, examples, or
even language itself. Shut up the sacred books, and I would be
bound our wit would run down like an alarum, or fall as the stocks
did, and ruin half the poets in these kingdoms. And if that were the
case, how would most of that tribe, (all, I think, but the immortal
Addison, who made a better use of his Bible, and a few more) who
dealt so freely in that fund, rejoice that they had drawn out in time,
and left the present generation of poets to be the bubbles!

But here I must enter one caution, and desire you to take notice,
that in this advice of reading the Scriptures, I had not the least
thought concerning your qualification that way for poetical orders;
which I mention, because I find a notion of that kind advanced by
one of our English poets, and is, I suppose, maintained by the rest.
He says to Spenser, in a pretended vision,

-With hands laid on, ordain me fit

For the great cure and ministry of wit.

Which passage is, in my opinion, a notable allusion to the Scrip-
tures; and, making (but reasonable) allowances for the small cir-
cumstances of profaneness, bordering close upon blasphemy, is
inimitably fine; besides some useful discoveries made in it, as, that
there are bishops in poetry, that these bishops must ordain young
poets, and with laying on hands; and that poetry is a cure of souls;
and, consequently speaking, those who have such cures ought to be
poets, and too often are so. And indeed, as of old, poets and priests
were one and the same function, the alliance of those ministerial
offices is to this day happily maintained in the same persons; and
this I take to be the only justifiable reason for that appellation which
they so much affect, I mean the modest title of divine poets. How-

I08 JONATHAN SWIFT

ever, having never been present at the ceremony of ordaining to
the priesthood of poetry, I own I have no notion of the thing, and
shall say the less of it here.

The Scriptures then being generally both the fountain and subject
of modern vs^it, I could do no less than give them the preference in
your reading. After a thorough acquaintance with them, I would
advise you to turn your thoughts to human literature, which yet I
say more in compliance with vulgar opinions, than according to
my own sentiments.

For, indeed, nothing has surprised me more, than to see the
prejudices of mankind as to this matter of human learning, who
have generally thought it necessary to be a good scholar, in order
to be a good poet; than which nothing is falser in fact, or more con-
trary to practice and experience. Neither will I dispute the matter,
if any man will undertake to shew me one professed poet now in
being, who is anything of what may be justly called a scholar; or is
the worse poet for that, but perhaps the better, for being so little
encumbered with the pedantry of learning. 'Tis true, the contrary
was the opinion of our forefathers, which we of this age have
devotion enough to receive from them on their own terms, and
unexamined, but not sense enough to perceive 'twas a gross mistake
in them. So Horace had told us :

Scribendi recta sapere est et principium et fons.
Rem tibi Socraticae poterunt ostendere chartae.^

HoR. de Art. Poet. 309.
But to see the different casts of men's heads, some not inferior to
that poet in understanding (if you will take their own word for it),
do see no consequence in this rule, and are not ashamed to declare
themselves of a contrary opinion. Do not many men write well in
common account, who have nothing of that principle? Many are
too wise to be poets, and others too much poets to be wise. Must a
man, forsooth, be no less than a philosopher, to be a poet, when it is
plain, that some of the greatest idiots of the age, are our prettiest
performers that way.? And for this, I appeal to the judgment and
observation of mankind. Sir Philip Sidney's notable remark upon
this nation, may not be improper to mention here. He says, "In our

* Good sense, that fountain of the Muse's art,
Let the strong page of Socrates impart

TO A YOUNG POET lOp

neighbour country, Ireland, where true learning goes very bare, yet
are their poets held in devout reverence;" which shews, that learning
is no way necessary either to the making a poet, or judging of
him. And further to see the fate of things, notwithstanding our
learning here is as bare as ever, yet are our poets not held, as formerly
in devout reverence, but are perhaps the most contemptible race of
mortals now in this kingdom, which is no less to be wondered at, than
lamented.

Some of the old philosophers were poets (as according to the fore-
mentioned author, Socrates and Plato were; which, however, is what
I did not know before) but that does not say, that all poets are, or
that any need be philosophers, otherwise than as those are so called
who are a little out at the elbows. In which sense the great Shake-
speare might have been a philosopher; but was no scholar, yet was
an excellent poet. Neither do I think a late most judicious critic
so much mistaken, as others do, in advancing this opinion, that
"Shakespeare had been a worse poet, had he been a better scholar."
And Sir William Davenant is another instance in the same kind.
Nor must it be forgotten, that Plato was an avowed enemy to poets,
which is perhaps the reason why poets have been always at enmity
with his profession; and have rejected all learning and philosophy
for the sake of that one philosopher. As I take the matter, neither
philosophy, nor any part of learning, is more necessary to poetry,
(which, if you will believe the same author, is "the sum of all learn-
ing") than to know the theory of Ught, and the several proportions
and diversifications of it in particular colours, is to a good painter.

Whereas therefore, a certain author, called Petronius Arbiter,
going upon the same mistake, has confidently declared, that one
ingredient of a good poet, is, "mens ingenti literarum flumine inun-
data;"^ I do, on the contrary, declare, that this his assertion (to speak
of it in the softest terms) is no better than an invidious and un-
handsome reflection on all the gentlemen-poets of these times; for,
with his good 'eave, much less than a flood, or inundation, will serve
the turn; and, to my certain knowledge, some of our greatest wits in
your poetical way, have not as much real learning as would cover a
sixpence in the bottom of a basin; nor do I think the worse of them.

For, to speak my private opinion, I am for every man's working
' "A mind flooded with a vast river of learning."

no JONATHAN SWIFT

upon his own materials, and producing only what he can find within
himself, which is commonly a better stock than the owner knows it
to be. I think flowers of wit ought to spring, as those in a garden
do, from their own root and stem, without foreign assistance. I
would have a man's wit rather like a fountain, that feeds itself in-
visibly, than a river, that is supplied by several streams from abroad.

Or if it be necessary, as the case is with some barren wits, to take
in the thoughts of others, in order to draw forth their own, as dry
pumps will not play till water is thrown into them; in that necessity,
I would recommend some of the approved standard authors of
antiquity for your perusal, as a poet and a wit; because maggots being
what you look for, as monkeys do for vermin in their keepers' heads,
you will find they abound in good old authors, as in rich old cheese,
not in the new; and for that reason you must have the classics,
especially the most worm-eaten of them, often in your hands.

But with this caution, that you are not to use those ancients as
unlucky lads do their old fathers, and make no conscience of picking
their pockets and pillaging them. Your business is not to steal from
them, but to improve upon them, and make their sentiments your
own; which is an effect of great judgment; and though difficult, yet
very possible, without the scurvy imputation of filching. For I
humbly conceive, though I light my candle at my neighbour's fire,
that does not alter the property, or make the wick, the wax, or the
flame, or the whole candle, less my own.

Possibly you may think it a very severe task, to arrive at a compe-
tent knowledge of so many of the ancients, as excel in their way;
and indeed it would be really so, but for the short and easy method
lately found out of abstracts, abridgments, summaries, &c. which are
admirable expedients for being very learned with little or no reading;
and have the same use with burning-glasses, to collect the diffused
rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with
warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination. And to this
is nearly related that other modern device of consulting indexes,
which is to read books hebraically,'' and begin where others usually
end; and this is a compendious way of coming to an acquaintance
with authors. For authors are to be used like lobsters, you must look
for the best meat in the tails, and lay the bodies back again in the

■* That is, backwards.

TO A YOUNG POET III

dish. Your cunningest thieves (and what else are readers, who only
read to borrow, i.e. to steal) use to cut off the portmanteau from be-
hind, without staying to dive into the pockets of the owner. Lastly,
you are taught thus much in the very elements of philosophy, for one
of the first rules in logic is, Finis est primus in intentione?

The learned world is therefore most highly indebted to a late
painful and judicious editor of the classics, who has laboured in that
new way with exceeding felicity. Every author by his management,
sweats under himself, being over-loaded with his own index, and
carries, like a north-country pedlar, all his substance and furniture
upon his back, and with as great variety of trifles. To him let all
young students make their compliments for so much time and pains
saved in the pursuit of useful knowledge; for whoever shortens a
road, is a benefactor to the public, and to every particular person who
has occasion to travel that way.

But to proceed. I have lamented nothing more in my time, than
the disuse of some ingenious little plays, in fashion with young
folks, when I was a boy, and to which the great facility of that age,
above ours, in composing was certainly owing; and if anything has
brought a damp upon the versification of these times, we have no
further than this to go for the cause of it. Now could these sports be
happily revived, I am of opinion your wisest course would be to
apply your thoughts to them, and never fail to make a party when
you can, in those profitable diversions. For example, "Crambo" is
of extraordinary use to good rhyming, and rhyming is what I have
ever accounted the very essential of a good poet: And in that notion
I am not singular; for the aforesaid Sir Philip Sidney has declared,
"That the chief life of modern versifying, consisteth in the like
sounding of words, which we call rhyme," which is an authority,
either without exception, or above any reply. Wherefore, you are
ever to try a good poem as you would a sound pipkin, and if it rings
well upon the knuckle, be sure there is no flaw in it. Verse without
rhyme, is a body without a soul, (for the "chief life consisteth in the
rhyme") or a bell without a clapper; which, in strictness, is no bell,
as being neither of use nor delight. And the same ever honoured
knight, with so musical an ear, had that veneration for the tunable-
ness and chiming of verse, that he speaks of a poet as one that has

^ "In intention the end is first."

112 JONATHAN SWIFT

"the reverend title o£ a rhymer." Our celebrated Milton has
done these nations great prejudice in this particular, having spoiled
as many reverend rhymers, by his example, as he has made real
poets.

For which reason, I am overjoyed to hear, that a very ingenious
youth of this town [Dublin], is now upon the useful design (for
which he is never enough to be commended) of bestowing rhyme
upon Milton's Paradise Lost, which will make your poem, in that
only defective, more heroic and sonorous than it has hitherto been. I
wish the gentleman success in the performance; and, as it is a work
in which a young man could not be more happily employed, or
appear in with greater advantage to his character, so I am concerned
that it did not fall out to be your province.

With much the same view, I would recommend to you the witty
play of "Pictures and Mottoes," which will furnish your imagination
with great store of images and suitable devices. We of these king-
doms have found our account in this diversion, as little as we con-
sider or acknowledge it. For to this we owe our eminent felicity in
posies of rings, mottoes of snuff-boxes, the humours of sign-posts
with their elegant inscriptions, &c. in which kind of productions not
any nation in the world, no, not the Dutch themselves, will presume
to rival us.

For mych the same reason, it may be proper for you to have some
insight into the play called, "What is it like?" as of great use in
common practice, to quicken slow capacities, and improve the quick-
est. But the chief end of it is, to supply the fancy with variety of
similes for all subjects. It will teach you to bring things to a likeness,
which have not the least imaginable conformity in nature, which is
properly creation, and the very business of a poet, as his name im-
plies; and let me tell you, a good poet can no more be without a
stock of similes by him, than a shoemaker without his lasts. He
should have them sized, and ranged, and hung up in order in his
shop, ready for all customers, and shaped to the feet of all sorts of
verse. And here I could more fully (and I long to do it) insist upon
the wonderful harmony and resemblance between a poet and a shoe-
maker, in many circumstances common to both; such as the binding
of their temples, the stuff they work upon, and the paring-knife they

TO A YOUNG POET II3

use, &c. but that I would not digress, nor seem to trifle in so serious
a matter.

Now I say, if you apply yourself to these diminutive sports (not to
mention others of equal ingenuity, such as Draw-gloves, Cross pur-
poses, Questions and commands, and the rest) it is not to be con-
ceived what benefit (of nature) you will find by them, and how
they will open the body of your invention. To these devote your
spare hours, or rather spare all your hours to them, and then you will
act as becomes a wise man, and make even diversion an improve-
ment; like the inimitable management of the bee, which does the
whole business of life at once, and at the same time both feeds, and
works, and diverts itself.

Your own prudence will, I doubt not, direct you to take a place
every evening amongst the ingenious, in the corner of a certain
coffeehouse in this town, where you will receive a turn equally right
as to wit, religion, and politics: As likewise to be as frequent at the
playhouse as you can afford, without selling your books. For in our
chaste theatre, even Cato himself might sit to the falling of the
curtain: Besides, you will sometimes meet with tolerable con-
versation amongst the players; they are such a kind of men, as may
pass upon the same sort of capacities, for wits off the stage, as they
do for fine gentlemen upon it. Besides that, I have known a factor
deal in as good ware, and sell as cheap as the merchant himself that
employs him.

Add to this the expediency of furnishing out your shelves with a
choice collection of modern miscellanies, in the gayest edition; and of
reading all sorts of plays, especially the new, and above all, those of
our own growth, printed by subscription; in which article of Irish
manufacture, I readily agree to the late proposal, and am altogether
for "rejecting and renouncing everything that comes from England:"
To what purpose should we go thither either for coals or poetry,
when we have a vein within ourselves equally good and more con-
venient ? Lastly,

A common-place book is what a provident poet cannot subsist
without, for this proverbial reason, that "great wits have short mem-
ories;" and whereas, on the other hand, poets being liars by pro-
fession, ought to have good memories. To reconcile these, a book of

114 JONATHAN SWIFT

this sort is in the nature of a supplemental memory; or a record of
what occurs remarkable in every day's reading or conversation.
There you enter not only your own original thoughts, (which, a
hundred to one, are few and insignificant) but such of other men
as you think fit to make your own by entering them there. For take
this for a rule, when an author is in your books, you have the same
demand upon him for his wit, as a merchant has for your money,
when you are in his.

By these few and easy prescriptions (with the help of a good
genius) 'tis possible you may in a short time arrive at the accom-
plishments of a poet, and shine in that character. As for your manner
of composing, and choice of subjects, I cannot take upon me to be
your director; but I will venture to give you some short hints, which
you may enlarge upon at your leisure. Let me entreat you then, by
no means to lay aside that notion peculiar to our modern refiners in
poetry, which is, that a poet must never write or discourse as the
ordinary part of mankind do, but in number and verse, as an oracle;
which I mention the rather, because upon this principle, I have
known heroics brought into the pulpit, and a whole sermon com-
posed and delivered in blank verse, to the vast credit of the preacher,
no less than the real entertainment and great edification of the
audience.

The secret of which I take to be this. When the matter of such
discourses is but mere clay, or, as we usually call it, sad stuff, the
preacher, who can afford no better, wisely moulds, and polishes, and
dries, and washes this piece of earthen-ware, and then bakes it with
poetic fire, after which it will ring like any pancrock, and is a good
dish to set before common guests, as every congregation is, that
comes so often for entertainment to one place.

There was a good old custom in use, which our ancestors had, of
invoking the Muses at the entrance of their poems; I suppose, by
way of craving a blessing. This the graceless moderns have in a
great measure laid aside, but are not to be followed in that poetical
impiety; for although to nice ears, such invocations may sound harsh
and disagreeable (as tuning instruments is before a concert) they are
equally necessary. Again, you must not fail to dress your muse in a
forehead cloth of Greek or Latin; I mean, you are always to make use

TO A YOUNG POET II5

of a quaint motto in all your compositions; for besides that this
artifice bespeaks the reader's opinion of the writer's learning, it is
otherwise useful and commendable. A bright passage in the front of
a poem, is a good mark, like a star in a horse's face, and the piece
will certainly go off the better for it. The os magna sonaturum,
which, if I remember right, Horace makes one qualification of a
good poet, may teach you not to gag your muse, or stint yourself in
words and epithets (which cost you nothing) contrary to the prac-
tice of some few out-of-the-way writers, who use a natural and con-
cise expression, and affect a style like unto a Shrewsbury cake, short
and sweet upon the palate; they will not afford you a word more
than is necessary to make them intelligible, which is as poor and
niggardly, as it would be to set down no more meat than your
company will be sure to eat up. Words are but lackeys to sense, and
will dance attendance, without wages or compulsion; Verba non
invita sequentur.

Farthermore, when you set about composing, it may be necessary,
for your ease a-id better distillation of wit, to put on your worst
clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limbick, will
yield the better for having a rag about him. Besides that, I have
observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree, (which is the
surtout of it), to make it bear well: And this is a natural account of
the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men
living, ought to be ill clad. I have always a secret veneration for any
one I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing
him either a poet or a philosopher; because the richest minerals are
ever found under the most ragged and withered surface of earth.

As for your choice of subjects, I have only to give you this caution:
That as a handsome way of praising is certainly the most difficult
point in writing or speaking, I would by no means advise any
young man to make his first essay in panegyric, besides the danger
of it: for a particular encomium is ever attended with more ill-will,
than any general invective, for which I need give no reasons;
wherefore, my counsel is, that you use the point of your pen, not the
feather; let your first attempt be a coup d'eclat^ in the way of libel,
lampoon, or satire. Knock down half a score reputations, and you

* "A brilliant stroke."

Il6 JONATHAN SWIFT

will infallibly raise your own; and so it be with wit, no matter with
how little justice; for fiction is your trade.

Every great genius seems to ride upon mankind, like Pyrrhus on
his elephant; and the way to have the absolute ascendant of your
resty nag, and to keep your seat, is, at your first mounting, to afford
him the whip and spurs plentifully; after which, you may travel
the rest of the day with great alacrity. Once kick the world, and
the world and you will live together at a reasonable good under-
standing. You cannot but know, that these of your profession have
been called genus irritabile vatumf and you will find it necessary
to qualify yourself for that waspish society, by exerting your talent
of satire upon the first occasion, and to abandon good-nature, only
to prove yourself a true poet, which you will allow to be a valuable
consideration: In a word, a young robber is usually entered by a
murder: A young hound is blooded when he comes first into the
field : A young bully begins with killing his man : And a young poet
must shew his wit, as the other his courage, by cutting and slashing,
and laying about him, and banging mankind. Lastly,

It will be your wisdom to look out betimes for a good service for
your muse, according to her skill and qualifications, whether in the
nature of a dairymaid, a cook, or char-woman. I mean, to hire out
your pen to a party, which will afford you both pay and protection;
and when you have to do with the press, (as you will long to be
there) take care to bespeak an importunate friend, to extort your
productions with an agreeable violence; and which, according to the
cue between you, you must surrender digito male pertinaci? There
is a decency in this; for it no more becomes an author, in modesty,
to have a hand in pubhshing his own works, than a woman in
labour to lay herself.

I would be very loth to give the least umbrage of offence by what
I have here said, as I may do, if I should be thought to insinuate that
these circumstances of good writing have been unknown to, or not
observed by, the poets of this kingdom. I will do my countrymen the
justice to say, they have written by the foregoing rules with great
exactness, and so far, as hardly to come behind those of their pro-

' "The irritable race of poets."
' "With an exceedingly tenacious finger."

TO A YOUNG POET llj

fession in England, in perfection of low writing. The sublime,
indeed, is not so common with us; but ample amends is made for
that want, in great abundance of the admirable and amazing, which
appears in all our compositions. Our very good friend (the knight
aforesaid) speaking of the force of poetry, mentions "rhyming to
death, which" (adds he) "is said to be done in Ireland;" and truly,
to our honour be it spoken, that power, in a great measure, continues
with us to this day.

I would now offer some poor thoughts of mine for the encourage-
ment of poetry in this kingdom, if I could hope they would be
agreeable. I have had many an aching heart for the ill plight of that
noble profession here, and it has been my late and early study how
to bring it into better circumstances. And surely, considering what
monstrous wits in the poetic way, do almost daily start up and sur-
prise us in this town; what prodigious geniuses we have here (of
which I could give instances without number,) and withal of what
great benefit it might be to our trade to encourage that science here,
(for it is plain our linen manufacture is advanced by the great waste
of paper made by our present set of poets, not to mention other neces-
sary uses of the same to shop-keepers, especially grocers, apothecaries,
and pastry-cooks; and I might add, but for our writers, the nation
would in a little time be utterly destitute of bumfodder, and must of
necessity import the same from England and Holland, where they
have it in great abundance, by the indefatigable labour of their own
wits) I say, these things considered, I am humbly of opinion, it would
be worth the care of our governors to cherish gentlemen of the quill,
and give them all proper encouragements here. And since I am upon
the subject, I shall speak my mind very freely, and if I added,
saucily, it is no more than my birthright as a Briton.

Seriously then, I have many years lamented the want of a Grub
Street in this our large and polite city, unless the whole may be called
one. And this I have accounted an unpardonable defect in our con-
stitution, ever since I had any opinions I could call my own. Every
one knows Grub Street is a market for small ware in wit, and as
necessary, considering the usual purgings of the human brain, as
the nose is upon a man's face. And for the same reason we have here
a court, a college, a play-house, and beautiful ladies, and fine gentle-

Il8 JONATHAN SWIFT

men, and good claret, and abundance of pens, ink, and paper, (clear
of taxes) and every other circumstance to provoke wit; and yet those
Wfhose province it is, have not yet thought fit to appoint a place for
evacuation of it, which is a very hard case, as may be judged by
comparisons.

And truly this defect has been attended with unspeakable incon-
veniences; for not to mention the prejudice done to the common-
wealth of letters, I am of opinion we suffer in our health by it. I
believe our corrupted air, and frequent thick fogs, are in a great
measure owing to the common exposal of our wit; and that with good
management, our poetical vapours might be carried off in a common
drain, and fall into one quarter of the town, without infecting the
whole, as the case is at present, to the great offence of our nobility,
and gentry, and others of nice noses. When writers of all sizes, like
freemen of the city, are at liberty to throw out their filth and excre-
mentitious productions, in every street as they please, what can the
consequence be, but that the town must be poisoned, and become
such another jakes, as by report of great travellers, Edinburgh is at
night, a thing well to be considered in these pestilential times.

I am not of the society for reformation of manners, but, without
that pragmatical title, I would be glad to see some amendment in
the matter before us. Wherefore I humbly bespeak the favour of
the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen and Common Council,
together with the whole circle of arts in this town, and do recom-
mend this affair to their most political consideration; and I persuade
myself they will not be wanting in their best endeavours, when they
can serve two such good ends at once, as both to keep the town
sweet, and encourage poetry in it. Neither do I make any exceptions
as to satirical poets and lampoon writers, in consideration of their
office. For though, indeed, their business is to rake into kennels, and
gather up the filth of streets and families, (in which respect they
may be, for aught I know, as necessary to the town as scavengers,
or chimney-sweeps) yet I have observed they too have themselves,
at the same time, very foul clothes, and, like dirty persons, leave
more filth and nastiness than they sweep away.

In a word: What I would be at (for I love to be plain in matters
of importance to my country) is, that some private street, or blind

TO A YOUNG POET II9

alley of this town, may be fitted up at the charge of the public, as an
apartment for the Muses, (like those at Rome and Amsterdam, for
their female relations) and be wholly consigned to the uses of our
wits, furnished completely with all appurtenances, such as authors,
supervisors, presses, printers, hawkers, shops, and warehouses, and
abundance of garrets, and every other implement and circumstance
of wit; the benefit of which would obviously be this, viz., That we
should then have a safe repository for our best productions, which
at present are handed about in single sheets or manuscripts, and may
be altogether lost, (which were a pity) or at best are subject, in that
loose dress, like handsome women, to great abuses.

Another point, that has cost me some melancholy reflections, is the
present state of the playhouse; the encouragement of which hath an
immediate influence upon the poetry of the kingdom; as a good
market improves the tillage of the neighbouring country, and en-
riches the ploughman. Neither do we of this town seem enough to
know or consider the vast benefit of a playhouse to our city and
nation: That single house is the fountain of all our love, wit, dress,
and gallantry. It is the school of wisdom; for there we learn to know
what's what; which, however, I cannot say is always in that place
sound knowledge. There our young folks drop their childish mis-
takes, and come first to perceive their mother's cheat of the parsley-
bed; there too they get rid of natural prejudices, especially those of
religion and modesty, which are great restraints to a free people.
The same is a remedy for the spleen, and blushing, and several dis-
tempers occasioned by the stagnation of the blood. It is likewise a
school of common swearing; my young master, who at first but
minced an oath, is taught there to mouth it gracefully, and to
swear, as he reads French, ore rotunda!' Profaneness was before
to him in the nature of his best suit, or holiday-clothes; but upon
frequenting the playhouse, swearing, cursing, and lying, become like
his every-day coat, waistcoat, and breeches. Now I say, common
swearing, a produce of this country, as plentiful as our corn, thus
cultivated by the playhouse, might, with management, be of wonder-
ful advantage to the nation, as a projector of the swearer's bank has
proved at large. Lastly, the stage in great measure supports the

' "With round mouth," sonorously.

120 JONATHAN SWIFT

pulpit; for I know not what our divines could have to say there
against the corruptions of the age, but for the playhouse, which is
the seminary of them. From which it is plain, the public is a gainer
by the playhouse, and consequently ought to countenance it; and
were I worthy to put in my word, or prescribe to my betters, I could
say in what manner. I have heard that a certain gentleman has great
designs to serve the public, in the way of their diversions, with due
encouragement; that is, if he can obtain some concordatum-money,
or yearly salary, and handsome contributions. And well he deserves
the favours of the nation; for, to do him justice, he has an uncommon
skill in pastimes, having altogether applied his studies that way, and
travelled full many a league, by sea and land, for this his profound
knowledge. With that view alone he has visited all the courts and
cities in Europe, and has been at more pains than I shall speak of,
to take an exact draught of the playhouse at the Hague, as a model
for a new one here. But what can a private man do by himself in
so public an undertaking? It is not to be doubted, but by his care
and industry vast improvements may be made, not only in our play-
house, (which is his immediate province) but in our gaming ordi-
naries, groom-porters, lotteries, bowling-greens, ninepin-alleys, bear-
gardens, cockpits, prizes, puppet and raree shows, and whatever else
concerns the elegant divertisements of this town. He is truly an
original genius, and I felicitate this our capital city on his residence
here, where I wish him long to live and flourish, for the good of the
commonwealth.

Once more: If any further applications shall be made on t'other
side, to obtain a charter for a bank here, I presume to make a request,
that poetry may be a sharer in that privilege, being a fund as real,
and to the full as well grounded as our stocks; but I fear our
neighbours, who envy our wit, as much as they do our wealth or
trade, will give no encouragement to either. I believe also, it might
be proper to erect a corporation of poets in this city. I have been idle
enough in my time, to make a computation of wits here, and do
find we have three hundred performing poets and upwards, in and
about this town, reckoning six score to the hundred, and allowing
for demies, like pint bottles; including also the several denomina-
tions of imitators, translators, and familiar-letter-writers, &c. One of

TO A YOUNG POET 121

these last has lately entertained the town with an original piece, and
such a one as, I dare say, the late British "Spectator," in his decline,
would have called, "an excellent specimen of the true sublime;"
or, "a noble poem;" or, "a fine copy of verses, on a subject perfectly
new," (the author himself) and had given it a place amongst his
latest "Lucubrations."

But as I was saying, so many poets, I am confident, are sufficient to
furnish out a corporation in point of number. Then for the several
degrees of subordinate members requisite to such a body, there can
be no want; for although we have not one masterly poet, yet we
abound with wardens and beadles, having a multitude of poetasters,
poetitoes, parcel-poets, poet-apes, and philo-poets, and many of
inferior attainments in wit, but strong inclinations to it, which are
by odds more than all the rest. Nor shall I ever be at ease, till this
project of mine (for which I am heartily thankful to myself) shall
be reduced to practice. I long to see the day, when our poets will be
a regular and distinct body, and wait upon our Lord Mayor on public
days, like other good citizens, in gowns turned up with green in-
stead of laurels; and when I myself, who make this proposal, shall
be free of their company.

To conclude: What if our government had a poet-laureat here,
as in England ? What if our university had a professor of poetry here,
as in England ? What if our Lord Mayor had a city bard here, as in
England? And, to refine upon England, what if every corporation,
parish, and ward in this town, had a poet in fee, as they have not in
England? Lastly; What if every one so qualified were obliged to
add one more than usual to the number of his domestics, and besides
a fool and a chaplain, (which are often united in one person) would
retain a poet in his family? For, perhaps, a rhymer is as necessary
amongst servants of a house, as a Dobbin with his bells, at the head
of a team. But these things I leave to the wisdom of my superiors.

While I have been directing your pen, I should not forget to
govern my own, which has already exceeded the bounds of a letter.
I must therefore take my leave abruptly, and desire you, without
farther ceremony, to believe that I am. Sir,

Your most humble servant.

ON THE DEATH OF ESTHER
JOHNSON

[STELLA]

THIS day, being Sunday, January 28, 1727-8, about eight
o'clock at night, a servant brought me a note, with an
account of the death of the truest, most virtuous, and valu-
able friend, that I, or perhaps any other person, ever was blessed
with. She expired about six in the evening of this day; and as soon
as I am left alone, which is about eleven at night, I resolve, for my
own satisfaction, to say something of her life and character.

She was born at Richmond, in Surrey, on the thirteenth day of
March, in the year 1681. Her father was a younger brother of a good
family in Nottinghamshire, her mother of a lower degree; and indeed
she had little to boast of her birth. I knew her from six years old,
and had some share in her education, by directing what books she
should read, and perpetually instructing her in the principles of
honour and virtue; from which she never swerved in any one action
or moment of her life. She was sickly from her childhood until
about the age of fifteen; but then grew into perfect health, and was
looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable
young women in London, only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker
than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection. She lived
generally in the country, with a family, where she contracted an
intimate friendship with another lady of more advanced years. I
was then (to my mortification) settled in Ireland; and about a year
after, going to visit my friends in England, I found she was a little
uneasy upon the death of a person on whom she had some de-
pendance. Her fortune, at that time, was in all not above fifteen
hundred pounds, the interest of which was but a scanty maintenance,
in so dear a country, for one of her spirit. Upon this consideration,
and indeed very much for my own satisfaction, who had few friends

123

DEATH OF STELLA 1 23

or acquaintance in Ireland, I prevailed with her and her dear friend
and companion, the other lady, to draw what money they had into
Ireland, a great part of their fortune being in annuities upon funds.
Money was then ten per cent, in Ireland, besides the advantage of
turning it, and all necessaries of life at half the price. They complied
with my advice, and soon after came over; but, I happening to con-
tinue some time longer in England, they were much discouraged
to live in Dublin, where they were wholly strangers. She was at that
time about nineteen years old, and her person was soon distinguished.
But the adventure looked so like a frolic, the censure held for some
time, as if there were a secret history in such a removal; which, how-
ever, soon blew off by her excellent conduct. She came over with

her friend on the in the year 170 — ; and they both lived

together until this day, when death removed her from us. For some
years past, she had been visited with continual ill health; and several
times, within these two years, her life was despaired of. But, for this
twelvemonth past, she never had a day's health; and, properly
speaking, she hath been dying six months, but kept alive, almost
against nature, by the generous kindness of two physicians, and the
care of her friends. Thus far I writ the same night between eleven
and twelve.

Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or
more improved them by reading and conversation. Yet her memory
was not of the best, and was impaired in the latter years of her life.
But I cannot call to mind that I ever once heard her make a wrong
judgment of persons, books, or affairs. Her advice was always the
best, and with the greatest freedom, mixed with the greatest decency.
She had a gracefulness, somewhat more than human, in every
motion, word, and action. Never was so happy a conjunction of
civility, freedom, easiness, and sincerity. There seemed to be a com-
bination among all that knew her, to treat her with a dignity much
beyond her rank; yet people of all sorts were never more easy than
in her company. Mr. Addison, when he was in Ireland, being intro-
duced to her, immediately found her out; and, if he had not soon
after left the kingdom, assured me he would have used all en-
deavours to cultivate her friendship. A rude or conceited coxcomb
passed his time very ill, upon the least breach of respect; for in such

124 JONATHAN SWIFT

a case she had no mercy, but was sure to expose him to the contempt
of the standers-by; yet in such a manner as he was ashamed to com-
plain, and durst not resent. All of us who had the happiness of her
friendship, agreed unanimously, that, in an afternoon or evening's
conversation, she never failed, before we parted, of delivering the
best thing that was said in the company. Some of us have written
down several of her sayings, or what the French call bons mots,
wherein she excelled almost beyond belief. She never mistook the
understanding of others; nor ever said a severe word, but where a
much severer was deserved.

Her servants loved, and almost adored her at the same time. She
would, upon occasions, treat them with freedom; yet her demeanour
was so awful, that they durst not fail in the least point of respect. She
chid them seldom, but it was with severity, which had an effect upon
them for a long time after.

January 2g. My head aches, and I can write no more.

January jo. Tuesday.

This is the night of the funeral, which my sickness will not suffer
me to attend. It is now nine at night, and I am removed into another
apartment, that I may not see the light in the church, which is just
over against the window of my bed chamber.

With all the softness of temper that became a lady, she had the
personal courage of a hero. She and her friend having removed
their lodgings to a new house, which stood solitary, a parcel of rogues,
armed, attempted the house, where there was only one boy. She was
then about four-and-twenty; and having been warned to apprehend
some such attempt, she learned the management of a pistol; and
the other women and servants being half dead with fear, she stole
softly to her dining-room window, put on a black hood to prevent
being seen, primed the pistol fresh, gently lifted up the sash, and
taking her aim with the utmost presence of mind, discharged the
pistol, loaden with the bullets, into the body of one villain, who stood
the fairest mark. The fellow, mortally wounded, was carried off by
the rest, and died the next morning; but his companions could not
be found. The Duke of Ormonde hath often drank her health to
me upon that account, and had always an high esteem of her. She
was indeed under some apprehensions of going in a boat, after

DEATH OF STELLA 1 25

some danger she had narrowly escaped by water, but she was
reasoned thoroughly out of it. She was never known to cry out, or
discover any fear, in a coach or on horseback; or any uneasiness by
those sudden accidents with which most of her sex, either by weak-
ness or affectation, appear so much disordered.

She never had the least absence of mind in conversation, nor given
to interruption, or appeared eager to put in her word, by waiting
impatiently until another had done. She spoke in a most agreeable
voice, in the plainest words, never hesitating, except out of modesty
before new faces, where she was somewhat reserved: nor, among
her nearest friends, ever spoke much at a time. She was but little
versed in the common topics of female chat; scandal, censure, and
detraction, never came out of her mouth; yet, among a few friends,
in private conversation, she made little ceremony in discovering her
contempt of a coxcomb, and describing all his follies to the Ufe; but
the follies of her own sex she was rather inclined to extenuate or to
pity.

When she was once convinced, by open facts, of any breach of
truth or honour in a person of high station, especially in the Church,
she could not conceal her indignation, nor hear them named without
shewing her displeasure in her countenance; particularly one or two
of the latter sort, whom she had known and esteemed, but detested
above all mankind, when it was manifest that they had sacrificed
those two precious virtues to their ambition, and would much sooner
have forgiven them the common immoraUties of the laity.

Her frequent fits of sickness, in most parts of her life, had pre-
vented her from making that progress in reading which she would
otherwise have done. She was well versed in the Greek and Roman
story, and was not unskilled in that of France and England. She
spoke French perfectly, but forgot much of it by neglect and sickness.
She had read carefully all the best books of travels, which serve to
open and enlarge the mind. She understood the Platonic and
Epicurean philosophy, and judged very well of the defects of the
latter. She made very judicious abstracts of the best books she had
read. She understood the nature of government, and could point out
all the errors of Hobbes, both in that and religion. She had a good
insight into physic, and knew somewhat of anatomy; in both which

126 JONATHAN SWIFT

she was instructed in her younger days by an eminent physician,
who had her long under his care, and bore the highest esteem for
her person and understanding. She had a true taste of wit and good
sense, both in poetry and prose, and was a perfect good critic of style;
neither was it easy to find a more proper or impartial judge, whose
advice an author might better rely on, if he intended to send a thing
into the world, provided it was on a subject that came within the
compass of her knowledge. Yet, perhaps, she was sometimes too
severe, which is a safe and pardonable error. She preserved her wit,
judgment, and vivacity, to the last, but often used to complain of
her memory.

Her fortune, with some accession, could not, as I have heard say,
amount to much more than two thousand pounds, whereof a great
part fell with her life, having been placed upon annuities in England,
and one in Ireland.

In a person so extraordinary, perhaps it may be pardonable to
mention some particulars, although of little moment, further than
to set forth her character. Some presents of gold pieces being often
made to her while she was a girl, by her mother and other friends,
on promise to keep them, she grew into such a spirit of thrift, that, in
about three years, they amounted to above two hundred pounds.
She used to shew them with boasting; but her mother, apprehending
she would be cheated of them, prevailed, in some months, and with
great importunities, to have them put out to interest: when the girl
lost the pleasure of seeing and counting her gold, which she never
failed of doing many times in a day, and despaired of heaping up
such another treasure, her humour took the quite contrary turn;
she grew careless and squandering of every new acquisition, and so
continued till about two-and-twenty; when by advice of some
friends, and the fright of paying large bills of tradesmen, who en-
ticed her into their debt, she began to reflect upon her own folly, and
was never at rest until she had discharged all her shop-bills, and re-
funded herself a considerable sum she had run out. After which, by
the addition of a few years, and a superior understanding, she be-
came, and continued all her life, a most prudent economist; yet still
with a strong bent to the liberal side, wherein she gratified herself
by avoiding all expense in clothes (which she never despised) be-

DEATH OF STELLA 1 27

yond what was merely decent. And, although her frequent returns
of sickness were very chargeable, except fees to physicians, of which
she met with several so generous that she could force nothing on
them, (and indeed she must otherwise have been undone) yet she
ever was without a considerable sum of ready money. Insomuch
that, upon her death, when her nearest friends thought her very
bare, her executors found in her strong box about a hundred and
fifty pounds in gold. She lamented the narrowness of her fortune in
nothing so much, as that it did not enable her to entertain her
friends so often, and in so hospitable a manner, as she desired. Yet
they were always welcome; and, while she was in health to direct,
were treated with neatness and elegance, so that the revenues of her
and her companion passed for much more considerable than they
really were. They lived always in lodgings, their domestics con-
sisted of two maids and one man.

She kept an account of all the family expenses, from her arrival
in Ireland to some months before her death; and she would often
repine, when looking back upon the annals of her household bills,
that every thing necessary for life was double the price, while interest
of money was sunk almost to one half; so that the addition made to
her fortune was indeed grown absolutely necessary.

[I since writ as I found time.]

But her charity to the poor was a duty not to be diminished, and
therefore became a tax upon those tradesmen who furnish the fop-
peries of other ladies. She bought clothes as seldom as possible, and
those as plain and cheap as consisted with the situation she was in;
and wore no lace for many years. Either her judgment or fortune
was extraordinary, in the choice of those on whom she bestowed her
charity; for it went further in doing good than double the sum from
any other hand. And I have heard her say, she always met with
gratitude from the poor; which must be owing to her skill in dis-
tinguishing proper objects, as well as her gracious manner in re-
lieving them.

But she had another quaHty that much dehghted her, although it
may be thought a kind of check upon her bounty; however, it was a
pleasure she could not resist: I mean that of making agreeable pres-
ents; wherein I never knew her equal, although it be an affair of as

128 JONATHAN SWIFT

delicate a nature as most in the course of life. She used to define a
present, That it was a gift to a friend of something he wanted, or
was fond of, and which could not be easily gotten for money. I am
confident, during my acquaintance with her, she hath, in these and
some other kinds of liberality, disposed of to the value of several
hundred pounds. As to presents made to herself, she received them
with great unwillingness, but especially from those to whom she had
ever given any; being on all occasions the most disinterested mortal
I ever knew or heard of.

From her own disposition, at least as much as from the frequent
want of health, she seldom made any visits; but her own lodgings,
from before twenty years old, were frequented by many persons of
the graver sort, who all respected her highly, upon her good sense,
good manners, and conversation. Among these were the late Primate
Lindsay, Bishop Lloyd, Bishop Ashe, Bishop Brown, Bishop Stearne,
Bishop Pulleyn, with some others of later date; and indeed the
greatest number of her acquaintance was among the clergy. Honour,
truth, liberality, good nature, and modesty, were the virtues she
chiefly possessed, and most valued in her acquaintance: and where
she found them, would be ready to allow for some defects; nor
valued them less, although they did not shine in learning or in wit:
but would never give the least allowance for any failures in the
former, even to those who made the greatest figure in either of the
two latter. She had no use of any person's liberality, yet her detesta-
tion of covetous people made her uneasy if such a one was in her
company; upon which occasion she would say many things very
entertaining and humorous.

She never interrupted any person who spoke; she laughed at no
mistakes they made, but helped them out with modesty; and if a
good thing were spoken, but neglected, she would not let it fall, but
set it in the best light to those who were present. She listened to all
that was said, and had never the least distraction or absence of
thought.

It was not safe, nor prudent, in her presence, to offend in the least
word against modesty; for she then gave full employment to her wit,
her contempt, and resentment, under which even stupidity and
brutality were forced to sink into confusion; and the guilty person,

DEATH OF STELLA 1 29

by her future avoiding him Uke a bear or a satyr, was never in a way
to transgress a second time.

It happened one single coxcomb, of the pert kind, was in her
company, among several other ladies; and in his flippant way, began
to deliver some double meanings; the rest flapped their fans, and
used the other common expedients practised in such cases, of appear-
ing not to mind or comprehend what was said. Her behaviour was
very different, and perhaps may be censured. She said thus to the
man: "Sir, all these ladies and I understand your meaning very well,
having, in spite of our care, too often met with those of your sex who
wanted manners and good sense. But, believe me, neither virtuous
nor even vicious women love such kind of conversation. However,
I will leave you, and report your behaviour: and whatever visit I
make, I shall first enquire at the door whether you are in the house,
that I may be sure to avoid you." I know not whether a majority
of ladies would approve of such a proceeding; but I believe the
practice of it would soon put an end to that corrupt conversation, the
worst effect of dullness, ignorance, impudence, and vulgarity, and the
highest affront to the modesty and understanding of the female sex.

By returning very few visits, she had not much company of her
own sex, except those whom she most loved for their easiness, or
esteemed for their good sense: and those, not insisting on ceremony,
came often to her. But she rather chose men for her companions,
the usual topics of ladies' discourse being such as she had little
knowledge of, and less relish. Yet no man was upon the rack to
entertain her, for she easily descended to any thing that was innocent
and diverting. News, politics, censure, family management, or town-
talk, she always diverted to something else; but these indeed seldom
happened, for she chose her company better: and therefore many,
who mistook her and themselves, having solicited her acquaintance,
and finding themselves disappointed, after a few visits dropped off;
and she was never known to enquire into the reason, or ask what
was become of them.

She was never positive in arguing; and she usually treated those
who were so, in a manner which well enough gratified that unhappy
disposition; yet in such a sort as made it very contemptible, and at
the same time did some hurt to the owners. Whether this proceeded

130 JONATHAN SWIFT

from her easiness in general, or from her indifference to persons, or
from her despair of mending them, or from the same practice which
she much liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot determine; but when she
saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was
more inclined to confirm them in it than oppose them. The excuse
she commonly gave, when her friends asked the reason, was, that
it prevented noise, and saved time. Yet I have known her very angry
with some, whom she much esteemed, for sometimes falling into that
infirmity.

She loved Ireland much better than the generality of those who
owe both their birth and riches to it; and having brought over all
the fortune she had in money, left the reversion of the best part of it,
one thousand pounds, to Dr. Stephens's Hospital. She detested the
tyranny and injustice of England, in their treatment of this kingdom.
She had indeed reason to love a country, where she had the esteem
and friendship of all who knew her, and the universal good report
of all who ever heard of her, without one exception, if I am told the
truth by those who keep general conversation. Which character is
the more extraordinary, in falling to a person of so much knowledge,
wit, and vivacity, qualities that are used to create envy, and conse-
quently censure; and must be rather imputed to her great modesty,
gentle behaviour, and inoffensiveness, than to her superior virtues.

Although her knowledge, from books and company, was much
more extensive than usually falls to the share of her sex; yet she was
so far from making a parade of it, that her female visitants, on their
first acquaintance, who expected to discover it by what they call hard
words and deep discourse, would be sometimes disappointed, and
say, they found she was like other women. But wise men, through
all her modesty, whatever they discoursed on, could easily observe
that she understood them very well, by the judgment shewn in her
observations as well as in her questions.

THE SHORTEST-WAY WITH
THE DISSENTERS:

OR

PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE CHURCH

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN

BY
DANIEL DEFOE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Daniel Defoe (c. 1661-1731) was the son of a London butcher called
Foe, a name which Daniel bore for more than forty years. He early gave
up the idea of becoming a dissenting minister, and went into business.
One of his earlier writings was an "Essay upon Projects," remarkable for
the number of schemes suggested in it which have since been carried
into practise. He won the approval of King William by his "True-born
Englishman," a rough verse satire repelling the attacks on William as a
foreigner. His "Shortest-Way with Dissenters," on the other hand,
brought down on him the wrath of the Tories; he was fined, imprisoned,
and exposed in the pillory, with the result that he became for the time
a popular hero. While in prison he started a newspaper, the "Review"
(1704-1713), which may in certain respects be regarded as a forerunner
of the "Tatler" and "Spectator." From this time for about fourteen years
he was chiefly engaged in political journalism, not always of the most
reputable kind; and in 1719 he published the first volume of "Robinson
Crusoe," his greatest triumph in a kind of realistic fiction in which he
had already made several short essays. This was followed by a number
of novels, dealing for the most part with the lives of rogues and criminals,
and including "Moll Flanders," "Colonel Jack," "Roxana," and "Captain
Singleton." Notable as a specially effective example of fiction disguised
as truth was his "Journal of the Plague Year."

In the latter part of his career Defoe became thoroughly discredited
as a politician, and was regarded as a mere hireling journalist. He wrote
with almost unparalleled fluency, and a complete list of his hundreds of
publications will never be made out. The specimens of his work given
here show him writing vigorously and sincerely, and belong to a period
when he had not yet become a government tool.

THE SHORTEST-WAY WITH
THE DISSENTERS

SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE tells us a story in his collection of
Fables, of the Cock and the Horses. The Cock was gotten to
roost in the stable among the horses; and there being no racks
or other conveniences for him, it seems, he was forced to roost upon
the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the
Cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray,
Gentlefolks! let us stand still! for fear we should tread upon one
another!"

There are some people in the World, who, now they are unperched,
and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and
very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin,
with Esop's Cock, to preach up Peace and Union and the Christian
duty of Moderation; forgetting that, when they had the Power in
their hands, those Graces were strangers in their gates!

It is now, near fourteen years, [1688-1702], that the glory and
peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has
been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men, whom, GOD
in His Providence, has suffered to insult over her, and bring her
down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation.
She has borne with an invincible patience, the reproach of the
wicked: and GOD has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her
from the oppression of the stranger.

And now, they find their Day is over! their power gone! and the
throne of this nation possessed by a Royal, English, true, and ever
constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England! Now,
they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just
resentments! Now, they cry out, "Peace!" "Union!" "Forbearance!"
and "Charity!": as if the Church had not too long harboured her

133

134 DANIEL DEFOE

enemies under her wing! and nourished the viperous brood, till they
hiss and fly in the face of the Mother that cherished them!

No, Gentlemen! the time of mercy is past! your Day of Grace is
over! you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity,
if you expected any yourselves!

We have heard none of this lesson, for fourteen years past! We
have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration! You have
told us, you are the Church established by Law, as well as others!
have set up your canting Synagogues at our Church doors! and the
Church and her members have been loaded with reproaches, with
Oaths, Associations, Abjurations, and what not! Where has been the
mercy, the forbearance, the charity you have shewn to tender con-
sciences of the Church of England that could not take Oaths as fast
as you made them? that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and
rightful King, could not dispense with that Oath, their King being
still alive; and swear to your new hodge podge of a Dutch Govern-
ment? These have been turned out of their Livings, and they and
their families left to starve! their estates double taxed to carry on a
war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by!

What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to
comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical Politics,
who, like New Converts in France, sin because they cannot starve?
And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be perse-
cuted! it is not a Christian spirit!

You have butchered one King! deposed another King! and made
a Mock King of a third! and yet, you could have the face to expect
to be employed and trusted by the fourth! Anybody that did not
know the temper of your Party, would stand amazed at the impu-
dence as well as the folly to think of it!

Your management of your Dutch Monarch, who you reduced to
a mere King of Cl[ub]s, is enough to give any future Princes such
an idea of your principles, as to warn them sufficiently from coming
into your clutches; and, GOD be thanked! the Queen is out of your
hands! knows you! and will have a care of you!

There is no doubt but the Supreme Authority of a nation has in
itself, a Power, and a right to that Power, to execute the Laws upon
any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known Laws

SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS I35

of the land, and that with but a gentle hand neither, was all that the
Fanatical Party of this land have ever called Persecution. This they
have magnified to a height, that the sufferings of the Huguenots in
France were not to be compared with them. Now to execute the
known Laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after
having first been voluntarily consenting to the making of those
Laws, can never be called Persecution, but Justice. But Justice is
always Violence to the party offending! for every man is innocent
in his own eyes.

The first execution of the Laws against Dissenters in England,
was in the days of King James L; and what did it amount to.'' Truly,
the worst they suffered was, at their own request, to let them go
to New England, and erect a new colony; and give them great
privileges, grants, and suitable powers; keep them under protection,
and defend them against all invaders; and receive no taxes or revenue
from them!

This was the cruelty of the Church of England! Fatal lenity! It
was the ruin of that excellent Prince, King Charles L Had King
James sent all the Puritans in England away to the West Indies; we
had been a national unmixed Church! the Church of England had
been kept undivided and entire!

To requite the lenity of the Father, they take up arms against the
Son, conquer, pursue, take, imprison, and at last to death the
Anointed of GOD, and destroy the very Being and Nature of Gov-
ernment: setting up a sordid Impostor, who had neither title to
govern, nor understanding to manage, but supplied that want, with
power, bloody and desperate counsels and craft, without conscience.

Had not King James I. withheld the full execution of the Laws:
had he given them strict justice, he had cleared the nation of them!
And the consequences had been plain; his son had never been
murdered by them, nor the Monarchy overwhelmed. It was too
much mercy shewn them that was the ruin of his posterity, and the
ruin of the nation's peace. One would think the Dissenters should
not have the face to believe, that we are to be wheedled and canted
into Peace and Toleration, when they know that they have once
requited us with a Civil War, and once with an intolerable and
unrighteous Persecution, for our former civility.

136 DANIEL DEFOE

Nay, to encourage us to be easy with them, it is apparent that they
never had the upper hand of the Church, but they treated her with
all the severity, with all the reproach and contempt as was possible!
What Peace and what Mercy did they shew the loyal Gentry of
the Church of England, in the time of their triumphant Common-
wealth? How did they put all the Gentry of England to ransom,
whether they were actually in arms for the King or not! making
people compound for their estates, and starve their families! How
did they treat the Clergy of the Church of England! sequester the
Ministers! devour the patrimony of the Church, and divide the spoil,
by sharing the Church lands among their soldiers, and turning her
Clergy out to starve! Just such measure as they have meted, should
be measured to them again!

Charity and Love is the known doctrine of the Church of England,
and it is plain She has put it in practice towards the Dissenters, even
beyond what they ought [desewed], till She has been wanting to
herself, and in effect unkind to her own sons: particularly, in the too
much lenity of King James I., mentioned before. Had he so rooted
the Puritans from the face of the land, which he had an opportunity
early to have done; they had not had the power to vex the Church,
as since they have done.

In the days of King Charles II., how did the Church reward their
bloody doings, with lenity and mercy! Except the barbarous Regi-
cides of the pretended Court of Justice, not a soul suffered, for all
the blood in an unnatural war! King Charles came in all mercy
and love, cherished them, preferred them, employed them, withheld
the rigour of the Law; and oftentimes, even against the advice of his
Parliament, gave them Liberty of Conscience: and how did they
requite him ? With the villanous contrivance to depose and murder
him and his successor, at the Rye [House] Plot!

King James [II.], as if mercy was the inherent quality of the
Family, began his reign with unusual favour to them. Nor could
their joining with the Duke of Monmouth against him, move him
to do himself justice upon them. But that mistaken Prince, thinking
to win them by gentleness and love, proclaimed a Universal Liberty
to them! and rather discountenanced the Church of England than
them! How they requited him, all the World knows!

SHORTEST- WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS I37

The late reiga [William ///.] is too fresh in the memory of all
the World to need a comment. How under pretence of joining with
the Church in redressing some grievances, they pushed things to that
extremity, in conjunction with some mistaken Gendemen, as to
depose the late King: as if the grievance of the Nation could not have
been redressed but by the absolute ruin of the Prince!

Here is an instance of their Temper, their Peace, and Charity!

To what height they carried themselves during the reign of a King
of their own! how they crope [creeped] into all Places of Trust and
Profit! how they insinuated themselves into the favour of the King,
and were at first preferred to the highest Places in the nation! how
they engrossed the Ministry! and, above all, how pitifully they
managed! is too plain to need any remarks.

But particularly, their Mercy and Charity, the spirit of Union,
they tell us so much of, has been remarkable in Scodand. If any man
would see the spirit of a Dissenter, let him look into Scodand! There,
they made entire conquest of the Church! trampled down the sacred
Orders and suppressed the Episcopal Government, with an absolute,
and, as they supposed, irretrievable victory! though it is possible,
t/iey may find themselves mista\enl

Now it would be a very proper question to ask their impudent
advocate, the Observator, "Pray how much mercy and favour did
the members of the Episcopal Church find in Scotland, from the
Scotch Presbyterian Government?" and I shall undertake for the
Church of England, that the Dissenters shall sull receive as much
here, though they deserve but little.

In a small treatise of The Sufferings of the Episcopal Clergy in
Scotland, it will appear what usage they met with! How they not
only lost their Livings; but, in several places, were plundered and
abused in their persons! the Ministers that could not conform, were
turned out, with numerous families and no maintenance, and hardly
charity enough left to relieve them with a bit of bread. The cruelties
of the Party were innumerable, and are not to be attempted in this
short Piece.

And now, to prevent the distant cloud which they perceive to hang
over their heads from England, with a true Presbyterian policy, they
put it for a Union of Nations! that England might unite their Church

138 DANIEL DEFOE

with the Kirk of Scotland, and their Assembly of Scotch canting
Long-Cloaks in our Convocation. What might have been, if our
Fanatic Whiggish Statesmen continued, GOD only knows! but we
hope we are out of fear of that now.

It is alleged by some of the faction, and they have begun to bully
us with it, that "if we won't unite with them, they will not settle the
Crown with us again; but when Her Majesty dies, will choose a
King for themselves!"

If they won't we must make them! and it is not the first time
we have let them know that we are able! The Crowns of these King-
doms have not so far disowned the Right of Succession, but they
may retrieve it again; and if Scotland thinks to come off from a
Successive to an Elective State of Government; England has not
promised, not to assist the Right Heir, and put him into possession,
without any regards to their ridiculous Settlements.

THESE are the Gentlemen! these, their ways of treating the
Church, both at home and abroad!

Now let us examine the Reasons they pretend to give, why we
should be favourable to them ? why we should continue and tolerate
them among us?

First. They are very numerous, they say. They are a great part of

the nation, and we cannot suppress them!
To this, may be answered,

First. They are not so numerous as the Protestants in France : and
yet the French King effectually cleared the nation of them, at once;
and we don't find he misses them at home!

But I am not of the opinion, they are so numerous as is pretended.
Their Party is more numerous than their Persons; and those mis-
taken people of the Church who are misled and deluded by their
wheedling artifices to join with them, make their Party the greater:
but those will open their eyes when the Government shall set heartily
about the Work, and come off from them, as some animals, which
they say, always desert a house when it is likely to fall.

Secondly. The more numerous, the more dangerous; and there-
fore the more need to suppress them! and GOD has suffered us to

SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 139"

bear them as goads in our sides, for not utterly extinguishing them
long ago.

Thirdly. If we are to allow them, only because we cannot suppress
them; then it ought to be tried, Whether we can or not? And I am
of opinion, it is easy to be done! and could prescribe Ways and Means,
if it were proper: but I doubt not the Government will find effectual
methods for the rooting of the contagion from the face of this land.

Another argument they use, which is this. That this is a time of
war, and we have need to unite against the common enemy.

We answer, This common enemy had been no enemy, if they had
not made him so! He was quiet, in peace, and no way disturbed and
encroached upon us; and we know no reason we had to quarrel
with him.

But further. We make no question but we are able to deal with
this common enemy without their help : but why must we unite with
them, because of the enemy ? Will they go over to the enemy, if we
do not prevent it, by a Union with them? We are very well con-
tented [that] they should! and make no question, we shall be ready
to deal with them and the common enemy too; and better without
them than with them! Besides, if we have a common enemy, there
is the more need to be secure against our private enemies! If there is
one common enemy, we have the less need to have an enemy in
our bowels!

It was a great argument some people used against suppressing the
Old Money, that "it was a time of war, and it was too great a
risque [m^] for the nation to run! If we should not master it, we
should be undone!" And yet the sequel proved the hazard was not
so great, but it might be mastered, and the success {i.e., of the new
coinage^ was answerable. The suppressing the Dissenters is not a
harder work! nor a work of less necessity to the Public! We can
never enjoy a settled uninterrupted union and tranquility in this
nation, till the spirit of Whiggism, Faction, and Schism is melted
down like the Old Money!

To talk of diflficulty is to frighten ourselves with Chimeras and
notions of a powerful Party, which are indeed a Party without power.

140 DANIEL DEFOE

Difficulties often appear greater at a distance than when they are
searched into with judgment, and distinguished from the vapours
and shadows that attend them.

We are not to be frightened with it! This Age is wiser than that,
by all our own experience, and theirs too! King Charles I. had early
suppressed this Party, if he had taken more deliberate measures! In
short, it is not worth arguing, to talk of their arms. Their Mon-
MouTHs, and Shaftesburys, and Argyles are gone! Their Dutch
Sanctuary is at an end! Heaven has made way for their destruction!
and if we do not close with the Divine occasion, we are to blame
ourselves! and may hereafter remember, that we had, once, an
opportunity to serve the Church of England, by extirpating her
implacable enemies; and having let slip the Minute that Heaven
presented, may experimentally complain, Post est Occasio Calvo/

Here are some popular Objections in the way.

As First, The Queen has promised them, to continue them in their
tolerated Liberty; and has told us She will be a religious observer
of her word.

What Her Majesty will do, we cannot help! but what, as the Head
of the Church, she ought to do, is another case. Her Majesty has
promised to protect and defend the Church of England, and if she
cannot effectually do that, without the destruction of the Dissenters;
she must, of course, dispense with one promise to comply with
another!

But to answer this cavil more effectually. Her Majesty did never
promise to maintain the Toleration to the destruction of the Church;
but it was upon supposition that it may be compatible with the well-
being and safety of the Church, which she had declared she would
take especial care of. Now if these two Interests clash, it is plain Her
Majesty's intentions are to uphold, protect, defend, and establish the
Church! and this, we conceive is impossible [that is, while maintain-
ing the Toleration].

Perhaps it may be said, That the Church is in no immediate danger
from the Dissenters; and therefore it is time enough.

SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS I4I

But this is a weak answer. For first. I£ the danger be real, the
distance of it is no argument against, but rather a spur to quicken
us to Prevention, lest it be too late hereafter.

And secondly. Here is the opportunity, and the only one perhaps,
that ever the Church had to secure herself, and destroy her enemies.

The Representatives of the Nation have now an opportunity! The
Time is come, which all good men have wished for ! that the Gentle-
men of England may serve the Church of England, now they are
protected and encouraged by a Church of England Queen!

What will you do for your Sister in the day that she shall be
spo\en for?

If ever you will establish the best Christian Church in the World.?

If ever you will suppress the Spirit of Enthusiasm?

If ever you will free the nation from the viperous brood that have
so long sucked the blood of their Mother?

If ever you will leave your Posterity free from faction and rebellion,
this is the time. This is the time to pull up this heretical Weed of
Sedition, that has so long disturbed the Peace of the Church, and
poisoned the good corn!

But, says another hot and cold Objector, This is renewing Fire and
Faggot! reviving the Act, De heretico comburendo! This will
be cruelty in its nature! and barbarous to all the World!

I answer. It is cruelty to kill a snake or a toad in cold blood, but
the poison of their nature makes it a charity to our neighbours, to
destroy those creatures! not for any personal injury received, but for
prevention; not for the evil they have done, but the evil they may
do! Serpents, toads, vipers, &c., are noxious to the body, and poison
the sensitive life: these poison the soul! corrupt our posterity! ensnare
our children! destroy the vitals of our happiness, our future felicity!
and contaminate the whole mass!

Shall any Law be given to such wild creatures! Some beasts are
for sport, and the huntsmen give them the advantages of ground:
but some are knocked on the head, by all possible ways of violence
and surprise!

I do not prescribe Fire and Faggot! but as SciPio said of Carthage,
Delenda est Carthago! They are to be rooted out of this nation, if

142 DANIEL DEFOE

ever we will live in peace! serve GOD! or enjoy our own! As for the
manner, I leave it to those hands, who have a Right to execute GOD'S
Justice on the Nation's and the Church's enemies.

But if we must be frighted from this Justice, under the[se]
specious pretences, and odious sense of cruelty; nothing will be
effected! It will be more barbarous to our own children and dear
posterity, when they shall reproach their fathers, as we ours, and tell
us [!], "You had an Opportunity to root out this cursed race from
the World, under the favour and protection of a True Church of
England Queen! and out of your foolish pity, you spared them:
because, forsooth, you would not be cruel! And now our Church is
suppressed and persecuted, our Religion trampled under foot, our
estates plundered; our persons imprisoned, and dragged to gaols,
gibbets, and scaffolds! Your sparing this Amalekite race is our
destruction! Your mercy to them, proves cruelty to your poor
posterity!"

How just will such reflections be, when our posterity shall fall
under the merciless clutches of this uncharitable Generation! when
our Church shall be swallowed up in Schism, Faction, Enthusiasm,
and Confusion! when our Government shall be devolved upon For-
eigners, and our Monarchy dwindled into a Republic!

It would be more rational for us, if we must spare this Generation,
to summon our own to a general massacre: and as we have brought
them into the World free, to send them out so;, and not betray them
to destruction by our supine negligence, and then cry "It is mercy!"

MosEs was a merciful meek man; and yet with what fury did he
run through the camp, and cut the throats of three and thirty thou-
sand of his dear Israelites that were fallen into idolatry. What was
the reason? It was mercy to the rest, to make these examples! to
prevent the destruction of the whole army.

How many millions of future souls, [shall] we save from infection
and delusion, if the present race of Poisoned Spirits were purged
from the face of the land!

It is vain to trifle in this matter! The light foolish handling of
them by mulcts, fines, &c.; 'tis their glory and their advantage! If
the Gallows instead of the Counter, and the galleys instead of the

SHORTEST- WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 1 43

fines; were the reward of going to a conventicle, to preach or hear,
there would not be so many sufferers! The spirit of martyrdom is
over! They that will go to church to be chosen Sheriffs and Mayors,
would go to forty churches, rather than be hanged!

If one severe Law were made, and punctually executed, that Who-
ever was found at a Conventicle should be banished the nation, and
the Preacher be hanged; we should soon see an end of the tale! They
would all come to church again, and one Age '[generation\ would
make us all One again!

To talk of Five Shillings a month for not coming to the Sacra-
ment, and One Shilling per week, for not coming to Church: this
is such a way of converting people as was never known! This is
selling them a liberty to transgress, for so much money!

If it be not a crime, why don't we give them full license ? and if it
be, no price ought to compound for the committing of it! for that is
selling a liberty to people to sin against GOD and the Government!

If it be a crime of the highest consequence, both against the peace
and welfare of the nation, the Glory of GOD, the good of the
Church, and the happiness of the soul : let us rank it among capital
offences! and let it receive punishment in proportion to it!

We hang men for trifles, and banish them for things not worth
naming; but that an offence against GOD and the Church, against
the welfare of the World, and the dignity of Religion shall be bought
off for Five Shillings: this is such a shame to a Christian Govern-
ment, that it is with regret I transmit it to posterity.

If men sin against GOD, affront His ordinances, rebel against His
Church, and disobey the precepts of their superiors; let them suffer,
as such capital crimes deserve! so will Religion flourish, and this
divided nation be once again united.

And yet the title of barbarous and cruel will soon be taken off from
this Law too. I am not supposing that all the Dissenters in England
should be hanged or banished. But as in case of rebellions and insur-
rections, if a few of the ringleaders suffer, the multitude are dis-
missed; so a few obstinate people being made examples, there is no
doubt but the severity of the Law would find a stop in the compliance
of the multitude.

To make the reasonableness of this matter out of question, and

144 DANIEL DEFOE

more unanswerably plain, let us examine for what it is, that this
nation is divided into Parties and factions ? and let us see how they
can justify a Separation? or we of the Church of England can justify
cur bearing the insults and inconveniences of the Party.

One of their leading Pastors, and a man of as much learning as
most among them, in his Answer to a Pamphlet entituled An
Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity, hath these words, p. 27:
"Do the Religion of the Church and the Meeting Houses make two
religions? Wherein do they differ? The Substance of the same
Religion is common to them both, and the Modes and Accidents are
the things in which only they differ." P. 28: "Thirty-nine Articles
are given us for the Summary of our Religion: thirty-six contain the
Substance of it, wherein we agree; three are additional Appendices,
about which we have some differences."

Now, if as, by their own acknowledgment, the Church of England
is a true Church; and the difference is only in a few "Modes and
Accidents": why should we expect that they will suffer the gallows
and galleys, corporal punishment and banishment, for these trifles?
There is no question, but they will be wiser! Even their own prin-
ciples won't bear them out in it!

They will certainly comply with the Laws, and with Reason!
And though, at the first, severity may seem hard, the next Age will
feel nothing of it! the contagion will be rooted out. The disease being
cured, there will be no need of the operation! But if they should
venture to transgress, and fall into the pit; all the World must
condemn their obstinacy, as being without ground from their own
principles.

Thus the pretence of cruelty will be taken off, and the Party actual
suppressed; and the disquiets they have so often brought upon the
Nation, prevented.

Their numbers and their wealth make them haughty; and that is
so far from being an argument to persuade us to forbear them, that
it is a warning to us, without any more delay, to reconcile them to
the Unity of the Church, or remove them from us.

At present. Heaven be praised! they are not so formidable as they

SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 1 45

have been, and it is our own fault if ever we suffer them to be so!
Providence and the Church of England seem to join in this particu-
lar, that now, the Destroyers of the Nation's Peace may be over-
turned! and to this end, the present opportunity seems to put into
our hands.

To this end. Her present Majesty seems reserved to enjoy the
Crown, that the Ecclesiastic as well as Civil Rights of the Nation may
be restored by her hand.

To this end, the face of affairs has received such a turn in the
process of a few months as never has been before. The leading men
of the Nation, the universal cry of the People, the unanimous request
of the Clergy agree in this, that the Deliverance of our Church is
at hand!

For this end, has Providence given such a Parliament! such a
Convocation! such a Gentry! and such a Queen! as we never had
before.

And what may be the consequences of a neglect of such opportu-
nities? The Succession of the Crown has but a dark prospect!
Another Dutch turn may make the hopes of it ridiculous, and the
practice impossible! Be the House of our future Princes ever so well
inclined, they will be Foreigners! Many years will be spent in suiting
the Genius of Strangers to this Crown, and the Interests of the
Nation! and how many Ages it may be, before the English throne
be filled with so much zeal and candour, so much tenderness and
hearty affection to the Church, as we see it now covered with, who
can imagine ?

It is high time, then, for the friends of the Church of England
to think of building up and establishing her in such a manner, that
she may be no more invaded by Foreigners, nor divided by factions,
schisms, and error.

If this could be done by gentle and easy methods, I should be
glad! but the wound is corroded, the vitals begin to mortify, and
nothing but amputation of members can complete the cure! All the
ways of tenderness and compassion, all persuasive arguments have
been made use of in vain!

146 DANIEL DEFOE

The humour of the Dissenters has so increased among the people,
that they hold the Church in defiance! and the House of GOD is an
abomination among them! Nay, they have brought up their posterity
in such prepossessed aversion to our Holy Religion, that the ignorant
mob think we are all idolaters and worshippers of Baal! and account
it a sin to come within the walls of our churches! The primi-
tive Christians were not more shy of a heathen temple, or of meat
offered to idols; nor the Jews, of swine's flesh, than some of our
Dissenters are of the church and the Divine Service solemnized
therein.

The Obstinacy must be rooted out, with the profession of it!
While the Generation are left at liberty daily to affront GOD
Almighty, and dishonour His holy worship; we are wanting in our
duty to GOD, and to our Mother the Church of England.

How can we answer it to GOD! to the Church! and to our
posterity; to leave them entangled with Fanaticism! Error, and
Obstinacy, in the bowels of the nation? to leave them an enemy in
their streets, that, in time, may involve them in the same crimes, and
endanger the utter extirpation of the Religion of the Nation!

What is the difference betwixt this, and being subject to the power
of the Church of Rome? from whence we have reformed. If one be
an extreme to the one hand, and one on another: it is equally
destructive to the Truth to have errors settled among us, let them be
of what nature they will! Both are enemies of our Church, and of
our peace! and why should it not be as criminal to admit an Enthu-
siast as a Jesuit? why should the Papist with his Seven Sacraments
be worse than the Quaker with no Sacraments at all? Why should
Religious Houses be more intolerable than Meeting Houses?

Alas, the Church of England! What with Popery on one hand,
and Schismatics on the other, how has She been crucified between
two thieves. Now, let us crucify the thieves!

Let her foundations be established upon the destruction of her
enemies! The doors of Mercy being always open to the returning
part of the deluded people, let the obstinate be ruled with the rod
of iron!

Let all true sons of so holy and oppressed a Mother, exasperated

SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS I47

by her afflictions, harden their hearts against those who have
oppressed her!

And may GOD Almighty put it into the hearts of all the friends of
Truth, to lift up a Standard against Pride and Antichrist! that
the Posterity of the Sons of Error may be rooted out from the
face of this land, for ever!

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN

I HAVE often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs
in the world, considering us as a civiUzed and a Christian
country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women.
We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence; while I
am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they
would be guilty of less than ourselves.

One would wonder, indeed, how it should happen that women
are conversible at all; since they are only beholden to natural parts,
for all their knowledge. Their youth is spent to teach them to stitch
and sew or make baubles. They are taught to read, indeed, and
perhaps to write their names, or so; and that is the height of a
woman's education. And I would but ask any who slight the sex for
their understanding, what is a man (a gentleman, I mean) good for,
that is taught no more? I need not give instances, or examine the
character of a gentleman, with a good estate, or a good family, and
with tolerable parts; and examine what figure he makes for want
of education.

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond; and must be
polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And 'tis manifest, that
as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes; so education carries
on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than others. This is
too evident to need any demonstration. But why then should women
be denied the benefit of instruction? If knowledge and under-
standing had been useless additions to the sex, GOD Almighty would
never have given them capacities; for he made nothing needless.
Besides, I would ask such, What they can see in ignorance, that they
should think it a necessary ornament to a woman? or how much
worse is a wise woman than a fool? or what has the woman done
to forfeit the privilege of being taught ? Does she plague us with her
pride and impertinence? Why did we not let her learn, that she
might have had more wit? Shall we upbraid women with folly,

148

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN I49

when 'tis only the error of this inhuman custom, that hindered them
from being made wiser?

The capacities of women are supposed to be greater, and their
senses quicker than those of the men; and what they might be
capable of being bred to, is plain from some instances of female wit,
which this age is not without. Which upbraids us with Injustice,
and looks as if we denied women the advantages of education, for
fear they should vie with the men in their improvements. . . .

[They] should be taught all sorts of breeding suitable both to their
genius and quality. And in particular. Music and Dancing; which
it would be cruelty to bar the sex of, because they are their darlings.
But besides this, they should be taught languages, as particularly
French and Italian: and I would venture the injury of giving a
woman more tongues than one. They should, as a particular study,
be taught all the graces of speech, and all the necessary air of conver-
sation; which our common education is so defective in, that I need
not expose it. They should be brought to read books, and especially
history; and so to read as to make them understand the world, and
be able to know and judge of things when they hear of them.

To such whose genius would lead them to it, I would deny no
sort of learning; but the chief thing, in general, is to cultivate the
understandings of the sex, that they may be capable of all sorts of
conversation; that their parts and judgements being improved, they
may be as profitable in their conversation as they are pleasant.

Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in them,
but as they are or are not distinguished by education. Tempers,
indeed, may in some degree influence them, but the main dis-
tinguishing part is their Breeding.

The whole sex are generally quick and sharp. I believe, I may be
allowed to say, generally so: for you rarely see them lumpish and
heavy, when they are children; as boys will often be. If a woman
be well bred, and taught the proper management of her natural wit;
she proves generally very sensible and retentive.

And, without partiality, a woman of sense and manners is the
finest and most delicate part of GOD's Creation, the glory of Her
Maker, and the great instance of His singular regard to man. His

150 DANIEL DEFOE

darling creature: to whom He gave the best gift either GOD could
bestow or man receive. And 'tis the sordidest piece of folly and
ingratitude in the world, to withhold from the sex the due lustre
which the advantages of education gives to the natural beauty of
their minds.

A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional
accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without
comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her
person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness
and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable
to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion,
has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful.

On the other hand, Suppose her to be the very same woman, and
rob her of the benefit of education, and it follows —

If her temper be good, want of education makes her soft and

easy.
Her wit, for want of teaching, makes her impertinent and

talkative.
Her knowledge, for want of judgement and experience, makes

her fanciful and whimsical.
If her temper be bad, want of breeding makes her worse; and

she grows haughty, insolent, and loud.
If she be passionate, want of manners makes her a termagant

and a scold, which is much at one with Lunatic.
If she be proud, want of discretion (which still is breeding)

makes her conceited, fantastic, and ridiculous.
And from these she degenerates to be turbulent, clamorous, noisy,

nasty, the devil! . . .

The great distinguishing difference, which is seen in the world
between men and women, is in their education; and this is mani-
fested by comparing it with the difference between one man or
woman, and another.

And herein it is that I take upon me to make such a bold assertion,
That all the world are mistaken in their practice about women. For
I cannot think that GOD Almighty ever made them so delicate, so

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN I5I

glorious creatures; and furnished them with such charms, so agree-
able and so delightful to mankind; with souls capable of the same
accomplishments with men: and all, to be only Stewards of our
Houses, Cooks, and Slaves.

Not that I am for exalting the female government in the least:
but, in short, 1 would have men ta\e women for companions, and
educate them to be fit for it. A woman of sense and breeding will
scorn as much to encroach upon the prerogative of man, as a man
of sense will scorn to oppress the weakness of the woman. But if the
women's souls were refined and improved by teaching, that word
would be lost. To say, the weakness of the sex, as to judgement,
would be nonsense; for ignorance and folly would be no more to be
found among women than men.

I remember a passage, which I heard from a very fine woman.
She had wit and capacity enough, an extraordinary shape and face,
and a great fortune: but had been cloistered up all her time; and for
fear of being stolen, had not had the liberty of being taught the
common necessary knowledge of women's affairs. And when she
came to converse in the world, her natural wit made her so sensible
of the want of education, that she gave this short reflection on herself:
"I am ashamed to talk with my very maids," says she, "for I don't
know when they do right or wrong. I had more need go to school,
than be married."

I need not enlarge on the loss the defect of education is to the sex;
nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice. 'Tis a thing will be
more easily granted than remedied. This chapter is but an Essay at
the thing: and I refer the Practice to those Happy Days (if ever they
shall be) when men shall be wise enough to mend it.

LIFE OF ADDISON

BY
SAMUEL JOHNSON

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great literary dictator of the latter
part of the eighteenth century, was the son of a bookseller at Lichfield.
After leaving Oxford, he tried teaching, but soon gave it up, and came
to London in 1737, where he supported himself by his pen. After years
of hardship he finally rose to the head of his profession, and a pension
of ;^3oo a year from George IIL made his later years free from anxiety.

Johnson attempted many forms of literature. In poetry his chief works
were "London," an imitation of Juvenal, and "The Vanity of Human
Wishes," a piece of dignified and impressive moralizing. Garrick pro-
duced his tragedy of "Irene" in 1749, but without much success. The
great Dictionary appeared in 1755, and made an epoch in the history
of English lexicography. From 1750 to 1752 he issued the "Rambler,"
which he wrote almost entirely himself. This periodical is regarded as
the most successful of the imitations of the "Spectator," but the modern
reader finds it heavy. The "Idler," a similar publication, appeared from
1758 to 1760. In 1759, when Johnson's mother died, he wrote his didac-
tic romance of "Rasselas" in one week in order to defray the expenses
of her illness and funeral. This was the most popular of his writings in
his own day, and has been translated into many languages. In 1765
Johnson issued his edition of Shakespeare in eight volumes, a task in
many respects inadequately performed, yet in the interpretation of ob-
scure passages often showing Johnson's robust common sense and power
of clear and vigorous expression.

It is generally agreed that none of Johnson's various works is the
equal of his conversation as reported in the greatest of English biog-
raphies, Boswell's "Life of Johnson." But the "Lives of the Poets,"
written as prefaces to a collection of the English poets, is his most
permanently valuable production, and, though limited by the standards
of his time, is full of acute criticism admirably expressed. The "Life of
Addison" is one of the most sympathetic of the "Lives," and gives an
excellent idea of Johnson's matter and manner.

LIFE OF ADDISON

1672-1719

JOSEPH ADDISON was born on the first of May, 1672, at
Milston, of which his father, Lancelot Addison, was then rector,
near Ambrosbury in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and
unlikely to live, he was christened the same day. After the usual
domestick education, which, from the character of his father, may be
reasonably supposed to have given him strong impressions of piety,
he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish at Ambrosbury, and
afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury.

Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for litera-
ture is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously
diminished: I would therefore trace him through the whole process
of his education. In 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, his
father being made Dean of Lichfield, naturally carried his family
to his new residence, and, I believe, placed him for some time,
probably not long, under Mr. Shaw, then master of the school at
Lichfield, father of the late Dr. Peter Shaw. Of this interval his
biographers have given no account, and I know it only from a story
of a barring-out, told me, when I was a boy, by Andrew Corbet of
Shropshire, who had heard it from Mr. Pigot his uncle.

The practice of barring-out, was a savage license, practised in many
schools to the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the
periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of
liberty, some days before the time of regular recess, took possession
of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master
defiance from the windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such
occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may
be credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrison.
The master, when Pigot was a school-boy, was barred-out at Lich-
field, and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted
by Addison.

155

156 SAMUEL JOHNSON

To judge better of the probability of this story, I have enquired
when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those
who enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no account preserved
of his admission. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was
removed either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his
juvenile studies under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that
intimacy with Sir Richard Steele which their joint labours have so
effectually recorded.

Of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be given to
Steele. It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be
feared, and Addison never considered Steele as a rival; but Steele
lived, as he confesses, under an habitual subjection to the predomi-
nating genius of Addison, whom he always mentioned with rev-
erence, and treated with obsequiousness.

Addison, who knew his own dignity, could not always forbear to
shew it, by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger
of retort: his jests were endured without resistance or resentment.

But the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. Steele, whose
imprudence of generosity, or vanity of profusion, kept him always
incurably necessitous, upon some pressing exigence, in an evil hour
borrowed a hundred pounds of his friend, probably without much
purpose of repayment; but Addison, who seems to have had other
notions of an hundred pounds, grew impatient of delay, and
reclaimed his loan by an execution. Steele felt with great sensibility
the obduracy of his creditor; but with emotions of sorrow rather
than of anger.

In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College in Oxford, where, in
1689, the accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained him the
patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards provost of Queen's College;
by whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College
as a Demy, a term by which that society denominates those which
are elsewhere called Scholars; young men, who partake of the
founder's benefaction, and succeed in their order to vacant fellow-
ships.

Here he continued to cultivate poetry and criticism, and grew
first eminent by his Latin compositions, which are indeed entitled
to particular praise. He has not confined himself to the imitation of

LIFE OF ADDISON 157

any ancient author, but has formed his style from the general
language, such as a diligent perusal of the productions of different
ages happened to supply.

His Latin compositions seem to have had much of his fondness;
for he collected a second volume of the Musa: Anglicanae, perhaps
for a convenient receptacle, in which all his Latin pieces are inserted,
and where his Poem on the Peace has the first place. He afterwards
presented the collection to Boileau, who from that time conceived,
says Tickell, an opinion of the English genius for poetry. Nothing
is better known of Boileau, than that he had an injudicious and
peevish contempt of modern Latin, and therefore his profession of
regard was probably the effect of his civility rather than approba-
tion.

Three of his Latin poems are upon subjects on which perhaps he
would not have ventured to have written in his own language. The
Battle of the Pigmies and Cranes; The Barometer; and A Bowling-
green. When the matter is low or scanty, a dead language, in which
nothing is mean because nothing is familiar, affords great con-
veniences; and by the sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the
writer conceals penury of thought, and want of novelty, often from
the reader, and often from himself.

In his twenty-second year he first shewed his power of English
poetry by some verses addressed to Dry den; and soon afterwards
published a translation of the greater part of the Fourth Georgick
upon Bees; after which, says Dryden, my latter swarm is hardly
worth the hiving.

About the same time he composed the arguments prefixed to the
several books of Dryden's Virgil; and produced an Essay on the
Georgicks, juvenile, superficial, and uninstructive, without much
either of the scholar's learning or the critick's penetration.

His next paper of verses contained a character of the principal
English poets, inscribed to Henry Sacheverell, who was then, if not
a poet, a writer of verses; as is shewn by his version of a small part
of Virgil's Georgicks, published in the Miscellanies, and a Latin
encomium on Queen Mary, in the Musae Anglicanse. These verses
exhibit all the fondness of friendship; but on one side or the other,
friendship was afterwards too weak for the malignity of faction.

158 SAMUEL JOHNSON

In this poem is a very confident and discriminative character of
Spenser, whose work he had then never read. So little sometimes is
criticism the effect of judgment. It is necessary to inform the reader,
that about this time he was introduced by Congreve to Montague,
then Chancellor of the Exchequer: Addison was then learning the
trade of a courtier, and subjoined Montague as a poetical name to
those of Cowley and of Dryden.

By the influence of Mr. Montague, concurring, according to
Tickell, with his natural modesty, he was diverted from his original
design of entering into holy orders. Montague alleged the corruption
of men who engaged in civil employments without liberal education;
and declared, that, though he was represented as an enemy to the
Church, he would never do it an injury by withholding Addison
from it.

Soon after (in 1695) he wrote a poem to King William, with a
rhyming introduction addressed to Lord Somers. King William
had no regard to elegance or literature; his study was only war; yet
by a choice of ministers, whose disposition was very different from
his own, he procured, without intention, a very liberal patronage to
poetry. Addison was caressed both by Somers and Montague.

In 1697 appeared his Latin verses on the Peace of Ryswick which
he dedicated to Montague, and which was afterwards called by Smith
the best Latin poem since the /Eneid. Praise must not be too rigor-
ously examined; but the performance cannot be denied to be vigorous
and elegant.

Having yet no public employment, he obtained (in 1699) a pension
of three hundred pounds a year, that he might be enabled to travel.
He staid a year at Blois, probably to learn the French language; and
riien proceeded in his journey to Italy, which he surveyed with the
eyes of a poet.

While he was travelling at leisure, he was far from being idle; for
he not only collected his observations on the country, but found time
to write his Dialogues on Medals, and four Acts of Cato. Such at
least is the relation of Tickell. Perhaps he only collected his mate-
rials, and formed his plan.

Whatever were his other employments in Italy, he there wrote
the Letter to Lord Halifax, which is justly considered as the most

LIFE OF ADDISON I59

elegant, if not the most sublime, of his poetical productions. But
in about two years he found it necessary to hasten home; being, as
Swift informs us, distressed by indigence, and compelled to be-
come the tutor of a travelling Square, because his pension was not
remitted.

At his return he published his Travels, with a dedication to Lord
Somers. As his stay in foreign countries was short, his observations
are such as might be supplied by a hasty view, and consist chiefly in
comparisons of the present face of the country with the descriptions
left us by the Roman poets, from whom he made preparatory collec-
tions, though he might have spared the trouble had he known that
such collections had been made twice before by Italian authors.

The most amusing passage of his book, is his account of the minute
republick of San Marino; of many parts it is not a very severe censure
to say that they might have been written at home. His elegance of
language, and variegation of prose and verse, however, gains upon
the reader; and the book, though a while neglected, became in time
so much the favourite of the publick, that before it was reprinted it
rose to five times its price.

When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of
appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had
been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was there-
fore for a time at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind, and a
mind so cultivated gives reason to believe that little time was lost.

But he remained not long neglected or useless. The victory at
Blenheim (1704) spread triumph and confidence over the nation;
and Lord Godolphin lamenting to Lord Halifax, that it had not
been celebrated in a manner equal to the subject, desired him to
propose it to some better poet. Halifax told him that there was no
encouragement for genius; that worthless men were unprofitably
enriched with publick money, without any care to find or employ
those whose appearance might do honour to their country. To this
Godolphin replied, that such abuses should in time be rectified; and
that if a man could be found capable of the task then proposed, he
should not want an ample recompense. Halifax then named Addi-
son; but required that the Treasurer should apply to him in his own
person. Godolphin sent the message by Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord

l6o SAMUEL JOHNSON

Carleton; and Addison having undertaken the work, communicated
it to the Treasurer, while it was yet advanced no further than the
simile of the Angel, and was immediately rewarded by succeeding
Mr. Locke in the place of Commissioner of Appeals.

In the following year he was at Hanover with Lord Halifax; and
the year after was made under-secretary of state, first to Sir Charles
Hedges, and in a few months more to the Earl of Sunderland.

About this time the prevalent taste for Italian operas inclined him
to try what would be the effect of a musical Drama in our own
language. He therefore wrote the opera of Rosamond, which, when
exhibited on the stage, was either hissed or neglected; but trusting
that the readers would do him more justice, he published it, with an
inscription to the Duchess of Marlborough; a woman without skill,
or pretensions to skill, in poetry or literature. His dedication was
therefore an instance of servile absurdity, to be exceeded only by
Joshua Barnes's dedication of a Greek Anacreon to the Duke.

His reputation had been somewhat advanced by The Tender Hus-
band, a comedy which Steele dedicated to him, with a confession
that he owed to him several of the most successful scenes. To this
play Addison supplied a prologue.

When the Marquis of Wharton was appointed Lord-lieutenant of
Ireland, Addison attended him as his secretary; and was made
keeper of the records in Birmingham's Tower, with a salary of three
hundred pounds a year. The office was little more than nominal, and
the salary was augmented for his accommodation.

Interest and faction allow little to the operation of particular
dispositions, or private opinions. Two men of personal characters
more opposite than those of Wharton and Addison could not easily
be brought together. Wharton was impious, profligate, and shame-
less, without regard, or appearance of regard, to right and wrong:
whatever is contrary to this, may be said of Addison; but as agents
of a party they were connected, and how they adjusted their other
sentiments we cannot know.

Addison must, however, not be too hastily condemned. It is not
necessary to refuse benefits from a bad man, when the acceptance
implies no approbation of his crime; nor has the subordinate officer
any obligation to examine the opinions or conduct of those under

LIFE OF ADDISON l6l

whom he acts, except that he may not be made the instrument of
wickedness. It is reasonable to suppose that Addison counteracted,
as far as he was able, the malignant and blasting influence of the
Lieutenant, and that at least by his intervention some good was done,
and some mischief prevented.

When he was in office, he made a law to himself, as Swift has
recorded, never to remit his regular fees in civility to his friends:
"For," said he, "I may have a hundred friends; and, if my fee be two
guineas, I shall, by relinquishing my right lose two hundred guineas,
and no friend gain more than two; there is therefore no proportion
between the good imparted and the evil suffered."

He was in Ireland when Steele, without any communication of
his design, began the publication of the Tatler; but he was not long
concealed: by inserting a remark on Virgil, which Addison had given
him, he discovered himself. It is indeed not easy for any man to
write upon literature, or common life, so as not to make himself
known to those with whom he familiarly converses, and who are
acquainted with his track of study, his favourite topicks, his peculiar
notions, and his habitual phrases.

If Steele desired to write in secret, he was not lucky; a single month
detected him. His first Tatler was published April 22 (1709), and
Addison's contribution appeared May 26. Tickell observes, that the
Tatler began and was concluded without his concurrence. This is
doubtless literally true; but the work did not suffer much by his
unconsciousness of its commencement, or his absence at its cessation;
for he continued his assistance to December 23, and the paper stopped
on January 2. He did not distinguish his pieces by any signature;
and I know not whether his name was not kept secret, till the papers
were collected into volumes.

To the Tatler, in about two months, succeeded the Spectator; a
series of essays of the same kind, but written with less levity, upon
a more regular plan, and published daily. Such an undertaking
shewed the writers not to distrust their own copiousness of materials
or facility of composition, and their performance justified their con-
fidence. They found, however, in their progress, many auxiliaries.
To attempt a single paper was no terrifying labour : many pieces were
offered, and many were received.

1 62 SAMUEL JOHNSON

Addison had enough of the zeal of party, but Steele had at that
time almost nothing else. The Spectator, in one of the first papers,
shewed the political tenets of its authors; but a resolution was soon
taken, of courting general approbation by general topicks, and sub-
jects on which faction had produced no diversity of sentiments; such
as literature, morality, and familiar life. To this practice they adhered
with very few deviations. The ardour of Steele once broke out in
praise of Marlborough; and when Dr. Fleetwood prefixed to some
sermons a preface, overflowing with whiggish opinions, that it might
be read by the Queen it was reprinted in the Spectator.

To teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate
the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which
are rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances
which, if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation,
was first attempted by Casa in his book of Manners, and Castiglione
in his Courtier; two books yet celebrated in Italy for purity and
elegance, and which, if they are now less read, are neglected only
because they have effected that reformation which their authors
intended, and their precepts now are no longer wanted. Their useful-
ness to the age in which they were written is sufficiently attested by
the translations which almost all the nations of Europe were in
haste to obtain.

This species of instruction was continued, and perhaps advanced,
by the French; among whom La Bruyere's Manners of the Age,
though, as Boileau remarked, it is written without connection, cer-
tainly deserves great praise, for liveliness of description and justness
of observation.

Before the Taller and Spectator, if the writers for the theatre are
excepted, England had no masters of common life. No writers had
yet undertaken to reform either the savageness of neglect, or the
impertinence of civility; to shew when to speak, or to be silent; how
to refuse, or how to comply. We had many books to teach us our
more important duties, and to settle opinions in philosophy or
politicks; but an Arbiter elegantiarum, a judge of propriety, was yet
wanting, who should survey the track of daily conversation, and free
it from thorns and prickles, which teaze the passer, though they do
not wound him.

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 63

For this purpose nothing is so proper as the frequent publication
of short papers, which we read not as study but amusement. If the
subject be sHght, the treatise hkewise is short. The busy may find
time, and the idle may find patience.

This mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge began among
us in the Civil War, when it was much the interest of either party to
raise and fix the prejudices of the people. At that time appeared
Mercurius Aulicus, Mercurius Rusticus, and Mercurius Civicus. It is
said, that when any title grew popular, it was stolen by the antagonist,
who by this stratagem conveyed his notions to those who would not
have received him had he not worn the appearance of a friend. The
tumult of those unhappy days left scarcely any man leisure to treasure
up occasional compositions; and so much were they neglected, that a
complete collection is no where to be found.

These Mercuries were succeeded by L'Estrange's Observator, and
that by Lesley's Rehearsal, and perhaps by others; but hitherto
nothing had been conveyed to the people, in this commodious man-
ner, but controversy relating to the Church or State; of which they
taught many to talk, whom they could not teach to judge.

It has been suggested that the Royal Society was instituted soon
after the Restoration, to divert the attention of the people from public
discontent. The Tatler and the Spectator had the same tendency;
they were published at a time when two parties, loud, restless, and
violent, each with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without
any distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to
minds heated with political contest, they supplied cooler and more
inoffensive reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent
work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the conversation
of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to unite merriment
with decency; an effect which they can never wholly lose, while
they continue to be among the first books by which both sexes are
initiated in the elegances of knowledge.

The Tatler and Spectator adjusted, like Casa, the unsettled prac-
tice of daily intercourse by propriety and politeness; and, like La
Bruyere, exhibited the Characters and Manners of the Age. The
persons introduced in these papers were not merely ideal; they were
then known and conspicuous in various stations. Of the Tatler this

164 SAMUEL JOHNSON

is told by Steele in his last paper, and of the Spectator by Budgell
in the Preface to Theophrastus; a book which Addison has recom-
mended, and which he was suspected to have revised, if he did not
write it. Of those portraits, which may be supposed to be sometimes
embellished, and sometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly
known, and partly forgotten.

But to say that they united the plans of two or three eminent
writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praise; they
superadded literature and criticism, and sometimes towered far above
their predecessors; and taught, with great justness of argument and
dignity of language, the most important duties and sublime truths.

All these topicks were happily varied with elegant fictions and
refined allegories, and illuminated with different changes of style
and felicities of invention.

It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited
in the Spectator, the favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley,
of whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminated idea,
which he would not suffer to be violated; and therefore when Steele
had shewn him innocently picking up a girl in the Temple and
taking her to a tavern, he drew upon himself so much of his friend's
indignation, that he was forced to appease him by a promise of
forbearing Sir Roger for the time to come.

The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave,
para mi solo nacio Don Quixote, y yo para el, made Addison declare,
with an undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill Sir
Roger; being of opinion that they were born for one another, and
that any other hand would do him wrong.

It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his original
delineation. He describes his Knight as having his imagination some-
what warped; but of this perversion he has made very little use.
The irregularities in Sir Roger's conduct seem not so much the
effects of a mind deviating from the beaten track of life, by the per-
petual pressure of some overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity,
and that negligence which solitary grandeur naturally generates.

The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient
madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it.

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 65

it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been
deterred from prosecuting his own design.

To Sir Roger, who, as a country gentleman, appears to be a Tory,
or, as it is gently expressed, an adherent to the landed interest, is
opposed Sir Andrew Freeport, a new man, a wealthy merchant,
zealous for the moneyed interest, and a Whig, Of this contrariety
of opinions, it is probable more consequences were at first intended,
than could be produced when the resolution was taken to exclude
party from the paper. Sir Andrew does but little, and that little
seems not to have pleased Addison, who, when he dismissed him
from the club, changed his opinions. Steele had made him, in the
true spirit of unfeeling commerce, declare that he would not build
an hospital for idle people; but at last he buys land, settles in the
country, and builds not a manufactory, but an hospital for twelve
old husbandmen, for men with whom a merchant has little acquaint-
ance, and whom he commonly considers with little kindness.

Of essays thus elegant, thus instructive, and thus commodiously
distributed, it is natural to suppose the approbation general and the
sale numerous. I once heard it observed, that the sale may be calcu-
lated by the product of the tax, related in the last number to produce
more than twenty pounds a week, and therefore stated at one and
twenty pounds, or three pounds ten shillings a day: this, at a half-
penny a paper, will give sixteen hundred and eighty for the daily
number.

This sale is not great; yet this, if Swift be credited, was likely to
grow less; for he declares that the Spectator, whom he ridicules for
his endless mention of the fair sex, had before his recess wearied his
readers.

The next year (1713), in which Cato came upon the stage, was
the grand climacterick of Addison's reputation. Upon the death of
Cato, he had, as is said, planned a tragedy in the time of his travels,
and had for several years the four first acts finished, which were
shewn to such as were likely to spread their admiration. They were
seen by Pope, and by Gibber; who relates that Steele, when he took
back the copy, told him, in the despicable cant of literary modesty,
that, whatever spirit his friend had shewn in the composition, he

l66 SAMUEL JOHNSON

doubted whether he would have courage sufficient to expose it to
the censure of a British audience.

The time however was now come, when those who affected to
think hberty in danger, affected Hkewise to think that a stage-play
might preserve it : and Addison was importuned, in the name of the
tutelary deities of Britain, to shew his courage and his zeal by finish-
ing his design.

To resume his work he seemed perversely and unaccountably
unwilling; and by a request, which perhaps he wished to be denied,
desired Mr. Hughes to add a fifth act. Hughes supposed him serious;
and, undertaking the supplement, brought in a few days some scenes
for his examination; but he had in the mean time gone to work
himself, and produced half an act, which he afterward completed,
but with brevity irregularly disproportionate to the foregoing
parts; like a task performed with reluctance, and hurried to its con-
clusion.

It may yet be doubted whether Cato was made publick by any
change of the author's purpose; for Dennis charged him with raising
prejudices in his own favour by false positions of preparatory criti-
cism, and with poisoning the town by contradicting in the Spectator
the established rule of poetical justice, because his own hero, with
all his virtues, was to fall before a tyrant. The fact is certain; the
motives we must guess.

Addison was, I believe, sufficiently disposed to bar all avenues
against all danger. When Pope brought him the prologue, which is
properly accommodated to the play, there were these words, Britons,
arise, be worth like this approved; meaning nothing more than,
Britons, erect and exalt yourselves to the approbation of public virtue.
Addison was frighted lest he should be thought a promoter of
insurrection, and the line was liquidated to Britons, attend.

Now, heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the important
day, when Addison was to stand the hazard of the theatre. That
there might, however, be left as little to hazard as was possible, on the
first night Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience.
This, says Pope, had been tried for the first time in favour of the
Distrest Mother; and was now, with more efficacy, practised for
Cato.

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 67

The danger was soon over. The whole nation was at that time
on fire with faction. The Whigs applauded every line in which
Liberty was mentioned, as a satire on the Tories; and the Tories
echoed every clap, to shew that the satire was unfelt. The story of
Bolingbroke is well known. He called Booth to his box, and gave
him fifty guineas for defending the cause of Liberty so well against
a perpetual dictator. The Whigs, says Pope, design a second present,
when they can accompany it with as good a sentence.

The play, supported thus by the emulation of factious praise, was
acted night after night for a longer time than, I beUeve, the pubUck
had allowed to any drama before; and the author, as Mrs. Potter
long afterwards related, wandered through the whole exhibition
behind the scenes with restless and unappeasable solicitude.

When it was printed, notice was given that the Queen would be
pleased if it was dedicated to her; but as he had designed that com-
pliment elsewhere, he found himself obliged, says Tickell, by his
duty on the one hand, and his honour on the other, to send it into
the world without any dedication.

Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sun-
shine of success is not without a cloud. No sooner was Cato offered
to the reader, than it was attacked by the acute malignity of Dennis,
with all the violence of angry criticism. Dennis, though equally
zealous, and probably by his temper more furious than Addison,
for what they called Liberty, and though a flatterer of the Whig
ministry, could not sit quiet at a successful play; but was eager to
tell friends and enemies, that they had misplaced their admirations.
The world was too stubborn for instruction; with the fate of the
censurer of Corneille's Cid, his animadversions shewed his anger
without effect, and Cato continued to be praised.

Pope had now an opportunity of courting the friendship of Addi-
son, by vilifying his old enemy, and could give resentment its full
play without appearing to revenge himself. He therefore published
A Narrative of the Madness of John Dennis; a performance which
left the objections to the play in their full force, and therefore dis-
covered more desire of vexing the critick than of defending the poet.

Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the
selfishness of Pope's friendship; and, resolving that he should have

1 68 SAMUEL JOHNSON

the consequences of his officiousness to himself, informed Dennis by
Steele, that he was sorry for the insult; and that whenever he should
think fit to answer his remarks, he would do it in a manner to which
nothing could be objected.

The greatest weakness of the play is in the scenes of love, which are
said by Pope to have been added to the original plan upon a subse-
quent review, in compliance with the popular practice of the stage.
Such an authority it is hard to reject; yet the love is so intimately
mingled with the whole action that it cannot easily be thought ex-
trinsick and adventitious; for if it were taken away, what would
be left? or how were the four acts filled in the first draught?

At the publication the Wits seemed proud to pay their attendance
with encomiastick verses. The best are from an unknown hand,
which will perhaps lose somewhat of their praise when the author
is known to be Jeffreys.

Cato had yet other honours. It was censured as a party-play by a
Scholar of Oxford, and defended in a favourable examination by Dr.
Sewel. It was translated by Salvini into Italian, and acted at Florence;
and by the Jesuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their
pupils. Of this version a copy was sent to Mr. Addison: it is to be
wished that it could be found, for the sake of comparing their
version of the soliloquy with that of Bland.

A tragedy was written on the same subject by Des Champs, a
French poet, which was translated, with a criticism on the English
play. But the translator and the critick are now forgotten.

Dennis lived on unanswered, and therefore little read: Addison
knew the policy of literature too well to make his enemy important,
by drawing the attention of the publick upon a criticism, which,
though sometimes intemperate, was often irrefragable.

While Cato was upon the stage, another daily paper, called The
Guardian, was published by Steele. To this Addison gave great
assistance, whether occasionally or by previous engagement is not
known.

The character of Guardian was too narrow and too serious: it
might properly enough admit both the duties and the decencies of
life, but Seemed not to include literary speculations, and was in some
degree violated by merriment and burlesque. What had the Guard-

LIFE OF ADDISON ifep

ian of the Lizards to do with clubs of tall or of little men, with nests
of ants, or with Strada's prolusions?

Of this paper nothing is necessary to be said, but that it found
many contributors, and that it was a continuation of the Spectator,
with the same elegance, and the same variety, till some unlucky
sparkle from a Tory paper set Steele's politics on fire, and wit at
once blazed into faction. He was soon too hot for neutral topicks,
and quitted the Guardian to write the Englishman.

The papers of Addison are marked in the Spectator by one of the
Letters in the name of Clio, and in the Guardian by a hand; whether
it was, as Tickell pretends to think, that he was unwilling to usurp
the praise of others, or as Steele, with far greater likelihood, insinu-
ates, that he could not without discontent impart to others any of his
own. I have heard that his avidity did not satisfy itself with the air
of renown, but that with great eagerness he laid hold on his propor-
tion of the profits.

Many of these papers were written with powers truly comick,
with nice discrimination of characters, and accurate observation of
natural or accidental deviations from propriety; but it was not
supposed that he had tried a comedy on the stage, till Steele, after
his death, declared him the author of The Drummer; this, however,
Steele did not know to be true by any direct testimony; for when
Addison put the play into his hands, he only told him, it was the
work of a Gentleman in the Company; and when it was received, as
is confessed, with cold approbation, he was probably less willing to
claim it. Tickell omitted it in his collection; but the testimony of
Steele, and the total silence of any other claimant, has determined
the publick to assign it to Addison, and it is now printed with his
other poetry. Steele carried The Drummer to the playhouse, and
afterwards to the press, and sold the copy for fifty guineas.

To the opinion of Steele may be added the proof supplied by the
play itself, of which the characters are such as Addison would have
delineated, and the tendency such as Addison would have promoted.
That it should have been ill received would raise wonder, did we
not daily see the capricious distribution of theatrical praise.

He was not all this time an indifferent spectator of publick affairs.
He wrote, as different exigencies required (in 1707), The Present

170 SAMUEL JOHNSON

State of the War, and the Necessity of an Augmentation; which,
however judicious, being written on temporary topicks, and exhibit-
ing no pecuHar powers, laid hold on no attention, and has naturally
sunk by its own weight into neglect. This cannot be said of the few
papers entitled The Whig Examiner, in which is employed all the
force of gay malevolence and humorous satire. Of this paper, which
just appeared and expired. Swift remarks, with exultation, that it is
now down among the dead men. He might well rejoice at the
death of that which he could not have killed. Every reader of every
party, since personal malice is past, and the papers which once in-
flamed the nation are read only as effusions of wit, must wish for
more of the Whig Examiners; for on no occasion was the genius of
Addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did the superiority of
his powers more evidently appear. His Trial of Count Tariff,
written to expose the Treaty of Commerce with France, lived no
longer than the question that produced it.

Not long afterwards an attempt was made to revive the Spectator,
at a time indeed by no means favourable to literature, when the
succession of a new family to the throne filled the nation with
anxiety, discord, and confusion; and either the turbulence of the
times, or the satiety of the readers, put a stop to the publication,
after an experiment of eighty numbers, which were afterwards
collected into an eighth volume, perhaps more valuable than any
one of those that went before it. Addison produced more than a
fourth part, and the other contributors are by no means unworthy
of appearing as his associates. The time that had passed during the
suspension of the Spectator, though it had not lessened his power
of humour, seems to have increased his disposition to seriousness: the
proportion of his religious to his comick papers is greater than in the
former series.

The Spectator, from its recommencement, was published only
three times a week; and no discriminative marks were added to the
papers. To Addison, Tickell has ascribed twenty-three.

The Spectator had many contributors; and Steele, whose negli-
gence kept him always in a hurry, when it was his turn to furnish
a paper, called loudly for the Letters, of which Addison, whose
materials were more, made little use; having recourse to sketches

LIFE OF ADDISON 171

and hints, the product of his fornaer studies, which he now reviewed
and completed: among these are named by Tickell the Essays on
Wit, those on the Pleasures o£ the Imagination, and the Criticism
on Milton.

When the House o£ Hanover took possession of the throne, it was
reasonable to expect that the zeal of Addison would be suitably re-
warded. Before the arrival of King George, he was made secretary
to the regency, and was required by his office to send notice to
Hanover that the Queen was dead, and that the throne was vacant.
To do this would not have been difficult to any man but Addison,
who was so overwhelmed with the greatness of the event, and so dis-
tracted by choice of expression, that the Lords, who could not wait
for the niceties of criticism, called Mr. Southwell, a clerk in the
house, and ordered him to dispatch the message. Southwell readily
told what was necessary, in the common style of business, and valued
himself upon having done what was too hard for Addison.

He was better qualified for the Freeholder, a paper which he
published twice a week, from Dec. 23, 1715, to the middle of the
next year. This was undertaken in defence of the established govern-
ment, sometimes with argument, sometimes with mirth. In argu-
ment he had many equals; but his humour was singular and match-
less. Bigotry itself must be delighted with the Tory-Fox-hunter.

There are, however, some strokes less elegant, and less decent;
such as the Pretender's Journal, in which one topick of ridicule is
his poverty. This mode of abuse had been employed by Milton
against King Charles II.

" — — — — — Jacobcei.
Centum exulantis viscera Marsupii regis."

And Oldmixon delights to tell of some alderman of London, that he
had more money than the exiled princes; but that which might be
expected from Milton's savageness, or Oldmixon's meanness, was not
suitable to the delicacy of Addison.

Steele thought the humour of the Freeholder too nice and gentle
for such noisy times; and is reported to have said that the ministry
made use of a lute, when they should have called for a trumpet.

This year (1716) he married the Countess Dowager of Warwick,

172 SAMUEL JOHNSON

whom he had soUcited by a very long and anxious courtship, per-
haps with behaviour not very unlike that of Sir Roger to his dis-
dainful widow: and who, I am afraid, diverted herself often by
playing with his passion. He is said to have first known her by
becoming tutor to her son. "He formed," said Tonson, "the design
of getting that lady, from the time when he was first recommended
into the family." In what part of his life he obtained the recom-
mendation, or how long, and in what manner he lived in the family,
I know not. His advances at first were' certainly timorous, but grew
bolder as his reputation and influence increased; till at last the lady
was persuaded to marry him, on terms much like those on which a
Turkish princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to pro-
nounce, "Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave." The mar-
riage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to
his happiness; it neither found them nor made them equal. She
always remembered her own rank, and thought herself entitled to
treat with very little ceremony the tutor of her son. Rowe's ballad of
the Despairing Shepherd is said to have been written, either before or
after marriage, upon this memorable pair; and it is certain that
Addison has left behind him no encouragement for ambitious love.

The year after (1717) he rose to his highest elevation, being made
secretary of state. For this employment he might be justly sup-
posed qualified by long practice of business, and by his regular
ascent through other offices; but expectation is often disappointed;
it is universally confessed that he was unequal to the duties of his
place. In the House of Commons he could not speak, and therefore
was useless to the defence of the Government. In the office, says
Pope, he could not issue an order without losing his time in quest
of fine expressions. What he gained in rank, he lost in credit; and,
finding by experience his own inability, was forced to solicit his dis-
mission, with a pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His friends
palliated this relinquishment, of which both friends and enemies
knew the true reason, with an account of declining health, and the
necessity of recess and quiet.

He now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literary occu-
pations for his future life. He purposed a tragedy on the death of
Socrates; a story of which, as Tickell remarks, the basis is narrow,

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 73

and to which I know not how love could have been appended.
There would, however, have been no want either of virtue in the
sentiments, or elegance in the language.

He engaged in a nobler work, a defence of the Christian ReUgion,
of which part was published after his death; and he designed to
have made a new poetical version of the Psalms.

These pious compositions Pope imputed to a selfish motive, upon
the credit, as he owns, of Tonson; who having quarrelled with
Addison, and not loving him, said, that, when he laid down the
secretary's ofSce, he intended to take orders, and obtain a bishop-
rick; for, said he, / always thought him a priest in his heart.

That Pope should have thought this conjecture of Tonson worth
remembrance is a proof, but indeed so far as I have found, the only
proof, that he retained some malignity from their ancient rivalry.
Tonson pretended but to guess it; no other mortal ever suspected
it; and Pope might have reflected, that a man who had been secre-
tary of state, in the ministry of Sunderland, knew a nearer way to
a bishoprick than by defending Religion, or translating the Psalms.

It is related that he had once a design to make an English Dic-
tionary, and that he considered Dr. Tillotson as the writer of highest
authority. There was formerly sent to me by Mr. Locker, clerk of
the Leathersellers' Company, who was eminent for curiosity and
literature, a collection of examples selected from Tillotson's works,
as Locker said, by Addison. It came too late to be of use, so I in-
spected it but slightly, and remember it indistinctly. I thought the
passages too short.

Addison, however, did not conclude his life in peaceful studies;
but relapsed, when he was near his end, to a political dispute.

It so happened that (1718-19) a controversy was agitated, with
great vehemence, between those friends of long continuance, Addi-
son and Steele. It may be asked, in the language of Homer, what
power or what cause could set them at variance. The subject of
their dispute was of great importance. The Earl of Sunderland
proposed an act called the Peerage Bill, by which the number of
peers should be fixed, and the King restrained from any new
creation of nobility, unless when an old family should be extinct.
To this the Lords would naturally agree; and the King, who was

174 SAMUEL JOHNSON

yet little acquainted with his own prerogative, and, as is now well
known, almost indifferent to the possession of the Crown, had been
persuaded to consent. The only difficulty was found among the
Commons, who were not likely to approve the perpetual exclusion of
themselves and their posterity. The bill therefore was eagerly
opposed, and among others by Sir Robert Walpole, whose speech was
published.

The Lords might think their dignity diminished by improper
advancements, and particularly by the introduction of twelve new
peers at once, to produce a majority of Tories in the last reign; an
act of authority violent enough, yet certainly legal, and by no means
to be compared with that contempt of national right, with which
some time afterwards, by the instigation of Whiggism, the Com-
mons, chosen by the people for three years, chose themselves for
seven. But, whatever might be the disposition of the Lords, the
people had no wish to increase their power. The tendency of the
bill, as Steele observed in a letter to the Earl of Oxford, was to
introduce an Aristocracy; for a majority in the House of Lords,
so limited, would have been despotick and irresistible.

To prevent this subversion of the ancient establishment, Steele,
whose pen readily seconded his political passions, endeavoured to
alarm the nation by a pamphlet called The Plebeian; to this an
answer was published by Addison, under the title of The Old Whig,
in which it is not discovered that Steele was then known to be the
advocate for the Commons. Steele replied by a second Plebeian; and,
whether by ignorance or by courtesy, confined himself to his
question, without any personal notice of his opponent. Nothing
hitherto was committed against the laws of friendship, or proprieties
of decency; but controvertists cannot long retain their kindness for
each other. The Old Whig answered the Plebeian, and could not
forbear some contempt of "little Dicky, whose trade it was to write
pamphlets." Dicky, however, did not lose his settled veneration for
his friend; but contented himself with quoting some lines of Cato,
which were at once detection and reproof. The bill was laid aside
during that session, and Addison died before the next, in which
its commitment was rejected by two hundred and sixty-five to one
hundred and seventy-seven.

LIFE OF ADDISON 175

Every reader surely must regret that these two illustrious friends,
after so many years past in confidence and endearment, in unity of
interest, conformity of opinion, and fellowship of study, should
finally part in acrimonious opposition. Such a controversy was
Bellum plusquam civile, zs Lucan expresses it. Why could not fac-
tion find other advocates? But, among the uncertainties of the
human state, we are doomed to number the instability of friendship.

Of this dispute I have little knowledge but from the Biographia
Britannica. The Old Whig is not inserted in Addison's works, nor
is it mentioned by Tickell in his Life; why it was omitted the
biographers doubtless give the true reason; the fact was too recent,
and those who had been heated in the contention were not yet cool.

The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons, is
the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from
permanent monuments and records; but Lives can only be written
from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in
a short time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be im-
mediately told; and when it might be told, it is no longer known.
The delicate features of the mind, the nice discriminations of char-
acter, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated;
and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick, and folly, how-
ever they might delight in the description, should be silently for-
gotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection,
a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother or a friend.
As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my con-
temporaries, I begin to feel myself walking upon ashes under which
the fire is not extinguished, and coming to the time of which it will
be proper rather to say nothing that is false, than all that is true.

The end of this useful Ufe was now approaching. — ^Addison had
for some time been oppressed by shortness of breath, which was
now aggravated by a dropsy; and, finding his danger pressing, he
prepared to die conformably to his own precepts and professions.

During this lingering decay, he sent, as Pope relates, a message
by the Earl of Warwick to Mr, Gay, desiring to see him: Gay, who
had not visited him for some time before, obeyed the summons,
and found himself received with great kindness. The purpose for
which the interview had been solicited was then discovered; Addi-

176 SAMUEL JOHNSON

son told him that he had injured him; but that, if he recovered, he
would recompense him. What the injury was he did not explain,
nor did Gay ever know; but supposed that some preferment de-
signed for him, had, by Addison's intervention, been withheld.

Lord Warwick was a young man of very irregular life, and per-
haps of loose opinions. Addison, for whom he did not want respect,
had very diligently endeavoured to reclaim him; but his argu-
ments and expostulations had no effect. One experiment, however,
remained to be tried: when he found his life near its end, he directed
the young Lord to be called; and when he desired, with great tender-
ness, to hear his last injunctions, told him, / have sent for you that
you may see how a Christian can die. What effect this awful scene
had on the Earl I know not; he likewise died himself in a short
time.

In Tickell's excellent Elegy on his friend are these lines:

He taught us how to live; and oh! too high
The price of knowledge, taught us how to die.

In which he alludes, as he told Dr. Young, to this moving inter-
view.

Having given directions to Mr. Tickell for the publication of his
works, and dedicated them on his death-bed to his friend Mr. Craggs,
he died June 17, 1719, at Holland-house, leaving no child but a
daughter.

Of his virtue it is a sufficient testimony, that the resentment of
party has transmitted no charge of any crime. He was not one of
those who are praised only after death; for his merit was so generally
acknowledged, that Swift, having observed that his election passed
without a contest, adds, that if he had proposed himself for king,
he would hardly have been refused.

His zeal for his party did not extinguish his kindness for the
merit of his opponents : when he was secretary in Ireland, he refused
to intermit his acquaintance with Swift.

Of his habits, or external manners, nothing is so often mentioned as
that timorous or sullen taciturnity, which his friends called modesty
by too mild a name. Steele mentions with great tenderness "that
remarkable bashfulness, which is a cloak that hides and muffles
merit;" and tells us, that "his abilities were covered only by modesty.

LIFE OF ADDISON 177

which doubles the beauties which are seen, and gives credit and
esteem to all that are concealed." Chesterfield affirms, that "Addison
was the most timorous and aukward man that he ever saw." And
Addison, speaking of his own deficience in conversation, used to
say of himself, that, with respect to intellectual wealth, "he could
draw bills for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his
pocket."

That he wanted current coin for ready payment, and by that want
was often obstructed and distressed; that he was oppressed by an
improper and ungraceful timidity, every testimony concurs to prove;
but Chesterfield's representation is doubtless hyperbolical. That
man cannot be supposed very unexpert in the arts of conversation
and practice of life, who, without fortune or alliance, by his use-
fulness and dexterity became secretary of state; and who died at
forty-seven, after having not only stood long in the highest rank
of wit and literature, but filled one of the most important offices of
state.

The time in which he lived had reason to lament his obstinacy
of silence; "for he was," says Steele, "above all men in that talent
called humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection, that I have often
reflected, after a night spent with him apart from all the world, that
I had had the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance
of Terence and Catullus, who had all their wit and nature, heightened
with humour more exquisite and delightful than any other man
ever possessed." This is the fondness of a friend; let us hear what is
told us by a rival. "Addison's conversation," says Pope, "had some-
thing in it more charming than I have found in any other man.
But this was only when familiar: before strangers or perhaps a
single stranger, he preserved his dignity by a stiff silence."

This modesty was by no means inconsistent with a very high
opinion of his own merit. He demanded to be the first name in
modern wit; and, with Steele to echo him, used to depreciate Dry den,
whom Pope and Congreve defended against them. There is no
reason to doubt that he suffered too much pain from the prevalence
of Pope's poetical reputation; nor is it without strong reason sus-
pected, that by some disingenuous acts he endeavoured to obstruct
it; Pope was not the only man whom he insidiously injured, though
the only man of whom he could be afraid.

178 SAMUEL JOHNSON

His own powers were such as might have satisfied him with con-
scious excellence. Of very extensive learning he has indeed given
no proofs. He seems to have had small acquaintance with the
sciences, and to have read little except Latin and French; but of the
Latin poets his Dialogues on Medals shew that he had perused
the works with great diligence and skill. The abundance of his own
mind left him little need of adventitious sentiments; his wit always
could suggest what the occasion demanded. He had read with
critical eyes the important volume of human life, and knew the
heart of man from the depths of stratagem to the surface of affec-
tation.

What he knew he could easily communicate. "This," says Steele,
"was particular in this writer, that when he had taken his resolution,
or made his plan for what he designed to write, he would walk about
a room, and dictate it into language with as much freedom and ease
as any one could write it down, and attend to the coherence and
grammar of what he dictated."

Pope, who can be less suspected of favouring his memory, declares
that he wrote very fluently, but was slow and scrupulous in correct-
ing; that many of his Spectators were written very fast, and sent im-
mediately to the press; and that it seemed to be for his advantage
not to have time for much revisal.

"He would alter," says Pope, "any thing to please his friends,
before publication; but would not retouch his pieces afterwards: and
I believe not one word in Cato, to which I made an objection, was
suffered to stand."

The last line of Cato is Pope's, having been originally written

And, oh! 'twas this that ended Cato's life.

Pope might have made more objections to the six concluding lines.
In the first couplet the words from hence are improper; and the
second line is taken from Dryden's Virgil. Of the next couplet, the
first verse being included in the second, is therefore useless; and in
the third Discord is made to produce Strife.

Of the course of Addison's familiar day, before his marriage.
Pope has given a detail. He had in the house with him Budgell, and
perhaps Philips. His chief companions were Steele, Budgell, Philips,
Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett. With one or other of these

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 79

he always breakfasted. He studied all morning; then dined at a
tavern, and went afterwards to Button's.

Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family,
who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the
south side of Russell-street, about two doors from Covent-garden.
Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. It is said,
that when Addison had suffered any vexation from the countess, he
withdrew the company from Button's house.

From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often
sat late, and drank too much wine. In the bottle, discontent seeks
for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence.
It is not unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the
manumission which he obtained from the servile timidity of his
sober hours. He that feels oppression from the presence of those to
whom he knows himself superior, will desire to set loose his powers
of conversation; and who, that ever asked succor from Bacchus, was
able to preserve himself from being enslaved by his auxiliary?

Among those friends it was that Addison displayed the elegance
of his colloquial accomplishments, which may easily be supposed
such as Pope represents them. The remark of Mandeville, who,
when he had passed an evening in his company, declared that he
was a parson in a tye-wig, can detract little from his character; he
was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to uncommon
freedom by a character Uke that of Mandeville.

From any minute knowledge of his familiar manners, the inter-
vention of sixty years has now debarred us. Steele once promised
Congreve and the publick a complete description of his character;
but the promises of authors are like the vows of lovers. Steele
thought no more on his design, or thought on it with anxiety that at
last disgusted him, and left his friend in the hands of Tickell.

One slight lineament of his character Swift has preserved. It
was his practice when he found any man invincibly wrong, to
flatter his opinions by acquiescence, and sink him yet deeper in
absurdity. This artifice of mischief was admired by Stella; and
Swift seems to approve her admiration.

His works will supply some information. It appears from his
various pictures of the world, that, with all his bashfulness, he had
conversed with many distinct classes of men, had surveyed their

l8o SAMUEL JOHNSON

ways with very diligent observation, and marked with great acute-
ness the effects of different modes of hfe. He was a man in whose
presence nothing reprehensible was out of danger; quick in dis-
cerning whatever was wrong or ridiculous, and not unwilling to
expose it. There are, says Steele, in his writings many oblique strokes
upon some of the wittiest men of the age. His delight was more to
excite merriment than detestation, and he detects follies rather than
crimes.

If any judgment be made, from his books, of his moral character,
nothing will be found but purity and excellence. Knowledge of
mankind indeed, less extensive than that of Addison, will shew, that
to write, and to live, are very different. Many who praise virtue, do
not more than praise it. Yet it is reasonable to believe that Addison's
professions and practice were at no great variance, since, amidst that
storm of faction in which most of his life was passed, though his
station made him conspicuous, and his activity made him formid-
able, the character given him by his friends was never contradicted
by his enemies: of those with whom interest or opinion united him,
he had not only the esteem, but the kindness; and of others whom
the violence of opposition drove against him, though he might lose
the love, he retained the reverence.

It is justly observed by Tickell, that he employed wit on the side
of virtue and religion. He not only made the proper use of wit him-
self, but taught it to others; and from his time it has been generally
subservient to the cause of reason and of truth. He has dissipated
the prejudice that had long connected gaiety with vice, and easiness
of manners with laxity of principles. He has restored virtue to its
dignity, and taught innocence not to be ashamed. This is an eleva-
tion of literary character, above all Gree\, above all Roman fame.
No greater felicity can genius attain than that of having purified
intellectual pleasure, separated mirth from indecency, and wit from
licentiousness; of having taught a succession of writers to bring
elegance and gaiety to the aid of goodness; and, if I may use ex-
pressions yet more awful, of having turned many to righteousness.

Addison, in his life, and for some time afterwards, was considered
by the greater part of readers as supremely excelling both in poetry

LIFE OF ADDISON l8l

and criticism. Part of his reputation may be probably ascribed to
the advancement o£ his fortune: when, as Swift observes, he became
a statesman, and saw poets waiting at his levee, it is no wonder that
praise was accumulated upon him. Much likewise may be more
honourably ascribed to his personal character: he who, if he had
claimed it, might have obtained the diadem, was not likely to be
denied the laurel.

But time quickly puts an end to artificial and accidental fame;
and Addison is to pass through futurity protected only by his genius.
Every name which kindness of interest once raised too high, is in
danger, lest the next age should, by the vengeance of criticism, sink
it in the same proportion. A great writer has lately styled him an
indifferent poet, and a worse critic\.

His poetry is first to be considered; of which it must be confessed
that it has not often those felicities of diction which give lustre to
sentiments, or that vigour of sentiment that animates diction: there
is little of ardour, vehemence, or transport; there is very rarely the
awfulness of grandeur, and not very often the splendour of ele-
gance. He thinks justly; but he thinks faintly. This is his general
character; to which, doubtless, many single passages will furnish
exceptions.

Yet, if he seldom reaches supreme excellence, he rarely sinks into
dulness, and is still more rarely entangled in absurdity. He did not
trust his powers enough to be negligent. There is in most of his
compositions a calmness and equability, deliberate and cautious,
sometimes with little that delights, but seldom with any thing that
offends.

Of this kind seem to be his poems to Dryden, to Somers, and to the
King. His ode on St. Cecilia has been imitated by Pope, and has
something in it of Dryden's vigour. Of his Account of the English
Poets, he used to speak as a poor thing; but it is not worse than his
usual strain. He has said, not very judiciously, in his character of
Waller:

Thy verse could shew ev'n Cromwell's innocence.
And compliment the storms that bore him hence.
O! had thy Muse not come an age too soon,
But seen great Nassau on the British throne.
How had his triumph glitter'd in thy page! —

1 82 SAMUEL JOHNSON

What is this but to say that he who could compliment Cromwell had
been the proper poet for King William? Addison, however, never
printed the piece.

The Letter from Italy has been always praised, but has never been
praised beyond its merit. It is more correct, with less appearance of
labour, and more elegant, with less ambition of ornament, than any
other of his poems. There is, however, one broken metaphor, of
which notice may properly be taken:

Fir'd with that name —
I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain.
That longs to launch into a nobler strain.

To bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea; but why must she be
bridled? because she longs to launch? an act which was never hin-
dered by a bridle: and whither will she launch? into a nobler strain.
She is in the first line a horse, in the second a boat; and the care of
the poet is to keep his horse or his boat from singing.

The next composition is the far-famed Campaign, which Dr.
Warton has termed a Gazette in Rhyme, with harshness not often
used by the good-nature of his criticism. Before a censure so severe
is admitted, let us consider that War is a frequent subject of Poetry,
and then enquire who has described it with more justness and force.
Many of our own writers tried their powers upon this year of victory,
yet Addison's is confessedly the best performance; his poem is the
work of a man not blinded by the dust of learning: his images are
not borrowed merely from books. The superiority which he confers
upon his hero is not personal prowess, and mighty bone, but de-
liberate intrepidity, a calm command of his passions, and the power
of consulting his own mind in the midst of danger. The rejection
and contempt of fiction is rational and manly.

It may be observed that the last line is imitated by Pope:

Marlb'rough's exploits appear divinely bright —
Rais'd of themselves, their genuine charms they boast.
And those that paint them truest, praise them most.

This Pope had in his thoughts; but, not knowing how to use what
was not his own, he spoiled the thought when he had borrowed it.

LIFE OF ADDISON 183

The well-sung woes shall soothe my ghost;
He best can paint them who shall feel them most.

Martial exploits may be painted; perhaps woes may be painted; but
they are surely not painted by being well-sung: it is not easy to paint
in song, or to sing in colours.

No passage in the Campaign has been more often mentioned than
the simile of the Angel, which is said in the Tatler to be one of the
noblest thoughts that ever entered into the heart of man, and is there-
fore worthy of attentive consideration. Let it be first enquired
whether it be a simile. A poetical simile is the discovery of likeness
between two actions in their general nature dissimilar, or of causes
terminating by different operations in some resemblance of effect.
But the mention of another like consequence from a like cause, or of
a like performance by a like agency, is not a simile, but an exemplifi-
cation. It is not a simile to say that the Thames waters fields, as the
Po waters fields; or that as Hecla vomits flames in Iceland, so ^tna
vomits flames in Sicily. When Horace says of Pindar, that he pours
his violence and rapidity of verse, as a river swollen with rain rushes
from the mountain; or of himself, that his genius wanders in quest
of poetical decorations, as the bee wanders to collect honey; he, in
either case, produces a simile; the mind is impressed with the re-
semblance of things generally unlike, as unlike as intellect and body.
But if Pindar had been described as writing with the copiousness
and grandeur of Homer, or Horace had told that he reviewed and
finished his own poetry with the same care as Isocrates polished his
orations, instead of similitude he would have exhibited almost
identity; he would have given the same portraits with different
names. In the poem now examined, when the English are repre-
sented as gaining a fortified pass, by repetition of attack and per-
severance of resolution; their obstinacy of courage, and vigour of
onset, is well illustrated by the sea that breaks, with incessant battery,
the dikes of Holland. This is a simile: but when Addison, having
celebrated the beauty of Marlborough's person, tells us that Achilles
thus was formed with every grace, here is no simile, but a mere ex-
emplification. A simile may be compared to lines converging at a
point, and is more excellent as the lines approach from greater dis-
tance: an exemplification may be considered as two parallel lines

184 SAMUEL JOHNSON

which run on together without approximation, never far separated,
and never joined.

Marlborough is so hke the angel in the poem, that the action of
both is almost the same, and performed by both in the same manner.
Marlborough teaches the battle to rage; the angel directs the storm :
Marlborough is unmoved in peaceful thought; the angel is calm and
serene: Marlborough stands unmoved amidst the shoc\ of hosts; the
angel rides calm in the whirlwind. The lines on Marlborough are
just and noble; but the simile gives almost the same images a second
time.

But perhaps this thought, though hardly a simile, was remote from
vulgar conceptions, and required great labour of research, or dex-
terity of application. Of this. Dr. Madden, a name which Ireland
ought to honour, once gave me his opinion. If 1 had set, said he,
ten school-boys to write on the battle of Blenheim, and eight had
brought me the Angel, I should not have been surprised.

The opera of Rosamond, though it is seldom mentioned, is one of
the first of Addison's compositions. The subject is well-chosen, the
fiction is pleasing, and the praise of Marlborough, for which the
scene gives an opportunity, is, what perhaps every human excellence
must be, the product of good-luck improved by genius. The thoughts
are sometimes great, and sometimes tender; the versification is
easy and gay. There is doubtless some advantage in the shortness
of the lines, which there is little temptation to load with expletive
epithets. The dialogue seems commonly better than the songs. The
two comick characters of Sir Trusty and Grideline, though of no
great value, are yet such as the poet intended. Sir Trusty's account
of the death of Rosamond is, I think, too grossly absurd. The whole
drama is airy and elegant; engaging in its process, and pleasing in
its conclusion. If Addison had cultivated the lighter parts of poetry,
he would probably have excelled.

The tragedy of Cato, which, contrary to the rule observed in
selecting the works of other poets, has by the weight of its character
forced its way into the late collection, is unquestionably the noblest
production of Addison's genius. Of a work so much read, it is
difficult to say any thing new. About things on which the public
thinks long, it commonly attains to think right; and of Cato it has

LIFE OF ADDISON 185

been not unjustly determined, that it is rather a poem in dialogue
than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant lan-
guage, than a representation of natural affections, or of any state
probable or possible in human life. Nothing here excites or asswages
emotion; here is no magical power of raising phantastic\ terror or
wild anxiety. The events are expected without solicitude, and are
remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care;
we consider not what they are doing, or what they are suffering; we
wish only to know what they have to say. Cato is a being above our
solicitude; a man of whom the gods take care, and whom we leave
to their care with heedless confidence. To the rest, neither gods
nor men can have much attention; for there is not one amongst them
that strongly attracts either affection or esteem. But they are made
the vehicles of such sentiments and such expression, that there is
scarcely a scene in the play which the reader does not wish to
impress upon his memory.

When Cato was shewn to Pope, he advised the author to print it,
without any theatrical exhibition; supposing that it would be read
more favourably than heard. Addison declared himself of the same
opinion; but urged the importunity of his friends for its appearance
on the stage. The emulation of parties made it successful beyond
expectation, and its success has introduced or confirmed among us
the use of dialogue too declamatory, of unaffecting elegance, and
chill philosophy.

The universality of applause, however it might quell the censure
of common mortals, had no other effect than to harden Dennis in
fixed dislike; but his dislike was not merely capricious. He found
and shewed many faults: he shewed them indeed with anger, but he
found them with acuteness, such as ought to rescue his criticism from
oblivion; though, at last, it will have no other life than it derives
from the work which it endeavours to oppress.

Why he pays no regard to the opinion of the audience, he gives his
reason, by remarking, that

"A deference is to be paid to a general applause, when it appears
that that applause is natural and spontaneous; but that little regard
is to be had to it, when it is affected and artificial. Of all the tragedies
which in his memory have had vast and violent runs, not one has

1 86 SAMUEL JOHNSON

been excellent, few have been tolerable, most have been scandalous.
When a poet writes a tragedy, who knows he has judgement, and
who feels he has genius, that poet presumes upon his own merit, and
scorns to make a cabal. That people come coolly to the representation
of such a tragedy, without any violent expectation, or delusive imag-
ination, or invincible prepossession; that such an audience is liable
to receive the impressions which the poem shall naturally make in
them, and to judge by their own reason, and their own judgements,
and that reason and judgement are calm and serene, not formed by
nature to make proselytes, and to controul and lord it over the
imaginations of others. But that when an author writes a tragedy,
who knows he has neither genius nor judgement, he has recourse
to the making a party, and he endeavours to make up in industry
what is wanting in talent, and to supply by poetical craft the absence
of poetical art; that such an author is humbly contented to raise
men's passions by a plot without doors, since he despairs of doing
it by that which he brings upon the stage. That party, and passion,
and prepossession, are clamorous and tumultuous things, and so
much the more clamorous and tumultuous by how much the more
erroneous: that they domineer and tyrannize over the imaginations
of persons who want judgement, and sometimes too of those who
have it; and, like a fierce and outrageous torrent, bear down all
opposition before them."

He then condemns the neglect of poetical justice; which is always
one of his favourite principles.

" 'Tis certainly the duty of every tragick poet, by the exact dis-
tribution of poetical justice, to imitate the Divine Dispensation, and
to inculcate a particular Providence. 'Tis true, indeed, upon the
stage of the world, the wicked sometimes prosper, and the guiltless
suffer. But that is permitted by the Governor of the world, to shew,
from the attribute of his infinite justice, that there is a compensation
in futurity, to prove the immortality of the human soul, and the
certainty of future rewards and punishments. But the poetical per-
sons in tragedy exist no longer than the reading, or the representa-
tion; the whole extent of their entity is circumscribed by those; and
therefore, during that reading or representation, according to their
merits or demerits, they must be punished or rewarded. If this is

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 87

not done, there is no impartial distribution of poetical justice, no
instructive lecture of a particular Providence, and no imitation of
the Divine Dispensation. And yet the author of this tragedy does
not only run counter to this, in the fate of his principal character;
but every where, throughout it, makes virtue suffer, and vice tri-
umph : for not only Cato is vanquished by Caesar, but the treachery
and perfidiousness of Syphax prevails over the honest simplicity
and the credulity of Juba; and the sly subtlety and dissimulation
of Fortius over the generous frankness and open-heartedness of
Marcus."

Whatever pleasure there may be in seeing crimes punished and
virtue rewarded, yet, since wickedness often prospers in real life, the
poet is certainly at liberty to give it prosperity on the stage. For if
poetry has an imitation of reality, how are its laws broken by exhibit-
ing the world in its true form.? The stage may sometimes gratify our
wishes; but, if it be truly the mirror of life, it ought to shew us some-
times what we are to expect,

Dennis objects to the characters that they are not natural, or
reasonable; but as heroes and heroines are not beings that are seen
every day, it is hard to find upon what principles their conduct
shall be tried. It is, however, not useless to consider what he says
of the manner in which Cato receives the account of his son's death.

"Nor is the grief of Cato, in the Fourth Act, one jot more in nature
than that of his son and Lucia in the third. Cato receives the news
of his son's death not only with dry eyes, but with a sort of satisfac-
tion; and in the same page sheds tears for the calamity of his country,
and does the same thing in the next page upon the bare apprehension
of the danger of his friends. Now, since the love of one's country is
the love of one's countrymen, as I have shewn upon another occa-
sion, I desire to ask these questions : Of all our countrymen, which do
we love most, those whom we know, or those whom we know not ?
And of those whom we know, which do we cherish most, our
friends or our enemies ? And of our friends, which are the dearest to
us.'' those who are related to us, or those who are not? And of all
our relations, for which have we most tenderness, for those who are
near to us, or for those who are remote ? And of our near relations,
which are the nearest, and consequently the dearest to us, our ofE-

1 88 SAMUEL JOHNSON

spring or others? Our offspring, most certainly; as nature, or in
other words Providence, has wisely contrived for the preservation of
mankind. Now, does it not follow, from what has been said, that
for a man to receive the news of his son's death with dry eyes, and to
weep at the same time for the calamities of his country, is a wretched
affectation, and a miserable inconsistency? Is not that, in plain
English, to receive with dry eyes the news of the deaths of those for
whose sake our country is a name so dear to us, and at the same time
to shed tears for those for whose sakes our country is not a name
so dear to us?"

But this formidable assailant is least resistible when he attacks the
probability of the action, and the reasonableness of the plan. Every
critical reader must remark, that Addison has, with a scrupulosity
almost unexampled on the English stage, confined himself in time
to a single day, and in place to rigorous unity. The scene never
changes and the whole action of the play passes in the great hall of
Cato's house at Utica. Much therefore is done in the hall, for which
any other place had been more fit; and this impropriety affords
Dennis many hints of merriment, and opportunities of triumph.
The passage is long; but as such disquisitions are not common, and
the objections are skilfully formed and vigorously urged, those who
delight in critical controversy will not think it tedious.

"Upon the departure of Fortius, Sempronius makes but one
soliloquy, and immediately in comes Syphax, and then the two
politicians are at it immediately. They lay their heads together, with
their snuff-boxes in their hands, as Mr. Bayes has it, and league it
away. But, in the midst of that wise scene, Syphax seems to give a
seasonable caution to Sempronius:

"Syph. But is it true, Sempronius, that your senate
Is call'd together? Gods! thou must be cautious,
Cato has piercing eyes.

"There is a great deal of caution shewn indeed, in meeting in a
governor's own hall to carry on their plot against him. Whatever
opinion they have of his eyes, I suppose they had none of his ears,
or they would never have talked at this foolish rate so near.

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 89

"Gods! thou must be cautious.

"Oh! yes, very cautious: for if Cato should overhear you, and turn
you off for politicians, Caesar would never take you; no, Caesar
would never take you.

"When Cato, Act II. turns the senators out of the hall, upon pre-
tence of acquainting Juba with the result of their debates, he appears
to me to do a thing which is neither reasonable nor civil. Juba
might certainly have better been made acquainted with the result
of that debate in some private apartment of the palace. But the poet
was driven upon this absurdity to make way for another; and that
is, to give Juba an opportunity to demand Marcia of her father.
But the quarrel and rage of Juba and Syphax in the same Act, the
invectives of Syphax against the Romans and Cato; the advice that
he gives Juba, in her father's hall, to bear away Marcia by force; and
his brutal and clamorous rage upon his refusal, and at a time when
Cato was scarce out of sight, and perhaps not out of hearing; at least,
some of his guards or domesticks must necessarily be supposed to be
within hearing; is a thing that is so far from being probable, that it
is hardly possible.

"But treason is not the only thing that is carried on in this hall:
that, and love, and philosophy, take their turns in it, without any
manner of necessity or probability occasioned by the action, as duly
and as regularly, without interrupting one another, as if there were
a triple league between them, and a mutual agreement that each
should give place to and make way for the other, in a due and orderly
succession.

"We come now to the Third Act. Sempronius, in this Act, comes
into the governor's hall, with the leaders of the mutiny: but as soon
as Cato is gone, Sempronius, who but just before had acted like an
unparalleled knave, discovers himself, like an egregious fool, to be
an accomplice in the conspiracy.

"Semp. Know, villains, when such paltry slaves presume
To mix in treason, if the plot succeeds,
They're thrown neglected by: but if it fails,
They're sure to die like dogs, as you shall do.
Here, take these factious monsters, drag them forth
To sudden death. —

190 SAMUEL JOHNSON

" 'Tis true, indeed, the second leader says, there are none there but
friends; but is that possible at such a juncture? Can a parcel of
rogues attempt to assassinate the governor of a town of war, in his
own house, in mid-day, and after they are discovered and defeated,
can there be none near them but friends ? Is it not plain from these
words of Sempronius,

"Here, take these factious monsters, drag them forth
To sudden death—

"and from the entrance of the guards upon the word of command,
that those guards were within ear-shot? Behold Sempronius then
palpably discovered. How comes it to pass, then, that, instead of
being hanged up with the rest, he remains secure in the governor's
hall, and there carries on his conspiracy against the government, the
third time in the same day, with his old comrade Syphax ? who enters
at the same time that the guards are carrying away the leaders, big
with the news of the defeat of Sempronius; though where he had his
intelligence so soon is difficult to imagine. And now the reader may
expect a very extraordinary scene: there is not abundance of spirit
indeed, nor a great deal of passion, but there is wisdom more than
enough to supply all defects.

"Syph. Our first design, my friend, has prov'd abortive;
Still there remains an after-game to play:
My troops are mounted, their Numidian steeds
SnufI up the winds, and long to scour the desart:
Let but Sempronius lead us in our flight,
We'll force the gate, where Marcus keeps his guard,
And hew down all that would oppose our passage;
A day will bring us into Caesar's camp.

"Semp. Confusion ! I have fail'd of half my purpose;
Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind.

"Well! but though he tells us the half -purpose that he has failed of,
he does not tell us the half that he has carried. But what does he
mean by

"Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind?

"He is now in her own house; and we have neither seen her nor
heard of her any where else since the play began. But now let us
hear Syphax:

LIFE OF ADDISON I9I

"What hinders then, but that thou find her out,
And hurry her away by manly force ?

"But what does old Syphax mean by finding her out? They talk
as if she were as hard to be found as a hare in a frosty morning.

"Semp. But how to gain admission?
"Oh! she is found out then, it seems.

"But how to gain admission? for access
Is giv'n to none, but Juba and her brothers.

"But, raillery apart, why access to Juba? For he was owned and
received as a lover neither by the father nor by the daughter. Well!
but let that pass. Syphax puts Sempronius out of pain immediately;
and, being a Numidian, abounding in wiles, supplies him with a
stratagem for admission, that, I believe, is a non-pareille:

"Syph. Thou shalt have Juba's dress, and Juba's guards;
The doors will open, when Numidia's prince
Seems to appear before them.

"Sempronius is, it seems, to pass for Juba In full day at Cato's
house, where they were both so very well known, by having Juba's
dress and his guards: as if one of the marshals of France could pass
for the Duke of Bavaria, at noon-day, at Versailles, by having his
dress and liveries. But how does Syphax pretend to help Sempronius
to young Juba's dress? Does he serve him in a double capacity, as
general and master of his wardrobe? But why Juba's guards? For
the devil of any guards has Juba appeared with yet. Well! though
this is a mighty politick invention, yet, methinks, they might have
done without it: for, since the advice that Syphax gave to Sempronius
was,

"To hurry her away by manly force,

"in my opinion, the shortest and likeliest way of coming Jt the lady
was by demolishing, instead of putting on an impertinent disguise
to circumvent two or three slaves. But Sempronius, it seems, is of
another opinion. He extols to the skies the invention of old Syphax:

"Sempr. Heavens! what a thought was there!

192 SAMUEL JOHNSON

"Now I appeal to the reader, i£ I have not been as good as my
word. Did I not tell him, that I would lay before him a very wise
scene?

"But now let us lay before the reader that part of the scenery of
the Fourth Act, which may shew the absurdities which the author
has run into, through the indiscreet observance of the Unity of
Place. I do not remember that Aristotle has said any thing expressly
concerning the Unity of Place. 'Tis true, implicitly he has said
enough in the rules which he has laid down for the Chorus. For, by
making the Chorus an essential part of Tragedy, and by bringing it
on the stage immediately after the opening of the scene, and retain-
ing it there till the very catastrophe, he has so determined and fixed
the place of action, that it was impossible for an author on the
Grecian stage to break through that unity. I am of opinion, that if
a modern tragic poet can preserve the unity of place, without destroy-
ing the probabiUty of the incidents, 'tis always best for him to do it;
because, by the preservation of that unity, as we have taken notice
above, he adds grace, and cleanness, and comeliness, to the repre-
sentation. But since there are no express rules about it, and we are
under no compulsion to keep it, since we have no Chorus as the
Grecian poet had; if it cannot be preserved, without rendering the
greater part of the incidents unreasonable and absurd, and perhaps
sometimes monstrous, 'tis certainly better to break it.

"Now comes bully Sempronius, comically accoutred and equipped
with his Numidian dress and his Numidian guards. Let the reader
attend to him with all his ears; for the words of the wise are
precious:

"Sempr. The deer is lodg'd, I've track'd her to her covert.

"Now I would fain know why this deer is said to be lodged, since
we have not heard one word, since the play began, of her being at
all out of harbour: and if we consider the discourse with which she
and Lucia began the Act, we have reason to believe that they had
hardly been talking of such matters in the street. However, to
pleasure Sempronius, let us suppose, for once, that the deer is lodged:

"The deer is lodg'd, I've track'd her to her covert.

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 93

"If he had seen her in the open field, what occasion had he to track
her, when he had so many Numidian dogs at his heels, which, with
one halloo, he might have set upon her haunches ? If he did not see
her in the open field, how could he possibly track her? If he had
seen her in the street, why did he not set upon her in the street,
since through the street she must be carried at last? Now here, in-
stead of having his thoughts upon his business, and upon the present
danger; instead of meditating and contriving how he shall pass
with his mistress through the southern gate, where her brother
Marcus is upon the guard, and where she would certainly prove
an impediment to him, which is the Roman word for the baggage,
instead of doing this, Sempronius is entertaining himself with
whimsies:

"Sempr. How will the young Numidian rave to see
His mistress lost! If aught could glad my soul,
Beyond th' enjoyment of so bright a prize,
'T would be to torture that young gay Barbarian.
But hark! what noise? Death to my hopes, 'tis he,
'Tis Juba's self! There is but one way left!
He must be murder 'd, and a passage cut
Through those his guards.

"Pray, what are those his guards? I thought at present, that
Juba's guards had been Sempronius's tools, and had been dangling
after his heels.

"But now let us sum up all these absurdities together. Sempronius
goes at noonday, in Juba's clothes, and with Juba's guards, to Cato's
palace, in order to pass for Juba, in a place where they were both so
very well known: he meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him
with his own guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he
threatens them:

"Hah! Dastards, do you tremble!
Or act like men, or by yon azure heav'n!

"But the guards still remaining restive, Sempronius himself attacks
Juba, while each of the guards is representing Mr. Spectator's sign
of the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by Sempronius's threats.
Juba kills Sempronius, and takes his own army prisoners, and carries

194 SAMUEL JOHNSON

them in triumph away to Cato. Now I would fain know, if any
part of Mr. Bayes's tragedy is so full of absurdity as this ?

"Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia come in.
The question is, why no men come in upon hearing the noise of
swords in the governor's hall? Where was the governor himself?
Where were his guards ? Where were his servants ? Such an attempt
as this, so near the person of a governor of a place of war, was
enough to alarm the whole garrison: and yet, for almost half an
hour after Sempronius was killed, we find none of those appear
who were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed; and the noise of
swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were
most certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia's com-
ing in, Lucia appears in all the symptoms of an hysterical gentle-
woman :

"Luc. Sure 'twas the clash of swords! my troubled heart
Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows,
It throbs with fear, and akes at every sound!

"And immediately her old whimsy returns upon her:

"O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake —
I die away with horror at the thought.

"She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats but it must be
for her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well!
upon this they spy the body of Sempronius; and Marcia, deluded by
the habit, it seems, takes him for Juba; for, says she,

"The face is muffled up within the garment.

"Now how a man could fight, and fall with his face mufHed up in
his garment, is, I think, a little hard to conceive! Besides, Juba,
before he killed him, knew him to be Sempronius. It was not by
his garment that he knew this; it was by his face then: his face
therefore was not muffled. Upon seeing this man with the muffled
face, Marcia falls a-raving; and, owning her passion for the supposed
defunct, begins to make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba
enters listening, I suppose on tip-toe: for I cannot imagine how
any one can enter listening, in any other posture. I would fain

LIFE OF ADDISON 195

know how it came to pass, that during all this time he had sent no-
body, no not so much as a candle-snufEer, to take away the dead
body of Sempronius. Well! but let us regard him listening. Having
left his apprehension behind him, he, at first, applies what Marcia
says to Sempronius. But finding at last, with much ado, that he
himself is the happy man, he quits his eves-dropping, and greedily
intercepts the bliss, which was fondly designed for one who could
not be the better for it. But here I must ask a question: how comes
Juba to listen here, who had not listened before throughout the
play ? Or, how comes he to be the only person of this tragedy who
listens, when love and treason were so often talked in so publick
a place as a hall? I am afraid the author was driven upon all these
absurdities only to introduce this miserable mistake of Marcia; which,
after all, is much below the dignity of tragedy, as any thing is which
is the effect or result of trick.

"But let us come to the scenery of the Fifth Act. Cato appears
first upon the scene, sitting in a thoughtful posture; in his hand
Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, a drawn sword on
the table by him. Now let us consider the place in which this sight
is presented to us. The place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let us suppose,
that any one should place himself in this posture, in the midst of
one of our halls in London; that he should appear solus, in a sullen
posture, a drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand Plato's
treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, translated lately by Bernard
Lintot: I desire the reader to consider, whether such a person as this
would pass with them who beheld him for a great patriot, a great
philosopher, or a general, or for some whimsical person who fancied
himself all these; and whether the people, who belonged to the
family, would think that such a person had a design upon their
midrifs or his own?

"In short, that Cato should sit long enough, in the aforesaid
posture, in the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato's treatise
on the Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long
hours; that he should propose to himself to be private there upon that
occasion; that he should be angry with his son for intruding there;
then, that he should leave this hall upon the pretence of sleep,
give himself the mortal wound in his bedchamber, and then be

196 SAMUEL JOHNSON

brought back into that hall to expire, purely to shew his good-breed-
ing, and save his friends the trouble of coming up to his bedchamber;
all this appears to me to be improbable, incredible, impossible."

Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden expresses it,
perhaps too much horse play in his raillery; but if his jests are coarse,
his arguments are strong. Yet as we love better to be pleased than
to be taught, Cato is read, and the critick is neglected.

Flushed with consciousness of these detections of absurdity in the
conduct, he afterwards attacked the sentiments of Cato; but he
then amused himself with petty cavils, and minute objections.

Of Addison's smaller poems, no particular mention is necessary;
they have little that can employ or require a critick. The parallel of
the Princes and Gods, in his verses to Kneller, is often happy, but is
too well known to be quoted.

His translations, so far as I have compared them, want the exact-
ness of a scholar. That he understood his authors cannot be doubted;
but his versions will not teach others to understand them, being too
licentiously paraphraslical. They are, however, for the most part,
smooth and easy; and, what is the first excellence of a translator,
such as may be read with pleasure by those who do not know the
originals.

His poetry is poUshed and pure; the product of a mind too judi-
cious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain ex-
cellence. He has sometimes a striking line, or a shining paragraph;
but in the whole he is warm rather than fervid, and shews more
dexterity than strength. He was, however, one of our earliest
examples of correctness.

The versification which he had learned from Dryden, he debased
rather than refined. His rhymes are often dissonant; in his Georgick
he admits broken lines. He uses both triplets and alexandrines, but
triplets more frequently in his translations than his other works.
The mere structure of verses seems never to have engaged much of
his care. But his lines are very smooth in Rosamond, and too smooth
in Cato.

Addison is now to be considered as a critick; a name which the
present generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism
is condemned as tentative or experimental, rather than scientifick,

LIFE OF ADDISON 1 97

and he is considered as deciding by taste rather than by principles.

It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour
of others, to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters.
Addison is now despised by some who perhaps would never have
seen his defects, but by the lights which he afforded them. That he
always wrote as he would think it necessary to write now, cannot be
affirmed; his instructions were such as the character of his readers
made proper. That general knowledge which now circulates in
common talk, was in his time rarely to be found. Men not pro-
fessing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the female
world, any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be
censured. His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity, by gentle
and unsuspected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy;
he therefore presented knowledge in the most alluring form, not
lofty and austere, but accessible and familiar. When he shewed
them their defects, he shewed them likewise that they might be
easily supplied. His attempt succeeded; enquiry was awakened, and
comprehension expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance
was excited, and from his time to our own, life has been gradually
exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged.

Dryden had, not many years before, scattered criticism over his
Prefaces with very little parsimony; but though he sometimes con-
descended to be somewhat familiar, his manner was in general too
scholastick for those who had yet their rudiments to learn, and
found it not easy to understand their master. His observations were
framed rather for those that were learning to write, than for those
that read only to talk.

An instructor like Addison was now wanting, whose remarks
being superficial, might be easily understood, and being just, might
prepare the mind for more attainments. Had he presented Paradise
Lost to the publick with all the pomp of system and severity of
science, the criticism would perhaps have been admired, and the
poem still have been neglected; but by the blandishments of gentle-
ness and facility, he has made Milton an universal favourite, with
whom readers of every class think it necessary to be pleased.

He descended now and then to lower disquisitions; and by a
serious display of the beauties of Chevy Chase, exposed himself to

198 SAMUEL JOHNSON

the ridicule of WagstaflF, who bestowed a hke pompous character on
Tom Thumb, and to the contempt of Dennis, who, considering the
fundamental position of his criticism, that Chevy Chase pleases, and
ought to please, because it is natural, observes, "that there is a way of
deviating from nature, by bombast or tumour, which soars above
nature, and enlarges images beyond their real bulk; by affectation,
which forsakes nature in quest of something unsuitable; and by
imbecility, which degrades nature by faintness and diminution, by
obscuring its appearances, and weakening its effects." In Chevy
Chase there is not much of either bombast or affectation; but there
is chill and lifeless imbecility. The story cannot possibly be told in a
manner that shall make less impression on the mind.

Before the profound observers of the present race repose too
securely on the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let
them consider his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found speci-
mens of criticism sufficiently subtle and refined; let them peruse
likewise his Essays on Wit, and on the Pleasures of Imagination, in
which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles
of invention from dispositions inherent in the mind of man, with
skill and elegance, such as his contemners will not easily attain.

As a describer of life and manners, he must be allowed to stand
perhaps the first of the first rank. His humour, which, as Steele
observes, is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to give the
grace of novelty to domestick scenes and daily occurrences. He never
outsteps the modesty of nature, nor raises merriment or wonder
by the violation of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion, nor
amaze by aggravation. He copies life with so much fidelity, that he
can be hardly said to invent; yet his exhibitions have an air so
much original, that it is difficult to suppose them not merely the
product of imagination.

As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His
religion has nothing in it enthusiastick or superstitious: he appears
neither weakly credulous nor wantonly sceptical; his morality is
neither dangerously lax, nor impracticably rigid. All the enchant-
ment of fancy, and all the cogency of argument, are employed to
recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the
Author of his being. Truth is shewn sometimes as the phantom o£

LIFE OF ADDISON I99

a vision, sometimes appears half -veiled in an allegory; sometimes
attracts regard in the robes of fancy, and sometimes steps forth in
the confidence of reason. She wears a thousand dresses, and in all
is pleasing.

Mille habet ornatus, mille decanter habet.

His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not
formal, on light occasions not groveling; pure without scrupulosity,
and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always
easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never
deviates from his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious
ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always
luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour.

It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness
and severity of diction; he is therefore sometimes verbose in his
transitions and connections, and sometimes descends too much to
the language of conversation; yet if his language had been less
idiomatical, it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism.
What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did
not wish to be energetick; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates.
His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity:
his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy.
Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse,
and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to
the volumes of Addison.

OF THE STANDARD OF TASTE

BY
DAVID HUME

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

David Hume (1711-1776) was born in Edinburgh, and was trained
for the law. He early showed an eager interest in philosophy, and devoted
himself to study with such intensity as to injure his health. He traveled
in France more than once, and was on intimate terms with such men as
d'Alembert, Turgot, and Rousseau, for the last of whom he found a
pension and a temporary refuge in England.

Hume is most celebrated for his philosophical writings, in which he
carried the empirical philosophy of Locke to the point of complete
skepticism. He wrote also a "History of England" in eight volumes,
and a large number of treatises and essays on politics, economics, ethics,
and esthetics. The following essay, "Of the Standard of Taste," is a
typical example of his clear thinking and admirable style. "He may be
regarded," says Leslie Stephen, "as the acutest thinker in Great Britain
of the eighteenth century, and the most qualified interpreter of its intel-
lectual tendencies."

OF THE STANDARD OF TASTE

THE great variety of Taste, as well as of opinion, which pre-
vails in the world, is too obvious not to have fallen under
every one's observation. Men of the most confined knowl-
edge are able to remark a difference of taste in the narrow circle
of their acquaintance, even where the persons have been educated
under the same government, and have early imbibed the same prej-
udices. But those, who can enlarge their view to contemplate dis-
tant nations and remote ages, are still more surprised at the great
inconsistence and contrariety. We are apt to call barbarous whatever
departs widely from our own taste and apprehension; but soon find
the epithet of reproach retorted on us. And the highest arrogance
and self-conceit is at last startled, on observing an equal assurance
on all sides, and scruples, amidst such a contest of sentiment, to pro-
nounce positively in its own favour.

As this variety of taste is obvious to the most careless inquirer; so
will it be found, on examination, to be still greater in reality than in
appearance. The sentiments of men often differ with regard to
beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general dis-
course is the same. There are certain terms in every language, which
import blame, and others praise; and all men, who use the same
tongue, must agree in their application of them. Every voice is
united in applauding elegance, propriety, simplicity, spirit in writ-
ing; and in blaming fustian, affectation, coldness, and a false bril-
liancy : But when critics come to particulars, this seeming unanimity
vanishes; and it is found, that they had affixed a very different
meaning to their expressions. In all matters of opinion and science,
the case is opposite: The difference among men is there oftener found
to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be less in reality than in
appearance. An explanation of the terms commonly ends the con-
troversy; and the disputants are surprised to find, that they had been
quarrelling, while at bottom they agreed in their judgment.

203

204 DAVID HUME

Those who found morahty on sentiment, more than on reason,
are indined to comprehend ethics under the former observation,
and to maintain, that, in all questions, which regard conduct and
manners, the difference among men is really greater than at first
sight it appears. It is indeed obvious, that writers of all nations and
all ages concur in applauding justice, humanity, magnanimity,
prudence, veracity; and in blaming the opposite qualities. Even
poets and other authors, whose compositions are chiefly calculated
to please the imagination, are yet found, from Homer down to
Fenelon, to inculcate the same moral precepts, and to bestow their
applause and blame on the same virtues and vices. This great
unanimity is usually ascribed to the influence of plain reason; which,
in all these cases, maintains similar sentiments in all men, and pre-
vents those controversies, to which the abstract sciences are so much
exposed. So far as the unanimity is real, this account may be ad-
mitted as satisfactory: But we must also allow, that some part of
the seeming harmony in morals may be accounted for from the very
nature of language. The word virtue, with its equivalent in every
tongue, implies praise; as that of vice does blame: And no man,
without the most obvious and grossest impropriety, could affix re-
proach to a term, which in general acceptation is understood in a
good sense; or bestow applause, where the idiom requires disappro-
bation. Homer's general precepts, where he delivers any such, will
never be controverted; but it is obvious, that, when he draws par-
ticular pictures of manners, and represents heroism in Achilles and
prudence in Ulysses, he intermixes a much greater degree of ferocity
in the former, and of cunning and fraud in the latter, than Fenelon
would admit of. The sage Ulysses in the Greek poet seems to de-
light in lies and fictions, and often employs them without any
necessity or even advantage: But his more scrupulous son, in the
French epic writer, exposes himself to the most imminent perils,
rather than depart from the most exact line of truth and veracity.

The admirers and followers of the Alcoran insist on the excellent
moral precepts interspersed through that wild and absurd perform-
ance. But it is to be supposed, that the Arabic words, which corre-
spond to the English, equity, justice, temperance, meekness, charity,
were such as, from the constant use of that tongue, must always be

THE STANDARD OF TASTE 205

taken in a good sense; and it would have argued the greatest igno-
rance, not of morals, but of language, to have mentioned them with
any epithets, besides those of applause and approbation. But would
we know, whether the pretended prophet had really attained a just
sentiment of morals? Let us attend to his narration; and we shall
soon find, that he bestows praise on such instances of treachery,
inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible
with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be
attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, so far only as it
is beneficial or hurtful to the true believers.

The merit of delivering true general precepts in ethics is indeed
very small. Whoever recommends any moral virtues, really does no
more than is implied in the terms themselves. That people, who
invented the word charity, and used it in a good sense, inculcated
more clearly and much more efficaciously, the precept, be charitable,
than any pretended legislator or prophet, who should insert such a
maxim in his writings. Of all expressions, those, which, together
with their other meaning, imply a degree either of blame or appro-
bation, are the least liable to be perverted or mistaken.

It is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste; a rule, by which the
various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision af-
forded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another.

There is a species of philosophy, which cuts off all hopes of success
in such an attempt, and represents the impossibility of ever attaining
any standard of taste. The difference, it is said, is very wide between
judgment and sentiment. All sentiment is right; because sentiment
has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever
a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the understanding
are not right; because they have a reference to something beyond
themselves, to wit, real matter of fact; and are not always conform-
able to that standard. Among a thousand different opinions which
different men may entertain of the same subject, there is one, and
but one, that is just and true; and the only difficulty is to fix and
ascertain it. On the contrary, a thousand different sentiments,
excited by the same object, are all right: Because no sentiment repre-
sents what is really in the object. It only marks a certain conformity
or relation between the object and the organs or faculties of the

206 DAVID HUME

mind; and if that conformity did not really exist, the sentiment
could never possibly have being. Beauty is no quality in things
themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them;
and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even
perceive deformity, vs'here another is sensible of beauty; and every
individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretend-
ing to regulate those of others. To seek the real beauty, or real
deformity is as fruitless an inquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the
real sweet or real bitter. According to the disposition of the organs,
the same object may be both sweet and bitter: and the proverb has
justly determined it to be fruitless to dispute concerning tastes. It is
very natural, and even quite necessary, to extend this axiom to mental,
as well as bodily taste; and thus common sense, which is so often
at variance with philosophy, especially with the sceptical kind, is
found, in one instance at least, to agree in pronouncing the same
decision.

But though this axiom, by passing into a proverb, seems to have
attained the sanction of common sense; there is certainly a species
of common sense, which opposes it, at least serves to modify and
restrain it. Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance
between Ogilby and Milton, or Bunyan and Addison, would be
thought to defend no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained
a mole-hill to be as high as Tenerifle, or a pond as extensive as the
ocean. Though there may be found persons, who give the preference
to the former authors; no one pays attention to such a taste; and we
pronounce, without scruple, the sentiment of these pretended critics
to be absurd and ridiculous. The principle of the natural equality
of tastes is then totally forgot, and while we admit it on some occa-
sions, where the objects seem near an equality, it appears an extrava-
gant paradox, or rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so dis-
proportioned are compared together.

It is evident that none of the rules of composition are fixed by
reasonings a priori, or can be esteemed abstract conclusions of the
understanding, from comparing those habitudes and relations of
ideas, which are eternal and immutable. Their foundation is the
same with that of all the practical sciences, experience; nor are there
any thing but general observations, concerning what has been uni-

THE STANDARD OF TASTE 20/

versally found to please in all countries and in all ages. Many of the
beauties of poetry, and even of eloquence, are founded on falsehood
and fiction, on hyperboles, metaphors, and an abuse or perversion of
terms from their natural meaning. To check the sallies of the
imagination, and to reduce every expression to geometrical truth and
exactness, would be the most contrary to the laws of criticism; be-
cause it would produce a work, which, by universal experience, has
been found the most insipid and disagreeable. But though poetry can
never submit to exact truth, it must be confined by rules of art,
discovered to the author either by genius or observation. If some
negligent or irregular writers have pleased, they have not pleased
by their transgressions of rule or order, but in spite of these trans-
gressions: They have possessed other beauties, which were conform-
able to just criticism; and the force of these beauties has been able to
overpower censure, and give the mind a satisfaction superior to the
disgust arising from the blemishes. Ariosto pleases; but not by his
monstrous and improbable fictions, by his bizarre mixture of the
serious and comic styles, by the want of coherence in his stories, or
by the continual interruptions of his narration. He charms by the
force and clearness of his expression, by the readiness and variety of
his inventions, and by his natural pictures of the passions, especially
those of the gay and amorous kind: And however his faults may
diminish our satisfaction, they are not able entirely to destroy it. Did
our pleasure really arise from those parts of his poem, which we
denominate faults, this would be no objection to criticism in general:
It would only be an objection to those particular rules of criticism,
which would establish such circumstances to be faults, and would
represent them as universally blameablc. If they are found to please,
they cannot be faults; let the pleasure, which they produce, be ever
so unexpected and unaccountable.

But though all the general rules of art are founded only on ex-
perience, and on the observation of the common sentiments of human
nature, we must not imagine, that, on every occasion, the feelings of
men will be conformable to these rules. Those finer emotions of the
mind are of a very tender and delicate nature, and require the con-
currence of many favourable circumstances to make them play with
facility and exactness, according to their general and established

208 DAVID HUME

principles. The least exterior hindrance to such small springs, or
the least internal disorder, disturbs their motion, and confounds
the operation of the whole machine. When we would make an ex-
periment of this nature, and would try the force of any beauty or
deformity, we must choose with care a proper time and place, and
bring the fancy to a suitable situation and disposition. A perfect
serenity of mind, a recollection of thought, a due attention to the
object; if any of these circumstances be wanting, our experiment
will be fallacious, and we shall be unable to judge of the catholic
and universal beauty. The relation, which nature has placed between
the form and the sentiment, will at least be more obscure; and it
will require greater accuracy to trace and discern it. We shall be
able to ascertain its influence, not so much from the operation of
each particular beauty, as from the durable admiration, which at-
tends those works, that have survived all the caprices of mode and
fashion, all the mistakes of ignorance and envy.

The same Homer, who pleased at Athens and Rome two thousand
years ago, is still admired at Paris and at London. All the changes of
climate, government, religion, and language, have not been able to
obscure his glory. Authority or prejudice may give a temporary
vogue to a bad poet or orator; but his reputation will never be durable
or general. When his compositions are examined by posterity or by
foreigners, the enchantment is dissipated, and his faults appear in
their true colours. On the contrary, a real genius, the longer his
works endure, and the more wide they are spread, the more sincere
is the admiration which he meets with. Envy and jealousy have too
much place in a narrow circle; and even familiar acquaintance with
his person may diminish the applause due to his performances: But
when these obstructions are removed, the beauties, which are natu-
rally fitted to excite agreeable sentiments, immediately display their
energy; while the world endures, they maintain their authority over
the minds of men.

It appears then, that, amidst all the variety and caprice of taste,
there are certain general principles of approbation or blame, whose
influence a careful eye may trace in all operations of the mind.
Some particular forms or qualities, from the original structure of the
internal fabric, are calculated to please, and others to displease; and

THE STANDARD OF TASTE 2O9

if they fail of their effect in any particular instance, it is from some
apparent defect or imperfection in the organ. A man in a fever
would not insist on his palate as able to decide concerning flavours;
nor would one, affected with the jaundice, pretend to give a verdict
with regard to colours. In each creature, there is a sound and a
defective state; and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a
true standard of taste and sentiment. If, in the sound state of the
organ, there be an entire or a considerable uniformity of sentiment
among men, we may thence derive an idea of the perfect beauty; in
like manner as the appearance of objects in day-light, to the eye of a
man in health, is denominated their true and real colour, even while
colour is allowed to be merely a phantasm of the senses.

Many and frequent are the defects in the internal organs, which
prevent or weaken the influence of those general principles, on which
depends our sentiment of beauty or deformity. Though some objects,
by the structure of the mind, be naturally calculated to give pleasure,
it is not to be expected, that in every individual the pleasure will be
equally felt. Particular incidents and situations occur, which either
throw a false light on the objects, or hinder the true from convey-
ing to the imagination the proper sentiment and perception.

One obvious cause, why many feel not the proper sentiment of
beauty, is the want of that delicacy of imagination, which is requi-
site to convey a sensibility of those liner emotions. This delicacy every
one pretends to: Every one talks of it; and would reduce every kind
of taste or sentiment to its standard. But as our intention in this essay
is to mingle some light of the understanding with the feelings of
sentiment, it will be proper to give a more accurate definition of
delicacy than has hitherto been attempted. And not to draw our
philosophy from too profound a source, we shall have recourse to a
noted story in Don Quixote.

It is with good reason, says Sancho to the squire with the great
nose, that I pretend to have a judgment in wine: This is a quality
hereditary in our family. Two of my kinsmen were once called to
give their opinion of a hogshead, which was supposed to be excellent,
being old and of a good vintage. One of them tastes it; considers it;
and, after mature reflection, pronounces the wine to be good, were
it not for a small taste of leather, which he perceived in it. The other.

2IO DAVID HUME

after using the same precautions, gives also his verdict in favour
of the wine; but with the reserve of a taste of iron, which he could
easily distinguish. You cannot imagine how much they were both
ridiculed for their judgment. But who laughed in the end? On
emptying the hogshead, there was found at the bottom an old key
with a leathern thong tied to it.

The great resemblance between mental and bodily taste will
easily teach us to apply this story. Though it be certain, that beauty
and deformity, more than sweet and bitter, are not qualities in
objects, but belong entirely to the sentiment, internal or external; it
must be allowed, that there are certain qualities in objects, which are
fitted by nature to produce those particular feelings. Now as these
quahties may be found in a small degree, or may be mixed and con-
founded with each other, it often happens that the taste is not
affected with such minute qualities, or is not able to distinguish all
the particular flavours, amidst the disorder in which they are pre-
sented. Where the organs are so fine, as to allow nothing to escape
them; and at the same time so exact, as to perceive every ingredient
in the composition: This we call delicacy of taste, whether we
employ these terms in the literal or metaphorical sense. Here then
the general rules of beauty are of use, being drawn from established
models, and from the observation of what pleases or displeases, when
presented singly and in a high degree: And if the same qualities, in
a continued composition, and in a smaller degree, affect not the
organs with a sensible delight or uneasiness, we exclude the person
from all pretensions to this delicacy. To produce these general rules
or avowed patterns of composition, is like finding the key with the
leathern thong; which justified the verdict of Sancho's kinsmen, and
confounded those pretended judges who had condemned them.
Though the hogshead had never been emptied, the taste of the one
was still equally delicate, and that of the other equally dull and
languid: But it would have been more difficult to have proved the
superiority of the former, to the conviction of every bye-stander.
In like manner, though the beauties of writing had never been
methodized, or reduced to general principles; though no excellent
models had ever been acknowledged; the different degrees of taste
would still have subsisted, and the judgment of one man been pref-

THE STANDARD OF TASTE 211

erable to that o£ another; but it would not have been so easy to
silence the bad critic, who might always insist upon his particular
sentiment, and refuse to submit to his antagonist. But when we show
him an avowed principle of art; when we illustrate this principle
by examples, whose operation, from his own particular taste, he
acknowledges to be conformable to the principle; when we prove
that the same principle may be applied to the present case, where
he did not perceive or feel its influence: He must conclude, upon the
whole, that the fault lies in himself, and that he wants the delicacy,
which is requisite to make him sensible of every beauty and every
blemish, in any composition or discourse.

It is acknowledged to be the perfection of every sense or faculty,
to perceive with exactness its most minute objects, and allow nothing
to escape its notice and observation. The smaller the objects are,
which become sensible to the eye, the finer is that organ, and the
more elaborate its make and composition. A good palate is not tried
by strong flavours, but by a mixture of small ingredients, where we
are still sensible of each part, notwithstanding its minuteness and its
confusion with the rest. In like manner, a quick and acute percep-
tion of beauty and deformity must be the perfection of our mental
taste; nor can a man be satisfied with himself while he suspects that
any excellence or blemish in a discourse has passed him unobserved.
In this case, the perfection of the man, and the perfection of the
sense or feeling, are found to be united. A very delicate palate, on
many occasions, may be a great inconvenience both to a man him-
self and to his friends: But a delicate taste of wit or beauty must
always be a desirable quality, because it is the source of all the finest
and most innocent enjoyments of which human nature is susceptible.
In this decision the sentiments of all mankind are agreed. Wherever
you can ascertain a delicacy of taste, it is sure to meet with appro-
bation; and the best way of ascertaining it is to appeal to those models
and principles which have been established by the uniform consent
and experience of nations and ages.

But though there be naturally a wide difference in point of delicacy
between one person and another, nothing tends further to increase
and improve this talent, than practice in a particular art, and the
frequent survey or contemplation of a particular species of beauty.

212 DAVID HUME

When objects of any kind are first presented to the eye or imagina-
tion, the sentiment which attends them is obscure and confused; and
the mind is, in a great measure, incapable of pronouncing concerning
their merits or defects. The taste cannot perceive the several excel-
lencies of the performance, much less distinguish the particular
character of each excellency, and ascertain its quality and degree.
If it pronounce the whole in general to be beautiful or deformed, it
is the utmost that can be expected; and even this judgment, a person
so unpractised will be apt to deliver with great hesitation and
reserve. But allow him to acquire experience in those objects, his
feeling becomes more exact and nice: He not only perceives the
beauties and defects of each part, but marks the distinguishing
species of each quality, and assigns it suitable praise or blame. A clear
and distinct sentiment attends him through the whole survey of the
objects; and he discerns that very degree and kind of approbation
or displeasure which each part is naturally fitted to produce. The
mist dissipates which seemed formerly to hang over the object: The
organ acquires greater perfection in its operations; and can pro-
nounce, without danger or mistake, concerning the merits of every
performance. In a word, the same address and dexterity, which
practice gives to the execution of any work, is also acquired by the
same means, in the judging of it.

So advantageous is practice to the discernment of beauty, that,
before we can give judgment on any work of importance, it will
even be requisite that that very individual performance be more than
once perused by us, and be surveyed in different lights with attention
and deliberation. There is a flutter or hurry of thought which
attends the first perusal of any piece, and which confounds the genu-
ine sentiment of beauty. The relation of the parts is not discerned:
The true characters of style are little distinguished. The several
perfections and defects seem wrapped up in a species of confusion,
and present themselves indistinctly to the imagination. Not to men-
tion, that there is a species of beauty, which, as it is florid and super-
ficial, pleases at first; but being found incompatible with a just
expression either of reason or passion, soon palls upon the taste,
and is then rejected with disdain, at least rated at a much lower
value.

THE STANDARD OF TASTE 2I3

It is impossible to continue in the practice of contemplating any
order of beauty, without being frequently obliged to form compari-
sons between the several species and degrees of excellence, and
estimating their proportion to each other. A man, who had had no
opportunity of comparing the different kinds of beauty, is indeed
totally unqualified to pronounce an opinion with regard to any
object presented to him. By comparison alone we fix the epithets of
praise or blame, and learn how to assign the due degree of each.
The coarsest daubing contains a certain lustre of colours and exact-
ness of imitation, which are so far beauties, and would affect the
mind of a peasant or Indian with the highest admiration. The most
vulgar ballads are not entirely destitute of harmony or nature; and
none but a person familiarised to superior beauties would pronounce
their numbers harsh, or narration uninteresting. A great inferiority
of beauty gives pain to a person conversant in the highest excellence
of the kind, and is for that reason pronounced a deformity: As the
most finished object with which we are acquainted is naturally sup-
posed to have reached the pinnacle of perfection, and to be entitled
to the highest applause. One accustomed to see, and examine, and
weigh the several performances, admired in different ages and
nations, can alone rate the merits of a work exhibited to his view,
and assign its proper rank among the productions of genius.

But to enable a critic the more fully to execute this undertaking,
he must preserve his mind free from all prejudice, and allow nothing
to enter into his consideration but the very object which is submitted
to his examination. We may observe, that every work of art, in order
to produce its due effect on the mind, must be surveyed in a certain
point of view, and cannot be fully relished by persons, whose situa-
tion, real or imaginary, is not conformable to that which is required
by the performance. An orator addresses himself to a particular
audience, and must have a regard to their particular genius, interests,
opinions, passions, and prejudices; otherwise he hopes in vain to
govern their resolutions, and inflame their affections. Should they
even have entertained some prepossessions against him, however
unreasonable, he must not overlook this disadvantage; but, before
he enters upon the subject, must endeavour to conciliate their affec-
tion, and acquire their good graces. A critic of a different age or

214 DAVID HUME

nation, who should peruse this discourse, must have all these circum-
stances in his eye, and must place himself in the same situation as
the audience, in order to form a true judgment of the oration. In
like manner, when any work is addressed to the public, though I
should have a friendship or enmity with the author, I must depart
from this situation; and considering myself as a man in general,
forget, if possible, my individual being, and my peculiar circum-
stances. A person influenced by prejudice, complies not with this
condition, but obstinately maintains his natural position, without
placing himself in that point of view which the performance sup-
poses. If the work be addressed to persons of a different age or
nation, he makes no allowance for their peculiar views and preju-
dices; but, full of the manners of his own age and country, rashly
condemns what seemed admirable in the eyes of those for whom
alone the discourse was calculated. If the work be executed for the
public, he never sufficiently enlarges his comprehension, or forgets
his interest as a friend or enemy, as a rival or commentator. By
this means, his sentiments are perverted; nor have the same beauties
and blemishes the same influence upon him, as if he had imposed a
proper violence on his iiriagination, and had forgotten himself for a
moment. So far his taste evidently departs from the true standard,
and of consequence loses all credit and authority.

It is well known, that in all questions submitted to the under-
standing, prejudice is destructive of sound judgment, and perverts
all operations of the intellectual faculties: It is no less contrary to
good taste; nor has it less influence to corrupt our sentiment of
beauty. It belongs to good sense to check its influence in both cases;
and in this respect, as well as in many others, reason, if not an
essential part of taste, is at least requisite to the operations of this
latter faculty. In all the nobler productions of genius, there is a
mutual relation and correspondence of parts; nor can either the
beauties or blemishes be perceived by him, whose thought is not
capacious enough to comprehend all those parts, and compare them
with each other, in order to perceive the consistence and uniformity
of the whole. Every work of art has also a certain end or purpose
for which it is calculated; and is to be deemed more or less perfect,
as it is more or less fitted to attain this end. The object of eloquence

THE STANDARD OF TASTE 215

is to persuade, o£ history to instruct, of poetry to please, by means of
the passions and the imagination. These ends we must carry con-
stantly in our view when we peruse any performance; and we must
be able to judge how far the means employed are adapted to their
respective purposes. Besides, every kind of composition, even the
most poetical, is nothing but a chain of propositions and reasonings;
not always indeed, the justest and most exact, but still plausible and
specious, however disguised by the colouring of the imagination.
The persons introduced in tragedy and epic poetry, must be repre-
sented as reasoning, and thinking, and concluding, and acting, suit-
ably to their character and circumstances; and without judgment,
as well as taste and invention, a poet can never hope to succeed in
so delicate an undertaking. Not to mention, that the same excellence
of faculties which contributes to the improvement of reason, the
same clearness of conception, the same exactness of distinction, the
same vivacity of apprehension, are essential to the operations of true
taste, and are its infallible concomitants. It seldom or never happens,
that a man of sense, who has experience in any art, cannot judge of
its beauty; and it is no less rare to meet with a man who has a just
taste without a sound understanding.

Thus, though the principles of taste be universal, and nearly, if
not entirely, the same in all men; yet few are qualified to give judg-
ment on any work of art, or establish their own sentiment as the
standard of beauty. The organs of internal sensation are seldom so
perfect as to allow the general principles their full play, and produce
a feeling correspondent to those principles. They either labour under
some defect, or are vitiated by some disorder; and by that means,
excite a sentiment, which may be pronounced erroneous. When the
critic has no delicacy, he judges without any distinction, and is only
affected by the grosser and more palpable qualities of the object:
The finer touches pass unnoticed and disregarded. Where he is not
aided by practice, his verdict is attended with confusion and hesita-
tion. Where no comparison has been employed, the most frivolous
beauties, such as rather merit the name of defects, are the object
of his admiration. Where he Hes under the influence of prejudice, all
his natural sentiments are perverted. Where good sense is wanting,
he is not qualified to discern the beauties of design and reasoning,

2l6 DAVID HUME

which are the highest and most excellent. Under some or other
of these imperfections, the generality of men labour; and hence a
true judge in the finer arts is observed, even during the most polished
ages, to be so rare a character: Strong sense, united to delicate senti-
ment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of
all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and
the joint verdict of such, vi^herever they are to be found, is the true
standard of taste and beauty.

But where are such critics to be found? By what marks are they
to be known ? How distinguish them from pretenders ? These ques-
tions are embarrassing; and seem to throw us back into the same
uncertainty, from which, during the course of this essay, we have
endeavoured to extricate ourselves.

But if we consider the matter aright, these are questions of fact,
not of sentiment. Whether any particular person be endowed with
good sense and a delicate imagination, free from prejudice, may
often be the subject of dispute, and be liable to great discussion and
inquiry: But that such a character is valuable and estimable, will be
agreed in by all mankind. Where these doubts occur, men can do
no more than in other disputable questions which are submitted to
the understanding: They must produce the best arguments, that their
invention suggests to them; they must acknowledge a true and
decisive standard to exist somewhere, to wit, real existence and matter
of fact; and they must have indulgence to such as differ from them
in their appeals to this standard. It is sufficient for our present
purpose, if we have proved, that the taste of all individuals is not
upon an equal footing, and that some men in general, however
difficult to be particularly pitched upon, will be acknowledged by
universal sentiment to have a preference above others.

But in reality, the difficulty of finding, even in particulars, the
standard of taste, is not so great as it is represented. Though in
speculation, we may readily avow a certain criterion in science, and
deny it in sentiment, the matter is found in practice to be much more
hard to ascertain in the former case than in the latter. Theories of
abstract philosophy, systems of profound theology, have prevailed
during one age: In a successive period, these have been universally
exploded: Their absurdity has been detected: Other theories and

THE STANDARD OF TASTE ll'J

systems have supplied their place, which again gave place to their
successors: And nothing has been experienced more liable to the
revolutions of chance and fashion than these pretended decisions of
science. The case is not the same with the beauties of eloquence and
poetry. Just expressions of passion and nature are sure, after a little
time, to gain public applause, which they maintain for ever. Aris-
totle, and Plato, and Epicurus, and Descartes, may successively yield
to each other : But Terence and Virgil maintain an universal, undis-
puted empire over the minds of men. The abstract philosophy of
Cicero has lost its credit: The vehemence of his oratory is still the
object of our admiration.

Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily to be dis-
tinguished in society by the soundness of their understanding, and
the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind. The
ascendant, which they acquire, gives a prevalence to that lively
approbation, with which they receive any productions of genius,
and renders it generally predominant. Many men, when left to
themselves, have but a faint and dubious perception of beauty, who
yet are capable of relishing any fine stroke which is pointed out to
them. Every convert to the admiration of the real poet or orator is
the cause of some new conversion. And though prejudices may
prevail for a time, they never unite in celebrating any rival to the
true genius, but yield at last to the force of nature and just sentiment.
Thus, though a civilized nation may easily be mistaken in the choice
of their admired philosopher, they never have been found long to
err, in their affection for a favourite epic or tragic author.

But notwithstanding all our endeavours to fix a standard of taste,
and reconcile the discordant apprehensions of men, there still remain
two sources of variation, which are not sufficient indeed to confound
all the boundaries of beauty and deformity, but will often serve to
produce a difference in the degrees of our approbation or blame.
The one is the different humours of particular men; the other, the
particular manners and opinions of our age and country. The general
principles of taste are uniform in human nature: Where men vary in
their judgments, some defect or perversion in the faculties may
commonly be remarked; proceeding either from prejudice, from
want of practice, or want of delicacy: and there is just reason for

2l8 DAVID HUME

approving one taste, and condemning another. But where there is
such a diversity in the internal frame or external situation as is
entirely blameless on both sides, and leaves no room to give one the
preference above the other; in that case a certain degree of diversity
in judgment is unavoidable, and we seek in vain for a standard, by
which we can reconcile the contrary sentiments.

A young man, whose passions are warm, will be more sensibly
touched with amorous and tender images, than a man more advanced
in years, who takes pleasure in wise, philosophical reflections, con-
cerning the conduct of life and moderation of the passions. At
twenty, Ovid may be the favourite author; Horace at forty; and
perhaps Tacitus at fifty. Vainly would we, in such cases, endeavour
to enter into the sentiments of others, and divest ourselves of those
propensities which are natural to us. We choose our favourite author
as we do our friend, from a conformity of humour and disposition.
Mirth or passion, sentiment or reflection; which ever of these most
predominates in our temper, it gives us a peculiar sympathy with the
writer who resembles us.

One person is more pleased with the sublime; another with the
tender; a third with raillery. One has a strong sensibility to blem-
ishes, and is extremely studious of correctness: Another has a more
lively feeling of beauties, and pardons twenty absurdities and defects
for one elevated or pathetic stroke. The ear of this man is entirely
turned towards conciseness and energy; that man is delighted with
a copious, rich, and harmonious expression. Simplicity is affected by
one; ornament by another. Comedy, tragedy, satire, odes, have each
its partizans, who prefer that particular species of writing to all
others. It is plainly an error in a critic, to confine his approbation
to one species or style of writing, and condemn all the rest. But it is
almost impossible not to feel a predilection for that which suits our
particular turn and disposition. Such preferences are innocent and
unavoidable, and can never reasonably be the object of dispute,
because there is no standard by which they can be decided.

For a like reason, we are more pleased, in the course of our reading,
with pictures and characters that resemble objects which are found
in our own age or country, than with those which describe a different
set of customs. It is not without some effort, that we reconcile our-
selves to the simplicity of ancient manners, and behold princesses

THE STANDARD OF TASTE 219

carrying water from the spring, and kings and heroes dressing their
own victuals. We may allow in general, that the representation o£
such manners is no fault in the author, nor deformity in the piece;
but we are not so sensibly touched with them. For this reason,
comedy is not easily transferred from one age or nation to another.
A Frenchman or Englishman is not pleased with the Andria of
Terence, or Clitia of Machiavel; where the fine lady, upon whom
all the play turns, never once appears to the spectators, but is always
kept behind the scenes, suitably to the reserved humour of the
ancient Greeks and modern Italians. A man of learning and reflec-
tion can make allowance for these peculiarities of manners; but a
common audience can never divest themselves so far of their usual
ideas and sentiments, as to relish pictures which nowise resemble
them.

But here there occurs a reflection, which may, perhaps, be useful
in examining the celebrated controversy concerning ancient and
modern learning; where we often find the one side excusing any
seeming absurdity in the ancients from the manners of the age, and
the other refusing to admit this excuse, or at least admitting it only
as an apology for the author, not for the performance. In my opinion,
the proper boundaries in this subject have seldom been fixed between
the contending parties. Where any innocent peculiarities of manners
are represented, such as those above mentioned, they ought certainly
to be admitted; and a man, who is shocked with them, gives an
evident proof of false delicacy and refinement. The poet's monument
more durable than brass, must fall to the ground like common brick
or clay, were men to make no allowance for the continual revolutions
of manners and customs, and would admit of nothing but what was
suitable to the prevailing fashion. Must we throw aside the pictures
of our ancestors, because of their ruffs and f ardingales ? But where
the ideas of morality and decency alter from one age to another, and
where vicious manners are described, without being marked with
the proper characters of blame and disapprobation, this must be
allowed to disfigure the poem, and to be a real deformity. I cannot,
nor is it proper I should, enter into such sentiments; and however I
may excuse the poet, on account of the manners of his age, I never
can relish the composition. The want of humanity and of decency,
so conspicuous in the characters drawn by several of the ancient

220 DAVID HUME

poets, even sometimes by Homer and the Greek tragedians, dimin-
ishes considerably the merit of their noble performances, and gives
modern authors an advantage over them. We are not interested in
the fortunes and sentiments of such rough heroes : We are displeased
to find the limits of vice and virtue so much confounded; and what-
ever indulgence we may give to the writer on account of his prej-
udices, we cannot prevail on ourselves to enter into his sentiments,
or bear an affection to characters, which we plainly discover to be
blameable.

The case is not the same with moral principles as with speculative
opinions of any kind. These are in continual flux and revolution.
The son embraces a different system from the father. Nay there
scarcely is any man, who can boast of great constancy and uniformity
in this particular. Whatever speculative errors may be found in the
polite writings of any age or country, they detract but little from the
value of those compositions. There needs but a certain turn of
thought or imagination to make us enter into all the opinions, which
then prevail, and relish the sentiments or conclusions derived from
them. But a very violent effort is requisite to change our judgment
of manners, and excite sentiments of approbation or blame, love or
hatred, different from those to which the mind, from long custom,
has been familiarized. And where a man is confident of the rectitude
of that moral standard, by which he judges, he is justly jealous of it,
and will not pervert the sentiments of his heart for a moment, in
complaisance to any writer whatsoever.

Of all speculative errors, those which regard religion are the most
excusable in compositions of genius; nor is it ever permitted to
judge of the civility or wisdom of any people, or even of single
persons, by the grossness or refinement of their theological principles.
The same good sense, that directs men in the ordinary occurrences
of life, is not hearkened to in religious matters, which are supposed
to be placed altogether above the cognisance of human reason. On
this account, all the absurdities of the pagan system of theology must
be overlooked by every critic, who would pretend to form a just
notion of ancient poetry; and our posterity, in their turn, must have
the same indulgence to their forefathers. No religious principles can
ever be imputed as a fault to any poet, while they remain merely

THE STANDARD OF TASTE 221

principles, and take not such strong possession of his heart, as to lay
him under the imputation of bigotry or superstition. Where that
happens, they confound the sentiments of morality, and alter the
natural boundaries of vice and virtue. They are therefore eternal
blemishes, according to the principle above mentioned; nor are the
prejudices and false opinions of the age sufficient to justify them.

It is essential to the Roman Catholic religion to inspire a violent
hatred of every other worship, and to represent all pagans, mahome-
tans, and heretics, as the objects of Divine wrath and vengeance.
Such sentiments, though they are in reality very blameable, are
considered as virtues by the zealots of that communion, and are repre-
sented in their tragedies and epic poems as a kind of divine heroism.
This bigotry has disfigured two very fine tragedies of the French
theatre, Polieucte and Athalia; where an intemperate zeal for
particular modes of worship is set off with all the pomp imaginable,
and forms the predominant character of the heroes. "What is this,"
says the sublime Joad to Josabet, finding her in discourse with
Mathan the priest of Baal, "Does the daughter of David speak to
this traitor? Are you not afraid, lest the earth should open and pour
forth flames to devour you both? Or lest these holy walls should
fall and crush you together ? What is his purpose ? Why comes that
enemy of God hither to poison the air, which we breathe, with his
horrid presence?" Such sentiments are received with great applause
on the theatre of Paris; but at London the spectators would be full
as much pleased to hear Achilles tell Agamemnon, that he was a
dog in his forehead, and a deer in his heart; or Jupiter threaten Juno
with a sound drubbing, if she will not be quiet.

Religious principles are also a blemish in any polite composition,
when they rise up to superstition, and intrude themselves into every
sentiment, however remote from any connection with religion. It is
no excuse for the poet, that the customs of his country had burthened
life with so many religious ceremonies and observances, that no part
of it was exempt from that yoke. It must for ever be ridiculous in
Petrarch to compare his mistress, Laura, to Jesus Christ. Nor is it
less ridiculous in that agreeable libertine, Boccace, very seriously to
give thanks to God Almighty and the ladies, for their assistance in
defending him against his enemies.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS

BY
SYDNEY SMITH

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) was an English clergyman noted as the
wittiest man of his time. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford,
and in 1798 went to Edinburgh as tutor to the son of an EngHsh gentle-
man. While there he proposed the founding of the "Edinburgh Review,"
and with Jeffrey, Brougham, and Francis Horner shared in its actual
establishment. He superintended the first three numbers, and continued
to write for it for twenty-five years. On leaving Edinburgh he lectured in
London, held livings in Yorkshire and Somersetshire, was made pre-
bendary of Bristol and Canon of St. Paul's.

The review of Bentham's "Book of Fallacies" exhibits at once the
method of the Edinburgh Reviewers, Smith's vigorous, pointed, and
witty style, and the general trend of his political opinions. He was a
stanch Whig, and in such issues as that of Catholic Emancipation he
fought for liberal opinions at the cost of injury to his personal prospects.
As a clergyman he was kindly and philanthropic, a good preacher, and a
hater of mysticism. No political writing of his time was more telling
than his on the side of toleration and reform; and his wit, while spon-
taneous and exuberant, was employed in the service of good sense and
with careful consideration for the feelings of others. If he lacks the
terrific power of Swift, he lacks also his bitterness and savagery; his
honesty and sincerity were no less, and his personality was as winning as
it was amusing.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS'

THERE are a vast number of absurd and mischievous falla-
cies, which pass readily in the world for sense and virtue,
while in truth they tend only to fortify error and encourage
crime. Mr. Bentham has enumerated the most conspicuous of these
in the book before us.

Whether it be necessary there should be a middleman between the
cultivator and the possessor, learned economists have doubted; but
neither gods, men, nor booksellers can doubt the necessity of a
middleman between Mr. Bentham and the public. Mr. Bentham is
long; Mr. Bentham is occasionally involved and obscure; Mr. Ben-
tham invents new and alarming expressions; Mr. Bentham loves
division and subdivision — and he loves method itself, more than its
consequences. Those only, therefore, who know his originality, his
knowledge, his vigor, and his boldness, will recur to the works them-
selves. The great mass of readers will not purchase improvement at
so dear a rate; but will choose rather to become acquainted with
Mr. Bentham through the medium of reviews — after that eminent
philosopher has been washed, trimmed, shaved, and forced into
clean linen. One great use of a review, indeed, is to make men wise
in ten pages, who have no appetite for a hundred pages; to condense
nourishment, to work with pulp and essence, and to guard the
stomach from idle burden and unmeaning bulk. For half a page,
sometimes for a whole page, Mr. Bentham writes with a power
which few can equal; and by selecting and omitting, an admirable
style may be formed from the text. Using this liberty, we shall
endeavor to give an account of Mr. Bentham's doctrines, for the most
part in his own words. Wherever an expression is particularly happy,
let it be considered to be Mr. Bentham's — the dulness we take to
ourselves.

'A review of "The Book of Fallacies: from Unfinished Papers of Jeremy Bentham.
By a Friend. London, 1824."

225

226 SYDNEY SMITH

Our Wise Ancestors — The Wisdom of Our Ancestors — The
Wisdom of Ages — Venerable Antiquity — Wisdom of Old Times. —
This mischievous and absurd fallacy springs from the grossest per-
version of the meaning of words. Experience is certainly the mother
of wisdom, and the old have, of course, a greater experience than
the young; but the question is who are the old? and who are the
young? Of individuals living at the same period, the oldest has, of
course, the greatest experience; but among generations of men the
reverse of this is true. Those who come first (our ancestors) are the
young people, and have the least experience. We have added to their
experience the experience of many centuries; and, therefore, as far as
experience goes, are wiser, and more capable of forming an opinion
than they were. The real feeling should be, not can we be so pre-
sumptuous as to put our opinions in opposition to those of our
ancestors? but can such young, ignorant, inexperienced persons as
our ancestors necessarily were, be expected to have understood a
subject as well as those who have seen so much more, lived so much
longer, and enjoyed the experience of so many centuries? All this
cant, then, about our ancestors is merely an abuse of words, by trans-
ferring phrases true of contemporary men to succeeding ages.
Whereas (as we have before observed) of living men the oldest has,
c ceteris paribus} the most experience; of generations, the oldest has,
ceeteris paribus, the least experience. Our ancestors, up to the Con-
quest, were children in arms; chubby boys in the time of Edward I;
striplings under Elizabeth; men in the reign of Queen Anne; and we
only are the white-bearded, silver-headed ancients, who have treas-
ured up, and are prepared to profit by, all the experience which
human life can supply. We are not disputing with our ancestors the
palm of talent, in which they may or may not be our superiors, but
the palm of experience in which it is utterly impossible they can be
our superiors. And yet, whenever the Chancellor comes forward to
protect some abuse, or to oppose some plan which has the increase of
human happiness for its object, his first appeal is always to the wis-
dom of our ancestors; and he himself, and many noble lords who
vote with him, are, to this hour, persuaded that all alterations and
amendments on their devices are an unblushing controversy between
* "Other things being equal."

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 227

youthful temerity and mature experience! — and so, in truth they
are — only that much-loved magistrate mistakes the young for the
old, and the old for the young — and is guilty of that very sin against
experience which he attributes to the lovers of innovation.

We cannot of course be supposed to maintain that our ancestors
wanted wisdom, or that they were necessarily mistaken in their
institutions, because their means of information were more limited
than ours. But we do confidently maintain that when we find it
expedient to change anything which our ancestors have enacted, we
are the experienced persons, and not they. The quantity of talent
is always varying in any great nation. To say that we are more or
less able than our ancestors is an assertion that requires to be
explained. All the able men of all ages, who have ever lived in
England, probably possessed, if taken altogether, more intellect than
all the able men England can now boast of. But if authority must
be resorted to rather than reason, the question is. What was the
wisdom of that single age which enacted the law, compared with
the wisdom of the age which proposes to alter it? What are the
eminent men of one and the other period? If you say that our
ancestors were wiser than us, mention your date and year. If the
splendor of names is equal, are the circumstances the same? If the
circumstances are the same, we have a superiority of experience, of
which the difference between the two periods is the measure. It is
necessary to insist upon this; for upon sacks of wool, and on benches
forensic, sit grave men, and agricolous persons in the Commons,
crying out: "Ancestors, ancestors! hodie nonP Saxons, Danes, save
us! Fiddlefrig, help us! Howel, Ethelwolf, protect us!" Any cover
for nonsense — any veil for trash — any pretext for repelling the
innovations of conscience and of duty!

"So long as they keep to vague generalities — so long as the two
objects of comparison are each of them taken in the lump— wise
ancestors in one lump, ignorant and foolish mob of modern times
in the other — the weakness of the fallacy may escape detection. But
let them assign for the period of superior wisdom any determinate
period whatsoever, not only will the groundlessness of the notion
be apparent (class being compared with class in that period and the

3 "Not to-day!"

228 SYDNEY SMITH

present one), but unless the antecedent period be comparatively
speaking a very modern one, so wide will be the disparity, and to
such an amount in favor of modern times, that, in comparison of the
lowest class of the people in modern times (always supposing them
proficient in the art of reading, and their proficiency employed in
the reading of newspapers), the very highest and best-informed class
of these wise ancestors will turn out to be grossly ignorant.

"Take, for example, any year in the reign of Henry VIII, from
1509 to 1546. At that time the House of Lords would probably have
been in possession of by far the larger proportion of what little
instruction the age afforded; in the House of Lords, among the laity,
it might even then be a question whether, without exception, their
lordships were all of them able so much as to read. But even suppos-
ing them all in the fullest possession of that useful art, political
science being the science in question, what instruction on the subject
could they meet with at that time of day?

"On no one branch of legislation was any book extant from which,
with regard to the circumstances of the then present times, any useful
instruction could be derived: distributive law, penal law, inter-
national law, political economy, so far from existing as sciences, had
scarcely obtained a name: in all those departments under the head
of quid faciendum, a mere blank: the whole literature of the age
consisted of a meagre chronicle or two, containing short memoran-
dums of the usual occurrences of war and peace, battles, sieges,
executions, revels, deaths, births, processions, ceremonies, and other
external events; but with scarce a speech or an incident that could
enter into the composition of any such work as a history of the
human mind — with scarce an attempt at investigation into causes,
characters, or the state of the people at large. Even when at last,
little by little, a scrap or two of political instruction came to be
obtainable, the proportion of error and mischievous doctrine mixed
up with it was so great, that whether a blank unfilled might not have
been less prejudicial than a blank thus filled, may reasonably be
matter of doubt.

"If we come down to the reign of James I, we shall find that
Solomon of his time eminently eloquent as well as learned, not only

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 229

among crowned but among uncrowned heads, marking out for pro-
hibition and punishment the practices of devils and witches, and
without the sHghtest objection on the part of the great characters of
that day in their high situations, consigning men to death and tor-
ment for the misfortune of not being so well acquainted as he was
with the composition of the Godhead.

"Under the name of exorcism the Catholic liturgy contains a form
of procedure for driving out devils; — even with the help of this
instrument, the operation cannot be performed with the desired
success, but by an operator qualified by holy orders for the working
of this as well as so many other wonders. In our days and in our
country the same object is attained, and beyond comparison more
effectually, by so cheap an instrument as a common newspaper;
before this talisman, not only devils but ghosts, vampires, witches,
and all their kindred tribes, are driven out of the land, never to
return again! The touch of holy water is not so intolerable to them
as the bare smell of printers' ink." *

Fallacy of Irrevocable Laws. — A law, says Mr. Bentham (no
matter to what effect) is proposed to a legislative assembly, who are
called upon to reject it, upon the single ground that by those who in
some former period exercised the same power, a regulation was made,
having for its object to preclude forever, or to the end of an unexpired
period, all succeeding legislators from enacting a law to any such
effect as that now proposed.

Now it appears quite evident that, at every period of time, every
legislature must be endowed with all those powers which the exigency
of the times may require; and any attempt to infringe on this power
is inadmissible and absurd. The sovereign power, at any one period,
can only form a blind guess at the measures which may be necessary
for any future period; but by this principle of immutable laws, the
government is transferred from those who are necessarily the best
judges of what they want, to others who can know little or nothing
about the matter. The thirteenth century decides for the fourteenth.
The fourteenth makes laws for the fifteenth. The fifteenth hermeti-
cally seals up the sixteenth, which tyrannizes over the seventeenth,
* From Bentham, pp. 74-77.

230 SYDNEY SMITH

wbich again tells the eighteenth how it is to act, under circumstances
which cannot be foreseen, and how it is to conduct itself in exigencies
which no human wit can anticipate.

"Men who have a century more experience to ground their judg-
ments on, surrender their intellect to men who had a century less
experience, and who, unless that deficiency constitutes a claim, have
no claim to preference. If the prior generation were, in respect of
intellectual qualification, ever so much superior to the subsequent
generation — if it understood so much better than the subsequent
generation itself the interest of that subsequent generation — could it
have been in an equal degree anxious to promote that interest, and
consequently equally attentive to those facts with which, though in
order to form a judgment it ought to have been, it is impossible that
it should have been, acquainted? In a word, will its love for that
subsequent generation be quite so great as that same generation's love
for itself?

"Not even here, after a moment's deliberate reflection, will the
assertion be in the affirmative. And yet it is their prodigious anxiety
for the welfare of their posterity that produces the propensity of these
sages to tie up the hands of this same posterity forever more — to act
as guardians to its perpetual and incurable weakness, and take its
conduct forever out of its own hands.

"If it be right that the conduct of the nineteenth century should
be determined not by its own judgment but by that of the eighteenth,
it will be equally right that the conduct of the twentieth century
should be determined not by its own judgment but by that of the
nineteenth. And if the same principle were still pursued, what at
length would be the consequence ? — that in process of time the prac-
tice of legislation would be at an end. The conduct and fate of all
men would be determined by those who neither knew nor cared
anything about the matter; and the aggregate body of the living
would remain forever in subjection to an inexorable tyranny, exer-
cised as it were by the aggregate body of the Dead." °

The despotism, as Mr. Bentham well observes, of Nero or Caligula
would be more tolerable than an "irrevocable law." The despot,
through fear or favor, or in a lucid interval, might relent; but how

5 Ibid., pp. 84-86.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 23 1

are the Parliament who made the Scotch Union, for example, to be
awakened from that dust in which they repose — the jobber and the
patriot, the speaker and the doorkeeper, the silent voters and the men
of rich allusions, Cannings and cultivators, Barings and beggars —
making irrevocable laws for men who toss their remains about with
spades, and use the relics of these legislators to give breadth to broc-
coli, and to aid the vernal eruption of asparagus ?

If the law be good, it will support itself; if bad, it should not be
supported by "irrevocable theory," which is never resorted to but as
the veil of abuses. All living men must possess the supreme power
over their own happiness at every particular period. To suppose that
there is anything which a whole nation cannot do, which they deem
to be essential to their happiness, and that they cannot do it, because
another generation, long ago dead and gone, said it must not be done,
is mere nonsense. While you are captain of the vessel, do what you
please; but the moment you quit the ship I become as omnipotent as
you. You may leave me as much advice as you please, but you can-
not leave me commands; though, in fact, this is the only meaning
which can be applied to what are called irrevocable laws. It appeared
to the legislature for the time being to be of immense importance to
make such and such a law. Great good was gained, or great evil
avoided, by enacting it. Pause before you alter an institution which
has been deemed to be of so much importance. This is prudence and
common-sense; the rest is the exaggeration of fools, or the artifice of
knaves, who eat up fools. What endless nonsense has been talked of
our navigation laws! What wealth has been sacrificed to either
before they were repealed! How impossible it appeared to Noodle-
dom to repeal them! They were considered of the irrevocable class —
a kind of law over which the dead only were omnipotent, and the
living had no power. Frost, it is true, cannot be put off by act of
Parliament, nor can spring be accelerated by any majority of both
houses. It is, however, quite a mistake to suppose that any alteration
of any of the articles of union is as much out of the jurisdiction of
Parliament as these meteorological changes. In every year, and every
day of that year, living men have a right to make their own laws
and manage their own affairs; to break through the tyranny of the
antespirants — the people who breathed before them — and to do what

232 SYDNEY SMITH

they please for themselves. Such supreme power cannot indeed be
well exercised by the people at large; it must be exercised therefore
by the delegates, or Parliament, whom the people choose; and such
Parliament, disregarding the superstitious reverence for "irrevocable
laws," can have no other criterion of wrong and right than that of
public utility.

When a law is considered as immutable, and the immutable law
happens at the same time to be too foolish and mischievous to be
endured, instead of being repealed, it is clandestinely evaded, or
openly violated; and thus the authority of all law is weakened.

Where a nation has been ancestorially bound by foolish and im-
provident treaties, ample notice must be given of their termination.
Where the State has made ill-advised grants, or rash bargains with
individuals, it is necessary to grant proper compensation. The most
difficult case, certainly, is that of the union of nations, where a
smaller number of the weaker nation is admitted into the larger
senate of the greater nation, and will be overpowered if the question
come to a vote; but the lesser nation must run this risk; it is not
probable that any violation of articles will take place till they are
absolutely called for by extreme necessity. But let the danger be
what it may, no danger is so great, no supposition so foolish, as to
consider any human law as irrevocable. The shifting attitude of
human affairs would often render such a condition an intolerable
evil to all parties. The absurd jealousy of our countrymen at the
Union secured heritable jurisdiction to the owners; nine and thirty
years afterward they were abolished, in the very teeth of the Act of
Union, and to the evident promotion of the public good.

Continuity of a Law by Oath. — The sovereign of England at his
coronation takes an oath to maintain the laws of God, the true
profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant religion, as established
by law, and to preserve to the bishops and clergy of this realm the
rights and privileges which by law appertain to them, and to preserve
inviolate the doctrine, discipline, worship, and the government of
the Church. It has been suggested that by this oath the King stands
precluded from granting those indulgences to the Irish Catholics
which are included in the bill for their emancipation. The true
meaning of these provisions is of course to be decided, if doubtful, by

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 233

the same legislative authority which enacted them. But a different
notion it seems is now afloat. The King for the time being (we are
putting an imaginary case) thinks as an individual that he is not
maintaining the doctrine, discipline, and rights of the Church of
England, if he grant any extension of civil rights to those who are
not members of that Church; that he is violating his oath by so doing.
This oath, then, according to this reasoning, is the great palladium
of the Church. As long as it remains inviolate the Church is safe.
How, then, can any monarch who has taken it ever consent to repeal
it? How can he, consistently with his oath for the preservation of the
privileges of the Church, contribute his part to throw down so strong
a bulwark as he deems his oath to be! The oath, then, cannot be
altered. It must remain under all circumstances of society the same.
The King who has taken it is bound to continue it, and to refuse his
sanction to any bill for its future alteration, because it prevents him,
and, he must needs think, will prevent others, from granting danger-
ous immunities to the enemies of the Church.

Here, then, is an irrevocable law — a piece of absurd tyranny exer-
cised by the rulers of Queen Anne's time upon the government of
1825 — a certain art of potting and preserving a kingdom in one
shape, attitude, and flavor — and in this way it is that an institution
appears like old ladies' sweetmeats and made wines — Apricot Jam
1822 — Currant Wine 1819 — Court of Chancery 1427 — Penal Laws
against Catholics 1676. The difference is, that the ancient woman
is a better judge of mouldy commodities than the illiberal part of
his majesty's ministers. The potting lady goes sniffing about and
admitting light and air to prevent the progress of decay; while to
him of the wool-sack all seems doubly dear in proportion as it is
antiquated, worthless, and unusable.

It ought not to be in the power of the sovereign to tie up his own
hands, much less the hands of his successors. If the sovereign were
to oppose his own opinion to that of the two other branches of the
legislature, and himself to decide what he considers to be for the
benefit of the Protestant Church, and what not a king who has spent
his whole life in the frivolous occupation of a court may by perver-
sion of understanding conceive measures most salutary to the Church
to be most pernicious, and, persevering obstinately in his own error,

234 SYDNEY SMITH

may frustrate the wisdom of his parliament, and perpetuate the most
inconceivable folly! If Henry VIII had argued in this manner we
should have had no Reformation. If George III had always argued
in this manner the Catholic code would never have been relaxed.
And thus a King, however incapable of forming an opinion upon
serious subjects, has nothing to do but pronounce the word "Con-
science," and the whole power of the country is at his feet.

Can there be greater absurdity than to say that a man is acting
contrary to his conscience who surrenders his opinion upon any
subject to those who must understand the subject better than him-
self? I think my ward has a claim to the estate; but the best lawyers
tell me he has none. I think my son capable of undergoing the
fatigues of a miUtary life; but the best physicians say he is much too
weak. My Parhament say this measure will do the Church no harm;
but I think it very pernicious to the Church. Am I acting contrary
to my conscience because I apply much higher intellectual powers
than my own to the investigation and protection of these high
interests?

"According to the form in which it is conceived, any such engage-
ment is in effect either a check or a license: — a license under the
appearance of a check, and for that very reason but the more
efficiently operative.

"Chains to the man in power? Yes: — but only such as he figures
with on the stage; to the spectators as imposing, to himself as light
as possible. Modelled by the wearer to suit his own purposes, they
serve to rattle but not to restrain.

"Suppose a king of Great Britain and Ireland to have expressed
his fixed determination, in the event of any proposed law being
tendered to him for his assent, to refuse such assent, and this not on
the persuasion that the law would not be 'for the utility of the
subjects,' but that by his coronation oath he stands precluded from
so doing, the course proper to be taken by Parliament, the course
pointed out by principle and precedent, would be a vote of abdica-
tion — a vote declaring the king to have abdicated his royal authority,
and that, as in case of death or incurable mental derangement, now
is the time for the person next in succession to take his place. In the
celebrated case in which a vote to this effect was actually passed, the

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 235

declaration of abdication was, in lawyers' language, a fiction — in
plain truth, a falsehood, and that falsehood a mockery; not a particle
of his power was it the wish of James to abdicate, to part with, but
to increase it to a maximum was the manifest object of all his efforts.
But in the case here supposed, with respect to a part, and that a
principal part of the royal authority, the will and purpose to abdicate
is actually declared; and this being such a part, without which the
remainder cannot, 'to the utility of the subjects,' be exercised, the
remainder must of necessity be, on their part and for their sake,
added." ^

Self-Trumpeter's Fallacy. — Mr. Bentham explains the self-
trumpeter's fallacy as follows:

"There are certain men in office who, in discharge of their func-
tions, arrogate to themselves a degree of probity, which is to exclude
all imputations and all inquiry. Their assertions are to be deemed
equivalent to proof, their virtues are guaranties for the faithful dis-
charge of their duties, and the most implicit confidence is to be
reposed in them on all occasions. If you expose any abuse, propose
any reform, call for securities, inquiry, or measures to promote pub-
licity, they set up a cry of surprise, amounting almost to indignation,
as if their integrity were questioned or their honor wounded. With
all this, they dexterously mix up intimations that the most exalted
patriotism, honor, and perhaps religion, are the only sources of all
their actions." '

Of course every man will try what he can effect by these means;
but (as Mr. Bentham observes) if there be any one maxim in politics
more certain than another, it is that no possible degree of virtue in
the governor can render it expedient for the governed to dispense
with good laws and good institutions. Madame De Stael (to her
disgrace) said to the Emperor of Russia: "Sire, your character is a
constitution for your country, and your conscience its guaranty." His
reply was: "Quand cela serait, je ne serais jamais qu'un accident
heureux;"^ and this we think one of the truest and most brilliant
replies ever made by monarch.

Laudatory Personalities. — "The object of laudatory personalities

^ Ibid., pp. no, III.
''Ibid., p. 120. * "If that were so, I should be only a happy accident."

236 SYDNEY SMITH

is to effect the rejection of a measure on account of the alleged good
character of those who oppose it, and the argument advanced is:
'The measure is rendered unnecessary by the virtues of those who are
in power — their opposition is a sufficient authority for the rejection
of the measure. The measure proposed implies a distrust of the
members of his Majesty's Government; but so great is their integrity,
so complete their disinterestedness, so uniformly do they prefer the
public advantage to their own, that such a measure is altogether
unnecessary. Their disapproval is sufficient to warrant an opposition;
precautions can only be requisite where danger is apprehended; here
the high character of the individuals in question is a sufficient guar-
anty against any ground of alarm.' " '

The panegyric goes on increasing with the dignity of the lauded
person. All are honorable and delightful men. The person who
opens the door of the office is a person of approved fidelity; the
junior clerk is a model of assiduity; all the clerks are models — seven
years' models, eight years' models, nine years' models, and upward.
The first clerk is a paragon, and ministers the very perfection of
probity and intelligence; and as for the highest magistrate of the
State, no adulation is equal to describe the extent of his various
merits! It is too condescending, perhaps, to refute such folly as this.
But we would just observe that, if the propriety of the measure in
question be established by direct arguments, these must be at least
as conclusive against the character of those who oppose it as their
character can be against the measure.

The effect of such an argument is to give men of good or reputed
good character the power of putting a negative on any question not
agreeable to their inclinations.

"In every public trust the legislator should for the purpose of
prevention, suppose the trustee disposed to break the trust in every
imaginable way in which it would be possible for him to reap from
the breach of it any personal advantage. This is the principle on
which public institutions ought to be formed, and when it is applied
to all men indiscriminately, it is injurious to none. The practical
inference is to oppose to such possible (and what will always be
probable) breaches of trust every bar that can be opposed consistently

^Ibid., pp. 123, 124.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 237

with the power requisite for the efBcient and due discharge of the
trust. Indeed, these arguments, drawn from the supposed virtues of
men in power, are opposed to the first principles on which all laws
proceed.

"Such allegations of individual virtue are never supported by
specific proof, are scarce ever susceptible of specific disproof, and
specific disproof, if offered, could not be admitted in either House
of Parliament. If attempted elsewhere, the punishment would fall
not on the unworthy trustee, but on him by whom the unworthiness
has been proved." '"

Fallacies of Pretended Danger. — Imputations of Bad Design;
of Bad Character; of Bad Motives; of Inconsistency; of Suspicious
Connections. — The object of this class of fallacies is to draw aside
attention from the measure to the man, and this in such a manner
that, for some real or supposed defect in the author of the measure,
a corresponding defect shall be imputed to the measure itself. Thus,
"the author of the measure entertains a bad design; therefore the
measure is bad. His character is bad, therefore the measure is bad;
his motive is bad, I will vote against the measure. On former occa-
sions this same person who proposed the measure was its enemy,
therefore the measure is bad. He is on a footing of intimacy with
this or that dangerous man, or has been seen in his company, or is
suspected of entertaining some of his opinions, therefore the measure
is bad. He bears a name that at a former period was borne by a set
of men now no more, by whom bad principles were entertained,
therefore the measure is bad!"

Now, if the measure be really inexpedient, why not at once show
it to be so ? If the measure be good, is it bad because a bad man is its
author.'' If bad, is it good because a good man has produced it.?
What are these arguments but to say to the assembly who are to be
the judges of any measure, that their imbecility is too great to allow
them to judge of the measure by its own merits, and that they must
have recourse to distant and feebler probabilities for that purpose.''

"In proportion to the degree of efficiency with which a man suffers
these instruments of deception to operate upon his mind, he enables
bad men to exercise over him a sort of power, the thought of which

^"Ibid., pp. 125, 126.

238 SYDNEY SMITH

ought to cover him with shame. Allow this argument the effect of
a conclusive one, you put it into the power of any man to draw you
at pleasure from the support of every measure which in your own
eyes is good, to force you to give your support to any and every
measure which in your own eyes is bad. Is it good? — the bad man
embraces it, and by the supposition, you reject it. Is it bad? — he
vituperates it, and that suffices for driving you into its embrace. You
split upon the rocks because he has avoided them; you miss the
harbor because he has steered into it! Give yourself up to any such
blind antipathy, you are no less in the power of your adversaries
than if, by a correspondently irrational sympathy and obsequiousness,
you put yourself into the power of your friends." "

"Besides, nothing but laborious application and a clear and com-
prehensive intellect can enable a man on any given subject to employ
successfully relevant arguments drawn from the subject itself. To
employ personalities, neither labor nor intellect is required. In this
sort of contest the most idle and the most ignorant are quite on a
par with, if not superior to, the most industrious and the most highly
gifted individuals. Nothing can be more convenient for those who
would speak without the trouble of thinking. The same ideas are
brought forward over and over again, and all that is required is to
vary the turn of expression. Close and relevant arguments have very
little hold on the passions, and serve rather to quell than to inflame
them; while in personalities there is always something stimulant,
whether on the part of him who praises or him who blames. Praise
forms a kind of connection between the party praising and the party
praised, and vituperation gives an air of courage and independence
to the party who blames.

"Ignorance and indolence, friendship and enmity, concurring and
conflicting interest, servility and independence, all conspire to give
personalities the ascendency they so unhappily maintain. The more
we lie under the influence of our own passions, the more we rely
on others being affected in a similar degree. A man who can repel
these injuries with dignity may often convert them into triumph:
'Strike me, but hear,' says he, and the fury of his antagonist redounds
to his own discomfiture." '^

^^ Ibid., pp. 132, 133. ^^Ibid., pp. 141, 142.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 239

No Innovation! — To say that all things new are bad is to say that
all old things were bad in their commencement: for of all the old
things ever seen or heard of there is not one that was not once new.
Whatever is now establishment was once innovation. The first
inventor of pews and parish clerks was no doubt considered as a
Jacobin in his day. Judges, juries, criers of the court, are all the
inventions of ardent spirits, who filled the world with alarm, and
were considered as the great precursors of ruin and dissolution. No
inoculation, no turnpikes, no reading, no writing, no popery! The
fool sayeth in his heart and crieth with his mouth, "I will have
nothing new!"

Fallacy of Distrust! — "What's at the Bottom?" — This fallacy
begins with a virtual admission of the propriety of the measure con-
sidered in itself, and thus demonstrates its own futility, and cuts
up from under itself the ground which it endeavours to make. A
measure is to be rejected for something that, by bare possibility, may
be found amiss in some other measure! This is vicarious reproba-
tion; upon this principle Herod instituted his massacre. It is the
argument of a driveller to other drivellers, who says: "We are not
able to decide upon the evil when it arises; our only safe way is to
act upon the general apprehension of evil."

Official Malefactor's Screen — "Attack^ Us, You Attacl{_ Govern-
ment." — If this notion is acceded to, everyone who derives at present
any advantage from misrule has it in fee-simple, and all abuses,
present and future, are without remedy. So long as there is anything
amiss in conducting the business of government, so long as it can be
made better, there can be no other mode of bringing it nearer to
perfection than the indication of such imperfections as at the time
being exist.

"But so far is it from being true that a man's aversion or contempt
for the hands by which the powers of government, or even for the
system under which they are exercised, is a proof of his aversion or
contempt toward government itself, that, even in proportion to the
strength of that aversion or contempt, it is a proof of the opposite
affection. What, in consequence of such contempt or aversion, he
wishes for is not that there be no hands at all to exercise these powers,
but that the hands may be better regulated; — not that those powers

240 SYDNEY SMITH

should not be exercised at all, but that they should be better exer-
cised; — not that in the exercise of them no rules at all should be
pursued, but that the rules by which they are exercised should be a
better set of rules.

"All government is a trust, every branch of government is a trust,
and immemorially acknowledged so to be; it is only by the magni-
tude of the scale that public differ from private trusts. I complain of
the conduct of a person in the character of guardian, as domestic
guardian, having the care of a minor or insane person. In so doing
do I say that guardianship is a bad institution? Does it enter into
the head of anyone to suspect me of so doing? I complain of an
individual in the character of a commercial agent or assignee of the
effects of an insolvent. In so doing do I say that commercial agency
is a bad thing? that the practice of vesting in the hands of trustees
or assignees the effects of an insolvent for the purpose of their being
divided among his creditors is a bad practice ? Does any such conceit
ever enter into the head of man as that of suspecting me of so
doing." "

There are no complaints against government in Turkey — no
motions in Parliament, no "Morning Chronicles," and no "Edin-
burgh Reviews": yet of all countries in the world it is that in which
revolts and revolutions are the most frequent.

It is so far from true that no good government can exist consistently
with such disclosure, that no good government can exist without it.
It is quite obvious to all who are capable of reflection that by no other
means than by lowering the governors in the estimation of the people
can there be hope or chance of beneficial change. To infer from this
wise endeavor to lessen the existing rulers in the estimation of the
people, a wish of dissolving the government, is either artifice or
error. The physician who intentionally weakens the patient by bleed-
ing him has no intention he should perish.

The greater the quantity of respect a man receives, independently
of good conduct, the less good is his behavior likely to be. It is the
interest, therefore, of the public in the case of each to see that the
respect paid to him should, as completely as possible, depend upon
the goodness of his behavior in the execution of his trust. But it is,on

^^ Ibid., pp. 162, 163.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 24 1

the contrary, the interest of the trustee that the respect, the money, or
any other advantage he receives in virtue of his office, should be as
great, as secure, and as independent of conduct as possible. Soldiers
expect to be shot at; public men must expect to be attacked, and
sometimes unjustly. It keeps up the habit of considering their con-
duct as exposed to scrutiny; on the part of the people at large it
keeps alive the expectation of witnessing such attacks, and the habit
of looking out for them. The friends and supporters of government
have always greater facility in keeping and raising it up than its
adversaries have for lowering it.

Accusation-scarer's Device — "Infamy Must Attach Somewhere."
— This fallacy consists in representing the character of a calumniator
as necessarily and justly attaching upon him who, having made a
charge of misconduct against any person possessed of political power
or influence, fails of producing evidence sufficient for their conviction.

"If taken as a general proposition, applying to all public accusa-
tions, nothing can be more mischievous as well as fallacious. Sup-
posing the charge unfounded, the delivery of it may have been accom-
panied with mala fides (consciousness of its injustice), with temerity
only, or it may have been perfectly blameless. It is in the first case
alone that infamy can with propriety attach upon him who brings
it forward. A charge really groundless may have been honestly
believed to be well founded, /. e., believed with a sort of provisional
credence, sufficient for the purpose of engaging a man to do his part
toward the bringing about an investigation, but without sufficient
reasons. But a charge may be perfectly groundless without attaching
the smallest particle of blame upon him who brings it forward.
Suppose him to have heard from one or more, presenting themselves
to him in the character of percipient witnesses, a story which, either
in toto, or perhaps only in circumstances, though in circumstances
of the most material importance, should prove false and mendacious,
how is the person who hears this and acts accordingly to blame.''
What sagacity can enable a man previously to legal investigation, a
man who has no power that can enable him to insure correctness or
completeness on the part of this extrajudicial testimony, to guard
against deception in such a case?" "

"WiV/., pp. 183, 186.

242 SYDNEY SMITH

Fallacy of False Consolation — "What is the Matter with You?
— What Would You Have? — Loo\ at the People There, and There;
Thin\ how much Better Off You Are than They Are — Your Pros-
perity and Liberty are Objects of Their Envy; Your Institutions,
Models of Their Imitation." — It is not the desire to look to the
bright side that is blamed, but when a particular suffering, produced
by an assigned cause, has been pointed out, the object of many
apologists is to turn the eyes of inquirers and judges into any other
quarter in preference. If a man's tenants were to come with a general
encomium on the prosperity of the country instead of a specified
sum, would it be accepted? In a court of justice in an action for
damages did ever any such device occur as that of pleading assets
in the hands of a third person ? There is in fact no country so poor
and so wretched in every element of prosperity, in which matter for
this argument might not be found. Were the prosperity of the
country tenfold as great as at present, the absurdity of the argument
would not in the least degree be lessened. Why should the smallest
evil be endured which can be cured because others suffer patiently
under greater evils ? Should the smallest improvement attainable be
neglected because others remain contented in a state of still greater
inferiority ?

"Seriously and pointedly in the character of a bar to any measure
of relief, no, nor to the most trivial improvement, can it ever be
employed. Suppose a bill brought in for converting an impassable
road anywhere into a passable one, would any man stand up to
oppose it who could find nothing better to urge against it than the
multitude and goodness of the roads we have already ? No : when in
the character of a serious bar to the measure in hand, be that measure
what it may, an argument so palpably inapplicable is employed, it
can only be for the purpose of creating a diversion; — of turning aside
the minds of men from the subject really in hand to a picture which,
by its beauty, it is hoped, may engross the attention of the assembly,
and make them forget for the moment for what purpose they came
there." '=

The Quietest, or No Complaint. — "A new law of measure
being proposed in the character of a remedy for some incontestable
'* Ibid., pp. 196, 197.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 243

abuse or evil, an objection is frequently started to the following
effect: — 'The measure is unnecessary. Nobody complains of dis-
order in that shape, in which it is the aim of your measure to
propose a remedy to it. But even when no cause of complaint has
been found to exist, especially under governments which admit of
complaints, men have in general not been slow to complain; much
less where any just cause of complaint has existed.' The argument
amounts to this: — Nobody complains, therefore nobody suffers.
It amounts to a veto on all measures of precaution or prevention,
and goes to establish a maxim in legislation directly opposed to the
most ordinary prudence of common life; it enjoins us to build no
parapets to a bridge till the number of accidents has raised a universal
clamor." "

Procrastinator's Argument — "Wait a Little; This is Not the
Time." — This is the common argument of men who, being in reality
hostile to a measure, are ashamed or afraid of appearing to be so.
To-day is the plea — eternal exclusion commonly the object. It is the
same sort of quirk as a plea of abatement in law — which is never
employed but on the side of a dishonest defendant, whose hope it
is to obtain an ultimate triumph, by overwhelming his adversary
with despair, impoverishment, and lassitude. Which is the properest
day to do good? which is the properest day to remove a nuisance?
We answer, the very first day a man can be found to propose the
removal of it; and whoever opposes the removal of it on that day
will (if he dare) oppose it on every other. There is in the minds of
many feeble friends to virtue and improvement, an imaginary period
for the removal of evils, which it would certainly be worth while to
wait for, if there was the smallest chance of its ever arriving — a
period of unexampled peace and prosperity, when a patriotic king
and an enlightened mob united their ardent efforts for the ameliora-
tion of human affairs; when the oppressor is as delighted to give up
the oppression, as the oppressed is to be liberated from it; when the
difficulty and the unpopularity would be to continue the evil, not to
abolish it! These are the periods when fair-weather philosophers are
willing to venture out and hazard a little for the general good. But
the history of human nature is so contrary to all this, that almost
^^Ibid., pp. 190, 191,

244 SYDNEY SMITH

all improvements are made after the bitterest resistance, and in the
midst of tumults and civil violence — the worst period at which they
can be made, compared to which any period is eligible, and should
be seized hold of by the friends of salutary reform.

Snail's Pace Argument— "Omi? Thing at a Time! — Not Too
Fast! — Slow and Sure! — Importance of the business — extreme diffi-
culty of the business — danger of innovation — need of caution and
circumspection — impossibility of foreseeing all consequences — danger
of precipitation — everything should be gradual — one thing at a time
— this is not the time — great occupation at present — wait for more
leisure — ^people well satisfied — no petitions presented — no complaints
heard — no such mischief has yet taken place — stay till it has taken
place! Such is the prattle which the magpie in office, who, under-
standing nothing, yet understands that he must have something to
say on every subject, shouts out among his auditors as a succedaneum
to thought.""

Vague Generalities. — Vague generalities comprehend a numerous
class of fallacies resorted to by those who, in preference to the de-
terminate expressions which they might use, adopt others more
vague and indeterminate.

Take, for instance, the terms government, laws, morals, religion.
Everybody will admit that there are in the world bad governments,
bad laws, bad morals, and bad religions. The bare circumstance,
therefore, of being engaged in exposing the defects of government,
law, morals, and religion does not of itself afford the slightest pre-
sumption that a writer is engaged in anything blamable. If his
attack be only directed against that which is bad in each, his efforts
may be productive of good to any extent. This essential distinction,
however, the defender of abuses uniformly takes care to keep out of
sight; and boldly imputes to his antagonists an intention to subvert all
government, law, morals, and religion. Propose anything with a view
to the improvement of the existing practice, in relation to law, gov-
ernment, and religion, he will treat you with an oration upon the
necessity and utility of law, government, and religion. Among the
several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as
cloaks for misgovernment, there is none more conspicuous in this

^^ Ibid., pp. 203, 204.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 245

atmosphere of illusion than the word order. As often as any
measure is brought forward which has for its object to lessen the
sacrifice made by the many to the few, social order is the phrase
commonly opposed to its progress.

"By a defalcation made from any part of the mass of fictitious
delay, vexation, and expense, out of which, and in proportion to
which, lawyers' profit is made to flow — by any defalcation made
from the mass of needless and worse than useless emolument to
office, with or without service or pretence of service — by any addi-
tion endeavored to be made to the quantity, or improvement in the
quality of service rendered, or time bestowed in service rendered in
return for such emolument — ^by every endeavor that has for its object
the persuading the people to place their fate at the disposal of any
other agents than those in whose hands breach of trust is certain,
due fulfilment of it morally and physically impossible — social order
is said to be endangered, and threatened to be destroyed." '^

In the same way "Establishment" is a word in use to protect the
bad parts of establishments, by charging those who wish to remove
or alter them, with a wish to subvert all good establishments.

Mischievous fallacies also circulate from the convertible use of
what Mr. B. is pleased to call dyslogistic and eulogistic terms. Thus,
a vast concern is expressed for the "liberty of the press," and the
utmost abhorrence of its "licentiousness" : but then, by the licentious-
ness of the press is meant every disclosure by which any abuse is
brought to light and exposed to shame — ^by the "liberty of the press"
is meant only publications from which no such inconvenience is to
be apprehended; and the fallacy consists in employing the sham
approbation of liberty as a mask for the real opposition to all free
discussion. To write a pamphlet so ill that nobody will read it; to
animadvert in terms so weak and insipid upon great evils, that no
disgust is excited at the vice, and no apprehension in the evil-doer, is
a fair use of the liberty of the press, and is not only pardoned by the
friends of government, but draws from them the most fervent
eulogium. The licentiousness of the press consists in doing the thing
boldly and well, in striking terror into the guilty, and in rousing the
attention of the public to the defence of their highest interests. This

^Ibid., p. 234.

246 SYDNEY SMITH

is the licentiousness of the press held in the greatest horror by timid
and corrupt men, and punished by semi-animous, semi-cadaverous
judges, with a captivity of many years. In the same manner the
dyslogistic and eulogistic fallacies are used in the case of reform.

"Between all abuses whatsoever there exists that connection — be-
tween all persons who see, each of them, any one abuse in which an
advantage results to himself, there exists, in point of interest, that
close and sufficiently understood connection, of which intimation has
been given already. To no one abuse can correction be administered
without endangering the existence of every other.

"If, then, with this inward determination not to suffer, so far as
depends upon himself, the adoption of any reform which he is able
to prevent, it should seem to him necessary or advisable to put on
for a cover the profession or appearance of a desire to contribute to
such reform — in pursuance of the device or fallacy here in question,
he will represent that which goes by the name of reform as dis-
tinguishable into two species; one of them a fit subject for appro-
bation, the other for disapprobation. That which he thus pro-
fesses to have marked for approbation, he will accordingly for the
expression of such approbation, characterize by some adjunct of the
eulogistic cast, such as moderate, for example, or temperate, or
practical, or practicable.

"To the other of these nominally distinct species, he will, at the
same time, attach some adjunct of the dyslogistic cast, such as violent,
intemperate, extravagant, outrageous, theoretical, speculative, and so
forth.

"Thus, then, in profession and to appearance, there are in his con-
ception of the matter two distinct and opposite species of reform,
to one of which his approbation, to the other his disapprobation, is
attached. But the species to which his approbation is attached is an
empty species — a species in which no individual is, or is intended to
be, contained.

"The species to which his disapprobation is attached is, on the
contrary, a crowded species, a receptacle in which the whole con-
tents of the genus — of the genus 'Reform' — are intended to be in-
cluded." '*

'' Ibid., pp. 277, 278.

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 247

Anti-rational Fallacies. — When reason is in opposition to a
man's interests his study will naturally be to render the faculty itself,
and whatever issues from it, an object of hatred and contempt. The
sarcasm and other figures of speech employed on the occasion are
directed not merely against reason but against thought, as if there
were something in the faculty of thought that rendered the exercise
of it incompatible with useful and successful practice. Sometimes a
plan, which would not suit the official person's interest, is without
more ado pronounced a speculative one; and, by this observation,
all need of rational and deliberate discussion is considered to be
superseded. The first effort of the corruptionist is to fix the epithet
speculative upon any scheme which he thinks may cherish the
spirit of reform. The expression is hailed with the greatest delight
by bad and feeble men, and repeated with the most unwearied
energy; and to the word "speculative," by way of reinforcement, are
added: theoretical, visionary, chimerical, romantic, Utopian.

"Sometimes a distinction is taken, and thereupon a concession
made. The plan is good in theory, but it would be bad in practice,
i. e., its being good in theory does not hinder its being bad in prac-
tice.

"Sometimes, as if in consequence of a further progress made in
the art of irrationality, the plan is pronounced to be "too good to
be practicable"; and its being so good as it is, is thus represented as
the very cause of its being bad in practice.

"In short, such is the perfection at which this art is at length
arrivedjthat the very circumstance of a plan's being susceptible of the
appellation of a plan, has been gravely stated as a circumstance suffi-
cient to warrant its being rejected — rejected, if not with hatred, at
any rate with a sort of accompaniment which, to the million, is com-
monly felt still more gaUing — with contempt."^"

There is a propensity to push theory too far; but what is the just
inference? not that theoretical propositions («'. e., all propositions of
any considerable comprehension or extent) should, from such their
extent, be considered to be false in toto, but only that, in the particu-
lar case, should inquiry be made whether, supposing the proposition
to be in the character of a rule generally true, an exception ought to

^lbid.,v. 296.

248 SYDNEY SMITH

be taken out of it. It might almost be imagined that there was some-
thing wicked or unwise in the exercise of thought; for everybody
feels a necessity for disclaiming it. "I am not given to speculation,
I am no friend to theories." Can a man disclaim theory, can he
disclaim speculation, without disclaiming thought?

The description of persons by whom this fallacy is chiefly em-
ployed are those who, regarding a plan as adverse to their interests,
and not finding it on the ground of general utility exposed to any
preponderant objection, have recourse to this objection in the char-
acter of an instrument of contempt, in the view of preventing those
from looking into it who might have been otherwise disposed. It is
by the fear of seeing it practised that they are drawn to speak of it as
impracticable. "Upon the face of it (exclaims some feeble or pen-
sioned gentleman) it carries that air of plausibility, that, if you
were not upon your guard, might engage you to bestow more or
less attention upon it; but were you to take the trouble, you would
find that (as it is with all these plans which promise so much)
practicability would at last be wanting to it. To save yourself from
this trouble, the wisest course you can take is to put the plan aside,
and to think no more about the matter." This is always accompanied
with a peculiar grin of triumph.

The whole of these fallacies may be gathered together in a little
oration, which we will denominate the "Noodle's Oration": —

"What would our ancestors say to this. Sir? How does this
measure tally with their institutions? How does it agree with their
experience? Are we to put the wisdom of yesterday in competition
with the wisdom of centuries? [Hear! hear!] Is beardless youth to
show no respect for the decisions of mature age ? [Loud cries of hear!
hear!] If this measure be right, would it have escaped the wisdom
of those Saxon progenitors to whom we are indebted for so many of
our best political institutions ? Would the Dane have passed it over ?
Would the Norman have rejected it? Would such a notable dis-
covery have been reserved for these modern and degenerate times?
Besides, Sir, if the measure itself is good, I ask the honorable gentle-
man if this is the time for carrying it into execution — whether, in
fact, a more unfortunate period could have been selected than that
which he has chosen? If this were an ordinary measure I should
not oppose it with so much vehemence; but. Sir, it calls in question

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 249

the wisdom of an irrevocable law — of a law passed at the memorable
period of the Revolution. What right have we, Sir, to break down
this firm column on which the great men of that age stamped a
character of eternity ? Are not all authorities against this measure —
Pitt, Fox, Cicero, and the Attorney- and Solicitor-General? The
proposition is new. Sir; it is the first time it was ever heard in this
House. I am not prepared. Sir — this House is not prepared — to re-
ceive it. The measure implies a distrust of his Majesty's Government;
their disapproval is sufficient to warrant opposition. Precaution only
is requisite where danger is apprehended. Here the high character
of the individuals in question is a sufficient guarantee against any
ground of alarm. Give not, then, your sanction to this measure; for,
vvhatever be its character, if you do give your sanction to it, the same
man by whom this is proposed will propose to you others to which
it will be impossible to give your consent. I care very little, Sir, for
the ostensible measure; but what is there behind? What are the
honorable gentleman's future schemes? If we pass this bill, what
fresh concessions may he not require? What further degradation is
he planning for his country? Talk of evil and inconvenience, Sir!
look to other countries — study other aggregations and societies of
men, and then see whether the laws of this country demand a
remedy or deserve a panegyric. Was the honorable gentleman (let
me ask him) always of this way of thinking? Do I not remember
when he was the advocate, in this House, of very opposite opinions ?
I not only quarrel with his present sentiments. Sir, but I declare very
frankly I do not like the party with which he acts. If his own
motives were as pure as possible, they cannot but suffer contamina-
tion from those with whom he is politically associated. This measure
may be a boon to the Constitution, but I will accept no favor to the
Constitution from such hands. [Loud cries of hear! hear!] I pro-
fess myself, Sir, an honest and upright member of the British Parlia-
ment, and I am not afraid to profess myself an enemy to all change
and all innovation. I am satisfied with things as they are; and it will
be my pride and pleasure to hand down this country to my children
as I received it from those who preceded me. The honorable gentle-
man pretends to justify the severity with which he has attacked the
noble lord who presides in the Court of Chancery. But I say such
attacks are pregnant with mischief to government itself. Oppose

250 SYDNEY SMITH

ministers, you oppose government; disgrace ministers, you disgrace
government; bring ministers into contempt, you bring government
into contempt; and anarchy and civil war are the consequences.
Besides, sir, the measure is unnecessary. Nobody complains of
disorder in that shape in which it is the aim of your measure to
propose a remedy to it. The business is one of the greatest im-
portance; there is need of the greatest caution and circumspection.
Do not let us be precipitate. Sir; it is impossible to foresee all con-
sequences. Everything should be gradual; the example of a neigh-
boring nation should fill us with alarm! The honorable gentleman
has taxed me with illiberality, Sir; I deny the charge. I hate innova-
tion, but I love improvement. I am an enemy to the corruption
of government, but I defend its influence. I dread reform, but I
dread it only when it is intemperate. I consider the liberty of the
press as the great palladium of the Constitution; but, at the same
time, I hold the licentiousness of the press in the greatest abhor-
rence. Nobody is more conscious than I am of the splendid abili-
ties of the honorable mover, but I tell him at once his scheme
is too good to be practicable. It savors of Utopia. It looks well
in theory, but it won't do in practice. It will not do, I repeat,
Sir, in practice; and so the advocates of the measure will find,
if, unfortunately, it should find its way through Parliament.
[Cheers.^ The source of that corruption to which the honorable
member alludes is in the minds of the people; so rank and
extensive is that corruption, that no political reform can have
any effect in removing it. Instead of reforming others — instead of
reforming the State, the Constitution, and everything that is most
excellent, let each man reform himself! let him look at home, he will
find there enough to do without looking abroad and aiming at
what is out of his power. [Loud cheers.] And now. Sir, as it is
frequently the custom in this House to end with a quotation, and
as the gentleman who preceded me in the debate has anticipated
me in my favorite quotation of the 'Strong pull and the long pull,'
I shall end with the memorable words of the assembled barons:
'Nolumus leges Anglice mutari.' ^'

"Upon the whole, the following are the characters which appertain

21 "We do not wish the laws o£ England to be changed."

FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 25 1

in common to all the several arguments here distinguished by the
name of fallacies: —

"i. Whatsoever be the measure in hand, they are, with relation
to it, irrelevant.

"2. They are all of them such, that the application of these irrele-
vant arguments aflords a presumption either of the weakness or
total absence of relevant arguments on the side of which they are
employed.

"3. To any good purpose they are all of them unnecessary.

"4. They are all of them not only capable of being applied, but
actually in the habit of being applied, and with advantage, to bad
purposes, viz.: to the obstruction and defeat of all such measures
as have for their object the removal of the abuses or other imper-
fections still discernible in the frame and practice of the government.

"5. By means of the irrelevancy, they all of them consume and
misapply time, thereby obstructing the course and retarding the
progress of all necessary and useful business.

"6. By that irritative quality which, in virtue of their irrelevancy,
with the improbity or weakness of which it is indicative, they possess,
all of them, in a degree more or less considerable, but in a more
particular degree such of them as consist in personalities, are pro-
ductive of ill-humor, which in some instances has been productive
of bloodshed, and is continually productive, as above, of waste of
time and hindrance of business.

"7. On the part of those who, whether in spoken or written
discourses, give utterance to them, they are indicative either of im-
probity or intellectual weakness, or of a contempt for the under-
standing of those on whose minds they are destined to operate.

"8. On the part of those on whom they operate, they are indic-
ative of intellectual weakness; and on the part of those in and by
whom they are pretended to operate, they are indicative of im-
probity, viz., in the shape of insincerity.

"The practical conclusion is, that in proportion as the acceptance,
and thence the utterance, of them can be prevented, the under-
standing of the public will be strengthened, the morals of the public
will be purified, and the practice of government improved.""

*^ From Bentham, pp. 359, 360.

ON POESY OR ART

BY

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was the tenth child of a
Devonshire clergyman, and the most distinguished member of one of
the most intellectual stocks in modern England. His life was devoted to
literary and philosophical pursuits, but an inherent weakness of will and
lack of practical sense made him depend upon friends and benefactors
for a large part of the support of himself and his family. In poetry he
achieved his greatest distinction, and the best of his work stands at the
head of its class. But he was constantly planning great schemes which
he usually abandoned before they were carried out, and in spite of the
extraordinary nature of his endowments he never fulfilled his promise.

In prose his chief work was in philosophy and esthetics. He was one
of the first to introduce into England the philosophy of Kant, and in
literary criticism he stands in the front rank. Probably no interpreter of
Shakespeare has said so many memorable and penetrating things in
illumination of the characters of the great dramas; and in the present
essay he shows his power of dealing with profound philosophic insight
with the fundamental principles of art.

ON POESY OR ART^

MAN communicates by articulation of sounds, and para-
mountly by the memory in the ear; nature by the im-
pression of bounds and surfaces on the eye, and through
the eye it gives significance and appropriation, and thus the condi-
tions of memory, or the capabiHty of being remembered, to sounds,
smells, etc. Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, archi-
tecture, and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of
nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature,
of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into everything which
is the object of his contemplation; color, form, motion, and sound,
are the elements which it combines, and it stamps them into unity
in the mould of a moral idea.

The primary art is writing; — primary, if we regard the purpose
abstracted from the different modes of realizing it, those steps of
progression of which the instances are still visible in the lower
degrees of civilization. First, there is mere gesticulation; then
rosaries or wampum; then picture-language; then hieroglyphics, and
finally alphabetic letters. These all consist of a translation of man
into nature, of a substitution of the visible for the audible.

The so-called music of savage tribes as little deserves the name of
art for the understanding as the ear warrants it for music. Its lowest
state is a mere expression of passion by sounds which the passion
itself necessitates; — the highest amounts to no more than a volun-
tary reproduction of these sounds in the absence of the occasioning
causes, so as to give the pleasure of contrast — for example, by the
various outcries of battle in the song of security and triumph.
Poetry also is purely human; for all its materials are from the
mind, and all its products are for the mind. But it is the apotheosis
of the former state, in which by excitement of the associative power
passion itself imitates order, and the order resulting produces a

'Delivered as a lecture in 1818.
255

256 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

pleasurable passion, and thus it elevates the mind by making its
feelings the object of its reflection. So likewise, while it recalls the
sights and sounds that had accompanied the occasions of the
original passions, poetry impregnates them with an interest not
their own by means of the passions, and yet tempers the passion by
the calming power which all distinct images exert on the human
soul. In this way poetry is the preparation for art, inasmuch as it
avails itself of the forms of nature to recall, to express, and to modi-
fy the thoughts and feelings of the mind.

Still, however, poetry can only act through the intervention of
articulate speech, which is so peculiarly human that in ail languages
it constitutes the ordinary phrase by which man and nature are
contradistinguished. It is the original force of the word "brute," and
even "mute" and "dumb" do not convey the absence of sound, but
the absence of articulated sounds.

As soon as the human mind is intelligibly addressed by an out-
ward image exclusively of articulate speech, so soon does art com-
mence. But please to observe that I have laid particular stress on
the words "human mind" — meaning to exclude thereby all results
common to man and all other sentient creatures, and consequently
confining myself to the effect produced by the congruity of the
animal impression with the reflective powers of the mind; so that
not the thing presented, but that which is re-presented by the thing,
shall be the source of the pleasure. In this sense nature itself is to a
religious observer the art of God; and for the same cause art itself
might be defined as of a middle quality between a thought and a
thing, or as I said before, the union and reconciliation of that which
is nature with that which is exclusively human. It is the figured
language of thought, and is distinguished from nature by the unity
of all the parts in one thought or idea. Hence nature itself would
give us the impression of a work of art, if we could see the thought
which is present at once in the whole and in every part; and a work
of art will be just in proportion as it adequately conveys the thought,
and rich in proportion to the variety of parts which it holds in
unity.

If, therefore, the term "mute" be taken as opposed not to sound
but to articulate speech, the old definition of painting will in fact

ON POESY OR ART 257

be the true and best definition o£ the fine arts in general, that is,
muta poesis, mute poesy, and so of course poesy. And, as all lan-
guages perfect themselves by a gradual process of desynonymizing
words originally equivalent, I have cherished the wish to use the
word "poesy" as the generic or common term, and to distinguish
that species of poesy which is not muta poesis by its usual name
"poetry"; while of all the other species which collectively form the
fine arts, there would remain this as the common definition — that
they all, like poetry, are to express intellectual purposes, thoughts,
conceptions, and sentiments which have their origin in the human
mind — not, however, as poetry does, by means of articulate speech,
but as nature or the divine art does, by form, color, magnitude, pro-
portion, or by sound, that is, silently or musically.

Well! it may be said — but who has ever thought otherwise?
We all know that art is the imitatress of nature. And, doubtless,
the truths which I hope to convey would be barren truisms, if all
men meant the same by the words "imitate" and "nature." But it
would be flattering mankind at large, to presume that such is the
fact. First, to imitate. The impression on the wax is not an imi-
tation, but a copy, of the seal; the seal itself is an imitation. But,
further, in order to form a philosophic conception, we must seek for
the kind, as the heat in ice, invisible light, etc., whilst, for practical
purposes, we must have reference to the degree. It is sufficient that
philosophically we understand that in all imitation two elements
must coexist, and not only coexist, but must be perceived as coexist-
ing. These two constituent elements are likeness and unlikeness, or
sameness and difference, and in all genuine creations of art there
must be a union of these disparates. The artist may take his point
of view where he pleases, provided that the desired effect be per-
ceptibly produced — that there be likeness in the difference, difference
in the likeness, and a reconcilement of both in one. If there be like-
ness to nature without any check of difference, the result is disgust-
ing, and the more complete the delusion, the more loathsome the
effect. Why are such simulations of nature, as wax-work figures of
men and women, so disagreeable? Because not finding the motion
and the life which we expected, we are shocked as by a falsehood,
every circumstance of detail, which before induced us to be inter-

258 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

ested, making the distance from truth more palpable. You set out
with a supposed reality and are disappointed and disgusted with
the deception; while, in respect to a work of genuine imitation, you
begin with an acknowledged total difference, and then every touch
of nature gives you the pleasure of an approximation to truth.
The fundamental principle of all this is undoubtedly the horror of
falsehood and the love of truth inherent in the human breast. The
Greek tragic dance rested on these principles, and I can deeply
sympathize in imagination with the Greeks in this favorite part
of their theatrical exhibitions, when I call to mind the pleasure
I felt in beholding the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii most
exquisitely danced in Italy to the music of Cimarosa.

Secondly, as to nature. We must imitate nature! yes, but what in
nature — all and everything? No, the beautiful in nature. And
what then is the beautiful.'' What is beauty? It is, in the abstract,
the unity of the manifold, the coalescence of the diverse; in the
concrete, it is the union of the shapely (formosum) with the vital.
In the dead organic it depends on regularity of form, the first and
lowest species of which is the triangle with all its modifications, as
in crystals, architecture, etc.; in the living organic it is not mere
regularity of form, which would produce a sense of formality;
neither is it subservient to anything beside itself. It may be present
in a disagreeable object, in which the proportion of the parts con-
stitutes a whole; it does not arise from association, as the agreeable
does, but sometimes lies in the rupture of association; it is not
different to different individuals and nations, as has been said, nor
is it connected with the ideas of the good, or the fit, or the useful.
The sense of beauty is intuitive, and beauty itself is all that inspires
pleasure without, and aloof from, and even contrarily to, interest.

If the artist copies the mere nature, the natura naturata, what idle
rivalry! If he proceeds only from a given form, which is supposed
to answer to the notion of beauty, what an emptiness, what an
unreality there always is in his productions, as in Cipriani's pic-
tures! Believe me, you must master the essence, the natura naturans,
which presupposes a bond between nature in the higher sense and
the soul of man.

The wisdom in nature is distinguished from that in man by the

ON POESY OR ART 259

co-instantaneity of the plan and the execution; the thought and the
product are one, or are given at once; but there is no reflex act, and
hence there is no moral responsibility. In man there is reflection, free-
dom, and choice; he is, therefore, the head of the visible creation.
In the objects of nature are presented, as in a mirror, all the possible
elements, steps, and processes of intellect antecedent to conscious-
ness, and therefore to the full development of the intelligential act;
and man's mind is the very focus of all the rays of intellect which
are scattered throughout the images of nature. Now, so to place
these images, totalized and fitted to the limits of the human mind, as
to elicit from, and to superinduce upon, the forms themselves the
moral reflections to which they approximate, to make the external
internal, the internal external, to make nature thought, and thought
nature — this is the mystery of genius in the fine arts. Dare I add that
the genius must act on the feeling, that body is but a striving to
become mind — that it is mind in its essence ?

In every work of art there is a reconcilement of the external with
the internal; the conscious is so impressed on the unconscious as to
appear in it; as compare mere letters inscribed on a tomb with figures
themselves constituting the tomb. He who combines the two is the
man of genius; and for that reason he must partake of both. Hence
there is in genius itself an unconscious activity; nay, that is the
genius in the man of genius. And this is the true exposition of the
rule that the artist must first eloign himself from nature in order
to return to her with full effect. Why this? Because if he were to
begin by mere painful copying, he would produce masks only, not
forms breathing life. He must out of his own mind create forms
according to the severe laws of the intellect, in order to generate in
himself that co-ordination of freedom and law, that involution of
obedience in the prescript, and of the prescript in the impulse to
obey, which assimilates him to nature, and enables him to under-
stand her. He merely absents himself for a season from her, that his
own spirit, which has the same ground with nature, may learn her
unspoken language in its main radicals, before he approaches to her
endless compositions of them. Yes, not to acquire cold notions —
lifeless technical rules — ^but living and life-producing ideas, which
shall contain their own evidence, the certainty that they are essen-

26o SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

tially one with the germinal causes in nature — his consciousness being
the focus and mirror of both — for this does the artist for a time
abandon the external real in order to return to it with a complete
sympathy with its internal and actual. For of all we see, hear, feel,
and touch the substance is and must be in ourselves; and therefore
there is no alternative in reason between the dreary (and thank
heaven! almost impossible) belief that everything around us is but
a phantom, or that the life which is in us is in them likewise; and
that to know is to resemble, when we speak of objects out of our-
selves, even as within ourselves to learn is, according to Plato, only
to recollect; — the only effective answer to which, that I have been
fortunate to meet with, is that which Pope has consecrated for
future use in the line —

"And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin!"

The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is
active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols —
the Naiur-geist, or spirit of nature, as we unconsciously imitate those
whom we love; for so only can he hope to produce any work
truly natural in the object and truly human in the effect. The idea
which puts the form together cannot itself be the form. It is above
form, and is its essence, the universal in the individual, or the indi-
viduality itself — the glance and the exponent of the indwelling power.
Each thing that lives has its moment of self -exposition, and so has
each period of each thing, if we remove the disturbing forces of
accident. To do this is the business of ideal art, whether in images
of childhood, youth, or age, in man or in woman. Hence a good
portrait is the abstract of the personal; it is not the likeness for
actual comparison, but for recollection. This explains why the like-
ness of a very good portrait is not always recognized; because some
persons never abstract, and among these are especially to be numbered
the near relations and friends of the subject, in consequence of the
constant pressure and check exercised on their minds by the actual
presence of the original. And each thing that only appears to live
has also its possible position of relation to life, as nature herself
testifies, who, where she cannot be, prophesies her being in the
crystallized metal, or the inhaling plant.

ON POESY OR ART 26 1

The charm, the indispensable requisite, o£ sculpture is unity of
effect. But painting rests in a material remoter from nature, and its
compass is therefore greater. Light and shade give external, as well
internal, being even with all its accidents, while sculpture is confined
to the latter. And here I may observe that the subjects chosen for
works of art, whether in sculpture or painting, should be such as
really are capable of being expressed and conveyed within the limits
of those arts. Moreover, they ought to be such as will affect the
spectator by their truth, their beauty, or their sublimity, and there-
fore they may be addressed to the judgment, the senses, or the
reason. The peculiarity of the impression which they may make
may be derived either from color and form, or from proportion and
fitness, or from the excitement of the moral feelings; or all these
may be combined. Such works as do combine these sources of effect
must have the preference in dignity.

Imitation of the antique may be too exclusive, and may produce an
injurious effect on modern sculpture: — first, generally, because such
an imitation cannot fail to have a tendency to keep the attention
fixed on externals rather than on the thought within; — secondly, be-
cause, accordingly, it leads the artist to rest satisfied with that which
is always imperfect, namely, bodily form, and circumscribes his
views of mental expression to the ideas of power and grandeur only;
— thirdly, because it induces an effort to combine together two in-
congruous things, that is to say, modern feelings in antique forms;
— fourthly, because it speaks in a language, as it were, learned and
dead; the tones of which, being unfamiliar, leave the common
spectator cold and unimpressed; — and lastly, because it necessarily
causes a neglect of thoughts, emotions, and images of profounder
interest and more exalted dignity, as motherly, sisterly, and brotherly
love, piety, devotion, the divine become human — the Virgin, the
Apostle, the Christ. The artist's principle in the statue of a great
man should be the illustration of departed merit; and I cannot but
think that a skilful adoption of modern habiliments would, in many
instances, give a variety and force of effect which a bigoted ad-
herence to Greek or Roman costume precludes. It is, I believe, from
artists finding Greek models unfit for several important modern
purposes that we see so many allegorical figures on monuments and

262 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

elsewhere. Painting was, as it were, a new art, and being un-
shackled by old models it chose its own subjects, and took an
eagle's flight. And a new field seems opened for modern sculpture
in the symbolical expression of the ends of life, as in Guy's monu-
ment, Chantrey's children in Worcester Cathedral, etc.

Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the difference from
nature which may exist in works of art. It involves all the powers
of design, and is sculpture and painting inclusively. It shows the
greatness of man, and should at the same time teach him humility.

Music is the most entirely human of the fine arts, and has the
fewest analoga in nature. Its first delightfulness is simple accord-
ance with the ear; but it is an associated thing, and recalls the deep
emotions of the past with an intellectual sense of proportion. Every
human feeling is greater and larger than the exciting cause — a proof,
I think, that man is designed for a higher state of existence; and this
is deeply implied in music in which there is always something more
and beyond the immediate expression.

With regard to works in all the branches of the fine arts, I may
remark that the pleasure arising from novelty must of course be
allowed its due place and weight. This pleasure consists in the iden-
tity of two opposite elements — that is to say, sameness and variety. If
in the midst of the variety there be not some fixed object for the
attention, the unceasing succession of the variety will prevent the
mind from observing the difference of the individual objects; and
the only thing remaining will be the succession, which will then
produce precisely the same effect as sameness. This we experience
when we let the trees or hedges pass before the fixed eye during a
rapid movement in a carriage, or, on the other hand, when we suffer
a file of soldiers or ranks of men in procession to go on before us
without resting the eye on anyone in particular. In order to derive
pleasure from the occupation of the mind, the principle of unity
must always be present, so that in the midst of the multeity the
centripetal force be never suspended, nor the sense be fatigued by
the predominance of the centrifugal force. This unity in multeity I
have elsewhere stated as the principle of beauty. It is equally the
source of pleasure in variety, and in fact a higher term including
both. What is the seclusive or distinguishing term between them?

ON POESY OR ART 263

Remember that there is a difference between form as proceeding,
and shape as superinduced; — the latter is either the death or the
imprisonment o£ the thing; — the former is its self -witnessing and
self-effected sphere of agency. Art would or should be the abridg-
ment of nature. Now the fulness of nature is without character, as
water is purest when without taste, smell, or color; but this is the
highest, the apex only — it is not the whole. The object of art is to
give the whole ad hominem; hence each step of nature hath its
ideal, and hence the possibility of a climax up to the perfect form
of a harmonized chaos.

To the idea of life victory or strife is necessary; as virtue consists
not simply in the absence of vices, but in the overcoming of them.
So it is in beauty. The sight of what is subordinated and conquered
heightens the strength and the pleasure; and this should be ex-
hibited by the artist either inclusively in his figure, or else out of it,
and beside it to act by way of supplement and contrast. And with
a view to this, remark the seeming identity of body and mind in in-
fants, and thence the loveliness of the former; the commencing
separation in boyhood, and the struggle of equilibrium in youth:
thence onward the body is first simply indifferent; then demanding
the translucency of the mind not to be worse than indifferent; and
finally all that presents the body as body becoming almost of an
excremental nature.^

^ The discussion, like so much of Coleridge's work, seems to have been left incom-
plete.

OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH
TO HAVE SEEN

BY
WILUAM HAZLITT

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was the son of a Unitarian minister.
He went to Paris in his youth with the aim of becoming a painter, but
gradually convinced himself that he could not excel in this art. He then
turned to journalism and literature, and came into close association with
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Hunt, and others of the Romantic School.
He was, however, of a sensitive and difficult temperament, and sooner or
later quarreled with most of his friends. Though a worshiper of Napo-
leon, whose life he wrote, he was a strong liberal in politics, and supposed
himself persecuted for his opinions.

Of all Hazlitt's voluminous writings, those which retain most value
to-day are his literary criticisms and his essays on general topics. His
clear and vivacious style rose at times to a rare beauty; and when the
temper of his work was not marred by his touchiness and egotism he
wrote with great charm and a delicate fancy.

The following essay shows in a high degree the tact and grace of
Hazlitt's best writing, and his power of creating a distinctive atmosphere.
It would be difficult to find a paper of this length which conveys so
much of the special quality of the literary circle which added so much
to the glory of English letters in the first quarter of the nineteenth
century.

OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH
TO HAVE SEEN^

"Come like shadows — so depart."

IAMB it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the
defence of Guy Fawkes, which I urged him to execute. As,
-^ however, he would undertake neither, I suppose I must do
both, a task for which he would have been much fitter, no less from
the temerity than the felicity of his pen —

"Never so sure our rapture to create
As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate." ^

Compared with him, I shall, I fear, make but a commonplace piece
of business of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost,
and, besides, I may avail myself of some hints of his in the progress
of it. I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of
other people than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far
into paradox or mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow
farther than I like, or than seems fair and reasonable.

On the question being started, Ayrton' said, "I suppose the two
first persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest
names in English literature. Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke.?"
In this Ayrton, as usual, reckoned without his host. Everyone
burst out a-laughing at the expression on Lamb's face, in which
impatience was restrained by courtesy. "Yes, the greatest names,"
he stammered out hastily; "but they were not persons — not per-
sons." "Not persons," said Ayrton, looking wise and foolish at the
same time, afraid his triumph might be premature. "That is," re-

* Originally published in the "New Monthly Magazine," January, 1826. The conver-
sation described is supposed to take place at one of Charles Lamb's "Wednesdays," at
16 Mitre Court Buildings, London.

^Pope, "Moral Essays," 11., 51. 'William Ayrton, a musician.

267

268 WILLIAM HAZLITT

joined Lamb, "not characters, you know. By Mr. Locke and Sir
Isaac Newton, you mean the 'Essay on the Human Understanding,'
and the 'Principia,' which we have to this day. Beyond their con-
tents there is nothing personally interesting in the men. But what
we want to see anyone bodily for, is when there is something peculiar,
striking in the individuals, more than we can learn from their writ-
ings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and Newton
were very like Kneller's portraits of them. But who could paint
Shakespeare?" "Ay," retorted Ayrton, "there it is; then I suppose
you would prefer seeing him and Milton instead?" "No," said
Lamb, "neither. I have seen so much of Shakespeare on the stage
and on book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantelpieces, that I
am quite tired of the everlasting repetition : and as to Milton's face,
the impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is
too starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing some
of the manna of his poetry in the leaven of his countenance and the
precisian's band and gown." "I shall guess no more," said Ayrton.
"Who is it, then, you would like to see 'in his habit as he lived,' if you
had your choice of the whole range of English literature?" Lamb
then named Sir Thomas Browne and Fulke Greville, the friend
of Sir Philip Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the
greatest pleasure to encounter on the floor of his apartment in their
nightgowns and slippers and to exchange friendly greeting with
them. At this Ayrton laughed outright, and conceived Lamb was
jesting with him; but as no one followed his example, he thought
there might be something in it, and waited for an explanation in
a state of whimsical suspense. Lamb then (as well as I can re-
member a conversation that passed twenty years ago — how time
slips!) went on as follows: "The reason why I pitch upon these two
authors is, that their writings are riddles, and they themselves the
most mysterious of personages. They resemble the soothsayers of old,
who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles; and I should like to
ask them the meaning of what no mortal but themselves, I should
suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson: I have no curiosity,
no strange uncertainty about him; he and Boswell together have
pretty well let me into the secret of what passed through his mind.
He and other writers like him are suiSciently explicit; my friends.

OF PERSONS 269

whose repose I should be tempted to disturb (were it in my power),
are imphcit, inextricable, inscrutable.

" 'And call up him who left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold.' *

"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose composition,
the 'Urn-burial,' I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at the
bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is like a
stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I would
invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it. Besides, who
would not be curious to see the lineaments of a man who, having
himself been twice married, wished that mankind were propagated
like trees! ^ As to Fulke Greville, he is hke nothing but one of his
own 'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a
truly formidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalyptical,
cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and for
the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an
encounter with so portentous a commentator!" "I am afraid, in that
case," said Ayrton, "that if the mystery were once cleared up, the
merit might be lost;" and turning to me, whispered a friendly appre-
hension, that while Lamb continued to admire these old crabbed
authors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. Donne was
mentioned as a writer of the same period, with a very interesting
countenance, whose history was singular, and whose meaning was
often quite as "uncomeatable," without a personal citation from
the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries. The volume was
produced; and while someone was expatiating on the exquisite sim-
plicity and beauty of the portrait prefixed to the old edition, Ayrton
got hold of the poetry, and exclaiming "What have we here?"
read the following:

" 'Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there.
She gives the best light to his sphere
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe.' " *

There was no resisting this, till Lamb, seizing the volume, turned
to the beautiful "Lines to His Mistress," dissuading her from ac-

* Milton, "U Penseroso," 109. ^ "Religio Medici," II., ix.

' "Epithalamion on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine."

270 WILLIAM HAZLITT

companying him abroad, and read them with suffused features and
a faltering tongue:

" 'By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine perswasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me,
I calmely beg. But by thy father's wrath.
By all paines which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oathes which I
And thou have sworne to seale joynt constancy
Here I unsweare, and overswear them thus —
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
Temper, O fair love! love's impetuous rage,
Be my true mistris still, not my faign'd Page;
I'll goe, and, by thy kinde leave, leave behinde
Thee! onely worthy to nurse it in my minde.
Thirst to come backe; O, if thou die before.
My soule, from other lands to thee shall soare.
Thy (else almighty) beautie cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshnesse: thou hast reade
How roughly bee in peeces shivered
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd.
Fair ill or good, 'ds madness to have prov'd
Dangers unurg'd: Feed on this flattery.
That absent lovers one in th' other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy; nor change
Thy bodie's habite, not minde; be not strange
To thyeselfe onely. All will spie in thy face
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace.
Richly-cloath'd apes are call'd apes, and as soon
Eclips'd as bright, we call the moone the moon.
Men of France, changeable camelions.
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions.
Love's fuellers, and the rightest company
Of players, which upon the world's stage be.
Will quickly know thee . . . O stay here! for thee
England is onely a worthy gallerie.
To walke in expectation; uU from thence
Our greatest King call thee to his presence.
When I am gone, dreame me some happinesse,

OF PERSONS 271

Nor let thy lookes our long-hid love confesse.
Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor blesse, nor curse
Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight's starlings, crying out, Oh, oh,
Nurse, oh my love is slaine, I saw^ him goe
O'er the white Alpes alone! I saw him, I,
Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die.
Augure me better chance, except dread Jove
Thinke it enough for me to have had thy love.' "

Someone then inquired of Lamb if we could not see from the
window the Temple-walk in which Chaucer used to take his
exercise; and on his name being put to the vote, I was pleased to find
that there was a general sensation in his favor in all but Ayrton,
who said something about the ruggedness of the metre, and even
objected to the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed at this
superficial gloss, pertinaciously reducing everything to its own
trite level, and asked, "If he did not think it would be worth while
to scan the eye that had first greeted the Muse in that dim twilight
and early dawn of English literature; to see the head round which
the visions of fancy must have played like gleams of inspiration or
a sudden glory; to watch those lips that 'lisped in numbers, for the
numbers came' — as by a miracle, or as if the dumb should speak?
Nor was it alone that he had been the first to tune his native tongue
(however imperfectly to modern ears) ; but he was himself a noble,
manly character, standing before his age and striving to advance it;
a pleasant humorist withal, who has not only handed down to us the
living manners of his time, but had, no doubt, store of curious and
quaint devices, and would make as hearty a companion as mine
host of the Tabard. His interview with Petrarch is fraught with
interest. Yet I would rather have seen Chaucer in company with
the author of the 'Decameron,' and have heard them exchange
their best stories together — the 'Squire's Tale' against the story of
the 'Falcon,' the 'Wife of Bath's Prologue' against the 'Adventures of
Friar Albert.' How fine to see the high mysterious brow which
learning then wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of the
world, and by the courtesies of genius! Surely, the thoughts and
feelings which passed through the minds of these great revivers
of learning, these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must

272 WILLIAM HAZLITT

have stamped an expression on their features as different from the
moderns as their books, and well worth the perusal. Dante," I con-
tinued, "is as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one whose
lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to penetrate
his spirit, and the only one of the Italian poets I should care much
to see. There is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand than
Titian's; light, Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The
same artist's large colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only like-
ness of the kind that has the effect of conversing with 'the mighty
dead'; and this is truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic." Lamb put
it to me if I should like to see Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I
answered, without hesitation, "No; for that his beauties were ideal,
visionary, not palpable or personal, and therefore connected with
less curiosity about the man. His poetry was the essence of romance,
a very halo round the bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the
individual might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come
up to the mellifluous cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged
angel could vie with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to
our apprehensions) rather a 'creature of the element, that lived in the
rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary
mortal. Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision,
like one of his own pageants, and that he should pass by un-
questioned like a dream or sound —

" ' That was Arion crown'd:

So went he playing on the wat'ry plain.' " '

Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, and Martin
Burney hinted at the Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside
as spurious, and the first made over to the New World.

"I should like," said Mrs. Reynolds, "to have seen Pope talk
with Patty Blount; and I have seen Goldsmith." Everyone turned
round to look at Mrs. Reynolds, as if by so doing they could get
a sight at Goldsmith.

"Where," asked a harsh, croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in the
years 1745-46.'' He did not write anything that we know of, nor is
there any account of him in Boswell during those two years. Was

^ "The Faerie Queene," IV., xi. 23.

OF PERSONS 273

he in Scotland with the Pretender ? He seems to have passed through
the scenes in the Highlands in company with Boswell, many years
after, 'with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if they were familiar to him, or
associated in his mind with interests that he durst not explain. If so,
it would be an additional reason for my liking him; and I would
give something to have seen him seated in the tent with the youth-
ful Majesty of Britain, and penning the Proclamation to all true
subjects and adherents of the legitimate government."

"I thought," said Ayrton, turning short round upon Lamb, "that
you of the Lake School did not like Pope?" "Not like Pope! My
dear sir, you must be under a mistake — I can read him over and over
forever!" "Why, certainly, the 'Essay on Man' must be allowed to
be a masterpiece." "It may be so, but I seldom look into it." "Oh!
then it's his satires you admire?" "No, not his satires, but his friendly
epistles and his compliments." "Compliments! I did not know he
ever made any." "The finest," said Lamb, "that were ever paid by
the wit of man. Each of them is worth an estate for life — nay, is an
immortality. There is that superb one to Lord Cornbury:

" 'Despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.' *

Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And
then that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however
litde deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds:

" 'Conspicuous scene I another yet is nigh,
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hydel' '

And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord
Bolingbroke :

" 'Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
O all-accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine?' '"

Or turn," continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on his cheek and his
eyes glistening, "to his list of early friends:

' "Imitations of Horace, Epistles," I., vi. 60-2. ^ Ibid., 50-3.
'""Epil. to Satires," 11., 138-9.

274 WILLIAM HAZLITT

" 'But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise.
And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays:
The courdy Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved!
Happier their author, if by these beloved !
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.' " "

Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book,
he said, "Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with
such a man as this.'"'

"What say you to Dryden?" "He rather made a show of himself,
and courted popularity in that lowest temple of fame, a coffee-shop,
so as in some measure to vulgarize one's idea of him. Pope, on the
contrary, reached the very beau ideal of what a poet's life should
be; and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation from that
which was to circle his name after death. He was so far enviable
(and one would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in
him) that he was almost the only poet and man of genius who met
with his reward on this side of the tomb, who realized in friends,
fortune, the esteem of the world, the most sanguine hopes of a
youthful ambition, and who found that sort of patronage from the
great during his lifetime which they would be thought anxious to
bestow upon him after his death. Read Gay's verses to him on his
supposed return from Greece, after his translation of Homer was
finished, and say if you would not gladly join the bright procession
that welcomed him home, or see it once more land at Whitehall
stairs." "Still," said Mrs. Reynolds, "I would rather have seen him
talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a coronet-coach with
Lady Mary Wortley Montague!"

Erasmus PhilUps, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other
end of the room, whispered to Martin Barney to ask if "Junius"
would not be a fit person to invoke from the dead. "Yes," said Lamb,
"provided he would agree to lay aside his mask."
*' "Prol. to Satires," 135-146.

OF PERSONS 275

We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was
mentioned as a candidate; only one, however, seconded the propo-
sition. "Richardson?" "By all means, but only to look at him
through the glass door of his back shop, hard at work upon one of his
novels (the most extraordinary contrast that ever was presented
between an author and his works) ; not to let him come behind his
counter, lest he should want you to turn customer, or to go upstairs
with him, lest he should offer to read the first manuscript of 'Sir
Charles Grandison,' which was originally written in eight-and-
twenty volumes octavo, or get out the letters of his female cor-
respondents, to prove that Joseph Andrews was low."

There was but one statesman in the whole of English history
that anyone expressed the least desire to see — OUver Cromwell,
with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face and wily poHcy; and one
enthusiast, John Bunyan, the immortal author of the "Pilgrim's
Progress." It seemed that if he came into the room, dreams would
follow him, and that each person would nod under his golden
cloud, "nigh-sphered in heaven," a canopy as strange and stately
as any in Homer.

Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received
with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by Barron Field.
He presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been
talked of, but then it was on condition that he should act in tragedy
and comedy, in the play and the farce, Lear and Wildair and Abel
Drugger. What a "sight for sore eyes" that would be! Who would
not part with a year's income at least, almost with a year of his
natural life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could not act alone,
and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a troop he must bring
with him — the silver-tongued Barry, and Quin, and Shuter and
Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of whom I have heard
my father speak as so great a favorite when he was young. This
would indeed be a revival of the dead, the restoring of art; and so
much the more desirable, as such is the lurking scepticism mingled
with our overstrained admiration of past excellence, that though
we have the speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the writ-
ings of Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what
people could do at that period, and to confirm the universal testi-
mony to the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we

276 WILLIAM HAZLITT

have our misgivings, as if he was probably, after all, little better than
a Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat
and laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard
with my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if anyone
was ever moved by the true histrionic cestus, it was Garrick. When
he followed the Ghost in "Hamlet," he did not drop the sword, as
most actors do, behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the
whole way round, so fully was he possessed with the idea, or so
anxious not to lose sight of his part for a moment. Once at a splen-
did dinner-party at Lord 's, they suddenly missed Garrick,

and could not imagine what was become of him, till they were
drawn to the window by the convulsive screams and peals of
laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on the ground in
an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in
the courtyard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seem-
ing flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two
persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed
as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old
favorite.

We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful
speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame
to make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the
neglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries
and rivals of Shakespeare. Lamb said he had anticipated this ob-
jection when he had named the author of "Mustapha" and "Ala-
ham"; and, out of caprice, insisted upon keeping him to represent
the set, in preference to the wild, hare-brained enthusiast, Kit Mar-
lowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's, Webster, with his melancholy yew-
trees and death's-heads; to Decker, who was but a garrulous proser;
to the voluminous Hey wood; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher,
whom we might offend by complimenting the wrong author on their
joint productions. Lord Brooke, on the contrary, stood quite by
himself, or, in Cowley's words, was "a vast species alone." Someone
hinted at the circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled
Lamb, but he said a ghost would perhaps dispense with strict eti-
quette, on being regularly addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided
our suffrages pretty equally. Some were afraid he would begin to

OF PERSONS 277

traduce Shakespeare, who was not present to defend himself. "If
he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud, "there is Godwin
can match him." At length, his romantic visit to Drummond of
Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in his favor.

Lamb inquired if there was anyone that was hanged that I would
choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram.'^ The name
of the "Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a splendid
example of waste talents, so different from the generality of his
countrymen. This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton
present, who declared himself descended from that prodigy of
learning and accomplishment, and said he had family plate in his
possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C. — "Ad-
mirable Crichton"! Hunt laughed, or rather roared, as heartily at
this as I should think he has done for many years.

The last-named Mitre-courtier" then wished to know whether
there were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to
apply the wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in modern
times deserving the name — Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume,
Leibnitz; and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusetts man."
As to the French, who talked fluently of having created this science,
there was not a tittle in any of their writings that was not to be
found literally in the authors I had mentioned. [Home Tooke,
who might have a claim to come in under the head of grammar,
was still living.] None of these names seemed to excite much
interest, and I did not plead for the reappearance of those who might
be thought best fatted by the abstracted nature of their studies for
the present spiritual and disembodied state, and who, even while on
this living stage, were nearly divested of common flesh and blood.
As Ayrton, with an uneasy, fidgety face, was about to put some
question about Mr. Locke and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by

"See "Newgate Calendar" for 1758. — ^H.

" Lamb at this time occupied chambers in Mitre Court, Fleet Street. — ^H.

" Bacon is not included in this list, nor do I know where he should come in. It is
not easy to make room for him and his reputation together. This great and celebrated
man in some of his works recommends it to pour a bottle of claret into the ground of
a morning, and to stand over it, inhaling the perfumes. So he sometimes enriched
the dry and barren soil of speculation with the fine aromatic spirit of his genius. His
essays and his "Advancement of Learning" are works of vast depth and scope of ob-
servation. The last, though it contains no positive discoveries, is a noble chart of the
human intellect, and a guide to all future inquirers. — H.

278 WILLIAM HAZLITT

Martin Burney, who observed, "If J was here, he would un-
doubtedly be for having up those profound and redoubted sociaUsts,
Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." I said this might be fair
enough in him who had read, or fancied he had read, the original
works, but I did not see how we could have any right to call up
these authors to give an account of themselves in person till we had
looked into their writings.

By this time it should seem that some rumor of our whimsical
deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the irritabile genus in
their shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several candi-
dates that we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our invi-
tation, though he had not yet been asked; Gay offered to come, and
bring in his hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly; Steele
and Addison left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de
Coverley; Swift came in and sat down without speaking a word,
and quitted the room as abruptly; Otway and Chatterton were seen
lingering on the opposite side of the Styx, but could not muster
enough between them to pay Charon his fare; Thomson fell asleep
in the boat, and was rowed back again; and Burns sent a low fellow,
one John Barleycorn, an old companion of his, who had conducted
him to the other world, to say that he had during his lifetime been
drawn out of his retirement as a show, only to be made an excise-
man of, and that he would rather remain where he was. He desired,
however, to shake hands by his representative — the hand, thus held
out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.

The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent
painters. While we were debating whether we should demand
speech with these masters of mute eloquence, whose features were
so familiar to us, it seemed that all at once they glided from their
frames, and seated themselves at some little distance from us. There
was Leonardo, with his majestic beard and watchful eye, having a
bust of Archimedes before him; next him was Raphael's graceful
head turned round to the Fornarina; and on his other side was
Lucretia Borgia, with calm, golden locks; Michael Angelo had
placed the model of St. Peter's on the table before him; Correggio
had an angel at his side; Titian was seated with his mistress between
himself and Giorgione; Guido was accompanied by his own Aurora,

OF PERSONS 279

who took a dice-box from him; Claude held a mirror in his hand;
Rubens patted a beautiful panther (led in by a satyr) on the head;
Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, and Rembrandt was hid under
furs, gold chains, and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding
his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and
as we rose to do them homage, they still presented the same surface
to the view. Not being bona-fide representations of living people, we
got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb show. As soon
as they had melted into thin air, there was a loud noise at the outer
door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandajo, who
had been raised from the dead by their earnest desire to see their
illustrious successors —

"Whose names on earth
In Fame's eternal record live for aye!"

Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them, and
mournfully withdrew. "Egad!" said Lamb, "these are the very
fellows I should like to have had some talk with, to know how
they could see to paint when all was dark around them."

"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J , "to the

'Legend of Good Women'?" "Name, name, Mr. J ," cried

Hunt in a boisterous tone of friendly exultation, "name as many as
you please, without reserve or fear of molestation!" J was per-
plexed between so many amiable recollections, that the name of the
lady of his choice expired in a pensive whiff of his pipe; and Lamb
impatiently declared for the Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson
was no sooner mentioned, than she carried the day from the Duchess.
We were the less solicitous on this subject of filling up the post-
humous lists of good women, as there was already one in the room
as good, as sensible, and in all respects as exemplary, as the best of
them could be for their Hves! "I should like vastly to have seen
Ninon de I'Enclos," said that incomparable person; and this im-
mediately put us in mind that we had neglected to pay honor due
to our friends on the other side of the Channel: Voltaire, the patri-
arch of levity, and Rousseau, the father of sentiment; Montaigne and
Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit) ; Moliere and that illustrious
group that are collected round him (in the print of that subject) to

28o WILLIAM HAZLITT

hear him read his comedy of the "TartuflFe" at the house of Ninon;
Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucauld, St. Evremont, etc.

"There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, "I would
rather see than all these — Don Quixote!"

"Come, come!" said Hunt; "I thought we should have no heroes,
real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb ? Are you for eking out
your shadowy list with such names as Alexander, Julius Caesar,
Tamerlane, or Genghis Khan?" "Excuse me," said Lamb; "on the
subject of characters in active life, plotters and disturbers of the
world, I have a crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to reserve."
"No, no! come out with your worthies!" "What do you think of Guy
Fawkes and Judas Iscariot?" Hunt turned an eye upon him like a
wild Indian, but cordial and full of smothered glee. "Your most
exquisite reason!" was echoed on all sides; and Ayrton thought that
Lamb had now fairly entangled himself. "Why, I cannot but think,"
retorted he of the wistful countenance, "that Guy Fawkes, that poor,
fluttering, annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentle-
man. I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated,
surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and ex-
pecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise for his
heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that fellow
Godwin will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, my
reason is different. I would fain see the face of him who, having
dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could after-
wards betray him. I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I
ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo's very fine one) that gave
me the least idea of it." "You have said enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify
your choice."

"Oh! ever right, Menenius — ever right!"

"There is only one other person I can ever think of after this,"
continued Lamb;'^ but without mentioning a name that once put on
a semblance of mortality. "If Shakespeare was to come into the
room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to
come into it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his
garment!"

As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the turn the con-

'= In the original form of the essay, this speech is given to Hunt.

OF PERSONS 281

versation had taken, we rose up to go. The morning broke with that
dim, dubious light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandajo must
have seen to paint their earliest works; and we parted to meet again
and renew similar topics at night, the next night, and the night after
that, till that night overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The
same event, in truth, broke up our little congress that broke up the
great one. But that was to meet again: our deliberations have never
been resumed.

DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN

ON THE REALITIES OF
IMAGINATION

BY

LEIGH HUNT

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was the son of a clergyman
from the West Indies. Like Lamb and Coleridge, he was educated at
Christ's Hospital in London, and began writing poetry while still a boy.
He attracted attention early by his theatrical criticisms; and in 1808 he
joined his brother in founding a weekly newspaper, the "Examiner."
During the thirteen years for which he contributed to this paper he ex-
erted a wholesome influence in journalism, raising the tone of the press,
showing great independence and tolerance, and fighting vigorously for
liberal principles. He earned the distinction of two years' imprisonment
for telling plain truths about the Prince Regent; and his prosecution by
the Government made him many distinguished friends. Some years
later he went to Italy to join Shelley and Byron in the establishment of
a new magazine; and it was on returning from Leghorn, where he had
gone to meet Hunt, that Shelley was drowned. The new magazine was
soon abandoned, Hunt returned to England, engaged in various periodi-
cal and other literary enterprises from which he seldom earned enough
to meet his expenses, and struggled on cheerfully and courageously to
the age of seventy-five.

Hunt's poetry is pretty, fanciful, and musical, but, with the exception
of one or two pieces, is now little read. Much of his prose work is merely
high-toned journalism, the interest of which has passed with its occasion.
But among his familiar essays, from which the two papers here printed
are taken, there are many litde masterpieces, suflused with his cheerful
optimistic spirit, and expressed always gracefully and sometimes ex-
quisitely. "No man," says James Russell Lowell, "has ever understood
the delicacies and luxuries of language better than he; and his thoughts
often have all the rounded grace and shifting luster of a dove's neck.
. . . He was as pure-minded a man as ever lived, and a critic whose
subtlety of discrimination and whose soundness of judgment, supported
as it was on a broad basis of truly liberal scholarship, have hardly yet
won fitting appreciation."

DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN

A GRECIAN philosopher being asked why he wept for the
death of his son, since the sorrow was in vain, repUed, "I
L weep on that account." And his answer became his wisdom.
It is only for sophists to contend that we, whose eyes contain the
fountains of tears, need never give way to them. It would be un-
wise not to do so on some occasions. Sorrow unlocks them in her
balmy moods. The first bursts may be bitter and overwhelming; but
the soil on which they pour would be worse without them. They
refresh the fever of the soul — the dry misery which parches the
countenance into furrows, and renders us liable to our most terrible
"flesh-quakes."

There are sorrows, it is true, so great,that to give them some of the
ordinary vents is to run a hazard of being overthrown. These we
must rather strengthen ourselves to resist, or bow quietly and drily
down, in order to let them pass over us, as the traveller does the
wind of the desert. But where we feel that tears would relieve us,
it is false philosophy to deny ourselves at least that first refresh-
ment; and it is always false consolation to tell people that because
they cannot help a thing, they are not to mind it. The true way is,
to let them grapple with the unavoidable sorrow, and try to win it
into gentleness by a reasonable yielding. There are griefs so gentle
in their very nature that it would be worse than false heroism
to refuse them a tear. Of this kind are the deaths of infants. Par-
ticular circumstances may render it more or less advisable to indulge
in grief for the loss of a little child; but, in general, parents should
be no more advised to repress their first tears on such an occasion,
than to repress their smiles towards a child surviving, or to indulge
in any other sympathy. It is an appeal to the same gentle tenderness;
and such appeals are never made in vain. The end of them is an
acquittal from the harsher bonds of affliction — from the tying down
of the spirit to one melancholy idea.

285

286 LEIGH HUNT

It is the nature of tears of this kind, however strongly they may
gush forth, to run into quiet waters at last. We cannot easily, for
the whole course of our lives, think with pain of any good and kind
person whom we have lost. It is the divine nature of their qualities
to conquer pain and death itself; to turn the memory of them into
pleasure; to survive with a placid aspect in our imaginations. We
are writing at this moment just opposite a spot which contains the
grave of one inexpressibly dear to us. We see from our window the
trees about it, and the church spire. The green fields lie around.
The clouds are travelling overhead, alternately taking away the
sunshine and restoring it. The vernal winds, piping of the flowery
summer-time, are nevertheless calling to mind the far-distant and
dangerous ocean, which the heart that lies in that grave had many
reasons to think of. And yet the sight of this spot does not give us
pain. So far from it, it is the existence of that grave which doubles
every charm of the spot; which links the pleasures of our child-
hood and manhood together; which puts a hushing tenderness in
the winds, and a patient joy upon the landscape; which seems to
unite heaven and earth, mortality and immortality, the grass of the
tomb and the grass of the green field; and gives a more maternal
aspect to the whole kindness of nature. It does not hinder gaiety it-
self. Happiness was what its tenant, through all her troubles, would
have diffused. To diffuse happiness, and to enjoy it, is not only carry-
ing on her wishes, but realising her hopes; and gaiety, freed from
its only pollutions, malignity and want of sympathy, is but a child
playing about the knees of its mother.

The remembered innocence and endearments of a child stand us
instead of virtues that have died older. Children have not exercised
the voluntary offices of friendship; they have not chosen to be kind
and good to us; nor stood by us, from conscious will, in the hour of
adversity. But they have shared their pleasures and pains with us
as well as they could; the interchange of good offices between us has,
of necessity, been less mingled with the troubles of the world; the
sorrow arising from their death is the only one which we can asso-
ciate with their memories. These are happy thoughts that cannot
die. Our loss may always render them pensive; but they will not
always be painful. It is a part of the benignity of Nature that pain

DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN 287

does not survive like pleasure, at any time, much less where the
cause of it is an innocent one. The smile will remain reflected by
memory, as the moon reflects the light upon us when the sim has
gone into heaven.

When writers like ourselves quarrel with earthly pain (we mean
writers of the same intentions, without implying, of course, any-
thing about abilities or otherwise), they are misunderstood if they
are supposed to quarrel with pains of every sort. This would be
idle and effeminate. They do not pretend, indeed, that humanity
might not wish, if it could, to be entirely free from pain; for it
endeavours, at all times, to turn pain into pleasure: or at least to
set off the one with the other, to make the former a zest and the
latter a refreshment. The most unaffected dignity of suffering does
this, and, if wise, acknowledges it. The greatest benevolence towards
others, the most unselfish relish of their pleasures, even at its own
expense, does but look to increasing the general stock of happiness,
though content, if it could, to have its identity swallowed up in that
splendid contemplation. We are far from meaning that this is to be
called selfishness. We are far, indeed, from thinking so, or of so
confounding words. But neither is it to be called pain when most
unselfish, if disinterestedness be truly understood. The pain that
is in it softens into pleasure, as the darker hue of the rainbow melts
into the brighter. Yet even if a harsher line is to be drawn between
the pain and pleasure of the most unselfish mind (and ill-health,
for instance, may draw it), we should not quarrel with it if it con-
tributed to the general mass of comfort, and were of a nature which
general kindliness could not avoid. Made as we are, there are cer-
tain pains without which it would be difficult to conceive certain
great and overbalancing pleasures. We may conceive it possible for
beings to be made entirely happy; but in our composition something
of pain seems to be a necessary ingredient, in order that the materials
may turn to as fine account as possible, though our clay, in the course
of ages and experience, may be refined more and more. We may get
rid of the worst earth, though not of earth itself.

Now the liability to the loss of children — or rather what renders
us sensible of it, the occasional loss itself — seems to be one of these
necessary bitters thrown into the cup of humanity. We do not mean

288 LEIGH HUNT

that every one must lose one of his children in order to enjoy the rest;
or that every individual loss afflicts us in the same proportion. We
allude to the deaths of infants in general. These might be as few
as we could render them. But if none at all ever took place, we
should regard every little child as a man or woman secured; and it
will easily be conceived what a world of endearing cares and hopes
this security would endanger. The very idea of infancy would lose
its continuity with us. Girls and boys would be future men and
women, not present children. They would have attained their full
growth in our imaginations, and might as well have been men and
women at once. On the other hand, those who have lost an infant,
are never, as it were, without an infant child. They are the only per-
sons who, in one sense, retain it always, and they furnish their
neighbours with the same idea. The other children grow up to
manhood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of mortality.
This one alone is rendered an immortal child. Death has arrested
it with his kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image
of youth and innocence.

Of such as these are the pleasantest shapes that visit our fancy
and our hopes. They are the ever-smiling emblems of joy; the
prettiest pages that wait upon imagination. Lastly, "Of these are
the kingdom of heaven." Wherever there is a province of that
benevolent and all-accessible empire, whether on earth or elsewhere,
such are the gentle spirits that must inhabit it. To such simplicity,
or the resemblance of it, must they come. Such must be the ready
confidence of their hearts and creativeness of their fancy. And so
ignorant must they be of the "knowledge of good and evil," losing
their discernment of that self-created trouble, by enjoying the garden
before them, and not being ashamed of what is kindly and innocent.

ON THE REALITIES OF
IMAGINATION

THERE is not a more unthinking way of talking than to
say such and such pains and pleasures are only imaginary,
and therefore to be got rid of or under-valued accordingly.
There is nothing imaginary in the common acceptation of the word.
The logic of Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield is good argument
here: — "Whatever is, is." Whatever touches us, whatever moves us,
does touch and does move us. We recognise the reality of it, as we
do that of a hand in the dark. We might as well say that a sight
which makes us laugh, or a blow which brings tears into our eyes,
is imaginary, as that anything else is imaginary which makes us
laugh or weep. We can only judge of things by their effects. Our
perception constantly deceives us, in things with which we suppose
ourselves perfectly conversant; but our reception of their effect is a
different matter. Whether we are materialists or immaterialists,
whether things be about us or within us, whether we think the sun is
a substance, or only the image of a divine thought, an idea, a thing
imaginary, we are equally agreed as to the notion of its warmth.
But on the other hand, as this warmth is felt differently by different
temperaments, so what we call imaginary things affect different
minds. What we have to do is not to deny their effect, because we do
not feel in the same proportion, or whether we even feel it at all;
but to see whether our neighbours may not be moved. If they are,
there is, to all intents and purposes, a moving cause. But we do not
see it? No; — neither perhaps do they. They only feel it; they are
only sentient, — a word which implies the sight given to the imagina-
tion by the feelings. But what do you mean, we may ask in return,
by seeing? Some rays of light come in contact with the eye; they
bring a sensation to it; in a word, they touch it; and the impression
left by this touch we call sight. How far does this differ in effect

289

290 LEIGH HUNT

from the impression left by any other touch, however mysterious?
An ox knocked down by a butcher, and a man knocked down by a
fit of apoplexy, equally feel themselves compelled to drop. The tick-
ling of a straw and of a comedy equally move the muscles about the
mouth. The look of a beloved eye will so thrill the frame, that old
philosophers have had recourse to a doctrine of beams and radiant
particles flying from one sight to another. In fine, what is contact
itself, and why does it affect us? There is no one cause more mys-
terious than another, if we look into it.

Nor does the question concern us like moral causes. We may be
content to know the earth by its fruits; but how to increase and
improve them is a more attractive study. If, instead of saying that
the causes which moved in us this or that pain or pleasure were
imaginary, people were to say that the causes themselves were remov-
able, they would be nearer the truth. When a stone trips us up, we
do not fall to disputing its existence: we put it out of the way. In
like manner, when we suffer from what is called an imaginary pain,
our business is not to canvass the reality of it. Whether there is any
cause or not in that or any other perception, or whether everything
consist not in what is called effect, it is sufficient for us that the effect
is real. Our sole business is to remove those second causes, which
always accompany the original idea. As in deliriums, for instance, it
would be idle to go about persuading the patient that he did not
behold the figures he says he does. He might reasonably ask us, if
he could, how we know anything about the matter; or how we can
be sure that in the infinite wonders of the universe certain realities
may not become apparent to certain eyes, whether diseased or not.
Our business would be to put him into that state of health in which
human beings are not diverted from their offices and comforts by a
liability to such imaginations. The best reply to his question would
be, that such a morbidity is clearly no more a fit state for a human
being than a disarranged or incomplete state of works is for a watch;
and that seeing the general tendency of nature to this completeness or
state of comfort, we naturally conclude that the imaginations in
question, whether substantial or not, are at least not of the same
lasting or prevailing description.

We do not profess metaphysics. We are indeed so little conversant
with the masters of that art, that we are never sure whether we are

REALITIES OF IMAGINATION 29 1

using even its proper terms. All that we may know on the subject
comes to us from some reflection and some experience; and this all
may be so little as to make a metaphysician smile; which, if he be a
true one, he will do good-naturedly. The pretender will take occa-
sion, from our very confession, to say that we know nothing. Our
faculty, such as it is, is rather instinctive than reasoning; rather
physical than metaphysical; rather sentient because it loves much,
than because it knows much; rather calculated by a certain retention
of boyhood, and by its wanderings in the green places of thought, to
light upon a piece of the old golden world, than to tire ourselves,
and conclude it unattainable, by too wide and scientific a search.
We pretend to see farther than none but the worldly and the malig-
nant. And yet those who see farther may not see so well. We do not
blind our eyes with looking upon the sun in the heavens. We believe
it to be there, but we find its light upon earth also; and we would
lead humanity, if we could, out of misery and coldness into the
shine of it. Pain might still be there; must be so, as long as we are
mortal;

"For oft we still must weep, since we are human:"

but it should be pain for the sake of others, which is noble; not
unnecessary pain inflicted by or upon them, which it is absurd not to
remove. The very pains of mankind struggle towards pleasures;,
and such pains as are proper for them have this inevitable accompani-
ment of true humanity, — that they cannot but reaUse a certain gentle-
ness of enjoyment. Thus the true bearer of pain would come round
to us; and he would not grudge us a share of his burden, though in
taking from his trouble it might diminish his pride. Pride is but a
bad pleasure at the expense of others. The great object of humanity
is to enrich everybody. If it is a task destined not to succeed, it is a
good one from its very nature; and fulfils at least a glad destiny of
its own. To look upon it austerely is in reality the reverse of aus-
terity. It is only such an impatience of the want of pleasure as leads
us to grudge it in others; and this impatience itself, if the sufferer
knew how to use it, is but another impulse, in the general yearning,
towards an equal wealth of enjoyment.

But we shall be getting into other discussions. — The ground-work
of all happiness is health. Take care of this ground; and the doleful

292 LEIGH HUNT

imaginations that come to warn us against its abuse will avoid it.
Take care o£ this ground, and let as many glad imaginations throng
to it as possible. Read the magical works of the poets, and they will
come. If you doubt their existence, ask yourself whether you feel
pleasure at the idea of them; whether you are moved into delicious
smiles, or tears as delicious. If you are, the result is the same to you,
whether they exist or not. It is not mere words to say that he who
goes through a rich man's park, and sees things in it which never
bless the mental eyesight of the possessor, is richer than he. He is
richer. More results of pleasure come home to him. The ground is
actually more fertile to him: the place haunted with finer shapes.
He has more servants to come at his call, and administer to him with
full hands. Knowledge, sympathy, imagination, are all divining-
rods, with which he discovers treasure. Let a painter go through the
grounds, and he will see not only the general colours of green and
brown, but their combinations and contrasts, and the modes in which
they might again be combined and contrasted. He will also put
figures in the landscape if there are none there, flocks and herds, or
a solitary spectator, or Venus lying with her white body among the
violets and primroses. Let a musician go through, and he will hear
"differences discreet" in the notes of the birds and the lapsing of the
water-fall. He will fancy a serenade of wind instruments in the open
air at a lady's window, with a voice rising through it; or the horn of
the hunter; or the musical cry of the hounds,

"Matched in mouth like bells,
Each under each;"

or a solitary voice in a bower, singing for an expected lover; or the
chapel organ, waking up like the fountain of the winds. Let a poet
go through the grounds and he will heighten and increase all these
sounds and images. He will bring the colours from heaven, and put
an unearthly meaning into the voice. He will have stories of the
sylvan inhabitants; will shift the population through infinite vari-
eties; will put a sentiment upon every sight and sound; will be
human, romantic, supernatural; will make all nature send tribute
into that spot.

REALITIES OF IMAGINATION 293

We may say of the love o£ nature what Shakespeare says of another
love, that it

"Adds a precious seeing to the eye."

And we may say also, upon the like principle, that it adds a precious
hearing to the ear. This and imagination, which ever follows upon
it, are the two purifiers of our sense, which rescue us from the
deafening babble of common cares, and enable us to hear all the
affectionate voices of earth and heaven. The starry orbs, lapsing
about in their smooth and sparkling dance, sing to us. The brooks
talk to us of solitude. The birds are the animal spirits of nature,
carolling in the air, like a careless lass.

"The gentle gales.
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes; and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils." — Paradise Lost, book iv.

The poets are called creators, because with their magical words they
bring forth to our eyesight the abundant images and beauties of
creation. They put them there, if the reader pleases; and so are
literally creators. But whether put there or discovered, whether
created or invented (for invention means nothing but finding out),
there they are. If they touch us, they exist to as much purpose as
anything else which touches us. If a passage in King Lear brings the
tears into our eyes, it is real as the touch of a sorrowful hand. If the
How of a song of Anacreon's intoxicates us, it is as true to a pulse
within us as the wine he drank. We hear not their sounds with ears,
nor see their sights with eyes; but we hear and see both so truly,
that we are moved with pleasure; and the advantage, nay even the
test, of seeing and hearing, at any time, is not in the seeing and
hearing, but in the ideas we realise, and the pleasure we derive.
Intellectual objects, therefore, inasmuch as they come home to us,
are as true a part of the stock of nature as visible ones; and they are
infinitely more abundant. Between the tree of a country clown and
the tree of a Milton or Spenser, what a difference in point of pro-
ductiveness! Between the plodding of a sexton through a church-
yard and the walk of a Gray, what a difference! What a difference

294 LEIGH HUNT

between the Bermudas of a ship-builder and the Bermoothes of
Shakespeare! the isle

"Full of noises.
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not;"

the isle of elves and fairies, that chased the tide to and fro on the
sea-shore; of coral-bones and the knell of sea-nymphs; of spirits
dancing on the sands, and singing amidst the hushes of the wind;
of Caliban, whose brute nature enchantment had made poetical;
of Ariel, who lay in cowslip bells, and rode upon the bat; of Miranda,
who wept when she saw Ferdinand work so hard, and begged him,
to let her help; telling him,

"I am your wife, if you will marry me;
If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow
You may deny'me; but I'll be your servant.
Whether you will or no."

Such are the discoveries which the poets make for us; worlds to
which that of Columbus was but a handful of brute matter. America
began to be richer for us the other day, when Humboldt came back
and told us of its luxuriant and gigantic vegetation; of the myriads
of shooting lights, which revel at evening in the southern sky; and
of that grand constellation, at which Dante seems to have made so
remarkable a guess (Purgatorio, cant, i., v. 22) . The natural warmth
of the Mexican and Peruvian genius, set free from despodsm, will
soon do all the rest for it; awaken the sleeping riches of its eyesight,
and call forth the glad music of its aflecdons.

Imagination enriches everything. A great library contains not
only books, but

"The assembled souls of all that men held wise."

— Davenant.

The moon is Homer's and Shakespeare's moon, as well as the one
we look at. The sun comes out of his chamber in the east, with a
sparkling eye, "rejoicing like a bridegroom." The commonest thing
becomes like Aaron's rod, that budded. Pope called up the spirits of
the Cabala to wait upon a lock of hair, and justly gave it the honours
of a constellation; for he has hung it, sparkling for ever in the eyes

REALITIES OF IMAGINATION 295

of posterity. A common meadow is a sorry thing to a ditcher or a
coxcomb; but by the help of its dues from imagination and the love
of nature, the grass brightens for us, the air soothes us, we feel as we
did in the daisied hours of childhood. Its verdures, its sheep, its
hedge-row elms, — all these, and all else which sight, and sound, and
associations can give it, are made to furnish a treasure of pleasant
thoughts. Even brick and mortar are vivified, as of old, at the harp
of Orpheus. A metropolis becomes no longer a mere collection of
houses or of trades. It puts on all the grandeur of its history, and
its literature; its towers, and rivers; its art, and jewellery, and foreign
wealth; its multitude of human beings all intent upon excitement,
wise or yet to learn; the huge and sullen dignity of its canopy of
smoke by day; the wide gleam upwards of its lighted lustre at night-
time; and the noise of its many chariots, heard at the same hour,
when the wind sets gently towards some quiet suburb.

ON THE TRAGEDIES OF
SHAKSPERE

BY
CHARLES LAMB

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was born in the Temple, London, where
his father was a clerk to one of the benchers. He was a schoolmate of
Coleridge's at Christ's Hospital, and shortly after leaving school he
entered the India House, on the staff of which he worked for thirty-
three years. He never married, but lived with his sister Mary as her
guardian on account of her inherited tendency to insanity. His friends
included (besides Coleridge) Wordsworth, Hunt, Hazlitt, Southey, and
many others, and his letters as well as the works he published reveal one
of the most attractive personalities in literature.

Lamb wrote a handful of poems marked by delicate sentiment, and
made some rather unsuccessful attempts at drama. But his name rests
on his essays, — the familiar essays on a great variety of subjects, whim-
sical, humorous, graceful, quaint; the critical essays, sensitive, illuminat-
ing, in the best sense appreciative. He did much for the revival of
interest in the Elizabethan drama; and the essay "On the Tragedies of
Shakspere," is the most distinguished single piece of critical writing
that came from his pen. The main thesis of the paper — "that the plays
of Shakespeare are less calculated for performance on a stage than those
of almost any dramatist whatever" — is, of course, paradoxical; but
Lamb's method was not logical or philosophical as his friend Coleridge's
aimed at being. His criticism is a frank expression of his personal feel-
ings; it is in the proper sense "impressionistic" criticism; and it gets its
value from the quality and flavor of the author's taste and personality.
It is thus pure literature — the expression of the man himself — rather than
scientific analysis; and in this branch of writing there is nothing in
English more delightful.

ON THE TRAGEDIES OF
SHAKSPERE

Considered with Reference to Their Fitness for

Stage Representation

TAKING a turn the other day in the Abbey, I was struck
with the affected attitude of a figure, which I do not remem-
ber to have seen before, and which upon examination proved
to be a whole-length of the celebrated Mr. Garrick. Though I would
not go so far with some good CathoHcs abroad as to shut players
altogether out of consecrated ground, yet I own I was not a Utde
scandalised at the introduction of theatrical airs and gestures into a
place set apart to remind us of the saddest realities. Going nearer,
I found inscribed under this harlequin figure the following
lines: —

To paint fair Nature, by divine command.
Her magic pencil in his glowing hand,
A Shakspere rose: then, to expand his fame
Wide o'er this breathing world, a Garrick came.
Though sunk in death the forms the Poet drew.
The Actor's genius made them breathe anew;
Though, like the bard himself, in night they lay,
Immortal Garrick call'd them back to day:
And till Eternity with power sublime
Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary Time,
Shakspere and Garrick like twin-stars shall shine.
And earth irradiate with a beam divine.

It would be an insult to my readers' understandings to attempt
anything like a criticism on this farrago of false thoughts and non-
sense. But the reflection it led me into was a kind of wonder, how,
from the days of the actor here celebrated to our own, it should have
been the fashion to compUment every performer in his turn, that has
had the luck to please the town in any of the great characters of

299

300 CHARLES LAMB

Shakspere, with a notion o£ possessing a mind congeniat to the
poet's; how people should come thus unaccountably to confound the
power of originating poetical images and conceptions with the faculty
of being able to read or recite the same when put into words;' or
what connection that absolute mastery over the heart and soul of
man, which a great dramatic poet possesses, has with those low
tricks upon the eye and ear, which a player by observing a few
general effects, which some common passion, as grief, anger, etc.,
usually has upon the gestures and exterior, can easily compass. To
know the internal workings and movements of a great mind, of an
Othello or a Hamlet, for instance, the when and the why and the how
jar they should be moved; to what pitch a passion is becoming; to
give the reins and to pull in the curb exactly at the moment when
the drawing in or the slacking is most graceful; seems to demand a
reach of intellect of a vastly different extent from that which is
employed upon the bare imitation of the signs of these passions in
the countenance or gesture, which signs are usually observed to be
most lively and emphatic in the weaker sort of minds, and which
signs can after all but indicate some passion, as I said before, anger,
or grief, generally; but of the motives and grounds of the passion,
wherein it differs from the same passion in low and vulgar natures,
of these the actor can give no more idea by his face or gesture than
the eye (without a metaphor) can speak, or the muscles utter intel-
ligible sounds. But such is the instantaneous nature of the impres-
sions which we take in at the eye and ear at a playhouse, compared
with the slow apprehension oftentimes of the understanding in read-
ing, that we are apt not only to sink the play-writer in the considera-
tion which we pay to the actor, but even to identify in our minds in
a perverse manner, the actor with the character which he represents.
It is difficult for a frequent play-goer to disembarrass the idea of
Hamlet from the person and voice of Mr. K. We speak of Lady
Macbeth, while we are in reality thinking of Mrs. S. Nor is this
confusion incidental alone to unlettered persons, who, not possessing

*It is observable that we fall into this confusion only in dramatic recitations. We
never dream that the gentleman who reads Lucretius in public with great applause, is
therefore a great poet and philosopher; nor do we find that Tom Davies, the book-
seller, who is recorded to have recited the "Paradise Lost" better than any man in
England in his day (though I cannot help thinking there must be some mistake in
this tradition) was therefore, by his intimate friends, set upon a level with Milton.

TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 3OI

the advantage of reading, are necessarily dependent upon the stage-
player for all the pleasure which they can receive from the drama,
and to whom the very idea of what an author is cannot be made
comprehensible without some pain and perplexity of mind : the error
is one from which persons otherwise not meanly lettered find it
almost impossible to extricate themselves.

Never let me be so ungrateful as to forget the very high degree of
satisfaction which I received some years back from seeing for the
first time a tragedy of Shakspere performed, in which these two
great performers sustained the principal parts. It seemed to embody
and realise conceptions which had hitherto assumed no distinct
shape. But dearly do we pay all our life afterwards for this juvenile
pleasure, this sense of distinctness. When the novelty is past, we
find to our cost that, instead of realising an idea, we have only mate-
rialised and brought down a fine vision to the standard of flesh
and blood. We have let go a dream, in quest of an unattainable sub-
stance.

How cruelly this operates upon the mind, to have its free concep-
tions thus cramped and pressed down to the measure of a strait-
lacing actuality, may be judged from that delightful sensation of
freshness, with which we turn to those plays of Shakspere which
have escaped being performed, and to those passages in the acting
plays of the same writer which have happily been left out of the
performance. How far the very custom of hearing anything spouted,
withers and blows upon a fine passage, may be seen in those speeches
from Henry the Fifth, etc., which are current in the mouths of
school-boys from their being to be found in Enfield Speakers, and
such kind of books. I confess myself utterly unable to appreciate
that celebrated soliloquy in Hamlet, beginning "To be, or not to be,"
or to tell whether it be good, bad, or indifferent, it has been so
handled and pawed about by declamatory boys and men, and torn
so inhumanly from its living place and principle of continuity in the
play, till it is become to me a perfect dead member.

It may seem a paradox, but I cannot help being of opinion that
the plays of Shakspere are less calculated for performance on a stage
than those of almost any other dramatist whatever. Their dis-
tinguished excellence is a reason that they should be so. There is so

302 CHARLES LAMB

much in them, which comes not under the province p£ acting, with
which eye, and tone, and gesture, have nothing to do.

The glory of the scenic art is to personate passion, and the turns
of passion; and the more coarse and palpable the passion is, the more
hold upon the eyes and ears of the spectators the performer obviously
possesses. For this reason, scolding scenes, scenes where two persons
talk themselves into a fit of fury, and then in a surprising manner
talk themselves out of it again, have always been the most popular
upon our stage. And the reason is plain, because the spectators are
here most palpably appealed to, they are the proper judges in this
war of words, they are the legitimate ring that should be formed
round such "intellectual prize-fighters." Talking is the direct object
of the imitation here. But in the best dramas, and in Shakspere
above all, how obvious it is, that the form of spea\ing, whether it be
in soliloquy or dialogue, is only a medium, and often a highly
artificial one, for putting the reader or spectator into possession of
that knowledge of the inner structure and workings of mind in a
character, which he could otherwise never have arrived at in that
form of composition by any gift short of intuition. We do here as
we do with novels written in the epistolary form. How many impro-
prieties, perfect solecisms in letter-writing, do we put up with in
"Clarissa" and other books, for the sake of the delight which that
form upon the whole gives us.

But the practice of stage representation reduces everything to a
controversy of elocution. Every character, from the boisterous blas-
phemings of Bajazet to the shrinking timidity of womanhood, must
play the orator. The love-dialogues of Romeo and fuliet, those
silver-sweet sounds of lovers' tongues by night; the more intimate
and sacred sweetness of nuptial colloquy between an Othello or a
Posthumus with their married wives, all those delicacies which are so
delightful in the reading, as when we read of those youthful
dalliances in Paradise —

As beseem'd
Fair couple link'd in happy nuptial league,
Alone:

by the inherent fault of stage representation, how are these things
sullied and turned from their very nature by being exposed to a

TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 303

large assembly; when such speeches as Imogen addresses to her lord,
come drawling out of the mouth of a hired actress, whose courtship,
though nominally addressed to the personated Posthumus, is mani-
festly aimed at the spectators, who are to judge of her endearments
and her returns of love.

The character of Hamlet is perhaps that by which, since the days
of Betterton, a succession of popular performers have had the greatest
ambition to distinguish themselves. The length of the part may be
one of their reasons. But for the character itself, we find it in a play,
and therefore we judge it a fit subject of dramatic representation.
The play itself abounds in maxims and reflections beyond any other,
and therefore we consider it as a proper vehicle for conveying moral
instruction. But Hamlet himself — what does he suffer meanwhile
by being dragged forth as a public schoolmaster, to give lectures to
the crowd! Why, nine parts in ten of what Hamlet does, are trans-
actions between himself and his moral sense, they are the effusions
of his solitary musings, which he retires to holes and corners and the
most sequestered parts of the palace to pour forth; or rather, they are
the silent meditations with which his bosom is bursting, reduced to
words for the sake of the reader, who must else remain ignorant of
what is passing there. These profound sorrows, these light-and-noise-
abhorring ruminations, which the tongue scarce dares utter to deaf
walls and chambers, how can they be represented by a gesticulating
actor, who comes and mouths them out before an audience, making
four hundred people his confidants at once? I say not that it is the
fault of the actor so to do; he must pronounce them ore rotundo, he
must accompany them with his eye, he must insinuate them into his
auditory by some trick of eye, tone, or gesture, or he fails. Me must
be thinking all the while of his appearance, because he \nows that all
the while the spectators are judging of it. And this is the way to
represent the shy, negligent, retiring Hamlet.

It is true that there is no other mode of conveying a vast quantity
of thought and feeling to a great portion of the audience, who other-
wise would never learn it for themselves by reading, and the intel-
lectual acquisition gained this way may, for aught I know, be
inestimable; but I am not arguing that Hamlet should not be acted,
but how much Hamlet is made another thing by being acted. I have

304 CHARLES LAMB

heard much of the wonders which Garrick performed in this part;
but as I never saw him, I must have leave to doubt whether the
representation of such a character came within the province of his art.
Those who tell me of him, speak of his eye, of the magic of his eye,
and of his commanding voice : physical properties, vastly desirable in
an actor, and without which he can never insinuate meaning into an
auditory, — but what have they to do with Hamlet? what have they
to do with intellect ? In fact, the things aimed at in theatrical repre-
sentation, are to arrest the spectator's eye upon the form and the
gesture, and so to gain a more favourable hearing to what is spoken :
it is not what the character is, but how he looks; not what he says,
but how he speaks it. I see no reason to think that if the play of
Hamlet were written over again by some such writer as Banks or
Lillo, retaining the process of the story, but totally omitting all the
poetry of it, all the divine features of Shakspere, his stupendous
intellect; and only taking care to give us enough of passionate
dialogue, which Banks or Lillo were never at a loss to furnish; I see
not how the effect could be much different upon an audience, nor
how the actor has it in his power to represent Shakspere to us
differently from his representation of Banks or Lillo. Hamlet would
still be a youthful accomplished prince, and must be gracefully per-
sonated; he might be puzzled in his mind, wavering in his conduct,
seemingly cruel to Ophelia, he might see a ghost, and start at it,
and address it kindly when he found it to be his father; all this in
the poorest and most homely language of the servilest creeper after
nature that ever consulted the palate of an audience; without trou-
bling Shakspere for the matter; and I see not but there would be room
for all the power which an actor has, to display itself. All the passions
and changes of passion might remain; for those are much less
difficult to write or act than is thought; it is a trick easy to be attained,
it is but rising or falling a note or two in the voice, a whisper with a
significant foreboding look to announce its approach, and so con-
tagious the counterfeit appearance of any emotion is, that let the
words be what they will, the look and tone shall carry it off and make
it pass for deep skill in the passions.

It is common for people to talk of Shakspere's plays being so
natural, that everybody can understand him. They are natural

TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 305

indeed, they are grounded deep in nature, so deep that the depth of
them Hes out of the reach of most of us. You shall hear the same
persons say that George Barnwell is very natural, and Othello is very
natural, that they are both very deep; and to them they are the same
kind of thing. At the one they sit and shed tears, because a good sort
of young man is tempted by a naughty woman to commit a trifling
peccadillo, the murder of an uncle or so,^ that is all, and so comes to
an untimely end, w^hich is so moving; and at the other, because a
blackamoor in a fit of jealousy kills his innocent white wife: and
the odds are that ninety-nine out of a hundred would willingly
behold the same catastrophe happen to both the heroes, and have
thought the rope more due to Othello than to Barnwell. For of the
texture of Othello's mind, the inward construction marvellously laid
open with all its strengths and weaknesses, its heroic confidences and
its human misgivings, its agonies of hate springing from the depths
of love, they see no more than the spectators at a cheaper rate, who
pay their pennies apiece to look through the man's telescope in
Leicester Fields, see into the inward plot and topography of the
moon. Some dim thing or other they see, they see an actor person-
ating a passion, of grief, or anger, for instance, and they recognise it
as a copy of the usual external effects of such passions; or at least
as being true to that symbol of the emotion which passes current at
the theatre for it, for it is often no more than that: but of the grounds
of the passion, its correspondence to a great or heroic nature, which
is the only worthy object of tragedy, — that common auditors know
anything of this, or can have any such notions dinned into them
by the mere strength of an actor's lungs, — that apprehensions foreign
to them should be thus infused into them by storm, I can neither
believe, nor understand how it can be possible.

^ If this note could hope to meet the eye of any of the Managers, I wou^d entreat
and beg of them, in the name of both the galleries, that this insult upon the morality
of the common people of London should cease to be eternally repeated in the holiday
weeks. Why are the 'Prentices of this famous and well-governed city, instead of an
amusement, to be treated over and over again with a nauseous sermon of George
Barnwell? Why at the end of their vistas are we to place the gallows? Were I an
uncle, I should not much like a nephew of mine to have such an example placed be-
fore his eyes. It is really making uncle-murder too trivial to exhibit it as done upon
such slight motives; — it is attributing too much to such characters as Millwood; it is
putting things into the heads of good young men, which they would never otherwise
have dreamed of. Uncles that think anything of their lives, should fairly petition the
Chamberlain against it.

306 CHARLES LAMB

We talk of Shakspere's admirable observation of life, when we
should feel that not from a petty inquisition into those cheap and
every-day characters which surrounded him, as they surround us,
but from his own mind, which was, to borrow a phrase of Ben
Jonson's, the very "sphere of humanity," he fetched those images of
virtue and of knowledge, of which every one of us recognising a part,
think we comprehend in our natures the whole; and oftentimes
mistake the powers which he positively creates in us for nothing
more than indigenous faculties of our own minds, which only waited
the application of corresponding virtues in him to return a full and
clear echo of the same.

To return to Hamlet. — Among the distinguishing features of that
wonderful character, one of the most interesting (yet painful) is that
soreness of mind which makes him treat the intrusions of Polonius
with harshness, and that asperity which he puts on in his interviews
with Ophelia. These tokens of an unhinged mind (if they be not
mixed in the latter case with a profound artifice of love, to alienate
Ophelia by affected discourtesies, so to prepare her mind for the
breaking off of that loving intercourse, which can no longer find a
place amidst business so serious as that which he has to do) are parts
of his character, which to reconcile with our admiration of Hamlet,
the most patient consideration of his situation is no more than
necessary; they are what we forgive afterwards, and explain by the
whole of his character, but at the time they are harsh and unpleasant.
Yet such is the actor's necessity of giving strong blows to the audi-
ence, that I have never seen a player in this character, who did not
exaggerate and strain to the utmost these ambiguous features, — these
temporary deformities in the character. They make him express a
vulgar scorn at Polonius which utterly degrades his gentility, and
which no explanation can render palatable; they make him show
contempt, and curl up the nose at Ophelia's father, — contempt in its
very grossest and most hateful form; but they get applause by it:
it is natural, people say; that is, the words are scornful, and the actor
expresses scorn, and that they can judge of: but why so much scorn,
and of that sort, they never think of asking.

So to Ophelia. — All the Hamlets that I have ever seen, rant and
rave at her as if she had committed some great crime, and the audi-

TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 307

ence are highly pleased, because the words of the part are satirical,
and they are enforced by the strongest expression of satirical indig-
nation of which the face and voice are capable. But then, whether
Hamlet is likely to have put on such brutal appearances to a lady
whom he loved so dearly, is never thought on. The truth is, that
in all such deep affections as had subsisted between Hamlet and
Ophelia, there is a stock of supererogatory love (if I may venture to
use the expression), which in any great grief of heart, especially
where that which preys upon the mind cannot be communicated,
confers a kind of indulgence upon the grieved party to express itself,
even to its heart's dearest object, in the language of a temporary
alienation; but it is not alienation, it is a distraction purely, and so it
always makes itself to be felt by that object: it is not anger, but grief
assuming the appearance of anger, — love awkwardly counterfeiting
hate, as sweet countenances when they try to frown : but such stern-
ness and fierce disgust as Hamlet is made to show, is no counterfeit,
but the real face of absolute aversion, — of irreconcilable alienation.
It may be said he puts on the madman; but then he should only so
far put on this counterfeit lunacy as his own real distraction will
give him leave; that is, incompletely, imperfectly; not in that con-
firmed, practised way, like a master of his art, or as Dame Quickly
would say, "like one of those harlotry players."

I mean no disrespect to any actor, but the sort of pleasure which
Shakspere's plays give in the acting seems to me not at all to differ
from that which the audience receive from those of other writers;
and, they being in themselves essentially so different from all others,
I must conclude that there is something in the nature of acting which
levels all distinctions. And in fact, who does not speak indifferently
of the Gamester and of Macbeth as fine stage performances, and
praise the Mrs. Beverley in the same way as the Lady Macbeth of
Mrs. S.? Belvidera, and Calista, and Isabella, and Euphrasia, are
they less liked than Imogen, or than Juliet, or than Desdemona.? Are
they not spoken of and remembered in the same way.? Is not the
female performer as great (as they call it) in one as in the other?
Did not Garrick shine, and was he not ambitious of shining in every
drawling tragedy that his wretched day produced, — the productions
of the Hills and the Murphys and the Browns, — and shall he have

308 CHARLES LAMB

that honour to dwell in our minds for ever as an inseparable con-
comitant with Shakspere? A kindred mind! O who can read that
affecting sonnet of Shakspere which alludes to his profession as a
player : —

Oh for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

That did not better for my life provide

Than public means which public manners breeds —

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand;

And almost thence my nature is subdued

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand

Or that other confession; —

Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,

And made myself a modey to the view.

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear —

Who can read these instances of jealous self -watchfulness in our
sweet Shakspere, and dream of any congeniality between him and
one that, by every tradition of him, appears to have been as mere a
player as ever existed; to have had his mind tainted with the lowest
player's vices, — envy and jealousy, and miserable cravings after
applause; one who in the exercise of his profession was jealous even
of the women-performers that stood in his way; a manager full of
managerial tricks and stratagems and finesse: that any resemblance
should be dreamed of between him and Shakspere, — Shakspere who,
in the plenitude and consciousness of his own powers, could with
that noble modesty, which we can neither imitate nor appreciate,
express himself thus of his own sense of his own defects: —

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope.
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd:
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope.

I am almost disposed to deny to Garrick the merits of being an
admirer of Shakspere. A true lover of his excellences he certainly was
not; for would any true lover of them have admitted into his match-
less scenes such ribald trash as Tate and Gibber, and the rest of
them, that

With their darkness durst affront his light,

TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 3O9

have foisted into the acting plays of Shakspere? I beUeve it impos-
sible that he could have had a proper reverence for Shakspere, and
have condescended to go through that interpolated scene in Richard
the Third, in which Richard tries to break his wife's heart by telling
her he loves another woman, and says, "if she survives this she is
immortal." Yet I doubt not he delivered this vulgar stuff with as
much anxiety of emphasis as any of the genuine parts: and for acting,
it is as well calculated as any. But we have seen the part of Richard
lately produce great fame to an actor by his manner of playing it,
and it lets us into the secret of acting, and of popular judgments of
Shakspere derived from acting. Not one of the spectators who have
witnessed Mr. C.'s exertions in that part, but has come away with a
proper conviction that Richard is a very wicked man, and kills little
children in their beds, with something like the pleasure which the
giants and ogres in children's books are represented to have taken
in that practice; moreover, that he is very close and shrewd, and
devilish cunning, for you could see that by his eye.

But is in fact this the impression we have in reading the Richard of
Shakspere? Do we feel anything like disgust, as we do at that
butcher-like representation of him that passes for him on the stage?
A horror at his crimes blends with the effect which we feel, but how
is it qualified, how is it carried off, by the rich intellect which he
displays, his resources, his wit, his buoyant spirits, his vast knowledge
and insight into characters, the poetry of his part — ^not an atom of
all which is made perceivable in Mr. C.'s way of acting it. Noth-
ing but his crimes, his actions, is visible; they are prominent and
staring; the murderer stands out, but where is the lofty genius,
the man of vast capacity, — the profound, the witty, accomplished
Richard?

The truth is, the characters of Shakspere are so much the objects
of meditation rather than of interest or curiosity as to their actions,
that while we are reading any of his great criminal characters, —
Macbeth, Richard, even lago, — we think not so much of the crimes
which they commit, as of the ambition, the aspiring spirit, the
intellectual activity which prompts them to overleap those moral
fences. Barnwell is a wretched murderer; there is a certain fitness
between his neck and the rope; he is the legitimate heir to the

310 CHARLES LAMB

gallows; nobody who thinks at all can think of any alleviating
circumstances in his case to make him a fit object of mercy. Or to
take an instance from the higher tragedy, what else but a mere
assassin is Glenalvon! Do we think of anything but of the crime
which he commits, and the rack which he deserves? That is all
which we really think about him. Whereas in corresponding char-
acters in Shakspere so little do the actions comparatively affect us,
that while the impulses, the inner mind in all its perverted greatness,
solely seems real and is exclusively attended to, the crime is com-
paratively nothing. But when we see these things represented, the
acts which they do are comparatively everything, their impulses
nothing. The state of sublime emotion into which we are elevated
by those images of night and horror which Macbeth is made to utter,
that solemn prelude with which he entertains the time till the bell
shall strike which is to call him to murder Duncan, — when we no
longer read it in a book, when we have given up that vantage-ground
of abstraction which reading possesses over seeing, and come to see
a man in his bodily shape before our eyes actually preparing to
commit a murder, if the acting be true and impressive, as I have
witnessed it in Mr. K.'s performance of that part, the painful anxiety
about the act, the natural longing to prevent it while it yet seems
unperpetrated, the too close pressing semblance of reality, give a
pain and an uneasiness which totally destroy all the delight which
the words in the book convey, where the deed doing never presses
upon us with the painful sense of presence : it rather seems to belong
to history, — to something past and inevitable, if it has anything to
do with time at all. The sublime images, the poetry alone, is that
which is present to our minds in the reading.

So to see Lear acted, — to see an old man tottering about the stage
with a walking-stick, turned out of doors by his daughters in a
rainy night, has nothing in it but what is painful and disgusting.
We want to take him into shelter and relieve him. That is all the
feeling which the acting of Lear ever produced in me. But the Lear
of Shakspere cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery by which
they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate
to represent the horrors of the real elements, than any actor can be
to represent Lear: they might more easily propose to personate the

TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 3II

Satan of Milton upon a stage, or one of Michael Angelo's terrible
figures. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension, but in
intellectual: the explosions of his passion are terrible as a volcano:
they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that sea his
mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This
case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant to be thought on;
even as he himself neglects it. On the stage we see nothing but
corporal infirmities and weakness, the impotence of rage; while we
read it, we see not Lear, but we are Lear, — we are in his mind, we
are sustained by a grandeur which baffles the malice of daughters
and storms; in the aberrations of his reason, we discover a mighty
irregular power of reasoning, immethodised from the ordinary pur-
poses of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind blows where it
listeth, at will upon the corruptions and abuses of mankind. What
have looks, or tones, to do with that sublime identification of his age
with that of the heavens themselves, when in his reproaches to them
for conniving at the injustice of his children, he reminds them that
"they themselves are old?" What gestures shall we appropriate to
this? What has the voice or the eye to do with such things? But
the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too
hard and stony; it must have love-scenes, and a happy ending. It is
not enough that Cordelia is a daughter, she must shine as a lover
too. Tate has put his hook in the nostrils of this Leviathan, for
Garrick and his followers, the showmen of scene, to draw the mighty
beast about more easily. A happy ending! — as if the living martyr-
dom that Lear had gone through, — the flaying of his feelings alive,
did not make a fair dismissal from the stage of life the only decorous
thing for him. If he is to live and be happy after, if he could sustain
this world's burden after, why all this pudder and preparation, —
why torment us with all this unnecessary sympathy ? As if the child-
ish pleasure of getting his gilt-robes and sceptre again could tempt
him to act over again his misused station, — as if at his years, and
with his experience, anything was left but to die.

hear is essentially impossible to be represented on a stage. But
how many dramatic personages are there in Shakspere, which though
more tractable and feasible (if I may so speak) than Lear, yet from
some circumstance, some adjunct to their character, are improper to

312 CHARLES LAMB

be shown to our bodily eye. Othello, for instance. Nothing can be
more soothing, more flattering to the nobler parts of our natures, than
to read of a young Venetian lady of highest extraction, through the
force of love and from a sense of merit in him whom she loved,
laying aside every consideration of kindred, and country, and colour,
and wedding with a coal-blac\ Moor — (for such he is represented, in
the imperfect state of knowledge respecting foreign countries in those
days, compared with our own, or in compliance with popular notions,
though the Moors are now well enough known to be by many shades
less unworthy of white woman's fancy) — it is the perfect triumph
of virtue over accidents, of the imagination over the senses. She sees
Othello's colour in his mind. But upon the stage, when the imagina-
tion is no longer the ruling faculty, but we are left to our poor
unassisted senses, I appeal to every one that has seen Othello played,
whether he did not, on the contrary, sink Othello's mind in his
colour; whether he did not find something extremely revolting in
the courtship and wedded caresses of Othello and Desdemona; and
whether the actual sight of the thing did not overweigh all that
beautiful compromise which we make in reading; — and the reason
it should do so is obvioiis, because there is just so much reality pre-
sented to our senses as to give a perception of disagreement, with not
enough of belief in the internal motives, — all that which is unseen, —
to overpower and reconcile the first and obvious prejudices.' What
we see upon a stage is body and bodily action; what we are conscious
of in reading is almost exclusively the mind, and its movements:
and this, I think, may sufficiently account for the very different sort
of delight with which the same play so often affects us in the reading
and the seeing.

It requires little reflection to perceive, that if those characters in
Shakspere which are within the precincts of nature, have yet some-
thing in them which appeals too exclusively to the imagination, to

^ The error of supposing that because Othello's colour does not offend us in the
reading, it should also not offend us in the seeing, is just such a fallacy as supposing
that an Adam and Eve in a picture shall affect us just as they do in the poem. But
in the poem we for a while have Paradisaical senses given us, which vanish when we
see a man and his wife without clothes in the picture. The painters themselves feel
this, as is apparent by the awkward shifts they have recourse to, to make them look
not quite naked; by a sort of prophetic anachronism antedating the invention of fig-
leaves. So in the reading of the play, we see with Desdemona's eyes; in the seeing of
it, we are forced to look with our own.

TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 313

admit of their being made objects to the senses without suffering
a change and a diminution, — that still stronger the objection must lie
against representing another line of characters, which Shakspere has
introduced to give a wildness and a supernatural elevation to his
scenes, as if to remove them still further from that assimilation to
common life in which their excellence is vulgarly supposed to consist.
When we read the incantations of those terrible beings the Witches
in Macbeth, though some of the ingredients of their hellish composi-
tion savour of the grotesque, yet is the effect upon us other than the
most serious and appalling that can be imagined? Do we not feel
spell-bound as Macbeth was? Can any mirth accompany a sense of
their presence? We might as well laugh under a consciousness of
the principle of Evil himself being truly and really present with us.
But attempt to bring these beings on to a stage, and you turn them
instantly into so many old women, that men and children are to
laugh at. Contrary to the old saying, that "seeing is believing," the
sight actually destroys the faith : and the mirth in which we indulge
at their expense, when we see these creatures upon a stage, seems to
be a sort of indemnification which we make to ourselves for the terror
which they put us in when reading made them an object of belief, —
when we surrendered up our reason to the poet, as children to their
nurses and their elders; and we laugh at our fears, as children who
thought they saw something in the dark, triumph when the bringing
in of the candle discovers the vanity of their fears. For this exposure
of supernatural agents upon a stage is truly bringing in a candle to
expose their own delusiveness. It is the solitary taper and the book
that generates a faith in these terrors: a ghost by chandelier light,
and in good company, deceives no spectators, — a ghost that can be
measured by the eye, and his human dimensions made out at leisure.
The sight of a well-lighted house and a well-dressed audience, shall
arm the most nervous child against any apprehensions: as Tom
Brown says of the impenetrable skin of Achilles with his impene-
trable armour over it, "Bully Dawson would have fought the devil
with such advantages."

Much has been said, and deservedly, in reprobation of the vile
mixture which Dryden has thrown into the Tempest: doubtless with-
out some such vicious alloy, the impure ears of that age would

314 CHARLES LAMB

never have sate out to hear so much innocence of love as is contained
in the sweet courtship of Ferdinand and Miranda. But is the
Tempest of Shakspere at all a subject for stage representation? It is
one thing to read of an enchanter, and to believe the wondrous tale
while we are reading it; but to have a conjuror brought before us
in his conjuring-gown, with his spirits about him, which none but
himself and some hundred of favoured spectators before the curtain
are supposed to see, involves such a quantity of the hateful incredible,
that all our reverence for the author cannot hinder us from perceiving
such gross attempts upon the senses to be in the highest degree child-
ish and inefficient. Spirits and fairies cannot be represented, they
cannot even be painted, — they can only be believed. But the elab-
orate and anxious provision of scenery, which the luxury of the age
demands, in these cases works a quite contrary effect to what is
intended. That which in comedy, or plays of familiar life, adds so
much to the life of the imitation, in plays which appeal to the higher
faculties, positively destroys the illusion which it is introduced to aid.
A parlour or a drawing-room, — a library opening into a garden, — a
garden with an alcove in it, — a street, or the piazza of Covent Garden
does well enough in a scene; we are content to give as much credit to
it as it demands; or rather, we think little about it, — ^it is little more
than reading at the top of a page, "Scene, a Garden;" we do not
imagine ourselves there, but we readily admit the imitation of
familiar objects. But to think by the help of painted trees and
caverns, which we know to be painted, to transport our minds to
Prospero, and his island and his lonely cell;* or by the aid of a
fiddle dexterously thrown in, in an interval of speaking, to make us
believe that we hear those supernatural noises of which the isle was
full: — the Orrery Lecturer at the Haymarket might as well hope,
by his musical glasses cleverly stationed out of sight behind his
apparatus, to make us believe that we do indeed hear the crystal
spheres ring out that chime, which if it were to inwrap our fancy
long, Milton thinks,

^It will be said these things are done in pictures. But pictures and scenes are very
different things. Painting is a word of itself, but in scene-painting there is the attempt
to deceive; and there is the discordancy, never to be got over, between painted scenes
and real people.

TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPERE 315

Time would run back and fetch the age of gold,

And speckled vanity

Would sicken soon and die,

And leprous Sin would melt from earthly mould;

Yea Hell itself would pass away,

And leave its dolorous mansions to the peering day.

The Garden of Eden, with our first parents in it, is not more
impossible to be shown on a stage than the Enchanted Isle, with its
no less interesting and innocent first settlers.

The subject of Scenery is closely connected with that of the Dresses,
which are so anxiously attended to on our stage. I remember the last
time I saw Macbeth played, the discrepancy I felt at the changes of
garment which he varied, — the shiftings and re-shiftings, like a
Romish priest at mass. The luxury of stage improvements, and the
importunity of the public eye, require this. The coronation robe of
the Scottish monarch was fairly a counterpart to that which our King
wears when he goes to the Parliament-house, — just so full and cum-
bersome, and set out with ermine and pearls. And if things must be
represented, I see not what to find fault with in this. But in reading,
what robe are we conscious of? Some dim images of royalty — a
crown and sceptre — may float before our eyes, but who shall describe
the fashion of it? Do we see in our mind's eye what Webb or any
other robe-maker could pattern ? This is the inevitable consequence
of imitating everything, to make all things natural. Whereas the
reading of a tragedy is a fine abstraction. It presents to the fancy just
so much of external appearances as to make us feel that we are among
flesh and blood, while by far the greater and better part of our
imagination is employed upon the thoughts and internal machinery
of the character. But in acting, scenery, dress, the most contemptible
things, call upon us to judge of their naturalness.

Perhaps it would be no bad similitude, to liken the pleasure which
we take in seeing one of these fine plays acted, compared with that
quiet delight which we find in the reading of it, to the different
feelings with which a reviewer, and a man that is not a reviewer,
reads a fine poem. The accursed critical habit, — the being called
upon to judge and pronounce, must make it quite a different thing

3l6 CHARLES LAMB

to the former. In seeing these plays acted, we are affected just as
judges. When Hamlet compares the two pictures of Gertrude's first
and second husband, who wants to see the pictures? But in the
acting, a miniature must be lugged out; which we know not to be
the picture, but only to show how finely a miniature may be
represented. This shewing of everything, levels all things : it makes
tricks, bows, and curtseys, of importance. Mrs. S. never got more
fame by anything than by the manner in which she dismisses the
guests in the banquet-scene in Macbeth: it is as much remembered
as any of her thrilling tones or impressive looks. But does such a
trifle as this enter into the imaginations of the reader of that wild
and wonderful scene? Does not the mind dismiss the feasters as
rapidly as it can? Does it care about the gracefulness of the doing it?
But by acting, and judging of acting, all these non-essentials are
raised into an importance, injurious to the main interest of the play.
I have confined my observations to the tragic parts of Shakspere.
It would be no very difficult task to extend the inquiry to his com-
edies; and to show why Falstaff, Shallow, Sir Hugh Evans, and the
rest are equally incompatible with stage representation. The length
to which this Essay has run, will make it, I am afraid, sufficiently
distasteful to the Amateurs of the Theatre, without going any deeper
into the subject at present.

LEVANA AND OUR LADIES OF
SORROW

BY

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) was born at Manchester, England,
the son of a merchant of literary tastes. He was a precocious student, but,
revolting from the tyranny of his schoolmaster, he ran away, and wan-
dered in Wales and in London, at times almost destitute. On his
reconciliation with his family he was sent to Oxford, and during this
period began taking opium. The rest of his life was spent mainly in the
Lake Country, near Wordsworth and Coleridge, later in London, and
finally in Edinburgh and the neighborhood. He succeeded in checking
but not abandoning his addiction to the drug, the craving for which was
caused by a chronic disease which nothing else would alleviate.

Most of De Quincey's writings were published in periodicals, and
cover a great range of subjects. He was a man of immense reading, with
an intellect of extraordinary subtlety, but with a curious lack of practical
ability. Though generous to recklessness in money matters, and an
affectionate friend and father, his predominating intellectuality led him
even in his writings to analyze the characters of his friends with a
detachment that sometimes led to estrangement.

His most famous work,. "The Confessions of an English Opium
Eater" (1821) was based on his own experiences, and it has long held its
place as a classic. Here, and still more in his literary and philosophical
writings, he shows a remarkable clearness and precision of style, his love
of exact thinking at times leading him to hair-splitting in his more
abstruse discussions. In what he called the "department of impassioned
prose," of which the following piece is one of the most magnificent
examples, he has a field in which he is unsurpassed. To the power of
thought and expression found throughout his work is here added a
gorgeousness of imagination that lifts his finest passages into the region
of the sublime.

LEV ANA AND OUR LADIES OF
SORROW

OFTENTIMES at Oxford I saw Levana in my dreams. 1
knew her by her Roman symbols. Who is Levana ? Reader,
that do not pretend to have much leisure for very much
scholarship, you will not be angry with me for telling you. Levana
was the Roman goddess that performed for the new-born infant the
earliest office of ennobling kindness, — typical, by its mode, of that
grandeur which belongs to man everywhere, and of that benignity
in powers invisible which even in pagan worlds sometimes descends
to sustain it. At the very moment of birth, just as the infant tasted
for the first time the atmosphere of our troubled planet, it was laid on
the ground. But immediately, lest so grand a creature should grovel
there for more than one instant, either the paternal hand, as proxy
for the goddess Levana, or some near kinsman, as proxy for the
father, raised it upright, bade it look erect as the king of all this
world, and presented its forehead to the stars, saying, perhaps, in his
heart, "Behold what is greater than yourselves!" This symbolic act
represented the function of Levana. And that mysterious lady, who
never revealed her face (except to me in dreams), but always acted
by delegation, had her name from the Latin verb (as still it is the
Italian verb) levare, to raise aloft.

This is the explanation of Levana, and hence it has arisen that
some people have understood by Levana the tutelary power that
controls the education of the nursery. She, that would not suffer at
his birth even a' prefigurative or mimic degradation for her awful
ward, far less could be supposed to suffer the real degradation
attaching to the non-development of his powers. She therefore
watches over human education. Now the word educo, with the
penultimate short, was derived (by a process often exemplified in the
crystallisation of languages) from the word educo, with the penulti-

319

320 DE QUINCE Y

mate long. Whatever educes, or develops, educates. By the education
of Levana, therefore, is meant, — not the poor machinery that moves
by spelling-books and grammars, but by that mighty system of cen-
tral forces hidden in the deep bosom of human life, which by passion,
by strife, by temptation, by the energies of resistance, works for ever
upon children, — resting not night or day, any more than the mighty
wheel of day and night themselves, whose moments, like restless
spokes, are glimmering for ever as they revolve.

If, then, these are the ministries by which Levana works, how
profoundly must she reverence the agencies of grief. But you, reader!
think, — that children are not liable to such grief as mine. There are
two senses in the word generally, — the sense of Euclid, where it
means universally (or in the whole extent of the genus), and in a
foolish sense of this word, where it means usually. Now, I am far
from saying that children universally are capable of grief like mine.
But there are more than you ever heard of who die of grief in this
island of ours. I will tell you a common case. The rules of Eton
require that a boy on the foundation should be there twelve years:
he is superannuated at eighteen, consequently he must come at six.
Children torn away from mothers and sisters at that age not unfre-
quently die. I speak of what I know. The complaint is not entered
by the registrar as grief; but that it is. Grief of that sort, and at that
age, has killed more than have ever been counted amongst its martyrs.

Therefore it is that Levana often communes with the powers that
shake a man's heart: therefore it is that she dotes on grief. "These
ladies," said I softly to myself, on seeing the ministers with whom
Levana was conversing, "these are the Sorrows; and they are three
in number, as the Graces are three, who dress man's life with beauty;
the Parcce are three, who weave the dark arras of man's life in their
mysterious loom, always with colours sad in part, sometimes angry
with tragic crimson and black; the Furies are three, who visit with
retribution called from the other side of the grave offences that walk
upon this; and once even the Muses were but three, who fit the harp,
the trumpet, or the lute, to the great burdens of man's impassioned
creations. These are the Sorrows, all three of whom I know."

The last words I say now; but in Oxford I said, "One of whom I
know, and the others too surely I shall know." For already, in my

LEVANA 321

fervent youth, I saw (dimly relieved upon the dark background o£
my dreams) the imperfect Uneaments of the avs^ful sisters. These
sisters — ^by what name shall we call them? If I say simply, "The
Sorrows," there will be a chance of mistaking the term; it might be
understood of individual sorrow, — separate cases of sorrow, — whereas
I want a term expressing the mighty abstractions that incarnate
themselves in all individual sufferings of man's heart; and I wish to
have these abstractions presented as impersonations, that is, as
clothed with human attributes of life, and with functions pointing
to flesh. Let us call them, therefore. Our Ladies of Sorrow. I know
them thoroughly, and have walked in all their kingdoms. Three
sisters they are, of one mysterious household; and their paths are
wide apart; but of their dominion there is no end. Them I saw
often conversing with Levana, and sometimes about myself. Do
they talk, then? O, no! mighty phantoms like these disdain the
infirmities of language. They may utter voices through the organs
of man when they dwell in human hearts, but amongst themselves
there is no voice nor sound; eternal silence reigns in their kingdoms.
They spoke not, as they talked with Levana; they whispered not;
they sang not; though oftentimes methought they might have sung,
for I upon earth had heard their mysteries oftentimes deciphered by
harp and timbrel, by dulcimer and organ. Like God, whose servants
they are, they utter their pleasure, not by sounds that perish, or by
words that go astray, but by signs in heaven, by changes on earth,
by pulses in secret rivers, heraldries painted on darkness, and hiero-
glyphics written on the tablets of the brain. They wheeled in mazes;
/ spelled the steps. They telegraphed from afar; / read the signals.
They conspired together; and on the mirrors of darkness my eye
traced the plots. Theirs were the symbols; mine are the words.

What is it the sisters are ? What is it that they do ? Let me describe
their form, and their presence: if form it were that still fluctuated in
its outline, or presence it were that for ever advanced to the front,
or for ever receded amongst shades.

The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady
of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for
vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of
lamentation, — Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be

322 DE QUINCEY

comforted. She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when
Herod's sword swept its nurseries o£ Innocents, and the Httle feet
were stiffened for ever, which, heard at times as they tottered along
floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were
not unmarked in heaven.

Her eyes are sweet and subtle, wild and sleepy, by turns; often-
times rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the heavens. She
wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by childish memories
that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard the sob-
bing of litanies or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld
the mustering of summer clouds. This sister, the eldest, it is that
carries keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage
and every palace. She, to my knowledge, sat all last summer by the
bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked
with, whose pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny counte-
nance, resisted the temptations of play and village mirth to travel
all day long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this did God
send her a great reward. In the spring-time of the year, and whilst
yet her own Spring was budding, he recalled her to himself. But her
blind father mourns for ever over her; still he dreams at midnight
that the little guiding hand is locked within his own; and still he
wakens to a darkness that is now within a second and a deeper
darkness. This Mater Lachrymarum has also been sitting all this
winter of 1844-5 within the bed-chamber of the Czar, bringing before
his eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to God not less
suddenly, and left behind her a darkness not less profound. By the
power of the keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides a ghostly
intruder into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleep-
less children, from Ganges to Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And
her, because she is the first-born of her house, and has the widest
empire, let us honour with the title of "Madonna!"

The second sister is called Mater Suspiriorum — Our Lady of Sighs.
She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the winds. She
wears no diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever seen, would be
neither sweet nor subde; no man could read their story; they would
be found filled with perishing dreams, and with wrecks of forgotten
delirium. But she raises not her eyes; her head, on which sits a

LEVANA 323

dilapidated turban, droops for ever, for ever fastens on the dust.
She weeps not. She groans not. But she sighs inaudibly at intervals.
Her sister, Madonna, is oftentimes stormy and frantic, raging in the
highest against heaven, and demanding back her darUngs. But Our
Lady of Sighs never clamours, never defies, dreams not of rebellious
aspirations. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that
belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep.
Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight. Mutter she does
at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as she is desolate,
in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to his rest. This
sister is the visitor of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the bondsman to the
oar in the Mediterranean galleys; and of the English criminal in
Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books of remembrance in sweet
far-off England; of the baffled penitent reverting his eyes for ever
upon a solitary grave, which to him seems the altar overthrown of
some past and bloody sacrifice, on which altar no oblations can now
be availing, whether towards pardon that he might implore, or
towards reparation that he might attempt. Every slave that at noon-
day looks up to the tropical sun with tirtiid reproach, as he points
with one hand to the earth, our general mother, but for him a step-
mother, — ^as he points with the other hand to the Bible, our general
teacher, but against him sealed and sequestered; — every woman
sitting in darkness, without love to shelter her head, or hope to
illumine her solitude, because the heaven-born instincts kindling in
her nature germs of holy affections which God implanted in her
womanly bosom, having been stifled by social necessities, now burn
sullenly to waste, like sepulchral lamps amongst the ancients; every
nun defrauded of her unreturning May-time by wicked kinsman,
whom God will judge; every captive in every dungeon; all that are
betrayed and all that are rejected outcasts by traditionary law, and
children of hereditary disgrace, — all these walk with Our Lady of
Sighs. She also carries a key; but she needs it little. For her king-
dom is chiefly amongst the tents of Shem, and the houseless vagrant
of every clime. Yet in the very highest walks of man she finds
chapels of her own; and even in glorious England there are some
that, to the world, carry their heads as proudly as the reindeer, who
yet secretly have received her mark upon their foreheads. But the

324 DE QUINCEY

third sister, who is also the youngest 1 Hush, whisper whilst we

talk o£ her! Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should live;
but within that kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like
that of Cybele, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She droops
not; and her eyes rising so high might be hidden by distance; but,
being what they are, they cannot be hidden; through the treble veil
of crape which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that
rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of
night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very
ground. She is the defier of God. She is also the mother of lunacies,
and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power;
but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can approach only
those in whom a profound nature has been upheaved by central con-
vulsions; in whom the heart trembles, and the brain rocks under
conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from within.
Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but still with
tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps timidly and stealthily. But
this youngest sister moves with incalculable motions, bounding,
and with tiger's leaps. She carries no key; for, though coming rarely
amongst men, she storms all doors at which she Is permitted to
enter at all. And her name is Mater Tenebrarum — Our Lady of
Darkness.

These were the Semnai Theai, or Sublime Goddesses, these were
the Eumenides, or Gracious Ladies (so called by antiquity in shud-
dering propitiation), of my Oxford dreams. Madonna spoke. She
spoke by her mysterious hand. Touching my head, she said to Our
Lady of Sighs; and what she spoke, translated out of the signs which
(except in dreams) no man reads, was this: —

"Lo! here is he, whom in childhood I dedicated to my altars.
This is he that once I made my darling. Him I led astray, him I
beguiled, and from heaven I stole away his young heart to mine.
Through me did he become idolatrous; and through me it was, by
languishing desires, that he worshipped the worm, and prayed to
the wormy grave. Holy was the grave to him; lovely was its dark-
ness; saintly its corruption. Him, this young idolater, I have sea-
soned for thee, dear gentle Sister of Sighs! Do thou take him now
to thy heart, and season him for our dreadful sister. And thou," —

LEV AN A 325

turning to the Mater T enebrarum , she said, — "wicked sister, that
temptest and hatest, do thou take him from her. See that thy sceptre
he heavy on his head. Suffer not woman and her tenderness to sit
near him in his darkness. Banish the frailties of hope, wither the
relenting of love, scorch the fountain of tears, curse him as only thou
canst curse. So shall he be accomplished in the furnace, so shall he
see the things that ought not to be seen, sights that are abominable,
and secrets that are unutterable. So shall he read elder truths, sad
truths, grand truths, fearful truths. So shall he rise again before
he dies, and so shall our commission be accomplished which from
God we had, — to plague his heart until we had unfolded the ca-
pacities of his spirit."

A DEFENCE OF POETRY

BY
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

A SHORT sketch of the life of Percy Bysshe Shelley will be found pre-
fixed to his drama of the "Cenci" in the volume of modern English
Drama in the Harvard Classics.

The "Defence of Poetry" is by far the most important of Shelley's
prose writings, and is of great value in supplementing and correcting
the picture of his mind which is given by his lyrical poetry; for we can
perceive from this brilliant piece of philosophical discussion that Shelley
had intellect as well as imagination.

The immediate occasion of the essay was the publication of Thomas
Love Peacock's "Four Ages of Poetry," to which Shelley's work was
originally a reply. In this, as in other notable respects, the treatise is
parallel with Sidney's. In its present form Shelley has eliminated much
of the controversial matter; and it stands as one of the most eloquent and
inspiring assertions of the "ideal nature and essential value of poetry."

A DEFENCE OF POETRY

ACCORDING to one mode of regarding those two classes of
Zjk mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the
JL JL former may be considered as mind contemplating the rela-
tions borne by one thought to another, however produced, and the
latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to color them with
its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other
thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own
integrity. The one is the tA ttoUlv, or the principle of synthesis, and
has for its objects those forms which are common to universal
nature and existence itself; the other is the t6 "Soyit^uv, or principle
of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things simply as
relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as
the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general
results. Reason is the enumeration of qualities already known;
imagination is the perception of the value of those qualities, both
separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences, and
imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as
the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow
to the substance.

Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be "the expression
of the imagination": and poetry is connate with the origin of man.
Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal
impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing
wind over an ^olian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-
changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being,
and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in
the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal
adjustment of the sounds or motions thus excited to the impres-
sions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its
chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined
proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his

329

330 SHELLEY

voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its
delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and
every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in
the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the re-
flected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds
after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in
its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a
consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects which delight
a child these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The
savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses
the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar
manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pic-
torial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those
objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all
his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the pas-
sions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces
an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the
imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium,
the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and
the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as
from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from
the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained
within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, di-
versity, unity, contrast, mutual dependence, become the principles
alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will
of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social;
and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in
art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of kind. Hence
men, even in the infancy of society, observe a certain order in their
words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the im-
pressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the
laws of that from which it proceeds. But let us dismiss those more
general considerations which might involve an inquiry into the
principles of society itself, and restrict our view to the manner in
which the imagination is expressed upon its forms.

In the youth of the world, men dance and sing and imitate natural
objects, observing in these actions, as in all others, a certain rhythm

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 33 1

or order. And, although all men observe a similar, they observe not
the same order, in the motions of the dance, in the melody o£ the
song, in the combinations of language, in the series of their imita-
tions of natural objects. For there is a certain order or rhythm be-
longing to each of these classes of mimetic representation, from
wrhich the hearer and the spectator receive an intenser and purer
pleasure than from any other : the sense of an approximation to this
order has been called taste by modern writers. Every man in the
infancy of art observes an order which approximates more or less
closely to that from which this highest delight results: but the di-
versity is not sufficiently marked, as that its gradations should be
sensible, except in those instances where the predominance of this
faculty of approximation to the beautiful (for so we may be per-
mitted to name the relation between this highest pleasure and its
cause) is very great. Those in whom it exists in excess are poets, in
the most universal sense of the word; and the pleasure resulting
from the manner in which they express the influence of society or
nature upon their own minds, communicates itself to others, and
gathers a sort of reduplication from that community. Their lan-
guage is vitally metaphorical; that is, it marks the before unappre-
hended relations of things and perpetuates their apprehension, until
the words which represent them, become, through time, signs for
portions or classes of thoughts instead of pictures of integral thoughts;
and then if no new poets should arise to create afresh the associations
which have been thus disorganized, language will be dead to all
the nobler purposes of human intercourse. These similitudes or
relations are finely said by Lord Bacon to be "the same footsteps of
nature impressed upon the various subjects of the world"^ and he
considers the faculty which perceives them as the storehouse of
axioms common to all knowledge. In the infancy of society every
author is necessarily a poet, because language itself is poetry; and to
be a poet is to apprehend the true and the beautiful, in a word, the
good which exists in the relation, subsisting, first between existence
and perception, and secondly between perception and expression.
Every original language near to its source is in itself the chaos of
a cyclic poem: the copiousness of lexicography and the distinctions

* "De Augment. Scient.," cap. i, lib. Ui.

332 SHELLEY

of grammar are the works of a later age, and are merely the catalogue
and the form of the creations of poetry.

But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible
order, are not only the authors of language and of music, of the
dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting: they are the
institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the in-
ventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a certain
propinquity with the beautiful and the true that partial apprehension
of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion. Hence
all original religions are allegorical, or susceptible of allegory, and,
like Janus, have a double face of false and true. Poets, according to
the circumstances of the age and nation in which they appeared,
were called, in the earlier epochs of the world, legislators, or prophets:
a poet essentially comprises and unites both these characters. For
he not only beholds intensely the present as it is, and discovers those
laws according to which present things ought to be ordered, but he
beholds the future in the present, and his thoughts are the germs
of the flower and the fruit of latest time. Not that I assert poets to be
prophets in the gross sense of the word, or that they can foretell the
form as surely as they foreknow the spirit of events: such is the
pretence of superstition, which would make poetry an attribute of
prophecy, rather than prophecy an attribute of poetry. A poet
participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates
to his conceptions, time and place and number are not. The gram-
matical forms which express the moods of time, and the difference
of persons, and the distinction of place, are convertible with respect
to the highest poetry without injuring it as poetry; and the choruses
of iEschylus, and the book of Job, and Dante's "Paradise" would
afford, more than any other writings, examples of this fact, if the
limits of this essay did not forbid citation. The creations of sculpture,
painting, and music are illustrations still more decisive.

Language, color, form, and religious and civil habits of action,
are all the instruments and materials of poetry; they may be called
poetry by that figure of speech which considers the effect as a
synonym of the cause. But poetry in a more restricted sense ex-
presses those arrangements of language, and especially metrical lan-
guage, which are created by that imperial faculty, whose throne is

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 333

curtained within the invisible nature of man. And this springs from
the nature itself of language, which is a more direct representation of
the actions and passions of our internal being, and is susceptible of
more various and delicate combinations, than color, form, or mo-
tion, and is more plastic and obedient to the control of that faculty
of which it is the creation. For language is arbitrarily produced by
the imagination, and has relation to thoughts alone; but all other
materials, instruments, and conditions of art have relations among
each other, which limit and interpose between conception and ex-
pression. The former is as a mirror which reflects, the latter as a
cloud which enfeebles, the light of which both are mediums of
communication. Hence the fame of sculptors, painters, and musi-
cians, although the intrinsic powers of the great masters of these
arts may yield in no degree to that of those who have employed
language as the hieroglyphic of their thoughts, has never equalled
that of poets in the restricted sense of the term; as two performers
of equal skill will produce unequal effects from a guitar and a
harp. The fame of legislators and founders of religions, so long as
their institutions last, alone seems to exceed that of poets in the re-
stricted sense; but it can scarcely be a question, whether, if we de-
duct the celebrity which their flattery of the gross opinions of the
vulgar usually conciliates, together with that which belonged to
them in their higher character of poets, any excess will remain.

We have thus circumscribed the word poetry within the limits of
that art which is the most familiar and the most perfect expression
of the faculty itself. It is necessary, however, to make the circle
still narrower, and to determine the distinction between measured
and unmeasured language; for the popular division into prose and
verse is inadmissible in accurate philosophy.

Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between each other
and towards that which they represent, and a perception of the
order of those relations has always been found connected with a per-
ception of the order of the relations of thoughts. Hence the lan-
guage of poets has ever affected a certain uniform and harmonious
recurrence of sound, without which it were not poetry, and which
is scarcely less indispensable to the communication of its influence,
than the words themselves, without reference to that peculiar order.

334 SHELLEY

Hence the vanity of translation; it were as wise to cast a violet into
a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its color
and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the
creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed,
or it will bear no flower — and this is the burden of the curse of
Babel.

An observation of the regular mode of the recurrence of harmony
in the language of poetical minds, together with its relation to music,
produced metre, or a certain system of traditional forms of harmony
and language. Yet it is by no means essential that a poet should
accommodate his language to this traditional form, so that the
harmony, which is its spirit, be observed. The practice is indeed
convenient and popular, and to be preferred, especially in such
composition as includes much action: but every great poet must
inevitably innovate upon the example of his predecessors in the
exact structure of his peculiar versification. The distinction between
poets and prose writers is a vulgar error. The distinction between
philosophers and poets has been anticipated. Plato was essentially a
poet — the truth and splendor of his imagery, and the melody of his
language, are the most intense that it is possible to conceive. He
rejected the measure of the epic, dramatic, and lyrical forms, be-
cause he sought to kindle a harmony in thoughts divested of shape
and action, and he forebore to invent any regular plan of rhythm
which would include, under determinate forms, the varied pauses of
his style. Cicero sought to imitate the cadence of his periods, but with
little success. Lord Bacon was a poet.^ His language has a sweet
and majestic rhythm, which satisfies the sense, no less than the al-
most superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect; it
is a strain which distends, and then bursts the circumference of the
reader's mind, and pours itself forth together with it into the uni-
versal element with which it has perpetual sympathy. All the
authors of revolutions in opinion are not only necessarily poets as
they are inventors, nor even as their words unveil the permanent
analogy of things by images which participate in the life of truth;
but as their periods are harmonious and rhythmical, and contain
in themselves the elements of verse; being the echo of the eternal
* See the "Filum Labyrinth!," and the "Essay on Death" particularly.^^.

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 335

music. Nor are those supreme poets, who have employed traditional
forms of rhythm on account of the form and action of their sub-
jects, less capable of perceiving and teaching the truth of things,
than those who have omitted that form. Shakespeare, Dante, and
Milton (to confine ourselves to modern writers) are philosophers of
the very loftiest power.

A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.
There is this difference between a story and a poem, that a story
is a catalogue of detached facts, which have no other connection
than time, place, circumstance, cause and effect; the other is the
creation of actions according to the unchangeable forms of human
nature, as existing in the mind of the Creator, which is itself the
image of all other minds. The one is partial, and applies only to a
definite period of time, and a certain combination of events which
can never again recur; the other is universal, and contains within
itself the germ of a relation to whatever motives or actions have place
in the possible varieties of human nature. Time, which destroys the
beauty and the use of the story of particular facts, stripped of the
poetry which should invest them, augments that of poetry, and
forever develops new and wonderful applications of the eternal truth
which it contains. Hence epitomes have been called the moths of
just history; they eat out the poetry of it. A story of particular facts
is as a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be
beautiful; poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is
distorted.

The parts of a composition may be poetical, without the compo-
sition as a whole being a poem. A single sentence may be con-
sidered as a whole, though it may be found in the midst of a series
of unassimilated portions; a single word even may be a spark of
inextinguishable thought. And thus all the great historians, Hero-
dotus, Plutarch, Livy, were poets; and although the plan of these
writers, especially that of Livy, restrained them from developing this
faculty in its highest degree, they made copious and ample amends
for their subjection, by filling all the interstices of their subjects with
living images.

Having determined what is poetry, and who are poets, let us
proceed to estimate its effects upon society.

336 SHELLEY

Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure: all spirits on which it
falls open themselves to receive the wisdom which is mingled with
its delight. In the infancy of the world, neither poets themselves
nor their auditors are fully aware of the excellence of poetry: for it
acts in a divine and unapprehended manner, beyond and above con-
sciousness; and it is reserved for future generations to contemplate
and measure the mighty cause and effect in all the strength and
splendor of their union. Even in modern times, no living poet ever
arrived at the fulness of his fame; the jury which sits in judgment
upon a poet, belonging as he does to all time, must be composed of
his peers: it must be impanelled by Time from the selectest of the wise
of many generations. A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness
and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors
are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel
that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.
The poems of Homer and his contemporaries were the delight of
infant Greece; they were the elements of that social system which is
the column upon which all succeeding civilization has reposed.
Homer embodied the ideal perfection of his age in human character;
nor can we doubt that those who read his verses were awakened to
an ambition of becoming like to Achilles, Hector, and Ulysses: the
truth and beauty of friendship, patriotism, and persevering devotion
to an object, were unveiled to the depths in these immortal creations:
the sentiments of the auditors must have been refined and enlarged
by a sympathy with such great and lovely impersonations, until from
admiring they imitated, and from imitation they identified them-
selves with the objects of their admiration. Nor let it be objected
that these characters are remote from moral perfection, and that
they can by no means be considered as edifying patterns for general
imitation. Every epoch, under names more or less specious, has
deified its peculiar errors; Revenge is the naked idol of the worship
of a semi-barbarous age; and Self-deceit is the veiled image of
unknown evil, before which luxury and satiety lie prostrate. But a
poet considers the vices of his contemporaries as the temporary dress
in which his creations must be arrayed, and which cover without
concealing the eternal proportions of their beauty. An epic or dra-
matic personage is understood to wear them around his soul, as he

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 337

may the ancient armor or the modern uniform around his body;
whilst it is easy to conceive a dress more graceful than either. The
beauty of the internal nature cannot be so far concealed by its acci-
dental vesture, but that the spirit of its form shall communicate itself
to the very disguise, and indicate the shape it hides from the manner
in which it is worn. A majestic form and graceful motions will
express themselves through the most barbarous and tasteless costume.
Few poets of the highest class have chosen to exhibit the beauty of
their conceptions in its naked truth and splendor; and it is doubtful
whether the alloy of costume, habit, etc., be not necessary to temper
this planetary music for mortal ears.

The whole objection, however, of the immorality of poetry rests
upon a misconception of the manner in which poetry acts to produce
the moral improvement of man. Ethical science arranges the ele-
ments which poetry has created, and propounds schemes and pro-
poses examples of civil and domestic life: nor is it for want of
admirable doctrines that men hate, and despise, and censure, and
deceive, and subjugate one another. But poetry acts in another and
diviner manner. It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by render-
ing it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of
thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world,
and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it repro-
duces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its'
Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have
once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted
content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which
it coexists. The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our
nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which
exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be
greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must
put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains
and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instru-
ment of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to
the effect by acting upon the cause. Poetry enlarges the circumference
of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever new
delight, which have the power of attracting and assimilating to their
own nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals and

338 SHELLEY

interstices whose void forever craves fresh food. Poetry strengthens
the faculty which is the organ of the moral nature of man, in the
same manner as exercise strengthens a limb. A poet therefore would
do ill to embody his own conceptions of right and wrong, which are
usually those of his place and time, in his poetical creations, which
participate in neither. By this assumption of the inferior ofBce of
interpreting the effect, in which perhaps after all he might acquit
himself but imperfectly, he would resign a glory in a participation
in the cause. There was little danger that Homer, or any of the
eternal poets, should have so far misunderstood themselves as to have
abdicated this throne of their widest dominion. Those in whom the
poetical faculty, though great, is less intense, as Euripides, Lucan,
Tasso, Spenser, have frequently affected a moral aim, and the effect
of their poetry is diminished in exact proportion to the degree in
which they compel us to advert to this purpose.

Homer and the cyclic poets were followed at a certain interval
by the dramatic and lyrical poets of Athens, who flourished contem-
poraneously with all that is most perfect in the kindred expressions
of the poetical faculty; architecture, painting, music, the dance, sculp-
ture, philosophy, and, we may add, the forms of civil life. For
although the scheme of Athenian society was deformed by many
imperfections which the poetry existing in chivalry and Christianity
has erased from the habits and institutions of modern Europe; yet
never at any other period has so much energy, beauty, and virtue
been developed; never was blind strength and stubborn form so
disciplined and rendered subject to the will of man, or that will less
repugnant to the dictates of the beautiful and the true, as during the
century which preceded the death of Socrates. Of no other epoch in
the history of our species have we records and fragments stamped so
visibly with the image of the divinity in man. But it is poetry alone,
in form, in action, or in language, which has rendered this epoch
memorable above all others, and the store-house of examples to ever-
lasting time. For written poetry existed at that epoch simultaneously
with the other arts, and it is an idle inquiry to demand which gave
and which received the light, which all, as from a common focus, have
scattered over the darkest periods of succeeding time. We know no
more of cause and effect than a constant conjunction of events:

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 339

poetry is ever found to coexist with whatever other arts contribute
to the happiness and perfection of man. I appeal to what has already
been established to distinguish between the cause and the effect.

It was at the period here adverted to that the drama had its birth;
and however a succeeding writer may have equalled or surpassed
those few great specimens of the Athenian drama which have been
preserved to us, it is indisputable that the art itself never was under-
stood or practised according to the true philosophy of it, as at Athens.
For the Athenians employed language, action, music, painting, the
dance, and religious institutions, to produce a common effect in the
representation of the highest idealism of passion and of power; each
division in the art was made perfect in its kind of artists of the most
consummate skill, and was disciplined into a beautiful proportion
and unity one towards the other. On the modern stage a few only
of the elements capable of expressing the image of the poet's concep-
tion are employed at once. We have tragedy without music and
dancing; and music and dancing without the highest impersonations
of which they are the fit accompaniment, and both without religion
and solemnity. Religious institution has indeed been usually ban-
ished from the stage. Our system of divesting the actor's face of a
mask, on which the many expressions appropriated to his dramatic
character might be moulded into one permanent and unchanging
expression, is favorable only to a partial and inharmonious effect; it
is fit for nothing but a monologue, where all the attention may be
directed to some great master of ideal mimicry. The modern prac-
tice of blending comedy with tragedy, though liable to great abuse
in point of practice, is undoubtedly an extension of the dramatic
circle; but the comedy should be as in "King Lear," universal, ideal,
and sublime. It is perhaps the intervention of this principle which
determines the balance in favor of "King Lear" against the "CEdipus
Tyrannus" or the "Agamemnon," or, if you will, the trilogies with
which they are connected; unless the intense power of the choral
poetry, especially that of the latter, should be considered as restoring
the equilibrium. "King Lear," if it can sustain this comparison, may
be judged to be the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing
in the world; in spite of the narrow conditions to which the poet was
subjected by the ignorance of the philosophy of the drama which

340 SHELLEY

has prevailed in modern Europe. Calderon, in his religious autos,
has attempted to fulfil some of the high conditions of dramatic
representation neglected by Shakespeare; such as the establishing a
relation between the drama and religion, and the accommodating
them to music and dancing; but he omits the observation of condi-
tions still more important, and more is lost than gained by the substi-
tution of the rigidly defined and ever-repeated idealisms of a dis-
torted superstition for the living impersonations of the truth of
human passion.

But I digress. The connection of scenic exhibitions with the im-
provement or corruption of the manners of men has been universally
recognized; in other words, the presence or absence of poetry in its
most perfect and universal form has been found to be connected with
good and evil in conduct or habit. The corruption which has been
imputed to the drama as an effect, begins, when the poetry employed
in its constitution ends: I appeal to the history of manners whether
the periods of the growth of the one and the decline of the other
have not corresponded with an exactness equal to any example of
moral cause and effect.

The drama at Athens, or wheresoever else it may have approached
to its perfection, ever coexisted with the moral and intellectual great-
ness of the age. The tragedies of the Athenian poets are as mirrors
in which the spectator beholds himself, under a thin disguise of
circumstance, stripped of all but that ideal perfection and energy
which everyone feels to be the internal type of all that he loves,
admires, and would become. The imagination is enlarged by a
sympathy with pains and passions so mighty, that they distend in
their conception the capacity of that by which they are con-
ceived; the good affections are strengthened by pity, indignation,
terror, and sorrow; and an exalted calm is prolonged from the
satiety of this high exercise of them into the tumult of familiar life:
even crime is disarmed of half its horror and all its contagion by
being represented as the fatal consequence of the unfathomable
agencies of nature; error is thus divested of its wilfulness; men can
no longer cherish it as the creation of their choice. In a drama of
the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches
rather self-knowledge and self-respect. Neither the eye nor the mind

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 34I

can see itself, unless reflected upon that which it resembles. The
drama, so long as it continues to express poetry, is as a prismatic and
many-sided mirror, which collects the brightest rays o£ human nature
and divides and reproduces them from the simplicity of these ele-
mentary forms, and touches them with majesty and beauty, and
multiplies all that it reflects, and endows it with the power of
propagating its like wherever it may fall.

But in periods of the decay of social life, the drama sympathizes
with that decay. Tragedy becomes a cold imitation of the form of
the great masterpieces of antiquity, divested of all harmonious accom-
paniment of the kindred arts; and often the very form misunder-
stood, or a weak attempt to teach certain doctrines, which the writer
considers as moral truths; and which are usually no more than
specious flatteries of some gross vice or weakness, with which the
author, in common with his auditors, are infected. Hence what has
been called the classical and domestic drama. Addison's "Cato" is
a specimen of the one; and would it were not superfluous to cite
examples of the other! To such purposes poetry cannot be made
subservient. Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which
consumes the scabbard that would contain it. And thus we observe
that all dramatic writings of this nature are unimaginative in a
singular degree; they affect sentiment and passion, which, divested
of imagination, are other names for caprice and appetite. The period
in our own history of the grossest degradation of the drama is the
reign of Charles II, when all forms in which poetry had been accus-
tomed to be expressed became hymns to the triumph of kingly power
over liberty and virtue. Milton stood alone illuminating an age
unworthy of him. At such periods the calculating principle pervades
all the forms of dramatic exhibition, and poetry ceases to be expressed
upon them. Comedy loses its ideal universality: wit succeeds to
humor; we laugh from self-complacency and triumph, instead of
pleasure; malignity, sarcasm, and contempt succeed to sympathetic
merriment; we hardly laugh, but we smile. Obscenity, which is
ever blasphemy against the divine beauty in life, becomes, from the
very veil which it assumes, more active if less disgusting: it is a
monster for which the corruption of society forever brings forth new
food, which it devours in secret.

342 SHELLEY

The drama being that form under which a greater number of
modes of expression of poetry are susceptible of being combined than
any other, the connection of poetry and social good is more observ-
able in the drama than in whatever other form. And it is indis-
putable that the highest perfection of human society has ever corre-
sponded with the highest dramatic excellence; and that the corrup-
tion or the extinction of the drama in a nation where it has once
flourished is a mark of a corruption of manners, and an extinction
of the energies which sustain the soul of social Ufa. But, as Machi-
avelli says of political institutions, that life may be preserved and
renewed, if men should arise capable of bringing back the drama
to its principles. And this is true with respect to poetry in its most
extended sense : all language, institution, and form require not only
to be produced but to be sustained: the office and character of a poet
participate in the divine nature as regards providence, no less than
as regards creation.

Civil war, the spoils of Asia, and the fatal predominance first of
the Macedonian, and then of the Roman arms, were so many sym-
bols of the extinction or suspension of the creative faculty in Greece.
The bucolic writers, who found patronage under the lettered tyrants
of Sicily and Egypt, were the latest representatives of its most glorious
reign. Their poetry is intensely melodious; like the odor of the
tuberose, it overcomes and sickens the spirit with excess of sweetness;
whilst the poetry of the preceding age was as a meadow-gale of
June, which mingles the fragrance of all the flowers of the field, and
adds a quickening and harmonizing spirit of its own which endows
the sense with a power of sustaining its extreme delight. The bucolic
and erotic delicacy in written poetry is correlative with that softness
in statuary, music, and the kindred arts, and even in manners and
institutions, which distinguished the epoch to which I now refer.
Nor is it the poetical faculty itself, or any misapplication of it, to
which this want of harmony is to be imputed. An equal sensibihty
to the influence of the senses and the affections is to be found in the
writings of Homer and Sophocles : the former, especially, has clothed
sensual and pathetic images with irresistible attractions. Their
superiority over these succeeding writers consists in the presence of
those thoughts which belong to the inner faculties of our nature, not

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 343

in the absence o£ those which are connected with the external; their
incomparable perfection consists in a harmony of the union of all.
It is not what the erotic poets have, but what they have not, in which
their imperfection consists. It is not inasmuch as they were poets,
but inasmuch as they were not poets, that they can be considered
with any plausibiUty as connected with the corruption of their age.
Had that corruption availed so as to extinguish in them the sensi-
bility to pleasure, passion, and natural scenery, which is imputed to
them as an imperfection, the last triumph of evil would have been
achieved. For the end of social corruption is to destroy all sensibility
to pleasure; and, therefore, it is corruption. It begins at the imagina-
tion and the intellect as at the core, and distributes itself thence as a
paralyzing venom, through the affections into the very appetites,
until all become a torpid mass in which hardly sense survives. At the
approach of such a period, poetry ever addresses itself to those facul-
ties which are the last to be destroyed, and its voice is heard, like the
footsteps of Astrsea, departing from the world. Poetry ever commu-
nicates all the pleasure which men are capable of receiving: it is ever
still the light of life; the source of whatever of beautiful or generous
or true can have place in an evil time. It will readily be confessed
that those among the luxurious citizens of Syracuse and Alexandria,
who were delighted with the poems of Theocritus, were less cold,
cruel, and sensual than the remnant of their tribe. But corruption
must utterly have destroyed the fabric of human society before
poetry can ever cease. The sacred links of that chain have never
been entirely disjoined, which descending through the minds of
many men is attached to those great minds, whence as from a magnet
the invisible effluence is sent forth, which at once connects, animates,
and sustains the hfe of all. It is the faculty which contains within
itself the seeds at once of its own and of social renovation. And let
us not circumscribe the effects of the bucolic and erotic poetry within
the limits of the sensibility of those to whom it was addressed. They
may have perceived the beauty of those immortal compositions,
simply as fragments and isolated portions: those who are more finely
organized, or born in a happier age, may recognize them as episodes
to that great poem, which all poets, like the co-operating thoughts
of one great mind, have built up since the beginning of the world.

344 SHELLEY

The same revolutions within a narrower sphere had place in
ancient Rome; but the actions and forms of its social life never
seem to have been perfectly saturated with the poetical element. The
Romans appear to have considered the Greeks as the selectest
treasuries of the selectest forms of manners and of nature, and to
have abstained from creating in measured language, sculpture,
music, or architecture, anything which might bear a particular rela-
tion to their own condition, whilst it should bear a general one to
the universal constitution of the world. But we judge from partial
evidence, and we judge perhaps partially. Ennius, Varro, Pacuvius,
and Accius, all great poets, have been lost. Lucretius is in the highest,
and Vergil in a very high sense, a creator. The chosen delicacy of
expressions of the latter are as a mist of light which conceal from
us the intense and exceeding truth of his conceptions of nature. Livy
is instinct with poetry. Yet Horace, Catullus, Ovid, and generally
the other great writers of the Vergilian age, saw man and nature in
the mirror of Greece. The institutions also, and the religion of
Rome, were less poetical than those of Greece, as the shadow is less
vivid than the substance. Hence poetry in Rome seemed to follow,
rather than accompany, the perfection of political and domestic
society. The true poetry of Rome lived in its institutions; for what-
ever of beautiful, true, and majestic, they contained, could have
sprung only from the faculty which creates the order in which they
consist. The life of Camillus, the death of Regulus; the expectation
of the senators, in their godlike state, of the victorious Gauls; the
refusal of the republic to make peace with Hannibal, after the battle
of Cannae, were not the consequences of a refined calculation of the
probable personal advantage to result from such a rhythm and order
in the shows of life, to those who were at once the poets and the actors
of these immortal dramas. The imagination beholding the beauty of
this order, created it out of itself according to its own idea; the
consequence was empire, and the reward ever-living fame. These
things are not the less poetry, quia carent vate sacro? They are the
episodes of that cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of
men. The Past, like an inspired rhapsodist, fills the theatre of ever-
lasting generations with their harmony.

^ "Because they lack the sacred bard."

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 345

At length the ancient system of religion and manners had fulfilled
the circle o' its revolutions. And the world would have fallen into
utter anarchy and darkness, but that there were found poets among
the authors of the Christian and chivalric systems of manners and
religion, who created forms of opinion and action never before con-
ceived; which, copied into the imaginations of men, became as
generals to the bewildered armies of their thoughts. It is foreign to
the present purpose to touch upon the evil produced by these systems :
except that we protest, on the ground of the principles already estab-
lished, that no portion of it can be attributed to the poetry they
contain.

It is probable that the poetry of Moses, Job, David, Solomon, and
Isaiah had produced a great effect upon the mind of Jesus and his
disciples. The scattered fragments preserved to us by the biographers
of this extraordinary person are all instinct with the most vivid
poetry. But his doctrines seem to have been quickly distorted. At
a certain period after the prevalence of a system of opinions founded
upon those promulgated by him, the three forms into which Plato
had distributed the faculties of mind underwent a sort of apotheosis,
and became the object of the worship of the civilized world. Here
it is to be confessed that "Light seems to thicken," and

"The crow makes wing to the rocky wood,
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
And night's black agents to their preys do rouse."

But mark how beautiful an order has sprung from the dust and
blood of this fierce chaos! how the wjrld, as from a resurrection,
balancing itself on the golden wings of Knowledge and of Hope,
has reassumed its yet unwearied flight into the heaven of time.
Listen to the music, unheard by outward ears, which is as a ceaseless
and invisible wind, nourishing its everlasting course with strength
and swiftness.

The poetry in the doctrines of Jesus Christ, and the mythology
and institutions of the Celtic conquerors of the Roman Empire, out-
lived the darkness and the convulsions connected with their growth
and victory, and blended themselves in a new fabric of manners and
opinion. It is an error to impute the ignorance of the dark ages to

346 SHELLEY

the Christian doctrines or the predominance of the Cehic nations.
Whatever of evil their agencies may have contained sprang from the
extinction of the poetical principle, connected with the progress of
despotism and superstition. Men, from causes too intricate to be
here discussed, had become insensible and selfish: their own will
had become feeble, and yet they were its slaves, and thence the slaves
of the will of others: lust, fear, avarice, cruelty, and fraud, character-
ized a race amongst whom no one was to be found capable of
creating in form, language, or institution. The moral anomalies of
such a state of society are not justly to be charged upon any class of
events immediately connected with them, and those events are most
entitled to our approbation which could dissolve it most expedi-
tiously. It is unfortunate for those who cannot disdnguish words
from thoughts, that many of these anomalies have been incorporated
into our popular religion.

It was not until the eleventh century that the effects of the poetry
of the Christian and chivalric systems began to manifest themselves.
The principle of equality had been discovered and applied by Plato
in his "Republic" as the theoretical rule of the mode in which the
materials of pleasure and of power produced by the common skill
and labor of human beings ought to be distributed among them.
The limitations of this rule were asserted by him to be determined
only by the sensibility of each, or the utility to result to all. Plato,
following the doctrines of Timasus and Pythagoras, taught also a
moral and intellectual system of doctrine, comprehending at once
the past, the present, and the future condition of man. Jesus Christ
divulged the sacred and eternal truths contained in these views to
mankind, and Christianity, in its abstract purity, became the exoteric
expression of the esoteric doctrines of the poetry and wisdom of
antiquity. The incorporation of the Celtic nations with the exhausted
population of the south impressed upon it the figure of the poetry
existing in their mythology and institutions. The result was a sum
of the action and reaction of all the causes included in it; for it may
be assumed as a maxim that no nation or religion can supersede
any other without incorporating into itself a portion of that which
it supersedes. The abolition of personal and domestic slavery,
and the emancipation of women from a great part of the degrad-

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 347

ing restraints of antiquity, were among the consequences of these
events.

The abolition of personal slavery is the basis of the highest politi-
cal hope that it can enter into the mind of man to conceive. The
freedom of women produced the poetry of sexual love. Love became
a religion, the idols of whose worship were ever present. It was as if
the statues of Apollo and the Muses had been endowed with life and
motion, and had walked forth among their worshippers; so that
earth became peopled with the inhabitants of a diviner world. The
familiar appearance and proceedings of life became wonderful and
heavenly, and a paradise was created as out of the wrecks of Eden.
And as this creation itself is poetry, so its creators were poets; and
language was the instrument of their art: "Galeotto fu il libra, e chi
lo scrisse." ^ The Provencal trouveurs, or inventors, preceded Petrarch,
whose verses are as spells, which unseal the inmost enchanted foun-
tains of the delight which is in the grief of love. It is impossible to
feel them without becoming a portion of that beauty which we con-
template: it were superfluous to explain how the gentleness and the
elevation of mind connected with these sacred emotions can render
men more amiable, more generous and wise, and lift them out of the
dull vapors of the little world of self. Dante understood the secret
things of love even more than Petrarch. His "Vita Nuova" is an
inexhaustible fountain of purity of sentiment and language: it is the
idealized history of that period, and those intervals of his life which
were dedicated to love. His apotheosis of Beatrice in Paradise, and
the gradations of his own love and her loveliness, by which as by
steps he feigns himself to have ascended to the throne of the Supreme
Cause, is the most glorious imagination of modern poetry. The
acutest critics have justly reversed the judgment of the vulgar, and
the order of the great acts of the "Divine Drama," in the measure of
the admiration which they accord to the Hell, Purgatory, and Para-
dise. The latter is a perpetual hymn of everlasting love. Love, which
found a worthy poet in Plato alone of all the ancients, has been
celebrated by a chorus of the greatest writers of the renovated world;
and the music has penetrated the caverns of society, and its echoes

* "The book, and he who wrote it, was a Galeotto" [/. e., a pander] , from the
eoisode of Paolo and Francesca in Dante's "Inferno," v. 137.

348 SHELLEY

Still drown the dissonance o£ arms and superstition. At successive
intervals, Ariosto, Tasso, Shakespeare, Spenser, Calderon, Rousseau,
and the great writers of our own age, have celebrated the dominion
of love, planting as it were trophies in the human mind of that sub-
limest victory over sensuality and force. The true relation borne to
each other by the sexes into which humankind is distributed has
become less misunderstood; and if the error which confounded
diversity with inequality of the powers of the two sexes has been
partially recognised in the opinions and institutions of modern
Europe, we owe this great benefit to the worship of which chivalry
was the law, and poets the prophets.

The poetry of Dante may be considered as the bridge thrown
over the stream of time, which unites the modern and ancient world.
The distorted notions of invisible things which Dante and his rival
Milton have idealized, are merely the mask and the mantle in which
these great poets walk through eternity enveloped and disguised.
It is a difficult question to determine how far they were conscious of
the distinction which must have subsisted in their minds between
their own creeds and that of the people. Dante at least appears to
wish to mark the full extent of it by placing Rhipaeus, whom Vergil
calls justissimus unusf in Paradise, and observing a most heretical
caprice in his distribution of rewards and punishments. And Milton's
poem contains within itself a philosophical refutation of that system,
of which, by a strange and natural antithesis, it has been a chief
popular support. Nothing can exceed the energy and magnificence
of the character of Satan as expressed in "Paradise Lost." It is a
mistake to suppose that he could ever have been intended for the
popular personification of evil. Implacable hate, patient cunning,
and a sleepless refinement of device to inflict the extremist anguish
on an enemy, these things are evil; and, although venial in a slave,
are not to be forgiven in a tyrant; although redeemed by much that
ennobles his defeat in one subdued, are marked by all that dishonors
his conquest in the victor. Milton's Devil as a moral being is as
far superior to his God, as one who perseveres in some purpose which
he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity and torture, is
to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the
^ "The one most just man."

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 349

most horrible revenge upon his enemy, not from any mistaken
notion of inducing him to repent of a perseverance in enmity, but
with the alleged design of exasperating him to deserve new torments.
Milton has so far violated the popular creed (if this shall be judged
to be a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue to
his God over his Devil. And this bold neglect of a direct moral
purpose is the most decisive proof of the supremacy of Milton's
genius. He mingled as it were the elements of human nature as
colors upon a single pallet, and arranged them in the composition
of his great picture according to the laws of epic truth; that is,
according to the laws of that principle by which a series of actions
of the external universe and of intelligent and ethical beings is
calculated to excite the sympathy of succeeding generations of man-
kind. The "Divina Commedia" and "Paradise Lost" have conferred
upon modern mythology a systematic form; and when change and
time shall have added one more superstition to the mass of those
which have arisen and decayed upon the earth, commentators will
be learnedly employed in elucidating the religion of ancestral Europe,
only not utterly forgotten because it will have been stamped with
the eternity of genius.

Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet: that is, the
second poet, the series of whose creations bore a defined and intelli-
gible relation to the knowledge and sentiment and religion of the
age in which he lived, and of the ages which followed it, developing
itself in correspondence with their development. For Lucretius had
limed the wings of his swift spirit in the dregs of the sensible world;
and Vergil, with a modesty that ill became his genius, had affected
the fame of an imitator, even whilst he created anew all that he
copied; and none among the flock of mock-birds, though their notes
were sweet, Apollonius Rhodius, Quintus Calaber, Nonnus, Lucan,
Statins, or Claudian, have sought even to fulfil a single condition of
epic truth. Milton was the third epic poet. For if the title of epic
in its highest sense be refused to the "Mneid," still less can it be
conceded to the "Orlando Furioso," the "Gerusalemme Liberata,"
the "Lusiad," or the "Faerie Queene."

Dante and Milton were both deeply penetrated with the ancient
religion of the civilized world; and its spirit exists in their poetry

350 SHELLEY

probably in the same proportion as its forms survived in the unre-
formed vs^orship of modern Europe. The one preceded and the other
followed the Reformation at almost equal intervals. Dante was the
first religious reformer, and Luther surpassed him rather in the
rudeness and acrimony than in the boldness of his censures of papal
usurpation. Dante was the first awakener of entranced Europe; he
created a language, in itself music and persuasion, out of a chaos
of inharmonious barbarians. He was the congregator of those great
spirits who presided over the resurrection of learning; the Lucifer
of that starry flock which in the thirteenth century shone forth from
republican Italy, as from a heaven, into the darkness of the benighted
world. His very words are instinct with spirit; each is as a spark,
a burning atom of inextinguishable thought; and many yet Ue cov-
ered in the ashes of their birth, and pregnant with the Hghtning
which has yet found no conductor. All high poetry is infinite; it is
as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially. Veil after
veil may be undrawn, and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning
never exposed. A great poem is a fountain forever overflowing with
the waters of wisdom and delight; and after one person and one age
has exhausted all its divine effluence which their peculiar relations
enable them to share, another and yet another succeeds, and new
reladons are ever developed, the source of an unforeseen and an
unconceived delight.

The age immediately succeeding to that of Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio was characterized by a revival of painting, sculpture, and
architecture. Chaucer caught the sacred inspiration, and the super-
structure of English literature is based upon the materials of Italian
invention.

But let us not be betrayed from a defence into a critical history of
poetry and its influence on society. Be it enough to have pointed out
the effects of poets, in the large and true sense of the word, upon
their own and all succeeding times.

But poets have been challenged to resign the civic crown to
reasoners and mechanists, on another plea. It is admitted that the
exercise of the imagination is most delightful, but it is alleged that
that of reason is more useful. Let us examine as the grounds of this
distinction what is here meant by utility. Pleasure or good, in a gen-

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 35 I

eral sense, is that which the consciousness of a sensitive and intelli-
gent being seeks, and in which, when found, it acquiesces. There are
two kinds of pleasure, one durable, universal, and permanent; the
other transitory and particular. Utility may either express the means
of producing the former or the latter. In the former sense, whatever
strengthens and purifies the affections, enlarges the imagination, and
adds spirit to sense, is useful. But a narrower meaning may be
assigned to the word utility, confining it to express that which
banishes the importunity of the wants of our animal nature, the
surrounding men with security of life, the dispersing the grosser
delusions of superstitions, and the conciliating such a degree of
mutual forbearance among men as may consist with the motives
of personal advantage.

Undoubtedly the promoters of utility, in this limited sense, have
their appointed office in society. They follow the footsteps of poets,
and copy the sketches of their creations into the book of common
life. They make space, and give time. Their exertions are of the
highest value, so long as they confine their administration of the
concerns of the inferior powers of our nature within the limits due
to the superior ones. But whilst the sceptic destroys gross supersti-
tions, let him spare to deface, as some of the French writers have
defaced, the eternal truths charactered upon the imaginations of men.
Whilst the mechanist abridges, and the political economist combines
labor, let them beware that their speculations, for want of corre-
spondence with those first principles which belong to the imagina-
tion, do not tend, as they have in modern England, to exasperate at
once the extremes of luxury and want. They have exemplified the
saying, "To him that hath, more shall be given; and from him that
hath not, the Uttle that he hath shall be taken away." The rich have
become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of
the State is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and
despotism. Such are the effects which must ever flow from an unmiti-
gated exercise of the calculating faculty.

It is difficult to define pleasure in its highest sense; the definition
involving a number of apparent paradoxes. For, from an inexphcable
defect of harmony in the constitution of human nature, the pain of
the inferior is frequently connected with the pleasures of the superior

352 SHELLEY

portions of our being. Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself, are
often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good.
Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy
delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.
This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from
the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than
the pleasure of pleasure itself. And hence the saying, "It is better to
go to the house of mourning than to the house of mirth." Not that
this highest species of pleasure is necessarily linked with pain. The
delight of love and friendship, the ecstasy of the admiration of
nature, the joy of the perception and still more of the creation of
poetry, is often wholly unalloyed.

The production and assurance of pleasure in this highest sense is
true utility. Those who produce and preserve this pleasure are poets
or poetical philosophers.

The exertions of Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau,* and
their disciples, in favor of oppressed and deluded humanity, are
entitled to the gratitude of mankind. Yet it is easy to calculate the
degree of moral and intellectual improvement which the world
would have exhibited, had they never lived. A little more nonsense
would have been talked for a century or two; and perhaps a few
more men, women, and children burnt as heretics. We might not
at this moment have been congratulating each other on the abolition
of the Inquisition in Spain. But it exceeds all imagination to con-
ceive what would have been the moral condition of the world if
neither Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Calderon,
Lord Bacon, nor Milton, had ever existed; if Raphael and Michael
Angelo had never been born; if the Hebrew poetry had never been
translated; if a revival of the study of Greek literature had never
taken place; if no monuments of ancient sculpture had been handed
down to us; and if the poetry of the religion of the ancient world
had been extinguished together with its belief. The human mind
could never, except by the intervention of these excitements, have
been awakened to the invention of the grosser sciences, and that
application of analytical reasoning to the aberrations of society,

* Although Rousseau has been thus classed, he was essentially a poet. The others,
even Voltaire, were mere reasoners. — S.

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 353

which it is now attempted to exalt over the direct expression of the
inventive and creative faculty itself.

We have more moral, political, and historical wisdom than we
know how to reduce into practice; we have more scientific and eco-
nomical knowledge than can be accommodated to the just distribu-
tion of the produce which it multiplies. The poetry in these systems
of thought is concealed by the accumulation of facts and calculating
processes. There is no want of knowledge respecting what is wisest
and best in morals, government, and political economy, or at least,
what is wiser and better than what men now practise and endure.
But we let "/ dare not wait upon / would, like the poor cat in the
adage." We want the creative faculty to imagine that which we
know; we want the generous impulse to act that which we imagine;
we want the poetry of life; our calculations have outrun conception;
we have eaten more than we can digest. The cultivation of those
sciences which have enlarged the limits of the empire of man over
the external world, has, for want of the poetical faculty, proportion-
ally circumscribed those of the internal world; and man, having
enslaved the elements, remains himself a slave. To what but a culti-
vation of the mechanical arts in a degree disproportioned to the
presence of the creative faculty, which is the basis of all knowledge,
is to be attributed the abuse of all invention for abridging and com-
bining labor, to the exasperation of the inequality of mankind?
From what other cause has it arisen that the discoveries which should
have lightened, have added a weight to the curse imposed on Adam ?
Poetry, and the principle of Self, of which money is the visible
incarnation, are the God and Mammon of the world.

The functions of the poetical faculty are twofold: by one it creates
new materials of knowledge, and power, and pleasure; by the other
it engenders in the mind a desire to reproduce and arrange them
according to a certain rhythm and order which may be called the
beautiful and the good. The cultivation of poetry is never more to be
desired than at periods when, from an excess of the selfish and
calculating principle, the accumulation of the materials of external
life exceed the quantity of the power of assimilating them to the
internal laws of human nature. The body has then become too
unwieldy for that which animates it.

354 SHELLEY

Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and
circumference of knowledge; it is that which comprehends all
science, and that to which all science must be referred. It is at the
same time the root and blossom of all other systems of thought; it is
that from which all spring, and that which adorns all; and that
which, if blighted, denies the fruit and the seed, and withholds from
the barren world the nourishment and the succession of the scions
of the tree of life. It is the perfect and consummate surface and
bloom of all things; it is as the odor and the color of the rose to the
texture of the elements which compose it, as the form and splendor
of unfaded beauty to the secrets of anatomy and corruption. What
were virtue, love, patriotism, friendship — what were the scenery of
this beautiful universe which we inhabit; what were our consola-
tions on this side of the grave — and what were our aspirations
beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those
eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not
ever soar ? Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted accord-
ing to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, "I will
compose poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the
mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence,
like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this
power arises from within, like the color of a flower which fades and
changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures
are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure. Could this
influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible
to predict the greatness of the results; but when composition begins,
inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry
that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble
shadow of the original conceptions of the poet. I appeal to the great-
est poets of the present day, whether it is not an error to assert that
the finest passages of poetry are produced by labor and study. The
toil and the delay recommended by critics can be justly interpreted
to mean no more than a careful observation of the inspired moments,
and an artificial connection of the spaces between their suggestions
by the intertexture of conventional expressions; a necessity only im-
posed by the hmitedness of the poetical faculty itself: for Milton
conceived the "Paradise Lost" as a whole before he executed it in

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 355

portions. We have his own authority also for the Muse having
"dictated" to him the "unpremeditated song." And let this be an
answer to those who would allege the fifty-six various readings of
the first line of the "Orlando Furioso." Compositions so produced
are to poetry what mosaic is to painting. This instinct and intuition
of the poetical faculty are still more observable in the plastic and
pictorial arts; a great statue or picture grows under the power of the
artist as a child in a mother's womb; and the very mind which directs
the hands in formation is incapable of accounting to itself for the
origin, the gradations, or the media of the process.

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the hap-
piest and best minds. We are aware of evanescent visitations of
thought and feeling sometimes associated with place or person, some-
times regarding our own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen
and departing unbidden, but elevating and dehghtful beyond all
expression: so that even in the desire and the regret they leave, there
cannot but be pleasure, participating as it does in the nature of its
object. It is as it were the interpenetration of a diviner nature
through our own; but its footsteps are like those of a wind over the
sea, which the coming calm erases, and whose traces remain only as
on the wrinkled sand which paves it. These and corresponding
conditions of being are experienced principally by those of the most
delicate sensibility and the most enlarged imagination; and the state
of mind produced by them is at war with every base desire. The
enthusiasm of virtue, love, patriotism, and friendship is essentially
linked with such emotions; and whilst they last, self appears as what
it is, an atom to a universe. Poets are not only subject to these experi-
ences as spirits of the most refined organization, but they can color
all that they combine with the evanescent hues of this ethereal world;
a word, a trait in the representation of a scene or a passion will touch
the enchanted chord, and reanimate, in those who have ever experi-
enced these emotions, the sleeping, the cold, the buried image of the
past. Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful
in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the
interlunations of life, and veiling them, or in language or in form,
sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred
joy to those with whom their sisters abide — abide, because there is no

356 SHELLEY

portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit
into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations
of the divinity in man.

Poetry turns all things to loveliness; it exalts the beauty of that
which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is most
deformed; it marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eter-
nity and change; it subdues to union under its light yoke all irrecon-
cilable things. It transmutes all that it touches, and every form
moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous
sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes: its secret
alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from
death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world,
and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of
its forms.

All things exist as they are perceived: at least in relation to the
percipient. "The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a
heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." But poetry defeats the curse which
binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions.
And whether it spreads its own figured curtain, or withdraws life's
dark veil from before the scene of things, it equally creates for us a
being within our being. It makes us the inhabitants of a world to
which the familiar world is a chaos. It reproduces the common
universe of which we are portions and percipients, and it purges
from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from
us the wonder of our being. It compels us to feel that which we
perceive, and to imagine that which we know. It creates anew the
universe, after it has been annihilated in our minds by the recurrence
of impressions blunted by reiteration. It justifies the bold and true
words of Tasso — "Non merita name di creatore, se non Iddio ed
ilPoeta."''

A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure,
virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the best,
the wisest, and the most illustrious of men. As to his glory, let time
be challenged to declare whether the fame of any other institutor of
human life be comparable to that of a poet. That he is the wisest,
the happiest, and the best, inasmuch as he is a poet, is equally
' "No one merits the name of creator except God and the Poet."

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 357

incontrovertible: the greatest poets have been men of the most
spotless virtue, of the most consummate prudence, and, if we would
look into the interior of their lives, the most fortunate of men: and
the exceptions, as they regard those who possessed the poetic faculty
in a high yet inferior degree, will be found on consideration to confine
rather than destroy the rule. Let us for a moment stoop to the arbi-
tration of popular breath, and usurping and uniting in our own
persons the incompatible characters of accuser, witness, judge, and
executioner, let us decide without trial, testimony, or form, that
certain motives of those who are "there sitting where we dare not
soar," are reprehensible. Let us assume that Homer was a drunkard,
that Vergil was a flatterer, that Horace was a coward, that Tasso
was a madman, that Lord Bacon was a peculator, that Raphael was a
libertine, that Spenser was a poet laureate. It is inconsistent with this
division of our subject to cite living poets, but posterity has done
ample justice to the great names now referred to. Their errors have
been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if their
sins "were as scarlet, they are now white as snow"; they have been
washed in the blood of the mediator and redeemer. Time. Observe
in what a ludicrous chaos the imputations of real or fictitious crime
have been confused in the contemporary calumnies against poetry
and poets; consider how little is as it appears — or appears as it is; look
to your own motives, and judge not, lest ye be judged.

Poetry, as has been said, differs in this respect from logic, that it is
not subject to the control of the active powers of the mind, and that
its birth and recurrence have no necessary connection with the con-
sciousness or will. It is presumptuous to determine that these are
the necessary conditions of all mental causation, when mental effects
are experienced unsusceptible of being referred to them. The fre-
quent recurrence of the poetical power, it is obvious to suppose, may
produce in the mind a habit of order and harmony correlative with
its own nature and with its effects upon other minds. But in the
intervals of inspiration, and they may be frequent without being
durable, a poet becomes a man, and is abandoned to the sudden
reflux of the influences under which others habitually live. But as he
is more delicately organized than other men, and sensible to pain
and pleasure, both his own and that of others, in a degree unknown

358 SHELLEY

to them, he will avoid the one and pursue the other with an ardor
proportioned to this difference. And he renders himself obnoxious
to calumny, when he neglects to observe the circumstances under
which these objects of universal pursuit and flight have disguised
themselves in one another's garments.

But there is nothing necessarily evil in this error, and thus cruelty,
envy, revenge, avarice, and the passions purely evil have never
formed any portion of the popular imputations on the Uves of poets.

I have thought it most favorable to the cause of truth to set down
these remarks according to the order in which they were suggested to
my mind, by a consideration of the subject itself, instead of observing
the formality of a polemical reply; but if the view which they con-
tain be just, they will be found to involve a refutation of the arguers
against poetry, so far at least as regards the first division of the
subject. I can readily conjecture what should have moved the gall
of some learned and intelligent writers who quarrel with certain
versifiers; I confess myself, hke them, unwilling to be stunned by
the Theseids of the hoarse Codri of the day. Bavins and Mzvius
undoubtedly are, as they ever were, insufferable persons. But it
belongs to a philosophical critic to distinguish rather than confound.

The first part of these remarks has related to poetry in its elements
and principles; and it has been shown, as well as the narrow limits
assigned them would permit, that what is called poetry, in a restricted
sense, has a common source with all other forms of order and of
beauty, according to which the materials of human life are suscep-
tible of being arranged, and which is poetry in an universal sense.

The second part will have for its object an application of these
principles to the present state of the cultivation of poetry, and a
defence of the attempt to idealize the modern forms of manners and
opinions, and compel them into a subordination to the imaginative
and creative faculty. For the literature of England, an energetic
development of which has ever preceded or accompanied a great
and free development of the national will, has arisen as it were from
a new birth. In spite of the low-thoughted envy which would under-
value contemporary merit, our own will be a memorable age in
intellectual achievements, and we live among such philosophers and
poets as surpass beyond comparison any who have appeared since

A DEFENCE OF POETRY 359

the last national struggle for civil and religious liberty. The most
unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a
great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is
poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of
communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions
respecting man and nature. The persons in whom this power resides,
may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have
little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which
they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they
are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne
of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the
most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled
with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure
the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a
comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves
perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is
less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants
of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows
which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what
they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not
what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves.
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

MACHIAVELLI

BY
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) was the son of Zachary
Macaulay, a Scotsman whose experience in the West Indies had made
him an ardent Abolitionist. Thomas was an infant prodigy, and the
extraordinary memory which is borne witness to in his writings was
developed at an early age. He was educated at Cambridge, studied law,
and began to write for the "Edinburgh Review" at twenty-five, his well-
known style being already formed. He entered the House of Commons
in 1830, and at once made a reputation as an orator. In 1834 he went
to India as a member of the Supreme Council, and during his three and
a half years there he proved himself a capable and beneficent adminis-
trator. On his return, he again entered Parliament, held cabinet office,
and retired from political life in 1856.

Until about 1844 Macaulay 's writings appeared chiefly in the "Edin-
burgh Review," the great organ of the Whig Party, to which he be-
longed. These articles as now collected are perhaps the most widely
known critical and historical essays in the language. The brilliant
antithetical style, the wealth of illustration, the pomp and picturesque-
ness with which the events of the narrative are brought before the eyes
of the reader, combine to make them in the highest degree entertaining
and informing. His "History of England," which occupied his later
years, was the most popular book of its kind ever published in England,
and owed its success to much the same qualities. The "Lays of Ancient
Rome" and his other verses gained and still hold a large public, mainly
by virtue of their vigor of movement and strong declamatory quality.

The essay on Machiavelli belongs to Macaulay 's earlier period, and
illustrates his mastery of material that might seem to lie outside of his
usual field. But here in the Italy of the Renaissance, as in the England
or the India which he knew at first hand, we have the same character-
istic simplification and arrangement of motives and conditions that make
his clear exposition possible, the same dash and vividness in bringing
home to the reader his conception of a great character and a great epoch.

MACHIAVELLr

THOSE who have attended to this practice of our literary
tribunal are well aware, that, by means of certain legal
fictions similar to those of Westminster Hall, we are fre-
quently enabled to take cognizance of cases lying beyond the sphere
of our original jurisdiction. We need hardly say, therefore, that, in
the present instance, M. Perier is merely a Richard Roe, who will
not be mentioned in any subsequent stage of the proceedings, and
whose name is used for the sole purpose of bringing Machiavelli
into court.

We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally
odious as that of the man whose character and writings we now
propose to consider. The terms in which he is commonly described
would seem to impart that he was the Tempter, the Evil Principle,
the discoverer of ambition and revenge, the original inventor of
perjury, and that, before the publication of his fatal "Prince," there
had never been a hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue,
or a convenient crime. One writer gravely assures us that Maurice
of Saxony learned all his fraudulent policy from that execrable vol-
ume. Another remarks, that, since it was translated into Turkish,
the sultans have been more addicted than formerly to the custom of
strangling their brothers. Lord Lyttelton charges the poor Floren-
tine with the manifold treasons of the house of Guise, and with the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Several authors have hinted that the
Gunpowder Plot is to be primarily attributed to his doctrines, and
seem to think that his effigy ought to be substituted for that of Guy
Fawkes, in those processions by which the ingenuous youth of
England annually commemorate the preservation of the Three
Estates. The Church of Rome has pronounced his works accursed

1 Originally published as a review of a translation of the complete works of Machia-
velli by J. V. Peries.

363

364 MACAULAY

things. Nor have our own countrymen been backward in testifying
their opinion of his merits. Out of his surname they have coined an
epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for
the Devil.

It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, not well acquainted
with the history and literature of Italy, to read without horror and
amazement the celebrated treatise which has brought so much oblo-
quy on the name of Machiavelli. Such a display of wickedness, naked
yet not ashamed, such cool, judicious, scientific atrocity, seemed
rather to belong to a fiend than to the most depraved of men. Prin-
ciples which the most hardened ruffian would scarcely hint to his
most trusted accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of some
palliating sophism, even to his own mind, are professed without the
slightest circumlocution, and assumed as the fundamental axioms of
all political science.

It is not strange that ordinary readers should regard the author
of such a book as the most depraved and shameless of human beings.
Wise men, however, have always been inclined to look with great
suspicion on the angels and demons of the multitude; and, in the
present instance, several circumstances have led even superficial
observers to question the justice of the vulgar decision. It is notorious
that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous republican. In the same
year in which he composed his manual of "Kingcraft," he suffered
imprisonment and torture in the cause of public liberty. It seems
inconceivable that the martyr of freedom should have designedly
acted as the apostle of tyranny. Several eminent writers have, there-
fore, endeavored to detect in this unfortunate performance some con-
cealed meaning, more consistent with the character and conduct of
the author than that which appears at the first glance.

One hypothesis is, that Machiavelli intended to practise on the
young Lorenzo de' Medici a fraud similar to that which Sunderland
is said to have employed against our James II, and that he urged his
pupil to violent and perfidious measures, as *he surest means of
accelerating the moment of deliverance and revenge. Another sup-
position, which Lord Bacon seems to countenance, is that the treatise
was merely a piece of grave irony, intended to warn nations against
the arts of ambitious men. It would be easy to show that neither of

MACHIAVELLI 365

these solutions is consistent with many passages in "The Prince"
itself. But the most decisive refutation is that which is furnished
by the other works of Machiavelli. In all the writings which he gave
to the public, and in all those which the research of editors has, in
the course of three centuries, discovered; in his comedies, designed
for the entertainment of the multitude; in his "Comments on Livy,"
intended for the perusal of the most enthusiastic patriots of Florence;
in his history, inscribed to one of the most amiable and estimable of
the popes; in his public despatches; in his private memoranda — the
same obhquity of moral principle for which "The Prince" is so
severely censured is more or less discernible. We doubt whether it
would be possible to find, in all the many volumes of his composi-
tions, a single expression indicating that dissimulation and treachery
had ever struck him as discreditable.

After this, it may seem ridiculous to say that we are acquainted
with few writings which exhibit so much elevation of sentiment, so
pure and warm a zeal for the public good, or so just a view of the
duties and rights of citizens, as those of Machiavelli. Yet so it is.
And even from "The Prince" itself we could select many passages
in support of this remark. To a reader of our age and country, this
inconsistency is, at first, perfectly bewildering. The whole man seems
to be an enigma, a grotesque assemblage of incongruous qualities,
selfishness and generosity, cruelty and benevolence, craft and sim-
plicity, abject villany and romantic heroism. One sentence is such
as a veteran diplomatist would scarcely write in cipher for the direc-
tion of his most confidential spy : the next seems to be extracted from
a theme composed by an ardent school-boy on the death of Leonidas.
An act of dexterous perfidy and an act of patriotic self-devotion call
forth the same kind and the same degree of respectful admiration.
The moral sensibility of the writer seems at once to be morbidly
obtuse and morbidly acute. Two characters altogether dissimilar
are united in him. They are not merely joined, but interwoven.
They are the warp and the woof of his mind; and their combination,
like that of the variegated threads in shot silk, gives to the whole
texture a glancing and ever-changing appearance. The explanation
might have been easy if he had been a very weak or a very affected
man. But he was evidently neither the one nor the other. His works

366 MACAULAY

prove, beyond all contradiction, that his understanding was strong,
his taste pure, and his sense o£ the ridiculous exquisitely keen.

This is strange, and yet the strangest is behind. There is no reason
whatever to think that those amongst whom he lived saw anything
shocking or incongruous in his writings. Abundant proofs remain
of the high estimation in which both his works and his person were
held by the most respectable among his contemporaries. Clement VII
patronized the publication of those very books which the Council of
Trent, in the following generation, pronounced unfit for the perusal
of Christians. Some members of the democratical party censured
the secretary for dedicating "The Prince" to a patron who bore the
unpopular name of Medici. But, to those immoral doctrines which
have since called forth such severe reprehensions no exception
appears to have been taken. The cry against them was first raised
beyond the Alps, and seems to have been heard with amazement in
Italy. The earliest assailant, as far as we are aware, was a countryman
of our own. Cardinal Pole. The author of the "Anti-Machiavelli"
was a French Protestant.

It is, therefore, in the state of moral feeling among the Italians of
those times that we must seek for the real explanation of what seems
most mysterious in the life and writings of this remarkable man.
As this is a subject which suggests many interesting considerations,
both political and metaphysical, we shall make no apology for dis-
cussing it at some length.

During the gloomy and disastrous centuries which followed the
downfall of the Roman Empire, Italy had preserved, in a far greater
degree than any other part of western Europe, the traces of ancient
civilization. The night which descended upon her was the night of
an Arctic summer. The dawn began to reappear before the last
reflection of the preceding sunset had faded from the horizon. It
was in the time of the French Merovingians and of the Saxon
Heptarchy that ignorance and ferocity seemed to have done their
worst. Yet even then the Neapolitan provinces, recognizing the
authority of the Eastern Empire, preserved something of Eastern
knowledge and refinement. Rome, protected by the sacred character
of her pontiffs, enjoyed at least comparative security and repose.
Even in those regions where the sanguinary Lombards had fixed

MACHIAVELLI 367

their monarchy, there was incomparably more of wealth, o£ informa-
tion, of physical comfort, and of social order, than could be found in
Gaul, Britain, or Germany.

That which most distinguished Italy from the neighboring coun-
tries was the importance which the population of the towns, at a
very early period, began to acquire. Some cities had been founded
in wild and remote situations, by fugitives who had escaped from
the rage of the barbarians. Such were Venice and Genoa, which
preserved their freedom by their obscurity, till they became able to
preserve it by their power. Other cities seem to have retained, under
all the changing dynasties of invaders, under Odoacer and Theodoric,
Narses and Alboin, the municipal institutions which had been con-
ferred on them by the Uberal policy of the Great Republic. In prov-
inces which the central government was too feeble either to protect
or to oppress, these institutions gradually acquired stability and vigor.
The citizens, defended by their walls, and governed by their own
magistrates and their own by-laws, enjoyed a considerable share of
republican independence. Thus a strong democratic spirit was called
into action. The Carlovingian sovereigns were too imbecile to
subdue it. The generous policy of Otho encouraged it. It might
perhaps have been suppressed by a close coalition between the Church
and the empire. It was fostered and invigorated by their disputes.
In the twelfth century it attained its full vigor, and, after a long and
doubtful conflict, triumphed over the abiHties and courage of the
Swabian princes.

The assistance of the ecclesiastical power had greatly contributed
to the success of the Guelfs. That success would, however, have
been a doubtful good, if its only effect had been to substitute a moral
for a political servitude, and to exalt the popes at the expense of the
Caesars. Happily the public mind of Italy had long contained the
seeds of free opinions, which were now rapidly developed by the
genial influence of free institutions. The people of that country had
observed the whole machinery of the Church, its saints and its
miracles, its lofty pretensions, and its splendid ceremonial, its worth-
less blessings and its harmless curses, too long and too closely to be
duped. They stood behind the scenes on which others were gazing
with childish awe and interest. They witnessed the arrangement

368 MACAULAY

of the pulleys, and the manufacture of the thunders. They saw the
natural faces, and heard the natural voices, of the actors. Distant
nations looked on the Pope as the vicegerent of the Almighty, the
oracle of the All-Wise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the
disputes either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought to
appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the follies of his youth,
and with all the dishonest arts by which he had attained power. They
knew how often he had employed the keys of the Church to release
himself from the most sacred engagements, and its wealth to pamper
his mistresses and nephews. The doctrines and rites of the established
religion they treated with decent reverence. But, though they still
called themselves Catholics, they had ceased to be papists. Those
spiritual arms which carried terror into the palaces and camps of
the proudest sovereigns excited only contempt in the immediate
neighborhood of the Vatican. Alexander, when he commanded our
Henry II to submit to the lash before the tomb of a rebellious
subject, was himself an exile. The Romans, apprehending that he
entertained designs against their liberties, had driven him from their
city; and, though he solemnly promised to confine himself for
the future to his spiritual functions, they still refused to readmit
him.

In every other part of Europe, a large and powerful privileged
class trampled on the people, and defied the government. But, in
the most flourishing parts of Italy, the feudal nobles were reduced
to comparative insignificance. In some districts they took shelter
under the protection of the powerful commonwealths which they
were unable to oppose, and gradually sank into the mass of burghers.
In other places, they possessed great influence; but it was an influence
widely different from that which was exercised by the aristocracy
of any trans-Alpine kingdom. They were not petty princes, but
eminent citizens. Instead of strengthening their fastnesses among
the mountains, they embellished their palaces in the market-place.
The state of society in the Neapolitan dominions, and in some parts
of the ecclesiastical State, more nearly resembled that which existed
in the great monarchies of Europe. But the governments of Lom-
bardy and Tuscany, through all their revolutions, preserved a dif-
ferent character. A people, when assembled in a town, is far more

MACHIAVELLI 369

formidable to Its rulers than when dispersed over a wide extent of
country. The most arbitrary of the Cscsars found it necessary to feed
and divert the inhabitants of their unwieldy capital at the expense of
the provinces. The citizens of Madrid have more than once besieged
their sovereign in his own palace, and extorted from him the most
humiliating concessions. The sultans have often been compelled to
propitiate the furious rabble of Constantinople with the head of an
unpopular vizier. From the same cause, there was a certain tinge of
democracy in the monarchies and aristocracies of northern Italy.

Thus liberty, partially indeed and transiently, revisited Italy; and
with liberty came commerce and empire, science and taste, all the
comforts and all the ornaments of life. The Crusades, from which
the inhabitants of other countries gained nothing but relics and
wounds, brought to the rising commonwealths of the Adriatic and
Tyrrhene seas a large increase of wealth, dominion, and knowledge.
The moral and the geographical position of those commonwealths
enabled them to profit alike by the barbarism of the West and by the
civilization of the East. Italian ships covered every sea. Italian
factories rose on every shore. The tables of Italian money-changers
were set in every city. Manufactures flourished. Banks were estab-
lished. The operations of the commercial machine were facilitated
by many useful and beautiful inventions. We doubt whether any
country of Europe, our own excepted, has at the present time reached
so high a point of wealth and civilization as some parts of Italy
had attained 400 years ago. Historians rarely descend to those details
from which alone the real estate of a community can be collected.
Hence posterity is too often deceived by the vague hyperboles of
poets and rhetoricians, who mistake the splendor of a court for the
happiness of a people. Fortunately, John Villani has given us an
example and precise account of the state of Florence in the early
part of the fourteenth century. The revenue of the republic amounted
to 300,000 florins, a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of the
precious metals, was at least equivalent to £600,000 sterling — a larger
sum than England and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded annually
to Elizabeth. The manufacture of wool alone employed 200 factories
and 30,000 workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an
average, for 1,200,000 florins — a sum fully equal, in exchangeable

370 MACAULAY

value, to ^2,500,000 of our money. Four hundred thousand florins
were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial
operations, not of Florence only, but of all Europe. The transactions
of these establishments were sometimes of a magnitude which may
surprise even the contemporaries of the Barings and the Rothschilds.
Two houses advanced to Edward III of England upwards of 300,000
marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver than fifty
shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was more
than quadruple of what it now is. The city, and its environs con-
tained 170,000 inhabitants. In the various schools about 10,000
children were taught to read, 1,200 studied arithmetic, 600 received
a learned education.

The progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was propor-
tioned to that of the public prosperity. Under the despotic successors
of Augustus all the fields of the intellect had been turned into arid
wastes, still marked out by formal boundaries, still retaining the
traces of old cultivation, but yielding neither flowers nor fruit. The
deluge of barbarism came. It swept away all the landmarks. It
obliterated all the signs of former tillage. But, it fertilized while it
devastated. When it receded, the wilderness was as the garden of
God, rejoicing on every side, laughing, clapping its hands, pouring
forth, in spontaneous abundance, everything brilliant or fragrant
or nourishing. A new language, characterized by simple sweetness
and simple energy, had attained perfection. No tongue ever fur-
nished more gorgeous and vivid tints to poetry; nor was it long
before a poet appeared who knew how to employ them. Early in
the fourteenth century came forth "The Divine Comedy," beyond
comparison the greatest work of imagination which had appeared
since the poems of Homer. The following generation produced
indeed no second Dante, but it was eminently distinguished by
general intellectual activity. The study of the Latin writers had
never been wholly neglected in Italy. But Petrarch introduced a
more profound, liberal, and elegant scholarship, had communicated
to his countrymen that enthusiasm for the literature, the history, and
the antiquities of Rome, which divided his own heart with a frigid
mistress and a more frigid muse. Boccaccio turned their attention
to the more sublime and graceful models of Greece.

MACHIAVELLI 37I

From this time, the admiration of learning and genius became
almost an idolatry among the people of Italy. Kings and republics,
cardinals and doges, vied with each other in honoring and flattering
Petrarch. Embassies from rival States solicited the honor of his
instructions. His coronation agitated the Court of Naples and the
people of Rome as much as the most important political transaction
could have done. To collect books and antiques, to found professor-
ships, to patronize men of learning, became almost universal fashions
among the great. The spirit of literary research allied itself to that
of commercial enterprise. Every place to which the merchant princes
of Florence extended their gigantic traffic, from the bazars of the
Tigris to the monasteries of the Clyde, was ransacked for medals
and manuscripts. Architecture, painting, and sculpture were munifi-
cently encouraged. Indeed, it would be difficult to name an Italian
of eminence, during the period of which we speak, who, whatever
may have been his general character, did not at least affect a love of
letters and of the arts.

Knowledge and public prosperity continued to advance together.
Both attained their meridian in the age of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
We cannot refrain from quoting the splendid passage in which the
Tuscan Thucydides describes the state of Italy at that period.
"Ridotta tutta in somma pace e tranquillita coltivata non meno ne
luogti piu montusoi e piu sterili che nelle pianure e regioni piu
jertili, ne sottoposta ad altro imperio che de' suoi medesimi, non solo
era abbondantissima d' abitatori e di ricchezze; ma illustrata somma-
mente dalla magnificenza di molti principi, dallo splendore di molte
nobilissime e bellissime citta, dalla sedia e maesta della religione,
fioriua d' uomini prestantissimi neW amministrazione delle cose
pubbliche, e d' ingegni molto nobili in tutte le scienze, ed in qualun-
que arte preclara ed industriosa."^ When we peruse this just and
splendid description, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that we are

^ "Enjoying the utmost peace and tranquillity, cultivated as well in the most moun-
tainous and barren places as in the plains and most fertile regions, and not subject to
any other dominion than that of its own people, it not only overflowed with inhabi-
tants and with riches, but was highly adorned by the magnificence of many princes,
by the splendor of many renowned and beautiful cities, by the abode and majesty of
religion, and abounded in men who excelled in the administration of public affairs and
in minds most eminent in all the sciences and in every noble and useful art." —
Guicciardini, "History of Italy," Book I., trans. Montague.

372 MACAULAY

reading of times in which the annals of England and France present
us only with a frightful spectacle of poverty, barbarity, and ignorance.
From the oppressions of illiterate masters, and the sufferings of a
degraded peasantry, it is delightful to turn to the opulent and
enlightened States of Italy, to the vast and magnificent cities, the
ports, the arsenals, the villas, the museums, the libraries, the marts
filled with every article of comfort or luxury, the factories swarming
with artisans, the Apennines covered with rich cultivation up to
their very summits, the Po wafting the harvests of Lombardy to the
granaries of Venice, and carrying back the silks of Bengal and the
furs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan, With peculiar pleasure every
cultivated mind must repose on the fair, the happy, the glorious
Florence, the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulci, the cell where
twinkled the midnight lamp of Politian, the statues on which the
young eye of Michael Angelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred
inspiration, the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling
song for the May-day dance of the Etrurian virgins. Alas for the
beautiful city! Alas for the wit and the learning, the genius and
the love!

"Le donne, e i cavalieri, gli affanni e gli agi,
Che ne'nvogliava amore e cortesia
La dove i cuor son jatti st malvagi." '

A time was at hand when all the seven vials of the Apocalypse were
to be poured forth and shaken out over those pleasant countries — a
time of slaughter, famine, beggary, infamy, slavery, despair.

In the Italian States, as in many natural bodies, untimely decrepi-
tude was the penalty of precocious maturity. Their early greatness,
and their early decline, are principally to be attributed to the same
cause — ^the preponderance which the towns acquired in the political
system.

In a community of hunters or of shepherds every man easily and
necessarily becomes a soldier. His ordinary avocations are perfecdy
compatible with all the duties of military service. However remote
may be the expedition on which he is bound, he finds it easy to

' "The ladies and the knights, the toils and sports to which love and courtesy
stirred our desire there where all hearts have grown so evil." — Dante, "Purgatorio,"
Canto 14, 11. 109-111.

MACHIAVELLI 373

transport with him the stock from which he derives his subsistence.
The whole people in an army, the whole year a march. Such was
the state of society which facilitated the gigantic conquests of Attila
and Tamerlane.

But a people which subsists by the cultivation of the earth is in a
very different situation. The husbandman is bound to the soil on
which he labors. A long campaign would be ruinous to him. Still his
pursuits are such as to give his frame both the active and the passive
strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, at least in the infancy
of agricultural science, demand his uninterrupted attention. At
particular times of the year he is almost wholly unemployed, and
can, without injury to himself, afford the time necessary for a short
expedition. Thus the legions of Rome were supplied during its
earUer wars. The season during which the fields did not require the
presence of the cultivators sufficed for a short inroad and a battle.
These operations, too frequently interrupted to produce decisive
results, yet served to keep up among the people a degree of discipline
and courage which rendered them not only secure but formidable.
The archers and billmen of the Middle Ages, who, with provisions
for forty days at their back, left the fields for the camp, were troops
of the same description.

But when commerce and manufactures begin to flourish, a great
change takes place. The sedentary habits of the desk and the loom
render the exertions and hardships of war insupportable. The busi-
ness of traders and artisans requires their constant presence and
attention. In such a community there is little superfluous time; but
there is generally much superfluous money. Some members of the
society are, therefore, hired to relieve the rest from a task inconsistent
with their habits and engagements.

The history of Greece is, in this, as in many other respects, the
best commentary on the history of Italy. Five hundred years before
the Christian era the citizens of the republics round the ^gean Sea
formed perhaps the finest militia that ever existed. As wealth and
refinement advanced, the system underwent a gradual alteration.
The Ionian States were the first in which commerce and the arts
were cultivated, and the first in which the ancient discipline decayed.
Within eighty years after the battle of Plataea, mercenary troops were

374 MACAULAY

everywhere plying for battles and sieges. In the time of Demosthenes,
it was scarcely possible to persuade or compel the Athenians to enlist
for foreign service. The laws of Lycurgus prohibited trade and
manufactures. The Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national
force long after their neighbors had begun to hire soldiers. But
their military spirit declined with their singular institutions. In the
second century before Christ, Greece contained only one nation of
warriors, the savage highlanders of ^tolia, who were some genera-
tions behind their countrymen in civilization and intelligence.

All the causes which produced these effects among the Greeks
acted still more strongly on the modern Italians. Instead of a power
like Sparta, in its nature warlike, they had amongst them an ecclesi-
astical state, in its nature pacific. Where there are numerous slaves,
every freeman is induced by the strongest motives to familiarize him-
self with the use of arms. The commonwealths of Italy did not, Uke
those of Greece, swarm with thousands of these household enemies.
Lastly, the mode in which military operations were conducted dur-
ing the prosperous times of Italy was peculiarly unfavorable to the
formation of an efficient militia. Men covered with iron from head
to foot, armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on horses of the
largest breed, were considered as composing the strength of an army.
The infantry was regarded as comparatively worthless, and was
neglected till it became really so. These tactics maintained their
ground for centuries in most parts of Europe. That foot-soldiers
could withstand the charge of heavy cavalry was thought utterly
impossible, till, towards the close of the fifteenth century, the rude
mountaineers of Switzerland dissolved the spell, and astounded the
most experienced generals by receiving the dreaded shock on an
impenetrable forest of pikes.

The use of the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the modern
bayonet, might be acquired with comparative ease. But nothing
short of the daily exercise of years could train the man at arms to
support his ponderous panoply, and manage his unwieldy weapon.
Throughout Europe this most important branch of war became a
separate profession. Beyond the Alps, indeed, though a profession,
it was not generally a trade. It was the duty and the amusement of
a large class of country gentlemen. It was the service by which they

MACHIAVELLI 375

held their lands, and the diversion by which, in the absence of
mental resources, they beguiled their leisure. But in the northern
States of Italy, as we have already remarked, the growing power of
the cities, where it had not exterminated this order of men, had
completely changed their habits. Here, therefore, the practice of
employing mercenaries became universal, at a time when it was
almost unknown in other countries.

When war becomes the trade of a separate class the least dangerous
course left to a government is to form that class into a standing army.
It is scarcely possible that men can pass their lives in the service of
one State, without feeling some interest in its greatness. Its victories
are their victories. Its defeats are their defeats. The contract loses
something of its mercantile character. The services of the soldier
are considered as the effects of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tribute
of national gratitude. To betray the power which employs him,
to be even remiss in its service, are in his eyes the most atrocious and
degrading of crimes.

When the princes and commonwealths of Italy began to use hired
troops, their wisest course would have been to form separate military
establishments. Unhappily this was not done. The mercenary war-
riors of the Peninsula, instead of being attached to the service of
different powers, were regarded as the common property of all. The
connection between the State and its defenders was reduced to the
most simple and naked traffic. The adventurer brought his horse,
his weapons, his strength, and his experience, into the market.
Whether the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the Pope or the
Signory of Florence, struck the bargain, was to him a matter of
perfect indifference. He was for the highest wages and the longest
term. When the campaign for which he had contracted was finished,
there was neither law nor punctilio to prevent him from instantly
turning his arms against his late masters. The soldier was altogether
disjoined from the citizen and from the subject.

The natural consequences followed. Left to the conduct of men
who neither loved those whom they defended, nor hated those whom
they opposed, who were often bound by stronger ties to the army
against which they fought than to the State which they served, who
lost by the termination of the conflict, and gained by its prolongation,

37^ MACAULAY

war completely changed its character. Every man came into the
field of battle impressed with the knowledge, that, in a few days, he
might be taking the pay of the power against which he was then
employed, and fighting by the side of his enemies against his asso-
ciates. The strongest interests and the strongest feelings concurred
to mitigate the hostility of those who had lately been brethren in
arms, and who might soon be brethren in arms once more. Their
common profession was a bond of union not to be forgotten, even
when they were engaged in the service of contending parties. Hence
it was that operations, languid and indecisive beyond any recorded
in history, marches and countermarches, pillaging expeditions and
blockades, bloodless capitulations and equally bloodless combats,
make up the military history of Italy during the course of nearly
two centuries. Mighty armies fight from sunrise to sunset. A great
victory is won. Thousands of prisoners are taken, and hardly a life
is lost. A pitched battle seems to have been really less dangerous
than an ordinary civil tumult.

Courage was now no longer necessary, even to the military char-
acter. Men grew old in camps, and acquired the highest renown by
their warlike achievements, without being once required to face
serious danger. The political consequences are too well known.
The richest and most enlightened part of the world was left unde-
fended to the assaults of every barbarous invader, to the brutality of
Switzerland, the insolence of France, and the fierce rapacity of
Aragon. The moral effects which followed from this state of things
were still more remarkable.

Amongst the rude nations which lay beyond the Alps, valor was
absolutely indispensable. Without it none could be eminent, few
could be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, naturally considered as
the foulest reproach. Among the polished Italians, enriched by
commerce, governed by law, and passionately attached to literature,
everything was done by superiority of intelligence. Their very wars,
more pacific than the peace of their neighbors, required rather civil
than military qualifications. Hence, while courage was the point of
honor in other countries, ingenuity became the point of honor in
Italy.

From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly analo-

MACHIAVELLI 377

gous, two opposite systems of fashionable morality. Through the
greater part of Europe, the vices which peculiarly belong to timid
dispositions, and which are the natural defence of weakness, fraud,
and hypocrisy, have always been most disreputable. On the other
hand, the excesses of haughty and daring spirits have been treated
with indulgence, and even with respect. The Italians regarded with
corresponding lenity those crimes which require self-connmand, ad-
dress, quick observation, fertile invention, and profound knowledge
of human nature.

Such a prince as our Henry V would have been the idol of the
North. The follies of his youth, the selfish ambition of his manhood,
the Lollards roasted at slow fires, the prisoners massacred on the
field of battle, the expiring lease of priestcraft renewed for another
century, the dreadful legacy of a causeless and hopeless war be-
queathed to a people who had no interest in its event — everything
is forgotten but the victory of Agincourt. Francis Sforza, on the
other hand, was the model of Italian heroes. He made his employers
and his rivals alike his tools. He first overpowered his open enemies
by the help of faithless allies: he then ai-med himself against his
alhes with the spoils taken from his enemies. By his incomparable
dexterity, he raised himself from the precarious and dependent situa-
tion of a military adventurer to the first throne of Italy. To such a
man much was forgiven — hollow friendship, ungenerous enmity,
violated faith. Such are the opposite errors which men commit, when
their morality is not a science, but a taste, when they abandon eternal
principles for accidental associations.

We have illustrated our meaning by an instance taken from his-
tory. We will select another from fiction. Othello murders his wife;
he gives orders for the murder of his lieutenant; he ends by murder-
ing himself. Yet he never loses the esteem and affection of Northern
readers. His intrepid and ardent spirit redeems everything. The
unsuspecting confidence with which he listens to his adviser, the
agony with which he shrinks from the thought of shame, the tempest
of passion with which he commits his crimes, and the haughty
fearlessness with which he avows them, give an extraordinary inter-
est to his character. lago, on the contrary, is the object of universal
loathing. Many are inclined to suspect that Shakespeare has been

378 MACAULAY

seduced into an exaggeration unusual with him, and has drawn a
monster who has no archetype in human nature. Now, we suspect
that an Italian audience in the fifteenth century would have felt very
differently. Othello would have inspired nothing but detestation and
contempt. The folly with which he trusts the friendly professions
of a man whose promotion he had obstructed, the credulity with
which he takes unsupported assertions, and trivial circumstances,
for unanswerable proofs, the violence with which he silences the
exculpation till the exculpation can only aggravate his misery, would
have excited the abhorrence and disgust of his spectators. The con-
duct of lago they would assuredly have condemned, but they would
have condemned it as we condemn that of his victim. Something
of interest and respect would have mingled with their disapproba-
tion. The readiness of the traitor's wit, the clearness of his judgment,
the skill with which he penetrates the dispositions of others, and
conceals his own, would have insured to him a certain portion of
their esteem.

So wide was the difference between the Italians and their neigh-
bors. A similar difference existed between the Greeks of the second
century before Christ, and their masters, the Romans. The conquer-
ors, brave and resolute, faithful to their engagements, and strongly
influenced by religious feelings, were, at the same time, ignorant,
arbitrary, and cruel. With the vanquished people were deposited all
the art, the science, and the literature of the Western world. In
poetry, in philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they
had no rivals. Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute,
their invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, humane; but of
courage and sincerity they were almost utterly destitute. Every rude
centurion consoled himself for his intellectual inferiority, by remark-
ing that knowledge and taste seemed only to make men atheists,
cowards and slaves. The distinction long continued to be strongly
marked, and furnished an admirable subject for the fierce sarcasms
of Juvenal.

The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was the Greek of the
time of Juvenal and the Greek of the time of Pericles, joined in one.
Like the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and mean. But,
hke the latter, he had a country. Its independence and prosperity

MACHIAVELLI 379

were dear to him. If his character were degraded by some base
crimes, it was, on the other hand, ennobled by pubHc spirit and by an
honorable ambition.

A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The
evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion
produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is
a local malady, the latter a constitutional taint. When the reputation
of the offender is lost, he, too, often flings the remains of his virtue
after it in despair. The Highland gentleman, who, a century ago,
lived by taking blackmail from his neighbors, committed the same
crime for which Wild was accompanied to Tyburn by the huzzas of
200,000 people. But there can be no doubt that he was a much less
depraved man than Wild. The deed for which Mrs. Brownrigg was
hanged, sinks into nothing when compared with the conduct of the
Roman who treated the public to one hundred pairs of gladiators.
Yet we should greatly wrong such a Roman if we supposed that his
disposition was as cruel as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. In our own
country, a woman forfeits her place in society by what, in a man,
is too commonly considered as an honorable distinction, and at worst
as a venial error. The consequence is notorious. The moral principle
of a woman is frequently more impaired by a single lapse from virtue
than that of a man by twenty years of intrigues. Classical antiquity
would furnish us with instances stronger, if possible, than those to
which we have referred.

We must apply this principle to the case before us. Habits of
dissimulation and falsehood, no doubt, mark a man of our age and
country as utterly worthless and abandoned. But it by no means
follows that a similar judgment would be just in the case of an
Italian in the Middle Ages. On the contrary, we frequently find
those faults which we are accustomed to consider as certain indica-
tions of a mind altogether depraved, in company with great and good
qualities, with generosity, with benevolence, with disinterestedness.
From such a state of society, Palamedes, in the admirable dialogue
of Hume, might have drawn illustrations of his theory as striking
as any of those with which Fourli furnished him. These are not,
we well know, the lessons which historians are generally most careful
to teach, or readers most willing to learn. But they are not therefore

'380 MACAULAY

useless. How Philip disposed his troops at Chxronea, where Hanni-
bal crossed the Alps, whether Mary blew up Darnley, or Siquier
shot Charles XII, and the thousand other questions of the same
description, are in themselves unimportant. The inquiry may amuse
us, but the decision leaves us no wiser. He alone reads history aright,
who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings
and opinions of men, how often vices pass into virtues, and paradoxes
into axioms, learns to distinguish what is accidental and transitory
in human nature, from what is essential and immutable.

In this respect, no history suggests more important reflections than
that of the Tuscan and Lombard commonwealths. The character of
the Italian statesman seems, at first sight, a collection of contradic-
tions, a phantom as monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half
divinity, half snake, majestic and beautiful above, grovelling and
poisonous below. We see a man whose thoughts and words have no
connection with each other, who never hesitates at an oath when he
wishes to seduce, who never wants a pretext when he is inclined to
betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat of blood, or the
insanity of uncontrolled power, but from deep and cool meditation.
His passions, like well-trained troops, are impetuous by rule, and in
their most headstrong fury never forget the discipline to which they
have been accustomed. His whole soul is occupied with vast and
complicated schemes of ambition, yet his aspect and language exhibit
nothing but philosophical moderation. Hatred and revenge eat into
his heart; yet every look is a cordial smile, every gesture a familiar
caress. He never excites the suspicion of his adversaries by petty
provocations. His purpose is disclosed, only when it is accomplished.
His face is unruffled, his speech is courteous, till vigilance is laid
asleep, till a vital point is exposed, till a sure aim is taken; and then
he strikes for the first and last time. Military courage, the boast of
the sottish German, of the frivolous and prating Frenchman, of the
romantic and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses nor values. He
shuns danger, not because he is insensible to shame, but because, in
the society in which he lives, timidity has ceased to be shameful. To
do an injury openly is, in his estimation, as wicked as to do it
secretly, and far less profitable. With him the most honorable means
are those which are the surest, the speediest, and the darkest. He

MACHIAVELLI 38 1

cannot comprehend how a man should scruple to deceive those whom
he does not scruple to destroy. He would think it madness to declare
open hostilities against rivals whom he might stab in a friendly
embrace, or poison in a consecrated wafer.

Yet this man, black with the vices which we consider as most
loathsome, traitor, hypocrite, coward, assassin, was by no means
destitute even of those virtues which we generally consider as indi-
cating superior elevation of character. In civil courage, in perseve-
rance, in presence of mind, those barbarous warriors, who were fore-
most in the battle or the breach, were far his inferiors. Even the dan-
gers which he avoided with a caution almost pusillanimous never
confused his perceptions, never paralyzed his inventive faculties, nev-
er wrung out one secret from his smooth tongue and his inscrutable
brow. Though a dangerous enemy, and a still more dangerous
accomplice, he could be a just and beneficent ruler. With so much
unfairness in his policy, there was an extraordinary degree of fairness
in his intellect. Indifferent to truth in the transactions of life, he was
honestly devoted to truth in the researches of speculation. Wanton
cruelty was not in his nature. On the contrary, where no political
object was at stake, his disposition was soft and humane. The suscep-
tibility of his nerves and the activity of his imagination inclined him
to sympathize with the feelings of others, and to delight in the chari-
ties and courtesies of social life. Perpetually descending to actions
which might seem to mark a mind diseased through all its faculties,
he had nevertheless an exquisite sensibility, both for the natural and
the moral sublime, for every graceful and every lofty conception.
Habits of petty intrigue and dissimulation might have rendered him
incapable of great general views, but that the expanding effect of his
philosophical studies counteracted the narrowing tendency. He had
the keenest enjoyment of wit, eloquence, and poetry. The fine arts
profited alike by the severity of his judgment, and by the liberality
of his patronage. The portraits of some of the remarkable Italians
of those times are perfectly in harmony with this description. Ample
and majestic foreheads; brows strong and dark, but not frowning;
eyes of which the calm, full gaze, while it expresses nothing, seems
to discern everything; cheeks pale with thought and sedentary
habits; lips formed with feminine delicacy, but compressed with

382 MACAULAY

more than masculine decision — mark out men at once enterprising
and timid, men equally skilled in detecting the purposes of others,
and in concealing their own, men who must have been formidable
enemies and unsafe allies, but men, at the same time, whose tempers
were mild and equable, and who possessed an amplitude and subtlety
of intellect which would have rendered them eminent either in
active or in contemplative life, and fitted them either to govern or to
instruct mankind.

Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which
prevail almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to
avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeed-
ing generations change the fashion of their morals, with the fashion
of their hats and their coaches; take some other kind of wickedness
under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors.
Nor is this all. Posterity, that high court of appeal which is never
tired of eulogizing its own justice and discernment, acts on such
occasions like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. Finding the
delinquents too numerous to be all punished, it selects some of them
at hazard, to bear the whole penalty of an offence in which they are
not more deeply implicated than those who escape. Whether decima-
tion be a convenient mode of military execution, we know not; but
we solemnly protest against the introduction of such a principle into
the philosophy of history.

In the present instance, the lot has fallen on Machiavelli, a man
whose public conduct was upright and honorable, whose views of
morality, where they differed from those of the persons around him,
seemed to have differed for the better, and whose only fault was,
that, having adopted some of the maxims then generally received,
he arranged them more luminously, and expressed them more
forcibly, than any other writer.

Having now, we hope, in some degree cleared the personal char-
acter of Machiavelli, we come to the consideration of his works. As
a poet, he is not entitled to a very high place;* but the comedies
deserve more attention.

The "Mandragola," in particular, is superior to the best of Goldoni,

*In the original essay Macaulay had here some critical remarks on the poetry o£
Machiavelli, but he omitted them on republication.

MACHIAVELLI 383

and inferior only to the best of Moliere. It is the work of a man
who, if he had devoted himself to the drama, would probably have
attained the highest eminence, and produced a permanent and salu-
tary effect on the national taste. This we infer, not so much from
the degree as from the kind of its excellence. There are compositions
which indicate still greater talent, and which are perused with still
greater delight, from which we should have drawn very different
conclusions. Books quite worthless are quite harmless. The sure
sign of the general decline of an art is the frequent occurrence, not
of deformity, but of misplaced beauty. In general, tragedy is cor-
rupted by eloquence, and comedy by wit.

The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character.
This, we conceive, is no arbitrary canon, originating in local and
temporary associations, like those canons which regulate the number
of acts in a play, or of syllables in a line. To this fundamental law
every other regulation is subordinate. The situations which most
signally develop character form the best plot. The mother tongue
of the passions is the best style.

This principle, rightly understood, does not debar the poet from
any grace of composition. There is no style in which some man may
not, under some circumstances, express himself. There is, therefore,
no style which the drama rejects, none which it does not occasionally
require. It is in the discernment of place, of time, and of person,
that the inferior artists fail. The fantastic rhapsody of Mercutio, the
elaborate declamation of Antony, are, where Shakespeare has
placed them, natural and pleasing. But Dryden would have made
Mercutio challenge Tybalt in hyperboles as fanciful as those in which
he describes the chariot of Mab. Corneille would have represented
Antony as scolding and coaxing Cleopatra with all the measured
rhetoric of a funeral oration.

No writers have injured the comedy of England so deeply as
Congreve and Sheridan. Both were men of splendid wit and pol-
ished taste. Unhappily, they made all their characters in their own
likeness. Their works bear the same relation to the legitimate
drama which a transparency bears to a painting. There are no deli-
cate touches, no hues imperceptibly fading into each other: the whole
is lighted up with a universal glare. Outlines and tints are forgotten

384 MACAULAY

in the common blaze which illuminates all. The flowers and fruits
of the intellect abound; but it is the abundance of a jungle, not
of a garden, unwholesome, bewildering, unprofitable from its very
plenty, rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, every boor, every
valet, is a man of wit. The very butts and dupes, Tatde, Witwould,
Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel of Rambouillet. To prove the
whole system of this school erroneous, it is only necessary to apply the
test which dissolved the enchanted Florimel, to place the true by the
false Thaha, to contrast the most celebrated characters which have
been drawn by the writers of whom we speak with the Bastard in
"King John," or the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet." It was not surely
from want of wit that Shakespeare adopted so different a manner.
Benedick and Beatrice throw Mirabel and Millamant^ into the shade.
All the good sayings of the facetious hours of Absolute and Surface
might have been clipped from the single character of FalstafI without
being missed. It would have been easy for that fertile mind to have
given Bardolph and Shallow as much wit as Prince Hal, and to have
made Dogberry and Verges retort on each other in sparkling epi-
grams. But he knew that such indiscriminate prodigality was, to use
his own admirable language, "from the purpose of playing, whose
end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the
mirror up to nature."

This digression will enable our readers to understand what we
mean when we say, that, in the "Mandragola," Machiavelli has
proved that he completely understood the nature of the dramatic
art, and possessed talents which would have enabled him to excel
in it. By the correct and vigorous delineation of human nature, it
produces interest without a pleasing or skilful plot, and laughter
without the least ambition of wit. The lover, not a very delicate
or generous lover, and his adviser the parasite, are drawn with spirit.
The hypocritical confessor is an admirable portrait. He is, if we
mistake not, the original of Father Dominic,^ the best comic charac-
ter of Dryden. But old Nicias is the glory of the piece. We cannot
call to mind anything that resembles him. The follies which Moliere
ridicules are those of affectation, not those of fatuity. Coxcombs and
5 In Congreve's "Way of the World." ^ In Dryden's "Spanish Friar."

MACHIAVELLI 385

pedants, not absolute simpletons, are his game. Shakespeare has
indeed a vast assortment of fools; but the precise species of which
we speak is not, if we remember right, to be found there. Shallow
is a fool. But his animal spirits supply, to a certain degree, the place
of cleverness. His talk is to that of Sir John what soda-water is to
champagne. It has the effervescence, though not the body or the
flavor. Slender and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are fools, troubled with
an uneasy consciousness of their folly, which, in the latter, produces
meekness and docility, and in the former, awkwardness, obstinacy,
and confusion. Cloten is an arrogant fool, Osric a foppish fool, Ajax
a savage fool; but Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, a fool
positive. His mind is occupied by no strong feeling; it takes every
character, and retains none; its aspect is diversified, not by passions,
but by faint and transitory semblances of passion, a mock joy, a mock
fear, a mock love, a mock pride, which chase each other like shadows
over its surface, and vanish as soon as they appear. He is just idiot
enough to be an object, not of pity or horror, but of ridicule. He
bears some resemblance to poor Calandrino, whose mishaps, as
recounted by Boccaccio, have made all Europe merry for more than
four centuries. He perhaps resembles still more closely Simon de
Villa, to whom Bruno and Buffalmacco promised the love of the
Countess Civillari. Nicias is, like Simon, of a learned profession;
and the dignity with which he wears the doctoral fur renders his
absurdities infinitely more grotesque. The old Tuscan is the very
language for such a being. Its peculiar simplicity gives even to the
most forcible reasoning and the most brilliant wit an infantine air,
generally delightful, but to a foreign reader sometimes a little ludi-
crous. Heroes and statesmen seem to lisp when they use it. It
becomes Nicias incomparably, and renders all his silliness infinitely
more silly.

We may add, that the verses with which the "Mandragola" is
interspersed appear to us to be the most spirited and correct of all
that Machiavelli has written in metre. He seems to have entertained
the same opinion, for he has introduced some of them in other
places. The contemporaries of the author were not blind to the
merits of this striking piece. It was acted at Florence with the great-

386 MACAULAY

est success. Leo X was among its admirers, and by his order it was
represented at Rome."

The "Clizia" is an imitation o£ the "Casina" of Plautus, which is
itself an imitation of the lost KXripovfievot of Diphilus.* Plautus was,
unquestionably, one of the best Latin writers; but the "Casina" is
by no means one of his best plays, nor is it one which offers great
facilities to an imitator. The story is as alien from modern habits of
life as the manner in which it is developed from the modern fashion
of composition. The lover remains in the country and the heroine
in her chamber during the whole action, leaving their fate to be
decided by a foolish father, a cunning mother, and two knavish
servants. Machiavelli has executed his task with judgment and taste.
He has accommodated the plot to a different state of society, and has
very dexterously connected it with the history of his own times.
The relation of the trick put on the doting old lover is exquisitely
humorous. It is far superior to the corresponding passage in the
Latin comedy, and scarcely yields to the account which Falstaff gives
of his ducking.

Two other comedies, without titles, the one in prose, the other in
verse, appear among the works of Machiavelli. The former is very
short, lively enough, but of no great value. The latter we can scarcely
believe to be genuine. Neither its merits nor its defects remind us of
the reputed author. It was first printed in 1796, from a manuscript
discovered in the celebrated library of the Strozzi. Its genuineness,
if we have been rightly informed, is established solely by the com-
parison of hands. Our suspicions are strengthened by the circum-
stance, that the same manuscript contained a description of the
plague of 1527, which has also, in consequence, been added to the
works of Machiavelli. Of this last composition, the strongest external
evidence would scarcely induce us to believe him guilty. Nothing
was ever written more detestable in matter and manner. The narra-
tions, the reflections, the jokes, the lamentations, are all the very worst
of their respective kinds, at once trite and affected, threadbare tinsel

' Nothing can be more evident than that Paulus Jovius designates the "Mandragola"
under the name of the "Nicias." We should not have noticed what is so perfectly
obvious, were it not that this natural and palpable misnomer has led the sagacious
and industrious Bayle into a gross error. — ^M.

* A writer of the Greek "New Comedy," which followed that of Aristophanes.

MACHIAVELLI 387

from the Rag Fairs' and Monmouth-streets' of literature. A foolish
schoolboy might write such a piece, and, after he had written it,
think it much finer than the incomparable introduction of "The
Decameron." But that a shrewd statesman, whose earliest works are
characterized by manUness of thought and language, should, at near
sixty years of age, descend to such puerility, is utterly inconceiv-
able.

The little novel of "Belphegor" is pleasandy conceived, and pleas-
antly told. But the extravagance of the satire in some measure injures
its effect. Machiavelli was unhappily married; and his wish to
avenge his own cause, and that of his brethren in misfortune, carried
him beyond even the license of fiction. Jonson seems to have com-
bined some hints taken from this tale, with others from Boccaccio,
in the plot of "The Devil is an Ass," a play which, though not the
most highly finished of his compositions, is perhaps that which
exhibits the strongest proofs of genius.

The political correspondence of Machiavelli, first published in
1767, is unquestionably genuine, and highly valuable. The unhappy
circumstances in which his country was placed during the greater
part of his public life gave extraordinary encouragement to diplo-
matic talents. From the moment that Charles VIII descended from
the Alps the whole character of Italian politics was changed. The
governments of the Peninsula ceased to form an independent system.
Drawn from their old orbit by the attraction of the larger bodies
which now approach them, they became mere satellites of France
and Spain. All their disputes, internal and external, were decided
by foreign influence. The contests of opposite factions were carried
on, not as formerly in the Senate-house or in the market-place, but
in the ante-chambers of Louis and Ferdinand. Under these circum-
stances, the prosperity of the Italian States depended far more on
the ability of their foreign agents, than on the conduct of those who
were intrusted with the domestic administration. The ambassador
had to discharge functions far more delicate than transmitting orders
of knighthood, introducing tourists, or presenting his brethren with
the homage of his high consideration. He was an advocate to whose
management the dearest interests of his clients were intrusted, a spy
* Old-clothes markets in London.

388 MACAULAY

clothed with an inviolable character. Instead of consulting, by a
reserved manner and ambiguous style, the dignity of those whom he
represented, he was to plunge into all the intrigues of the court at
which he resided, to discover and flatter every weakness of the
prince, and of the favorite who governed the prince, and of the lackey
who governed the favorite. He was to compliment the mistress,
and bribe the confessor, to panegyrize or supplicate, to laugh or
weep, to accommodate himself to every caprice, to lull every suspi-
cion, to treasure every hint, to be everything, to observe everything, to
endure everything. High as the art of political intrigue had been
carried in Italy, these were times which required it all.

On these arduous errands Machiavelli was frequently employed.
He was sent to treat with the King of the Romans and with the
Duke of Valentinois. He was twice ambassador at the Court of
Rome, and thrice at that of France. In these missions, and in several
others of inferior importance, he acquitted himself with great dex-
terity. His despatches form one of the most amusing and instructive
collections extant. The narratives are clear and agreeably written,
the remarks on men and things clever and judicious. The conversa-
tions are reported in a spirited and characteristic manner. We find
ourselves introduced into the presence of the men who, during
twenty eventful years, swayed the destinies of Europe. Their wit
and their folly, their fretfulness and their merriment, are exposed to
us. We are admitted to overhear their chat, and to watch their
familiar gestures. It is interesting and curious to recognize, in cir-
cumstances which elude the notice of historians, the feeble violence
and shallow cunning of Louis XII; the bustling insignificance of
Maximilian, cursed with an impotent pruriency for renown, rash
yet timid, obstinate yet fickle, always in a hurry, yet always too late;
the fierce and haughty energy which gave dignity to the eccentricities
of Julius; the soft and graceful manners which masked the insatiable
ambition and the implacable hatred of Caesar Borgia.

We have mentioned Caesar Borgia. It is impossible not to pause
for a moment on the name of a man in whom the political morality
of Italy was so strongly personified, partially blended with the sterner
lineaments of the Spanish character. On two important occasions
Machiavelli was admitted to his society — once, at the moment when

MACHIAVELLI 389

Caesar's splendid villainy achieved its most signal triumph, when he
caught in one snare, and crushed at one blow, all his most formidable
rivals; and again when, exhausted by disease, and overwhelmed by
misfortunes which no human prudence could have averted, he was
the prisoner of the deadliest enemy of his house. These interviews
between the greatest speculative and the greatest practical statesmen
of the age are fully described in the "Correspondence," and form,
perhaps, the most interesting part of it. From some passages in "The
Prince," and perhaps also from some indistinct traditions, several
writers have supposed a connection between those remarkable men
much closer than ever existed. The envoy has even been accused of
prompting the crimes of the artful and merciless tyrant. But, from
the official documents, it is clear that their intercourse, though osten-
sibly amicable, was in reahty hostile. It cannot be doubted, however,
that the imagination of Machiavelli was strongly impressed, and his
speculations on government colored, by the observations which he
made on the singular character and equally singular fortunes of a
man who, under such disadvantages, had achieved such exploits;
who, when sensuality, varied through innumerable forms, could no
longer stimulate his sated mind, found a more powerful and durable
excitement in the intense thirst of empire and revenge; who emerged
from the sloth and luxury of the Roman purple the first prince and
general of the age; who, trained in an un warlike profession, formed
a gallant army out of the dregs of an un warlike people; who, after
acquiring sovereignty by destroying his enemies, acquired popularity
by destroying his tools; who had begun to employ for the most
salutary ends the power which he had attained by the most atrocious
means; who tolerated within the sphere of his iron despotism no
plunderer or oppressor but himself; and who fell at last amidst the
mingled curses and regrets of a people of whom his genius had been
the wonder, and might have been the salvation. Some of those
crimes of Borgia which to us appear the most odious, would not,
from causes which we have already considered, have struck an Italian
of the fifteenth century with equal horror. Patriotic feeling also
might induce Machiavelli to look with some indulgence and regret
on the memory of the only leader who could have defended the
independence of Italy against the confederate spoilers of Cambray.

390 MACAULAY

On this subject, Machiavelli felt most strongly. Indeed, the expul-
sion of the foreign tyrants, and the restoration of that golden age
which had preceded the irruption of Charles VIII, were projects
which, at that time, fascinated all the master-spirits of Italy. The
magnificent vision delighted the great but ill-regulated mind of
Julius. It divided with manuscripts and saucers, painters and falcons,
the attention of the frivolous Leo. It prompted the generous treason
of Morone. It imparted a transient energy to the feeble mind and
body of the last Sforza. It excited for one moment an honest ambition
in the false heart of Pescara. Ferocity and insolence were not among
the vices of the national character. To the discriminating cruelties of
politicians, committed for great ends on select victims, the moral code
of the Italians was too indulgent. But, though they might have re-
course to barbarity as an expedient, they did not require it as a stimu-
lant. They turned with loathing from the atrocity of the strangers
who seemed to love blood for its own sake; who, not content with
subjugating, were impatient to destroy; who found a fiendish pleas-
ure in razing magnificent cities, cutting the throats of enemies who
cried for quarter, or suffocating an unarmed population by thousands
In the caverns to which it had fled for safety. Such were the cruelties
which daily excited the terror and disgust of a people among whom,
till lately, the worst that a soldier had to fear in a pitched battle was
the loss of his horse and the expense of his ransom. The swinish
intemperance of Switzerland; the wolfish avarice of Spain; the gross
licentiousness of the French, indulged in violation of hospitality, of
decency, of love itself; the wanton inhumanity which was common
to all the invaders — had made them objects of deadly hatred to the
inhabitants of the Peninsula. The wealth which had been accumu-
lated during centuries of prosperity and repose was rapidly melting
away. The intellectual superiority of the oppressed people only
rendered them more keenly sensible of their political degradation.
Literature and taste, indeed, still disguised with a flush of hectic
loveliness and brilliancy the ravages of an incurable decay. The
iron had not yet entered into the soul. The time was not yet come
when eloquence was to be gagged, and reason to be hoodwinked,
when the harp of the poet was to be hung on the willows of Arno,
and the right hand of the painter to forget its cunning. Yet a dis-

MACHIAVELLI 39 1

cerning eye might even then have seen that genius and learning
would not long survive the state of things from which they had
sprung, and that the great men whose talents gave lustre to that
melancholy period had been formed under the influence of happier
days, and would leave no successors behind them. The times which
shine with the greatest splendor in literary history are not always
those to which the human mind is most indebted. Of this we may be
convinced, by comparing the generation which follows them with
that which had preceded them. The first-fruits which are reaped
under a bad system often spring from seed sown under a good one.
Thus it was, in some measure, with the Augustan age. Thus it
was with the age of Raphael and Ariosto, of Aldus and Vida.

Machiavelli deeply regretted the misfortunes of his country, and
clearly discerned the cause and the remedy. It was the military
system of the Italian people which had extinguished their valor and
discipline, and left their wealth an easy prey to every foreign plun-
derer. The secretary projected a scheme, alike honorable to his heart
and to his intellect, for abolishing the use of mercenary troops, and
for organizing a national militia.

The exertions which he made to effect this great object ought
alone to rescue his name from obloquy. Though his situation and his
habits were pacific, he studied with intense assiduity the theory of
war. He made himself master of all its details. The Florentine gov-
ernment entered into his views. A council of war was appointed.
Levies were decreed. The indefatigable minister flew from place
to place in order to superintend the execution of his design. The
times were, in some respects, favorable to the experiment. The
system of military tactics had undergone a great revolution. The
cavalry was no longer considered as forming the strength of an
army. The hours which a citizen could spare from his ordinary
employments, though by no means sufficient to familiarize him
with the exercise of a man-at-arms, might render him a useful foot-
soldier. The dread of a foreign yoke, of plunder, massacre, and con-
flagration, might have conquered that repugnance to military
pursuits which both the industry and the idleness of great towns
commonly generate. For a time the scheme promised well. The new
troops acquitted themselves respectably in the field. Machiavelli

392 MACAULAY

looked with parental rapture on the success of his plan, and began to
hope that the arms of Italy might once more be formidable to the
barbarians of the Tagus and the Rhine. But the tide of misfortune
came on before the barriers which should have withstood it were pre-
pared. For a time, indeed, Florence might be considered as peculiarly
fortunate. Famine and sword and pestilence had devastated the fertile
plains and stately cities of the Po. All the curses denounced of old
against Tyre seemed to have fallen on Venice. Her merchants already
stood afar off, lamenting for their great city. The time seemed near
when the sea-weed should overgrow her silent Rialto, and the fisher-
man wash his nets in her deserted arsenal. Naples had been four times
conquered and reconquered by tyrants equally indifferent to its
welfare, and equally greedy for its spoils. Florence, as yet, had only
to endure degradation and extortion, to submit to the mandates of
foreign powers, to buy over and over again, at an enormous price,
what was already justly her own, to return thanks for being wronged,
and to ask pardon for being in the right. She was at length deprived
of the blessings, even of this infamous and servile repose. Her
military and political institutions were swept away together. The
Medici returned, in the train of foreign invaders, from their long
exile. The policy of Machiavelli was abandoned; and his public
services were requited with poverty, imprisonment, and torture.

The fallen statesman still clung to his project with unabated ardor.
With the view of vindicating it from some popular objections, and of
refuting some prevailing errors on the subject of military science, he
wrote his "Seven Books on the Art of War." This excellent work
is in the form of a dialogue. The opinions of the writer are put
into the mouth of Fabrizio Colonna, a powerful nobleman of the
ecclesiastical State, and an officer of distinguished merit in the serv-
ice of the King of Spain. Colonna visits Florence on his way from
Lombardy to his own domains. He is invited to meet some friends
at the house of Cosimo Rucellai, an amiable and accomplished
young man, whose early death Machiavelli feelingly deplores. After
partaking of an elegant entertainment, they retire from the heat
into the most shady recesses of the garden. Fabrizio is struck by the
sight of some uncommon plants. Cosimo says, that, though rare in
modern days, they are frequently mentioned by the classical authors.

MACHIAVELLI 393

and that his grandfather, Hke many other ItaUans, amused himself
with practising the ancient methods of gardening. Fabrizio ex-
presses his regret that those who, in later times, affected the manners
of the old Romans, should select for imitation the most trifling pur-
suits. This leads to a conversation on the decline of military dis-
cipline, and on the best means of restoring it. The institution of the
Florentine militia is ably defended, and several improvements are
suggested in the details.

The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that time, regarded as the
best soldiers in Europe. The Swiss battalion consisted of pikemen,
and bore a close resemblance to the Greek phalanx. The Spaniards,
like the soldiers of Rome, were armed with the sword and the
shield. The victories of Flaminius and ^milius over the Macedonian
kings seem to prove the superiority of the weapons used by the
legions. The same experiment had been recently tried with the
same result at the battle of Ravenna, one of those tremendous days
into which human folly and wickedness compress the whole devas-
tation of a famine or a plague. In that memorable conflict, the in-
fantry of Aragon, the old companions of Gonsalvo, deserted by all
their allies, hewed a passage through the thickest of the imperial
pikes, and effected an unbroken retreat, in the face of the gendar-
merie of De Foix, and the renowned artillery of Este. Fabrizio, or
rather Machiavelli, proposes to combine the two systems, to arm the
foremost lines with the pike for the purpose of repulsing cavalry,
and those in the rear with the sword, as being a weapon better
adapted for every other purpose. Throughout the work, the author
expresses the highest admiration of the military science of the
ancient Romans, and the greatest contempt for the maxims which
had been in vogue amongst the Italian commanders of the preced-
ing generation. He prefers infantry to cavalry, and fortified camps to
fortified towns. He is inclined to substitute rapid movements and
decisive engagements for the languid and dilatory operations of his
countrymen. He attaches very little importance to the invention of
gunpowder. Indeed, he seems to think that it ought scarcely to
produce any change in the mode of arming or of disposing troops.
The general testimony of historians, it must be allowed, seems to
prove that the ill-constructed and ill-served artillery of those

394 MACAULAY

times, though useful in a siege, was of little value on the field of

battle.

On the tactics of Machiavelli we will not venture to give an
opinion, but we are certain that his book is most able and interest-
ing. As a commentary on the history of his times, it is invaluable.
The ingenuity, the grace, and the perspicuity of the style, and the
eloquence and animation of particular passages, must give pleasure,
even to readers who take no interest in the subject.

"The Prince" and the "Discourses on Livy" were written after the
fall of the republican government. The former was dedicated to
the young Lorenzo de' Medici. This circumstance seems to have
disgusted the contemporaries of the writer far more than the doc-
trines which have rendered the name of the work odious in latter
times. It was considered as an indication of poHtical apostasy. The
fact, however, seems to have been, that Machiavelli, despairing of
the liberty of Florence, was inclined to support any government
which might preserve her independence. The interval which sep-
arated a democracy and a despotism Soderini and Lorenzo, seemed
to vanish when compared with the difference between the former
and the present state of Italy, between the security, the opulence, and
the repose which she had enjoyed under its native rulers, and the
misery in which she had been plunged since the fatal year in which
the first foreign tyrant had descended from the Alps. The noble
and pathetic exhortation with which "The Prince" concludes shows
how strongly the writer felt upon this subject.

"The Prince" traces the progress of an ambitious man, the "Dis-
courses" the progress of an ambitious people. The same principles on
which, in the former work, the elevation of an individual is ex-
plained, are applied, in the latter, to the longer duration and more
complex interest of a society. To a modern statesman the form of
the "Discourses" may appear to be puerile. In truth, Livy is not a
historian on whom implicit reliance can be placed, even in cases
where he must have possessed considerable means of information.
And the first Decade, to which Machiavelli has confined himself, is
scarcely entitled to more credit than our Chronicle of British Kings
who reigned before the Roman invasion. But the commentator is
indebted to Livy for little more than a few texts which he might

MACHIAVELLI 395

as easily have extracted from the Vulgate or "The Decameron."
The whole train of thought is original.

On the peculiar immorality which has rendered "The Prince"
unpopular, and which is almost equally discernible in the "Dis-
courses" we have already given our opinion at length. We have
attempted to show that it belonged rather to the age than to the
man, that it was a partial taint, and by no means implied general
depravity. We cannot, however, deny that it is a great blemish, and
that it considerably diminishes the pleasure which, in other respects,
those works must afford to every intelligent mind.

It is, indeed, impossible to conceive a more healthful and vigorous
constitution of the understanding than that which these works indi-
cate. The qualities of the active and the contemplative statesman
appear to have been blended in the mind of the writer into a rare
and exquisite harmony. His skill in the details of business had not
been acquired at the expense of his general powers. It had not
rendered his mind less comprehensive; but it had served to correct
his speculations, and to impart to them that vivid and practical char-
acter which so widely distinguishes them from the vague theories of
most political philosophers.

Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so
useless as a general maxim. If it be very moral and very true, it may
serve for a copy to a charity boy. If, like those of Rochefoucauld, it
be sparkling and whimsical, it may make an excellent motto for an
essay. But few indeed of the many wise apophthegms which have
been uttered, from the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that of
"Poor Richard," have prevented a single foolish action. We give
the highest and the most peculiar praise to the precepts of Machia-
velli when we say that they may frequently be of real use in regu-
lating conduct, not so much because they are more just or more
profound than those which might be culled from other authors, as
because they can be more readily applied to the problems of real life.

There are errors in these works. But they are errors which a
writer, situated like Machiavelli, could scarcely avoid. They arise, for
the most part, from a single defect which appears to us to pervade
his whole system. In his political scheme, the means had been more
deeply considered than the ends. The great principle, that societies

396 MACAULAY

and laws exist only for the purpose of increasing the sum of private
happiness, is not recognized with sufficient clearness. The good of
the body, distinct from the good of the members, and sometimes
hardly compatible with the good of the members, seems to be the
object which he proposes to himself. Of all political fallacies, this
has perhaps had the widest and the most mischievous operation.
The state of society in the little commonwealths of Greece, the close
connection and mutual dependence of the citizens, and the severity
of the laws of war, tended to encourage an opinion which, under
such circumstances, could hardly be called erroneous. The interests
of every individual were inseparably bound up with those of the
State. An invasion destroyed his corn-fields and vineyards, drove
him from his home, and compelled him to encounter all the hard-
ships of a military life. A treaty of peace restored him to security and
comfort. A victory doubled the number of his slaves. A defeat
perhaps made him a slave himself. When Pericles, in the Pelopon-
nesian war, told the Athenians, that, if their country triumphed,
their private losses would speedily be repaired, but that, if their arms
failed of success, every individual amongst them would probably
be ruined, he spoke no more than the truth. He spoke to men
whom the tribute of vanquished cities supplied with food and cloth-
ing, with the luxury of the bath and the amusements of the theatre,
on whom the greatness of their country conferred rank, and before
whom the members of less prosperous communities trembled; to
men who, in case of a change in the public fortunes, would, at least,
be deprived of every comfort and every distinction which they en-
joyed. To be butchered on the smoking ruins of their city, to be
dragged in chains to a slave-market, to see one child torn from them
to dig in the quarries of Sicily, and another to guard the harems
of Persepolis, these were the frequent and probable consequences of
national calamities. Hence, among the Greeks, patriotism became a
governing principle, or rather an ungovernable passion. Their legis-
lators and their philosophers took it for granted, that, in providing
for the strength and greatness of the State, they sufficiently provided
for the happiness of the people. The writers of the Roman Empire
lived under despots, into whose dominion a hundred nations were
melted down, and whose gardens would have covered the little

MACHIAVELLI 397

commonwealths of Phlius and Plataea. Yet they continued to em-
ploy the same language, and to cant about the duty of sacrificing
everything to a country to which they owed nothing.

Causes similar to those which had influenced the disposition of
the Greeks operated powerfully on the less vigorous and daring
character of the Italians. The Italians, like the Greeks, were mem-
bers of small communities. Every man was deeply interested in the
welfare of the society to which he belonged, a partaker in its wealth
and its poverty, in its glory and its shame. In the age of Machiavelli
this was peculiarly the case. Public events had produced an immense
sum of misery to private citizens. The Northern invaders had
brought want to their boards, infamy to their beds, fire to their
roofs, and the knife to their throats. It was natural that a man who
lived in times like these should overrate the importance of those
measures by which a nation is rendered formidable to its neighbors,
and undervalue those which make it prosperous within itself.

Nothing is more remarkable in the political treatises of Machiavelli
than the fairness of mind which they indicate. It appears where the
author is in the wrong, almost as strongly as where he is in the
right. He never advances a false opinion because it is new or
splendid, because he can clothe it in a happy phrase, or defend it by
an ingenious sophism. His errors are at once explained by a refer-
ence to the circumstances in which he was placed. They evidently
were not sought out: they lay in his way, and could scarcely be
avoided. Such mistakes must necessarily be committed by early
speculators in every science.

The political works of Machiavelli derive a peculiar interest from
the mournful earnestness which he manifests whenever he touches
on topics connected with the calamities of his native land. It is
difficult to conceive any situation more painful that that of a great
man, condemned to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted
country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and rav-
ing which precede its dissolution, and to see the symptoms of vitality
disappear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and
corruption. To this joyless and thankless duty was Machiavelli
called. In the energetic language of the prophet, he was "mad for
the sight of his eyes which he saw" — disunion in the Council,

398 MACAULAY

efJeminacy in the camp, liberty extinguished, commerce decaying,
national honor sullied, an enlightened and flourishing people given
over to the ferocity of ignorant savages. Though his opinions had not
escaped the contagion of that political immorality which was com-
mon among his countrymen, his natural disposition seems to have
been rather stern and impetuous than phant and artful. When the
misery and degradation of Florence, and the foul outrage which he
had himself sustained, recur to his mind, the smooth craft of his
profession and his nation is exchanged for the honest bitterness of
scorn and anger. He speaks like one sick of the calamitous times
and abject people among whom his lot is cast. He pines for the
strength and glory of ancient Rome, for the fasces of Brutus and
the sword of Scipio, the gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody
pomp of the triumphal sacrifice. He seems to be transported back to
the days when 800,000 Italian warriors sprung to arms at the rumor
of a Gallic invasion. He breathes all the spirit of those intrepid and
haughty Senators who forgot the dearest ties of nature in the claims
of public duty, who looked with disdain on the elephants and on the
gold of Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered composure to the
tremendous tidings of Cannx. Like an ancient temple deformed by
the barbarous architecture of a later age, his character acquires an
interest from the very circumstances which debase it. The original
proportions are rendered more striking by the contrast which they
present to the mean and incongruous additions.

The influence of the sentiments which we have described was not
apparent in his writings alone. His enthusiasm, barred from the
career which it would have selected for itself, seems to have found a
vent in desperate levity. He enjoyed a vindictive pleasure in out-
raging the opinions of a society which he despised. He became care-
less of the decencies which were expected from a man so highly
distinguished in the literary and political world. The sarcastic
bitterness of his conversation disgusted those who were more in-
clined to accuse his licentiousness than their own degeneracy, and
who were unable to conceive the strength of those emotions which
are concealed by the jests of the wretched, and by the follies of the
wise.

The historical works of Machiavelli still remain to be considered.

MACHIAVELLI 399

The life of Castruccio Castracani will occupy us for a very short
time, and would scarcely have demanded our notice had it not
attracted a much greater share of public attention than it deserves.
Few books, indeed, could be more interesting than a careful and
judicious account, from such a pen, of the illustrious Prince of
Lucca, the most eminent of those Italian chiefs, who, like Pisistratus
and Gelon, acquired a power felt rather than seen, and resting, not on
law or on prescription, but on the public favor and on their great
personal qualities. Such a work would exhibit to us the real nature
of that species of sovereignty, so singular and so often misunder-
stood, which the Greeks denominated tyranny, and which, modified
in some degree by the feudal system, reappeared in the common-
wealths of Lombardy and Tuscany. But this httle composition of
Machiavelli is in no sense a history. It has no pretensions to fidelity.
It is a trifle, and not a very successful trifle. It is scarcely more
authentic than the novel of "Belphegor," and is very much duller.

The last great work of this illustrious man was the history of his
native city. It was written by command of the Pope, who, as chief
of the house of Medici, was at that time sovereign of Florence. The
characters of Cosimo, of Piero, and of Lorenzo, are, however, treated
with a freedom and impartiality equally honorable to the writer and
to the patron. The miseries and humiliations of dependence, the
bread which is more bitter than every other food, the stairs which
are more painful than every other ascent, had not broken the spirit
of Machiavelli. The most corrupting post in a corrupting profession
had not depraved the generous heart of Clement.

The history does not appear to be the fruit of much industry or
research. It is unquestionably inaccurate. But it is elegant, lively,
and picturesque, beyond any other in the Italian language. The
reader, we believe, carries away from it a more vivid and a more
faithful impression of the national character and manners than from
more correct accounts. The truth is, that the book belongs rather to
ancient than to modern literature. It is in the style, not of Davila
and Clarendon, but of Herodotus and Tacitus. The classical histories
may almost be called romances founded in fact. The relation is, no
doubt, in all its principal points, strictly true. But the numerous
little incidents which heighten the interest, the words, the gestures.

400 MACAULAY

the looks, are evidently furnished by the imagination of the author.
The fashion of later times is different. A more exact narrative is
given by the writer.

It may be doubted whether more exact notions are conveyed to
the reader. The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a
slight mixture of caricature, and we are not certain that the best
histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious
narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy, but
much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected, but the
great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

The history terminates with the death of Lorenzo de' Medici.
Machiavelli had, it seems, intended to continue his narrative to a
later period. But his death prevented the execution of his design,
and the melancholy task of recording the desolation and shame of
Italy devolved on Guicciardini.

Machiavelli lived long enough to see the commencement of the
last struggle for Florentine liberty. Soon after his death monarchy
was finally established, not such a monarchy as that of which Cosimo
had laid the foundations deep in the institutions and feelings of his
countrymen, and which Lorenzo had embellished with the trophies
of every science and every art, but a loathsome tyranny, proud and
mean, cruel and feeble, bigoted and lascivious. The character of
Machiavelli was hateful to the new masters of Italy, and those parts
of his theory which were in strict accordance with their own daily
practice afforded a pretext for blackening his memory. His works
were misrepresented by the learned, misconstrued by the ignorant,
censured by the Church, abused with all the rancor of simulated vir-
tue by the tools of a base government and the priests of a baser super-
stition. The name of the man whose genius had illuminated all the
dark places of policy, and to whose patriotic wisdom an oppressed
people had owed their last chance of emancipation and revenge,
passed into a proverb of infamy. For more than two hundred years
his bones lay undistinguished. At length an English nobleman paid
the last honors to the greatest statesman of Florence. In the Church
of Santa Croce a monument was erected to his memory, which is con-
templated with reverence by all who can distinguish the virtues of a
great mind through the corruptions of a degenerate age, and which

MACHIAVELLI 4OI

will be approached with still deeper homage when the object to

which his public life was devoted shall be attained, when the foreign

yoke shall be broken, when a second Procida shall avenge the

wrongs of Naples, when a happier Rienzi shall restore the; good

estate of Rome, when the streets of Florence and Bologna shall

again resound with their ancient war-cry, "Popolo; popolo; muoiano

i tirannil"^"

'""The people! the people! Death to the tyrants!" — Machiavelli's "History of
Florence," Book III.