The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction
• The Autobiography
• Literary Essays
• Appendices
• Textual Principles and Methods
• Acknowledgments
• Autobiography and Literary Essays
• Autobiography Parallel Reading Texts of the Early Draft and the Columbia Ms
• Editors’ Note
• [early Draft]
• [yale Fragment]
• Chapter I: Childhood, and Early Education
• Chapter II: Moral Influences In Early Youth. My Father’s Character and Opinions
• Chapter III: Last Stage of Education, and First of Self-education
• Chapter IV: Youthful Propagandism. the Westminster Review
• Chapter V: A Crisis In My Mental History. One Stage Onward
• Chapter VI: Commencement of the Most Valuable Friendship of My Life. My Father’s Death. Writings and Other Proceedings Up to 1840
• Chapter VII: General View of the Remainder of My Life
• Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review 1824
• Editors’ Note
• Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review
• On Genius 1832
• Editors’ Note
• On Genius
• Thoughts On Poetry and Its Varieties 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Thoughts On Poetry and Its Varieties
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [i] 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [i]
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [ii] 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [ii]
• Views of the Pyrenees 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Views of the Pyrenees
• Tennyson’s Poems 1835
• Editors’ Note
• Tennyson’s Poems
• Aphorisms: Thoughts In the Cloister and the Crowd 1837
• Editors’ Note
• Aphorisms: Thoughts In the Cloister and the Crowd
• Ware’s Letters From Palmyra 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Ware’s Letters From Palmyra
• Writings of Alfred De Vigny 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Alfred De Vigny
• Milnes’s Poems 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Milnes’s Poems
• Milnes’s Poetry For the People 1840
• Editors’ Note
• Milnes’s Poetry For the People
• Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome 1843
• Editors’ Note
• Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome
• Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, On James Mill 1844
• Editors’ Note
• Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, On James Mill[*]
• Appendices
• Appendix A: Juvenilia
• The History of Rome By John Stuart Mill Aged 6½ Yrs
• Appendix B: Mill’s Early Reading, 1809-22
• Appendix C: Mill’s Early Writing, 1811?-22
• Appendix D: A Few Observations On Mr. Mill (1833)
• Appendix E: Browning’s Pauline (1833)
• Appendix F: Editorial Notes In the London and Westminster Review
• Appendix H: Helen Taylor’s Continuation of the Autobiography
• Appendix I: Bibliographic Index of Persons and Works Cited, With Variants and Notes

CHAPTER VII

General View of the Remainder of My Life

from this time, what is worth relating of my life will come into a very small compass; for I have no further mental changes to tell of, but only, as I hope, a continued mental progress; which does not admit of a consecutive history, and the results of which, if real, will be best found in my writings. I shall therefore greatly abridge the chronicle of my subsequent years.

The first use I made of the leisure which I gained by disconnecting myself from the Review, was to finish the Logic. In July and August 1838 I had found an interval in which to execute what was still undone of the original draft of the Third Book. In working out the logical theory of those laws of nature which are not laws of Causation, nor corollaries from such laws, I was led to recognize Kinds as realities in nature, and not mere distinctions for convenience; a light which I had not obtained when the First Book was written, and which made it necessary for me to modify and enlarge several chapters of that Book. The Book on Language and Classification, and the chapter on the Classification of Fallacies, were drafted in the autumn of the same year; the remainder of the work in the summer and autumn of 1840. From April following to the end of 1841, my spare time was devoted to a complete rewriting of the book from its commencement. It is in this way that all my books have been composed. They were always written at least twice over; a first draft of the entire work was completed to the very end of the subject, then the whole begun again de novo; but incorporating, in the second writing, all sentences and parts of sentences of the old draft, which appeared as suitable to my purpose as anything which I could write in lieu of them. I have found great advantages in this system of double redaction. It combines, better than any other mode of composition, the freshness and vigour of the first conception, with the superior precision and completeness resulting from prolonged thought. In my own case, moreover, I have found that the patience necessary for a careful elaboration of the details of exposition and expression, costs much less effort after the entire subject has been once gone through, and the substance of all that I find to say has in some manner, however imperfect, been got upon paper. The only thing which I am careful, in the first draft, to make as perfect as I am able, is the arrangement. If that is bad, the whole thread on which the ideas string themselves becomes twisted; thoughts placed in a wrong connexion are not expounded in a manner that suits the right, and a first draft with this original vice is next to useless as a foundation for the final treatment.

During the rewriting of the Logic, Dr. Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences made its appearance;^[*] a circumstance fortunate for me, as it gave me what I greatly desired, a full treatment of the subject by an antagonist, and enabled me to present my ideas with greater clearness and emphasis as well as fuller and more varied development, in defending them against definite objections, and confronting them distinctly with an opposite theory. The controversies with Dr. Whewell, as well as much matter derived from Comte, were first introduced into the book in the course of the rewriting.

At the end of 1841, the book being ready for press, I offered it to Murray, who kept it until too late for publication that season, and then refused it, for reasons which could just as well have been given at first. But I have had no cause to regret a rejection which led to my offering it to Mr. Parker, by whom it was published in the spring of 1843. My original expectations of success were extremely limited. Archbishop Whately had indeed rehabilitated the name of Logic, and the study of the forms, rules, and fallacies of Ratiocination; and Dr. Whewell’s writings had begun to excite an interest in the other part of my subject, the theory of Induction. A treatise, however, on a matter so abstract, could not be expected to be popular; it could only be a book for students, and students on such subjects were not only (at least in England) few, but addicted chiefly to the opposite school of metaphysics, the ontological and “innate principles” school. I therefore did not expect that the book would have many readers, or approvers; and looked for little practical effect from it, save that of keeping the tradition unbroken of what I thought a better philosophy. What hopes I had of exciting any immediate attention, were mainly grounded on the polemical propensities of Dr. Whewell; who, I thought, from observation of his conduct in other cases, would probably do something to bring the book into notice, by replying, and that promptly, to the attack on his opinions. He did reply, but not till 1850,^[†] just in time for me to answer him in the third edition.^[‡] How the book came to have, for a work of the kind, so much success, and what sort of persons compose the bulk of those who have bought, I will not venture to say read, it, I have never thoroughly understood. But taken in conjunction with the many proofs which have since been given of a revival of speculation, speculation too of a free kind, in many quarters, and above all (where at one time I should have least expected it) in the Universities, the fact becomes partially intelligible. I have never indulged the illusion that the book had made any considerable impression on philosophical opinion. The German, or à priori view of human knowledge, and of the knowing faculties, is likely for some time longer (though it may be hoped in a diminishing degree) to predominate among those who occupy themselves with such enquiries, both here and on the Continent. But the System of Logic supplies what was much wanted, a text-book of the opposite doctrine—that which derives all knowledge from experience, and all moral and intellectual qualities principally from the direction given to the associations. I make as humble an estimate as anybody of what either an analysis of logical processes, or any possible canons of evidence, can do by themselves, towards guiding or rectifying the operations of the understanding. Combined with other requisites, I certainly do think them of great use; but whatever may be the practical value of a true philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external to the mind may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation and experience, is, I am persuaded, in these times, the great intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an instrument devised for consecrating all deep seated prejudices. And the chief strength of this false philosophy in morals, politics, and religion, lies in the appeal which it is accustomed to make to the evidence of mathematics and of the cognate branches of physical science. To expel it from these, is to drive it from its stronghold: and because this had never been effectually done, the intuitive school, even after what my father had written in his Analysis of the Mind, had in appearance, and as far as published writings were concerned, on the whole the best of the argument. In attempting to clear up the real nature of the evidence of mathematical and physical truths, the System of Logic met the intuition philosophers on ground on which they had previously been deemed unassailable; and gave its own explanation, from experience and association, of that peculiar character of what are called necessary truths, which is adduced as proof that their evidence must come from a deeper source than experience. Whether this has been done effectually, is still sub judice; and even then, to deprive a mode of thought so strongly rooted in human prejudices and partialities, of its mere speculative support, goes but a very little way towards overcoming it; but though only a step, it is a quite indispensable one; for since, after all, prejudice can only be successfully combated by philosophy, no way can really be made against it permanently until it has been shewn not to have philosophy on its side.

Being now released from any active concern in temporary politics, and from any literary occupation involving personal communication with contributors and others, I was enabled to indulge the inclination, natural to thinking persons when the age of boyish vanity is once past, for limiting my own society to a very few persons. General society, as now carried on in England, is so insipid an affair, even to the persons who make it what it is, that it is kept up for any reason rather than the pleasure it affords. All serious discussion on matters on which opinions differ, being considered ill bred, and the national deficiency in liveliness and sociability having prevented the cultivation of the art of talking agreeably on trifles, in which the French of the last century so much excelled, the sole attraction of what is called society to those who are not at the top of the tree, is the hope of being aided to climb a little higher in it; while to those who are already at the top, it is chiefly a compliance with custom, and with the supposed requirements of their station. To a person of any but a very common order in thought or feeling, such society, unless he has personal objects to serve by it, must be supremely unattractive: and most people, in the present day, of any really high class of intellect, make their contact with it so slight, and at such long intervals, as to be almost considered as retiring from it altogether. Those persons of any mental superiority who do otherwise, are, almost without exception, greatly deteriorated by it. Not to mention loss of time, the tone of their feelings is lowered: they become less in earnest about those of their opinions respecting which they must remain silent in the society they frequent: they come to look upon their most elevated objects as unpractical, or, at least, too remote from realization to be more than a vision, or a theory; and if, more fortunate than most, they retain their higher principles unimpaired, yet with respect to the persons and affairs of their own day they insensibly adopt the modes of feeling and judgment in which they can hope for sympathy from the company they keep. A person of high intellect should never go into unintellectual society unless he can enter it as an apostle; yet he is the only person with high objects, who can safely enter it at all. Persons even of intellectual aspirations had much better, if they can, make their habitual associates of at least their equals, and as far as possible, their superiors, in knowledge, intellect, and elevation of sentiment. Moreover, if the character is formed, and the mind made up, on the few cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on these, has been felt in all times to be an essential requisite of anything worthy the name of friendship, in a really earnest mind. All these circumstances united, made the number very small of those whose society, and still more whose intimacy, I now voluntarily sought.

Among these, by far the principal was the incomparable friend of whom I have already spoken. At this period she lived mostly, with one young daughter, in a quiet part of the country, and only occasionally in town, with her first husband, Mr. Taylor. I visited her equally in both places; and was greatly indebted to the strength of character which enabled her to disregard the false interpretations liable to be put on the frequency of my visits to her while living generally apart from Mr. Taylor, and on our occasionally travelling together, though in all other respects our conduct during those years gave not the slightest ground for any other supposition than the true one, that our relation to each other at that time was one of strong affection and confidential intimacy only. For though we did not consider the ordinances of society binding on a subject so entirely personal, we did feel bound that our conduct should be such as in no degree to bring discredit on her husband, nor therefore on herself.

In this third period (as it may be termed) of my mental progress, which now went hand in hand with hers, my opinions gained equally in breadth and depth. I understood more things, and those which I had understood before, I now understood more thoroughly. I had now completely turned back from what there had been of excess in my reaction against Benthamism. I had, at the height of that reaction, certainly become much more indulgent to the common opinions of society and the world, and more willing to be content with seconding the superficial improvement which had begun to take place in those common opinions, than became one whose convictions, on so many points, differed fundamentally from them. I was much more inclined, than I can now approve, to put in abeyance the more decidedly heretical part of my opinions, which I now look upon as almost the only ones, the assertion of which tends in any way to regenerate society. But in addition to this, our opinions were now far more heretical than mine had been in the days of my most extreme Benthamism. In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the injustice—for injustice it is whether admitting of a complete remedy or not—involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical; and only hoped that by universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert, on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality, not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity as only self interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it; modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent in modern life, than in the smaller commonwealths of antiquity. These considerations did not make us overlook the folly of premature attempts to dispense with the inducements of private interest in social affairs, while no substitute for them has been or can be provided: but we regarded all existing institutions and social arrangements as being (in a phrase I once heard from Austin) “merely provisional,” and we welcomed with the greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by select individuals (such as the Cooperative Societies), which, whether they succeeded or failed, could not but operate as a most useful education of those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general good, or making them aware of the defects which render them and others incapable of doing so.

In the Principles of Political Economy, these opinions were promulgated, less clearly and fully in the first edition, rather more so in the second, and quite unequivocally in the third.^[*] The difference arose partly from the change of times, the first edition having been written and sent to press before the French Revolution of 1848, after which the public mind became more open to the reception of novelties in opinion, and doctrines appeared moderate which would have been thought very startling a short time before. In the first edition the difficulties of Socialism were stated so strongly, that the tone was on the whole that of opposition to it. In the year or two which followed, much time was given to the study of the best Socialistic writers on the Continent, and to meditation and discussion on the whole range of topics involved in the controversy: and the result was that most of what had been written on the subject in the first edition was cancelled, and replaced by arguments and reflexions which represent a more advanced opinion.

The Political Economy was far more rapidly executed than the Logic, or indeed than anything of importance which I had previously written. It was commenced in the autumn of 1845, and was ready for the press before the end of 1847. In this period of little more than two years there was an interval of six months during which the work was laid aside, while I was writing articles in the Morning Chronicle (which unexpectedly entered warmly into my purpose) urging the formation of peasant properties on the waste lands of Ireland.^[*] This was during the period of the famine, the winter of 1846/47, when the stern necessities of the time seemed to afford a chance of gaining attention for what appeared to me the only mode of combining relief to immediate destitution with permanent improvement of the social and economical condition of the Irish people. But the idea was new and strange; there was no English precedent for such a proceeding: and the profound ignorance of English politicians and the English public concerning all social phenomena not generally met with in England (however common elsewhere) made my endeavours an entire failure. Instead of a great operation on the waste lands, and the conversion of cottiers into proprietors, Parliament passed a Poor Law^[†] for maintaining them as paupers: and if the nation has not since found itself in inextricable difficulties from the joint operation of the old evils and the quack remedy, it is indebted for its deliverance to that most unexpected and surprising fact, the depopulation of Ireland, commenced by famine, and continued by emigration.

The rapid success of the Political Economy shewed that the public wanted, and were prepared for such a book. Published early in 1848, an edition of a thousand copies was sold in less than a year. Another similar edition was published in the spring of 1849; and a third, of 1250 copies, early in 1852. It was, from the first, continually cited and referred to as an authority, because it was not a book merely of abstract science, but also of application, and treated Political Economy not as a thing by itself, but as a fragment of a greater whole; a branch of Social Philosophy, so interlinked with all the other branches, that its conclusions, even in its own peculiar province, are only true conditionally, subject to interference and counteraction from causes not directly within its scope: while to the character of a practical guide it has no pretension, apart from other classes of considerations. Political Economy, in truth, has never pretended to give advice to mankind with no lights but its own; though people who knew nothing but political economy (and therefore knew that ill) have taken upon themselves to advise, and could only do so by such lights as they had. But the numerous sentimental enemies of political economy, and its still more numerous interested enemies in sentimental guise, have been very successful in gaining belief for this among other unmerited imputations against it. And the Principles having, in spite of the freedom of many of its opinions, become for the present the most popular treatise on the subject, has helped to disarm the enemies of so important a study. The amount of its worth as an exposition of the science, and the value of the different applications which it suggests, others of course must judge.

For a considerable time after this, I published no work of magnitude; though I still occasionally wrote in periodicals, and my correspondence (much of it with persons quite unknown to me) on subjects of public interest, swelled to a considerable bulk. During these years I wrote or commenced various Essays,^[*] for eventual publication, on some of the fundamental questions of human and social life, with regard to several of which I have already much exceeded the severity of the Horatian precept.^[†] I continued to watch with keen interest the progress of public events. But it was not, on the whole, very encouraging to me. The European reaction after 1848, and the success of an unprincipled usurper in December 1851,^[‡] put an end, as it seemed, to all present hope for freedom or social improvement in France and the Continent. In England, I had seen and continued to see many of the opinions of my youth obtain general recognition, and many of the reforms in institutions, for which I had through life contended, either effected or in course of being so. But these changes had been attended with much less benefit to human well being than I should formerly have anticipated, because they had produced very little improvement in that which all real amelioration in the lot of mankind depends on, their intellectual and moral state: and it might even be questioned if the various causes of deterioration which had been at work in the meanwhile, had not more than counterbalanced the tendencies to improvement. I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are the result. The English public, for example, are quite as raw and undiscerning on subjects of political economy since the nation has been converted to free trade, as they were before; and are still further from having acquired better habits of thought and feeling, or being in any way better fortified against error, on subjects of a more elevated character. For, though they have thrown off certain errors, the general discipline of their minds, intellectually and morally, is not altered. I am now convinced, that no great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. The old opinions in religion, morals, and politics, are so much discredited in the more intellectual minds as to have lost the greater part of their efficacy for good, while they have still life enough in them to be a powerful obstacle to the growing up of any better opinions on those subjects. When the philosophic minds of the world can no longer believe its religion, or can only believe it with modifications amounting to an essential change of its character, a transitional period commences, of weak convictions, paralysed intellects, and growing laxity of principle, which cannot terminate until a renovation has been effected in the basis of their belief, leading to the evolution of some faith, whether religious or merely human, which they can really believe: and when things are in this state, all thinking or writing which does not tend to promote such a renovation, is of very little value beyond the moment. Since there was little in the apparent condition of the public mind, indicative of any tendency in this direction, my view of the immediate prospects of human improvement was not sanguine. More recently a spirit of free speculation has sprung up, giving a more encouraging prospect of the gradual mental emancipation of England; and, concurring with the renewal, under better auspices, of the movement for political freedom in the rest of Europe, has given to the present condition of human affairs a more hopeful aspect.

Between the time of which I have now spoken, and the present, took place the most important events of my private life. The first of these was my marriage, in April 1851, to the lady whose incomparable worth had made her friendship the greatest source to me both of happiness and of improvement, during many years in which we never expected to be in any closer relation to one another. Ardently as I should have aspired to this complete union of our lives at any time in the course of my existence at which it had been practicable, I, as much as my wife, would far rather have foregone that privilege for ever, than have owed it to the premature death of one for whom I had the sincerest respect, and she the strongest affection. That event however having taken place in July 1849, it was granted to me to derive from that evil my own greatest good, by adding to the partnership of thought, feeling, and writing which had long existed, a partnership of our entire existence. For seven and a half years that blessing was mine; for seven and a half only! I can say nothing which could describe, even in the faintest manner, what that loss was and is. But because I know that she would have wished it, I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left, and to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be derived from thoughts of her, and communion with her memory.

During the years which intervened between the commencement of my married life and the catastrophe which closed it, the principal occurrences of my outward existence (unless I count as such a first attack of the family disease, and a consequent journey of more than six months for the recovery of health, in Italy, Sicily, and Greece) had reference to my position in the India House. In 1856 I was promoted to the rank of chief of the office in which I had served for upwards of thirty-three years. The appointment, that of Examiner of India Correspondence, was the highest, next to that of Secretary, in the East India Company’s home service, involving the general superintendance of all the correspondence with the Indian Governments, except the military, naval, and financial. I held this office as long as it continued to exist, being a little more than two years; after which it pleased Parliament, in other words Lord Palmerston, to put an end to the East India Company as a branch of the government of India under the Crown, and convert the administration of that country into a thing to be scrambled for by the second and third class of English parliamentary politicians. I was the chief manager of the resistance which the Company made to their own political extinction. To the letters and petitions I wrote for them,^[*] and the concluding chapter of my treatise on Representative Government,^[†] I must refer for my opinions on the folly and mischief of this ill-considered change. Personally I considered myself a gainer by it, as I had given enough of my life to India, and was not unwilling to retire on the liberal compensation granted. After the change was consummated, Lord Stanley, the first Secretary of State for India, made me the honorable offer of a seat in the Council, and the proposal was subsequently renewed by the Council itself, on the first occasion of its having to supply a vacancy in its own body. But the conditions of Indian government under the new system made me anticipate nothing but useless vexation and waste of effort from any participation in it: and nothing that has since happened has had any tendency to make me regret my refusal.

During the two years which immediately preceded the cessation of my official life, my wife and I were working together at the Liberty.^[‡] I had first planned and written it as a short essay, in 1854. It was in mounting the steps of the Capitol, in January 1855, that the thought first arose of converting it into a volume. None of my writings have been either so carefully composed, or so sedulously corrected as this. After it had been written as usual twice over, we kept it by us, bringing it out from time to time and going through it de novo, reading, weighing and criticizing every sentence. Its final revision was to have been a work of the winter of 1858/59, the first after my retirement, which we had arranged to pass in the South of Europe. That hope and every other were frustrated by the most unexpected and bitter calamity of her death—at Avignon, on our way to Montpellier, from a sudden attack of pulmonary congestion.

Since then, I have sought for such alleviation as my state admitted of, by the mode of life which most enabled me to feel her still near me. I bought a cottage as close as possible to the place where she is buried, and there her daughter (my fellow-sufferer and now my chief comfort) and I, live constantly during a great portion of the year. My objects in life are solely those which were hers; my pursuits and occupations those in which she shared, or sympathized, and which are indissolubly associated with her. Her memory is to me a religion, and her approbation the standard by which, summing up as it does all worthiness, I endeavour to regulate my life.

In resuming my pen some years after closing the preceding narrative, I am influenced by a desire not to leave incomplete the record, for the sake of which chiefly this biographical sketch was undertaken, of the obligations I owe to those who have either contributed essentially to my own mental development or had a direct share in my writings and in whatever else of a public nature I have done. In the preceding pages, this record, so far as it relates to my wife, is not so detailed and precise as it ought to be; and since I lost her, I have had other help, not less deserving and requiring acknowledgment.

When two persons have their thoughts and speculations completely in common; when all subjects of intellectual or moral interest are discussed between them in daily life, and probed to much greater depths than are usually or conveniently sounded in writings intended for general readers; when they set out from the same principles and arrive at their conclusions by processes pursued jointly, it is of little consequence in respect to the question of originality which of them holds the pen; the one who contributes least to the composition may contribute most to the thought; the writings which result are the joint product of both, and it must often be impossible to disentangle their respective parts and affirm that this belongs to one and that to the other. In this wide sense, not only during the years of our married life, but during many of the years of confidential friendship which preceded, all my published writings were as much her work as mine; her share in them constantly increasing as years advanced. But in certain cases, what belongs to her can be distinguished, and specially identified. Over and above the general influence which her mind had over mine, the most valuable ideas and features in these joint productions—those which have been most fruitful of important results, and have contributed most to the success and reputation of the works themselves—originated with her; were emanations from her mind, my part in them being no greater than in any of the thoughts which I found in previous writers, and made my own only by incorporating them with my own system of thought. During the greater part of my literary life I have performed the office in relation to her, which from a rather early period I had considered as the most useful part that I was qualified to take in the domain of thought, that of an interpreter of original thinkers, and mediator between them and the public; for I had always a humble opinion of my own powers as an original thinker, except in abstract science (logic, metaphysics, and the theoretic principles of political economy and politics), but thought myself much superior to most of my contemporaries in willingness and ability to learn from everybody; as I found hardly any one who made such a point of examining what was said in defence of all opinions, however new or however old, in the conviction that even if they were errors there might be a substratum of truth underneath them, and that in any case the discovery of what it was that made them plausible, would be a benefit to truth. I had, in consequence, marked out this as a sphere of usefulness in which I was under a special obligation to make myself active: the more so, as the acquaintance I had formed with the ideas of the Coleridgians, of the German thinkers, and of Carlyle, all of them fiercely opposed to the mode of thought in which I had been brought up, had convinced me that along with much error they possessed much truth, which was veiled from minds otherwise capable of receiving it by the transcendental and mystical phraseology in which they were accustomed to shut it up and from which they neither cared, nor knew how, to disengage it; and I did not despair of separating the truth from the error and expressing it in terms which would be intelligible and not repulsive to those on my own side in philosophy. Thus prepared, it will easily be believed that when I came into close intellectual communion with a person of the most eminent faculties, whose genius, as it grew and unfolded itself in thought, continually struck out truths far in advance of me, but in which I could not, as I had done in those others, detect any mixture of error, the greatest part of my mental growth consisted in the assimilation of those truths, and the most valuable part of my intellectual work was in building the bridges and clearing the paths which connected them with my general system of thought.^*

The first of my books in which her share was conspicuous was the Principles of Political Economy. The System of Logic owed little to her except in the minuter matters of composition, in which respect my writings, both great and small, have largely benefitted by her accurate and clear-sighted criticism.^* The chapter of the Political Economy which has had a greater influence on opinion than all the rest, that on “the Probable Future of the Labouring Classes,”^[*] is entirely due to her: in the first draft of the book, that chapter did not exist. She pointed out the need of such a chapter, and the extreme imperfection of the book without it: she was the cause of my writing it; and the more general part of the chapter, the statement and discussion of the two opposite theories respecting the proper condition of the labouring classes, was wholly an exposition of her thoughts, often in words taken from her own lips. The purely scientific part of the Political Economy I did not learn from her; but it was chiefly her influence that gave to the book that general tone by which it is distinguished from all previous expositions of Political Economy that had any pretension to being scientific, and which has made it so useful in conciliating minds which those previous expositions had repelled. This tone consisted chiefly in making the proper distinction between the laws of the Production of Wealth, which are real laws of nature, dependent on the properties of objects, and the modes of its Distribution, which, subject to certain conditions, depend on human will. The common run of political economists confuse these together, under the designation of economic laws, which they deem incapable of being defeated or modified by human effort; ascribing the same necessity to things dependent on the unchangeable conditions of our earthly existence, and to those which, being but the necessary consequences of particular social arrangements, are merely coextensive with these. Given certain institutions and customs, wages, profits, and rent will be determined by certain causes; but this class of political economists drop the indispensable presupposition, and argue that these causes must by an inherent necessity, against which no human means can avail, determine the shares which fall, in the division of the produce, to labourers, capitalists, and landlords. The Principles of Political Economy yielded to none of its predecessors in aiming at the scientific appreciation of the action of these causes, under the conditions which they presuppose; but it set the example of not treating those conditions as final. The economic generalisations which depend, not on necessities of nature but on those combined with the existing arrangements of society, it deals with only as provisional, and as liable to be much altered by the progress of social improvement. I had indeed partially learnt this view of things from the thoughts awakened in me by the speculations of the Saint-Simonians; but it was made a living principle pervading and animating the book by my wife’s promptings. This example illustrates well the general character of what she contributed to my writings. What was abstract and purely scientific was generally mine; the properly human element came from her: in all that concerned the application of philosophy to the exigencies of human society and progress, I was her pupil, alike in boldness of speculation and cautiousness of practical judgment. For, on the one hand, she was much more courageous and farsighted than without her I should have been, in anticipations of an order of things to come, in which many of the limited generalizations now so often confounded with universal principles will cease to be applicable. Those parts of my writings and especially of the Political Economy which contemplate possibilities in the future such as, when affirmed by Socialists, have in general been fiercely denied by political economists, would, but for her, either have been absent, or the suggestions would have been made much more timidly and in a more qualified form. But while she thus rendered me bolder in speculation on human affairs, her practical turn of mind, and her almost unerring estimate of practical obstacles, repressed in me all tendencies that were really visionary. Her mind invested all ideas in a concrete shape, and formed to itself a conception of how they would actually work: and her knowledge of the existing feelings and conduct of mankind was so seldom at fault, that the weak point in any unworkable suggestion seldom escaped her.^*

The Liberty was more directly and literally our joint production than anything else which bears my name, for there was not a sentence of it that was not several times gone through by us together, turned over in many ways, and carefully weeded of any faults, either in thought or expression, that we detected in it. It is in consequence of this that, although it never underwent her final revision, it far surpasses, as a mere specimen of composition, anything which has proceeded from me either before or since. With regard to the thoughts, it is difficult to identify any particular part or element as being more hers than all the rest. The whole mode of thinking of which the book was the expression, was emphatically hers. But I also was so thoroughly imbued with it that the same thoughts naturally occurred to us both. That I was thus penetrated with it, however, I owe in a great degree to her. There was a moment in my mental progress when I might easily have fallen into a tendency towards over-government, both social and political; as there was also a moment when, by reaction from a contrary excess, I might have become a less thorough radical and democrat than I am. In both these points as in many others, she benefitted me as much by keeping me right where I was right, as by leading me to new truths and ridding me of errors. My great readiness and eagerness to learn from everybody, and to make room in my opinions for every new acquisition by adjusting the old and the new to one another, might, but for her steadying influence, have seduced me into modifying my early opinions too much. She was in nothing more valuable to my mental development than by her just measure of the relative importance of different considerations, which often protected me from allowing to truths I had only recently learnt to see, a more important place in my thoughts than was properly their due.

The Liberty is likely to survive longer than anything else that I have written (with the possible exception of the Logic), because the conjunction of her mind with mine has rendered it a kind of philosophic text-book of a single truth, which the changes progressively taking place in modern society tend to bring out into ever stronger relief: the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions. Nothing can better shew how deep are the foundations of this truth, than the great impression made by the exposition of it at a time which, to superficial observation, did not seem to stand much in need of such a lesson. The fears we expressed lest the inevitable growth of social equality and of the government of public opinion should impose on mankind an oppressive yoke of uniformity in opinion and practice, might easily have appeared chimerical to those who looked more at present facts than at tendencies; for the gradual revolution that is taking place in society and institutions has thus far been decidedly favourable to the development of new opinions, and has procured for them a much more unprejudiced hearing than they previously met with. But this is a feature belonging to periods of transition, when old notions and feelings have been unsettled and no new doctrines have yet succeeded to their ascendancy. At such times people of any mental activity, having given up many of their old beliefs, and not feeling quite sure that those they still retain can stand unmodified, listen eagerly to new opinions. But this state of things is necessarily transitory: some particular body of doctrine in time rallies the majority round it, organizes social institutions and modes of action conformably to itself, education impresses this new creed upon the new generations without the mental processes that have led to it, and by degrees it acquires the very same power of compression, so long exercised by the creeds of which it has taken the place. Whether this noxious power will be exercised depends on whether mankind have by that time become aware that it cannot be exercised without stunting and dwarfing human nature. It is then that the teachings of the Liberty will have their greatest value. And it is to be feared that they will retain that value a long time.

As regards originality, it has of course no other than that which every thoughtful mind gives to its own mode of conceiving and expressing truths which are common property. The leading thought of the book is one which, though in many ages confined to insulated thinkers, mankind have probably at no time since the beginning of civilisation been entirely without. To speak only of the last few generations, it is distinctly contained in the vein of important thought respecting education and culture spread through the European mind by the labours and genius of Pestalozzi. The unqualified championship of it by Wilhelm von Humboldt^[*] is referred to in the book; but he by no means stood alone in his own country. During the early part of the present century, the doctrine of the rights of individuality, and the claim of the moral nature to develope itself in its own way, was pushed by a whole school of German authors even to exaggeration; and the writings of Goethe, the most celebrated of all German authors, though not belonging to that or to any other school, are penetrated throughout by views of morals and of conduct in life, often in my opinion not defensible, but which are incessantly seeking whatever defence they admit of in the theory of the right and duty of self-development. In our own country, before the book On Liberty was written, the doctrine of Individuality had been enthusiastically asserted, in a stile of vigorous declamation sometimes reminding one of Fichte, by Mr. William Maccall, in a series of writings of which the most elaborate is entitled Elements of Individualism.^[†] And a remarkable American, Mr. Warren, had framed a System of Society, on the foundation of “the Sovereignty of the Individual,” had obtained a number of followers, and had actually commenced the formation of a Village Community (whether it now exists I know not) which, though bearing a superficial resemblance to some of the projects of Socialists, is diametrically opposite to them in principle, since it recognises no authority whatever in Society over the individual, except to enforce equal freedom of development for all individualities.^[‡] As the book which bears my name claimed no originality for any of its doctrines, and was not intended to write their history, the only author who had preceded me in their assertion of whom I thought it appropriate to say anything, was Humboldt, who furnished the motto to the work;^[*] although in one passage I borrowed from the Warrenites their phrase, the sovereignty of the individual.^[†] It is hardly necessary here to remark that there are abundant differences in detail, between the conception of the doctrine by any of the predecessors I have mentioned, and that set forth in the book.

After my irreparable loss one of my earliest cares was to print and publish the treatise, so much of which was the work of her whom I had lost, and consecrate it to her memory. I have made no alteration or addition to it, nor shall I ever. Though it wants the last touch of her hand, no substitute for that touch shall ever be attempted by mine.

The political circumstances of the time induced me shortly after to complete and publish a pamphlet (Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform),^‡ part of which had been written some years previously on the occasion of one of the abortive Reform Bills^[§] and had at the time been approved and revised by her. Its principal features were, hostility to the Ballot (a change of opinion in both of us, in which she rather preceded me) and a claim of representation for minorities; not however at that time going beyond the cumulative vote proposed by Mr. Garth Marshall.^[¶] In finishing the pamphlet for publication with a view to the discussions on the Reform Bill of Lord Derby’s and Mr. Disraeli’s Government in 1859.^[∥] I added a third feature, a plurality of votes, to be given, not to property, but to proved superiority of education. This recommended itself to me, as a means of reconciling the irresistible claim of every man or woman to be consulted, and to be allowed a voice, in the regulation of affairs which vitally concern them, with the superiority of weight justly due to opinions grounded on superiority of knowledge. The suggestion however was one which I had never discussed with my almost infallible counsellor, and I have no evidence that she would have concurred in it. As far as I have been able to observe, it has found favour with nobody; all who desire any sort of inequality in the electoral vote, desiring it in favour of property and not of intelligence or knowledge. If it ever overcomes the strong feeling which exists against it, this will only be after the establishment of a systematic National Education by which the various grades of politically valuable acquirement may be accurately defined and authenticated. Without this it will always remain liable to strong, possibly conclusive, objections; and with this, it would perhaps not be needed.

It was soon after the publication of Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform that I became acquainted with Mr. Hare’s admirable system of Personal Representation, which, in its present shape, was then for the first time published.^[*] I saw in this great practical and philosophical idea, the greatest improvement of which the system of representative government is susceptible; an improvement which, in the most felicitous manner, exactly meets and cures the grand, and what before seemed the inherent, defect of the representative system; that of giving to a numerical majority all power, instead of only a power proportional to its numbers, and enabling the strongest party to exclude all weaker parties from making their opinions heard in the assembly of the nation, except through such opportunity as may be given to them by the accidentally unequal distribution of opinions in different localities. To these great evils nothing more than very imperfect palliatives had seemed possible; but Mr. Hare’s system affords a radical cure. This great discovery, for it is no less, in the political art, inspired me, as I believe it has inspired all thoughtful persons who have adopted it, with new and more sanguine hopes respecting the prospects of human society; by freeing the form of political institutions towards which the whole civilised world is manifestly and irresistibly tending, from the chief part of what seemed to qualify or render doubtful its ultimate benefits. Minorities, so long as they remain minorities, are, and ought to be, outvoted; but under arrangements which enable any assemblage of voters, amounting to a certain number, to place in the legislature a representative of its own choice, minorities cannot be suppressed. Independent opinions will force their way into the council of the nation and make themselves heard there, a thing which often cannot happen in the existing forms of representative democracy; and the legislature instead of being weeded of individual peculiarities and entirely made up of men who simply represent the creed of great political or religious parties, will comprise a large proportion of the most eminent individual minds in the country placed there without reference to party by voters who appreciate their individual eminence. I can understand that persons, otherwise intelligent, should, for want of sufficient examination, be repelled from Mr. Hare’s plan by what they think the complex nature of its machinery. But any one who does not feel the want which the scheme is intended to supply; any one who throws it over as a mere theoretical subtlety or crotchet, tending to no valuable purpose, and unworthy of the attention of practical men, may be pronounced an incompetent statesman, unequal to the politics of the future. I mean, unless he is a minister, or aspires to become one: for we are quite accustomed to a minister’s continuing to profess unqualified hostility to an improvement almost to the very day when his conscience or his interest induces him to take it up as a public measure and carry it.

Had I met with Mr. Hare’s system before the publication of my pamphlet, I should have given an account of it there. Not having done so, I wrote an article in Fraser’s Magazine (reprinted in my miscellaneous writings)^[*] principally for that purpose, though I included in it, along with Mr. Hare’s book, a review of two other productions on the question of the day; one of them a pamphlet by my early friend Mr. John Austin, who had in his old age become an enemy of all further parliamentary reform; the other an able and ingenious though partially erroneous work by Mr. Lorimer.^[†]

In the course of the same summer I fulfilled a duty particularly incumbent upon me, that of helping (by an article in the Edinburgh Review) to make known Mr. Bain’s profound treatise on the Mind, just then completed by the publication of its second volume.^[‡] And I carried through the press a selection of my minor writings, forming the first two volumes of Dissertations and Discussions. The selection had been made during my wife’s lifetime, but the revision, in concert with her, with a view to republication, had been barely commenced; and when I had no longer the guidance of her judgment I despaired of pursuing it further, and republished the papers as they were, with the exception of striking out such passages as were no longer in accordance with my opinions. My literary work of the year terminated with an essay in Fraser’s Magazine (afterwards republished in the third volume of Dissertations and Discussions) entitled “A Few Words on Non-Intervention.”^[§] I was prompted to write this paper by a desire, while vindicating England from the imputations commonly brought against her on the Continent of a peculiar selfishness in matters of foreign policy, to warn Englishmen of the colour given to this imputation by the low tone in which English statesmen are accustomed to speak of English policy as concerned only with English interests, and by the conduct of Lord Palmerston at that particular time in opposing the Suez Canal. And I took the opportunity of expressing ideas which had long been in my mind (some of them generated by my Indian experience and others by the international questions which then greatly occupied the European public) respecting the true principles of international morality and the legitimate modifications made in it by difference of times and circumstances; a subject I had already to some extent discussed in the vindication of the French Provisional Government of 1848 against the attacks of Lord Brougham and others which I published at the time in the Westminster Review and which is reprinted in the Dissertations.^[*]

I had now settled, as I believed for the remainder of my existence, into a purely literary life; if that can be called literary which continued to be occupied in a preeminent degree with politics, and not merely with theoretical, but practical politics, although a great part of the year was spent at a distance of many hundred miles from the chief seat of the politics of my own country, to which, and primarily for which, I wrote. But in truth, the modern facilities of communication have not only removed all the disadvantages, to a political writer in tolerably easy circumstances, of distance from the scene of political action, but have converted them into advantages. The immediate and regular receipt of newspapers and periodicals keeps him au courant of even the most temporary politics, and gives him a much more correct view of the state and progress of opinion than he could acquire by personal contact with individuals: for every one’s social intercourse is more or less limited to particular sets or classes, whose impressions and no others reach him through that channel; and experience has taught me that those who give their time to the absorbing claims of what is called society, not having leisure to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, remain much more ignorant of the general state either of the public mind, or of the active and instructed part of it, than a recluse who reads the newspapers need be. There are, no doubt, disadvantages in too long a separation from one’s country—in not occasionally renewing one’s impressions of the light in which men and things appear when seen from a position in the midst of them; but the deliberate judgment formed at a distance, and undisturbed by inequalities of perspective, is the most to be depended on, even for application to practice. Alternating between the two positions I combined the advantages of both. And, though the inspirer of my best thoughts was no longer with me, I was not alone: she had left a daughter—my stepdaughter, Miss Helen Taylor, the inheritor of much of her wisdom, and of all her nobleness of character, whose ever growing and ripening talents from that day to this have been devoted to the same great purposes, and have already made her name better and more widely known than was that of her mother, though far less so than I predict that if she lives, it is destined to become. Of the value of her direct cooperation with me, something will be said hereafter: of what I owe in the way of instruction to her great powers of original thought and soundness of practical judgment, it would be a vain attempt to give an adequate idea. Surely no one ever before was so fortunate, as, after such a loss as mine, to draw another such prize in the lottery of life—another companion, stimulator, adviser, and instructor of the rarest quality. Whoever, either now or hereafter, may think of me and of the work I have done, must never forget that it is the product not of one intellect and conscience but of three, the least considerable of whom, and above all the least original, is the one whose name is attached to it.

The work of the years 1860 and 1861 consisted chiefly of two treatises, only one of which was intended for immediate publication. This was the Considerations on Representative Government, a connected exposition of what, by the thoughts of many years, I had come to regard as the best form of a popular constitution. Along with as much of the general theory of government as is necessary to support this particular portion of its practice, the volume contains my matured views of the principal questions which occupy the present age, within the province of purely organic institutions, and raises by anticipation some other questions to which growing necessities will sooner or later compel the attention both of theoretical and of practical politicians. The chief of these last is the distinction between the function of making laws, for which a numerous popular assembly is radically unfit, and that of getting good laws made, which is its proper duty, and cannot be satisfactorily fulfilled by any other authority: and the consequent need of a Legislative Commission, as a permanent part of the constitution of a free country; consisting of a small number of highly trained political minds on whom, when Parliament has determined that a law shall be made, the task of making it should be devolved; Parliament retaining the power of passing or rejecting the bill when drawn up, but not of altering it otherwise than by sending proposed amendments to be dealt with by the Commission. The question here raised respecting the most important of all public functions, that of legislation, is a particular case of the great problem of modern political organization, stated I believe for the first time in its full extent by Bentham, though in my opinion not always satisfactorily resolved by him; the combination of complete popular control over public affairs with the greatest attainable perfection of skilled agency.

The other treatise written at this time is the one which was published some years later under the title of The Subjection of Women. It was written at my daughter’s suggestion that there might, in any event, be in existence a written exposition of my opinions on that great question, as full and conclusive as I could make it. The intention was to keep this among other unpublished papers, improving it from time to time if I was able, and to publish it at the time when it should seem likely to be most useful. As ultimately published it was enriched with some important ideas of my daughter’s, and passages of her writing. But in what was of my own composition, all that is most striking and profound belongs to my wife; coming from the fund of thought which had been made common to us both, by our innumerable conversations and discussions on a topic which filled so large a place in our minds.

Soon after this time I took from their repository a portion of the unpublished papers which I had written during the last years of our married life, and shaped them, with some additional matter, into the little work entitled Utilitarianism; which was first published in three parts, in successive numbers of Fraser’s Magazine, and afterwards reprinted in a volume.^[*]

Before this however the state of public affairs had become extremely critical, by the commencement of the American civil war. My strongest feelings were engaged in this struggle, which, I felt from the beginning, was destined to be a turning point, for good or evil, of the course of human affairs for an indefinite duration. Having been a deeply interested observer of the Slavery quarrel in America, during the many years that preceded the open breach, I knew that it was in all its stages an aggressive enterprise of the slave owners to extend the territory of slavery; under the combined influences of pecuniary interest, domineering temper, and the fanaticism of a class for its class privileges, influences so fully and powerfully depicted in the admirable work of my friend Professor Cairnes, The Slave Power.^[†] Their success, if they succeeded, would be a victory of the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the spirits of its friends all over the civilised world, while it would create a formidable military power grounded on the worst and most anti-social form of the tyranny of men over men, and by destroying for a long time the prestige of the great democratic republic would give to all the privileged classes of Europe a false confidence, probably only to be extinguished in blood. On the other hand, if the spirit of the North was sufficiently roused to carry the war to a successful termination, and if that termination did not come too soon and too easily, I foresaw, from the laws of human nature and the experience of revolutions, that when it did come it would in all probability be thorough: that the bulk of the Northern population, whose conscience had as yet been awakened only to the point of resisting the further extension of slavery, but whose fidelity to the Constitution of the United States made them disapprove of any attempt by the Federal Government to interfere with slavery in the States where it already existed, would acquire feelings of another kind when the Constitution had been shaken off by armed rebellion, would determine to have done for ever with the accursed thing, and would join their banner with that of the noble body of Abolitionists, of whom Garrison was the courageous and single minded apostle, Wendell Phillips the eloquent orator, and John Brown the voluntary martyr.^* Then, too, the whole mind of the United States would be let loose from its bonds, no longer corrupted by the supposed necessity of apologising to foreigners for the most flagrant of all possible violations of the free principles of their Constitution, while the tendency of a fixed state of society to stereotype a set of national opinions would be at least temporarily checked and the national mind would become more open to the recognition of whatever was bad in either the institutions or the customs of the people. These hopes, so far as related to Slavery, have been completely, and in other respects are in course of being progressively realized. Foreseeing from the first this double set of consequences from the success or failure of the rebellion, it may be imagined with what feelings I contemplated the rush of nearly the whole upper and middle classes of my own country, even those who passed for Liberals, into a furious pro-Southern partisanship: the working classes, and some of the literary and scientific men, being almost the sole exceptions to the general frenzy. I never before felt so keenly how little permanent improvement had reached the minds of our influential classes and of what small value were the liberal opinions they had got into the habit of professing. None of the Continental Liberals committed the same frightful mistake. But the generation which had extorted negro emancipation from our West India planters had passed away; another had succeeded which had not learnt by many years of discussion and exposure to feel strongly the enormities of slavery; and the inattention habitual with Englishmen to whatever is going on in the world outside their own island, made them profoundly ignorant of all the antecedents of the struggle, insomuch that it was not generally believed in England, for the first year or two of the war, that the quarrel was one of slavery. There were men of high principle and unquestionable liberality of opinion who thought it a dispute about tariffs, or assimilated it to the cases in which they were accustomed to sympathise, of a people struggling for independence.

It was my obvious duty to be one of the small minority who protested against this perverted state of public opinion. I was not the first to protest. It ought to be remembered to the honour of Mr. Hughes and of Mr. Ludlow, that they, by writings published at the very beginning of the struggle, began the protestation.^[*] Mr. Bright followed in one of the most powerful of his speeches,^[†] followed by others not less striking. I was on the point of adding my words to theirs when there occurred, towards the end of 1861, the seizure of the Southern envoys on board a British vessel, by an officer of the United States.^[*] Even English forgetfulness has not yet had time to lose all remembrance of the explosion of feeling in England which then burst forth, the expectation, prevailing for some weeks, of war with the United States, and the warlike preparations actually commenced on this side. While this state of things lasted there was no chance of a hearing for anything favourable to the American cause; and moreover I agreed with those who thought the act unjustifiable and such as to require that England should demand its disavowal. When the disavowal came, and the alarm of war was over, I wrote, in January 1862, the paper, in Fraser’s Magazine, entitled “The Contest in America.”^[†] And I shall always feel grateful to my daughter that her urgency prevailed on me to write it when I did: for we were then on the point of setting out for a journey of some months in Greece and Turkey, and but for her, I should have deferred writing till our return. Written and published when it was, the paper helped to encourage those Liberals who had felt overborne by the tide of illiberal opinion, and to form in favour of the good cause a nucleus of opinion which increased gradually, and after the success of the North began to seem probable, rapidly. When we returned from our journey I wrote a second article, a review of Professor Cairnes’ book published in the Westminster Review.^[‡] England is paying the penalty, in many uncomfortable ways, of the durable resentment which her ruling classes stirred up in the United States by their ostentatious wishes for the ruin of America as a nation; they have reason to be thankful that a few, if only a few known writers and speakers, standing firmly by the Americans in the time of their greatest difficulty, effected a partial diversion of these bitter feelings, and made Great Britain not altogether odious to the Americans.

This duty having been performed, my principal occupation for the next two years was on subjects not political. The publication of Mr. Austin’s Lectures on Jurisprudence after his decease, gave me an opportunity of paying a deserved tribute to his memory and at the same time expressing some thoughts on a subject on which, in my old days of Benthamism, I had bestowed much study.^[§] But the chief product of those years was the Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy.^[¶] His Lectures, published in 1860 and 1861,^[∥] I had read towards the end of the latter year, with a half formed intention of giving an account of them in a Review, but I soon found that this would be idle, and that justice could not be done to the subject in less than a volume. I had then to consider whether it would be advisable that I myself should attempt such a performance. On consideration, there seemed to be strong reasons for doing so. I was greatly disappointed with the Lectures. I read them, certainly, with no prejudice against Sir W. Hamilton. I had up to that time deferred the study of his Notes to Reid on account of their unfinished state,^[*] but I had not neglected his Discussions in Philosophy;^[†] and though I knew that his general mode of treating the facts of mental philosophy differed from that of which I most approved, yet his vigorous polemic against the later Transcendentalists, and his strenuous assertion of some important principles, especially the Relativity of human knowledge, gave me many points of sympathy with his opinions, and made me think that genuine psychology had considerably more to gain than to lose by his authority and reputation. His Lectures and the “Dissertations on Reid” dispelled this illusion: and even the Discussions, read by the light which these threw on them, lost much of their value. I found that the points of apparent agreement between his opinions and mine were more verbal than real; that the important philosophical principles which I had thought he recognised, were so explained away by him as to mean little or nothing, or were continually lost sight of, and doctrines entirely inconsistent with them were taught in nearly every part of his philosophical writings. My estimation of him was therefore so far altered, that instead of regarding him as occupying a kind of intermediate position between the two rival philosophies, holding some of the principles of both, and supplying to both powerful weapons of attack and defence, I now looked upon him as one of the pillars, and in this country from his high philosophical reputation the chief pillar, of that one of the two which seemed to me to be erroneous.

Now, the difference between these two schools of philosophy, that of Intuition, and that of Experience and Association, is not a mere matter of abstract speculation; it is full of practical consequences, and lies at the foundation of all the greatest differences of practical opinion in an age of progress. The practical reformer has continually to demand that changes be made in things which are supported by powerful and widely spread feelings, or to question the apparent necessity and indefeasibleness of established facts; and it is often an indispensable part of his argument to shew, how those powerful feelings had their origin, and how those facts came to seem necessary and indefeasible. There is therefore a natural hostility between him and a philosophy which discourages the explanation of feelings and moral facts by circumstances and association, and prefers to treat them as ultimate elements of human nature; a philosophy which is addicted to holding up favourite doctrines as intuitive truths, and deems intuition to be the voice of Nature and of God, speaking with an authority higher than that of our reason. In particular, I have long felt that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes, are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great social questions and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement. This tendency has its source in the intuitional metaphysics which characterized the reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, and it is a tendency so agreeable to human indolence, as well as to conservative interests generally, that unless attacked at the very root, it is sure to be carried to even a greater length than is really justified by the more moderate forms of the intuitional philosophy. That philosophy, not always in its moderate forms, had ruled the thought of Europe for the greater part of a century. My father’s Analysis of the Mind, my own Logic, and Professor Bain’s great treatise, had attempted to reintroduce a better mode of philosophizing, latterly with quite as much success as could be expected; but I had for some time felt that the mere contrast of the two philosophies was not enough, that there ought to be a hand-to-hand fight between them, that controversial as well as expository writings were needed, and that the time was come when such controversy would be useful. Considering then the writings and fame of Sir W. Hamilton as the great fortress of the intuitional philosophy in this country, a fortress the more formidable from the imposing character, and the in many respects great personal merits and mental endowments, of the man, I thought it might be a real service to philosophy to attempt a thorough examination of all his most important doctrines, and an estimate of his general claims to eminence as a philosopher. And I was confirmed in this resolution by observing that in the writings of at least one, and him one of the ablest, of Sir W. Hamilton’s followers,^[*] his peculiar doctrines were made the justification of a view of religion which I hold to be profoundly immoral—that it is our duty to bow down in worship before a Being whose moral attributes are affirmed to be unknowable by us, and to be perhaps extremely different from those which, when we are speaking of our fellow-creatures, we call by the same names.^[†]

As I advanced in my task, the damage to Sir W. Hamilton’s reputation became greater than I at first expected, through the almost incredible multitude of inconsistencies which shewed themselves on comparing different passages with one another. It was my business however to shew things exactly as they were, and I did not flinch from it. I endeavoured always to treat the philosopher whom I criticized with the most scrupulous fairness; and I knew that he had abundance of disciples and admirers to correct me if I ever unintentionally did him injustice. Many of them accordingly have answered me, more or less elaborately; and they have pointed out oversights and misunderstandings, though few in number, and mostly very unimportant in substance. Such of those as had (to my knowledge) been pointed out before the publication of the latest edition (at present the third) have been corrected there, and the remainder of the criticisms have been, as far as seemed necessary, replied to.^[*] On the whole, the book has done its work: it has shewn the weak side of Sir W. Hamilton, and has reduced his too great philosophical reputation within more moderate bounds; and by some of its discussions, as well as by two expository chapters, on the notions of Matter and of Mind,^[†] it has perhaps thrown additional light on some of the disputed questions in the domain of psychology and metaphysics.

After the completion of the book on Hamilton, I applied myself to a task which a variety of reasons seemed to render specially incumbent upon me; that of giving an account, and forming an estimate, of the doctrines of Auguste Comte. I had contributed more than any one else to make his speculations known in England. In consequence chiefly of what I had said of him in my Logic, he had readers and admirers among thoughtful men on this side of the Channel at a time when his name had not yet, in France, emerged from obscurity. So unknown and unappreciated was he at the time when my Logic was written and published, that to criticise his weak points might well appear superfluous, while it was a duty to give as much publicity as one could to the important contributions he had made to philosophic thought. At the time however at which I have now arrived, this state of affairs had entirely changed. His name at least was known almost universally, and the general character of his doctrines very widely. He had taken his place, in the estimation both of friends and opponents, as one of the conspicuous figures in the thought of the age. The better parts of his speculations had made great progress in working their way into those minds, which by their previous culture and tendencies, were fitted to receive them: and under cover of those better parts those of a worse character, greatly developed and added to in his later writings, had also made some way, having obtained active and enthusiastic adherents, some of them of no inconsiderable personal merit, in England, France, and other countries. These causes not only made it desirable that some one should undertake the task of sifting what is good from what is bad in M. Comte’s speculations, but seemed to impose on myself in particular a special obligation to make the attempt. This I accordingly did in two Essays, published in successive numbers of the Westminster Review, and reprinted in a small volume under the title Auguste Comte and Positivism.^[*]a

The writings which I have now mentioned, together with a small number of papers in periodicals which I have not deemed worth preserving, were the whole of the products of my activity as a writer during the years from 1859 to 1865. In the early part of the last mentioned year, in compliance with a wish frequently expressed to me by working men, I published cheap People’s Editions of those of my writings which seemed the most likely to find readers among the working classes; viz. Principles of Political Economy, Liberty, and Representative Government. This was a considerable sacrifice of my pecuniary interest, especially as I resigned all idea of deriving profit from the cheap editions, and after ascertaining from my publishers the lowest price which they thought would remunerate them on the usual terms of an equal division of profits, I gave up my half share to enable the price to be fixed still lower. To the credit of Messrs. Longman they fixed, unasked, a certain number of years after which the copyright and stereotype plates were to revert to me, and a certain number of copies after the sale of which I should receive half of any further profit. This number of copies (which in the case of the Political Economy was 10,000) has for some time been exceeded, and the People’s Editions have begun to yield me a small but unexpected pecuniary return, though very far from an equivalent for the diminution of profit from the Library Editions.

In this summary of my outward life I have now arrived at the period at which my tranquil and retired existence as a writer of books was to be exchanged for the less congenial occupation of a member of the House of Commons. The proposal made to me, early in 1865, by some electors of Westminster, did not present the idea to me for the first time. It was not even the first offer I had received, for, more than ten years previous, in consequence of my opinions on the Irish Land question, Mr. Lucas and Mr. Duffy, in the name of the popular party in Ireland, offered to bring me into Parliament for an Irish County, which they could easily have done: but the incompatibility of a seat in Parliament with the office I then held in the India House precluded even consideration of the proposal. After I had quitted the India House, several of my friends would gladly have seen me a member of Parliament; but there seemed no probability that the idea would ever take any practical shape. I was convinced that no numerous or influential portion of any electoral body, really wished to be represented by a person of my opinions; and that one who possessed no local connexion or popularity, and who did not choose to stand as the mere organ of a party, had small chance of being elected anywhere unless through the expenditure of money. Now it was, and is, my fixed conviction, that a candidate ought not to incur one farthing of expense for undertaking a public duty. Such of the lawful expenses of an election as have no special reference to any particular candidate ought to be borne as a public charge, either by the State or by the locality. What has to be done by the supporters of each candidate in order to bring his claims properly before the constituency, should be done by unpaid agency, or by voluntary subscription. If members of the electoral body, or others, are willing to subscribe money of their own for the purpose of bringing by lawful means into Parliament some one who they think would be useful there, no one is entitled to object: but that the expense, or any part of it, should fall on the candidate, is fundamentally wrong; because it amounts, in reality, to buying his seat. Even on the most favourable supposition as to the mode in which the money is expended, there is a legitimate suspicion that any one who gives money for leave to undertake a public trust, has other than public ends to promote by it; and (a consideration of the greatest importance) the cost of elections, when borne by the candidates, deprives the nation of the services, as members of Parliament, of all who cannot or will not afford to incur a heavy expense. I do not say that, so long as there is scarcely a chance for an independent candidate to come into Parliament without complying with this vicious practice, it must always be morally wrong in him to spend money, provided that no part of it is either directly or indirectly employed in corruption. But, to justify it, he ought to be very certain that he can be of more use to his country as a member of Parliament than in any other mode which is open to him; and this assurance, in my own case, I did not feel. It was by no means clear to me that I could do more to advance the public objects which had a claim on my exertions from the benches of the House of Commons, than from the simple position of a writer. I felt, therefore, that I ought not to seek election to Parliament, much less to expend any money in procuring it.

But the conditions of the question were considerably altered when a body of electors sought me out, and spontaneously offered to bring me forward as their candidate. If it should appear, on explanation, that they persisted in this wish, knowing my opinions, and accepting the only conditions on which I could conscientiously serve, it was questionable whether this was not one of those calls upon a member of the community by his fellow citizens, which he was scarcely justified in rejecting. I therefore put their disposition to the proof by one of the frankest explanations ever tendered, I should think, to an electoral body by a candidate. I wrote in reply to the offer a letter for publication,^[*] saying that I had no personal wish to be a member of parliament, that I thought a candidate ought neither to canvass nor to incur any expense, and that I could not consent to do either. I said further that if elected I could not undertake to give any of my time and labour to their local interests. With respect to general politics, I told them without reserve what I thought on a number of important subjects on which they had asked my opinion; and one of these being the suffrage, I made known to them, among other things, my conviction (as I was bound to do, since I intended, if elected, to act on it) that women were entitled to representation in Parliament on the same terms with men. It was the first time, doubtless, that such a doctrine had ever been mentioned to electors; and the fact that I was elected after proposing it, gave the start to the movement which has since become so vigorous in favour of women’s suffrage. Nothing, at the time, appeared more unlikely than that a candidate (if candidate I could be called) whose professions and conduct set so completely at defiance all ordinary notions of electioneering, should nevertheless be elected. A well known literary man, who was also a man of society, was heard to say, that the Almighty himself would have no chance of being elected on such a programme. I strictly adhered to it, neither spending money nor canvassing, nor did I take any personal part in the election until about a week preceding the day of nomination, when I attended a few public meetings to state my principles and give to any questions which the electors might exercise their just right of putting to me for their own guidance, answers as plain and unreserved as my Address. On one subject only, my religious opinions, I announced from the beginning that I would answer no questions; a determination which appeared to be completely approved by those who attended the meetings. My frankness on all other subjects on which I was interrogated, evidently, did me far more good than my answers, whatever they might be, did harm. Among the proofs I received of this, one is too remarkable not to be recorded. In the pamphlet Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform I had said, rather bluntly, that the working classes, though differing from those of some other countries in being ashamed of lying, are yet generally liars.^[*] This passage some opponent got printed in a placard, which was handed to me at a meeting, chiefly composed of the working classes, and I was asked whether I had written and published it. I at once answered “I did.” Scarcely were these two words out of my mouth, when vehement applause resounded through the whole meeting. It was evident that the working people were so accustomed to expect equivocation and evasion from those who sought their suffrages, that when they found, instead of that, a direct avowal of what was likely to be disagreeable to them, instead of being offended they concluded at once that this was a person whom they could trust. A more striking instance never came under my notice of what, I believe, is the experience of those who best know the working classes—that the most essential of all recommendations to their favour is that of complete straightforwardness; its presence outweights in their minds very strong objections, while no amount of other qualities will make amends for its apparent absence. The first working man who spoke after the incident I have mentioned (it was Mr. Odger) said, that the working classes had no desire not to be told of their faults; they wanted friends, not flatterers, and felt under obligation to any one who told them of anything in themselves which he sincerely believed to require amendment. And to this the meeting heartily responded.^[*]

Had I been defeated in the election, I should still have had no reason to regret the contact it had brought me into with large bodies of my countrymen; which not only gave me much new experience, but enabled me to scatter my political opinions rather widely, and by making me known in many quarters where I had never before been heard of, increased the number of my readers and the presumable influence of my writings. These latter effects were of course produced in a still greater degree, when, as much to my own surprise as to that of any one, I was returned to Parliament by a majority of some hundreds over my Conservative competitor.^[†]

I was a member of the House during the three sessions of the Parliament which passed the Reform Bill;^[‡] during which time Parliament was necessarily my main occupation, except during the recess. I was a tolerably frequent speaker, sometimes of prepared speeches, sometimes extemporaneously. But my choice of occasions was not such as I should have made if my leading object had been parliamentary influence. When I had gained the ear of the House, which I did by a successful speech on Mr. Gladstone’s Reform Bill,^[§] the idea I proceeded on was that when anything was likely to be as well done, or sufficiently well done, by other people, there was no necessity for me to meddle with it. As I therefore, in general, reserved myself for work which no others were likely to do, a great proportion of my appearances were on points on which the bulk of the Liberal party, even the advanced portion of it, either were of a different opinion from mine, or were comparatively indifferent. Several of my speeches, especially one against the motion for the abolition of capital punishment,^[¶] and another in favour of resuming the right of seizing enemies’ goods in neutral vessels,^[∥] were opposed to what then was, and probably still is, regarded as the advanced liberal opinion. My advocacy of women’s suffrage,^[*] and of Personal Representation,^[†] were at the time looked upon by many as whims of my own, but the great progress since made by those opinions, and especially the zealous response made from almost all parts of the kingdom to the demand for women’s suffrage, fully justified the timeliness of those movements, and have made what was undertaken as a moral and social duty, a personal success. Another duty which was particularly incumbent on me as one of the Metropolitan Members, was the attempt to obtain a Municipal Government for the Metropolis: but on that subject the indifference of the House of Commons was such that I found hardly any help or support within its walls. On this subject, however, I was the organ of an active and intelligent body of persons outside, with whom and not with me the scheme originated, who carried on all the agitation on the subject and drew up the Bills. My part was to bring in Bills already prepared, and to sustain the discussion of them during the short time they were allowed to remain before the House;^[‡] after having taken an active part in the work of a Committee presided over by Mr. Ayrton, which sat through the greater part of the Session of 1866 to take evidence on the subject.^[§] The very different position in which the question now stands (1870) may justly be attributed to the preparation which went on during those years, and which produced but little visible effect at the time; but all questions on which there are strong private interests on one side, and only the public good on the other, have a similar period of incubation to go through.

The same idea, that the use of my being in Parliament was to do work which others were not able or not willing to do, made me think it my duty to come to the front in defence of advanced Liberalism on occasions when the obloquy to be encountered was such as most of the advanced Liberals in the House, preferred not to incur. My first vote in the House was in support of an amendment in favour of Ireland, moved by an Irish member and for which only five English and Scotch votes were given, including my own: the other four were Mr. Bright, Mr. McLaren, Mr. T. B. Potter and Mr. Hadfield.^[¶] And the second speech I delivered^* was on the bill to prolong the suspension of the Habeas Corpus in Ireland.^[*] In denouncing, on this occasion, the English mode of governing Ireland, I did no more than the general opinion of England now admits to have been just; but the anger against Fenianism was then in all its freshness; any attack on what Fenians attacked was looked upon as an apology for them; and I was so unfavourably received by the House, that more than one of my friends advised me (and my own judgment agreed with the advice) to wait, before speaking again, for the favourable opportunity that would be given by the first great debate on the Reform Bill. During this silence, many flattered themselves that I had turned out a failure, and that they should not be troubled with me any more. Perhaps their uncomplimentary comments may, by the force of reaction, have helped to make my speech on the Reform Bill the success it was. My position in the House was further improved by a speech in which I insisted on the duty of paying off the National Debt before our coal supplies are exhausted,^[†] and by an ironical reply to some of the Tory leaders who had quoted against me certain passages of my writings and called me to account for others, especially for one in my Considerations on Representative Government which said that the Conservative party was by the law of its composition the stupidest party.^[‡] They gained nothing by drawing attention to this passage, which up to that time had not excited any notice, but the soubriquet of “the stupid party” stuck to them for a considerable time afterwards. Having now no longer any apprehension of not being listened to, I confined myself, as I have since thought, too much, to occasions on which my services seemed specially needed, and abstained more than enough from speaking on the great party questions. With the exception of Irish questions, and those which concerned the working classes, a single speech on Mr. Disraeli’s Reform Bill^[§] was nearly all that I contributed to the great decisive debates of the last two of my three sessions.

I have, however, much satisfaction in looking back to the part I took on the two classes of subjects just mentioned. With regard to the working classes, the chief topic of my speech on Mr. Gladstone’s Reform Bill was the assertion of their claims to the suffrage. A little later, after the resignation of Lord Russell’s ministry and the succession of a Tory Government, came the attempt of the working classes to hold a meeting in Hyde Park, their exclusion by the police, and the breaking down of the park railing by the crowd. Though Mr. Beales and the leaders of the working men had retired under protest before this took place, a scuffle ensued in which many innocent persons were maltreated by the police, and the exasperation of the working men was extreme. They shewed a determination to make another attempt at a meeting in the Park, to which many of them would probably have come armed; the Government made military preparations to resist the attempt, and something very serious seemed impending. At this crisis I really believe that I was the means of preventing much mischief. I had in my place in Parliament taken the side of the working men, and strongly censured the conduct of the Government.^[*] I was invited, with several other Radical members, to a conference with the leading members of the Council of the Reform League; and the task fell chiefly upon myself of persuading them to give up the Hyde Park project, and hold their meeting elsewhere. It was not Mr. Beales and Colonel Dickson who needed persuading; on the contrary, it was evident that those gentlemen had already exerted their influence in the same direction, thus far without success. It was the working men who held out: and so bent were they on their original scheme that I was obliged to have recourse to les grands moyens. I told them that a proceeding which would certainly produce a collision with the military, could only be justifiable on two conditions: if the position of affairs had become such that a revolution was desirable, and if they thought themselves able to accomplish one. To this argument after considerable discussion they at last yielded: and I was able to inform Mr. Walpole that their intention was given up.^[†] I shall never forget the depth of his relief or the warmth of his expressions of gratitude. After the working men had conceded so much to me, I felt bound to comply with their request that I would attend and speak at their meeting at the Agricultural Hall: the only meeting called by the Reform League which I ever attended.^[‡] I had always declined being a member of the League, on the avowed ground that I did not agree in its programme of manhood suffrage and the ballot: from the ballot I dissented entirely; and I could not consent to hoist the flag of manhood suffrage, even on the assurance that the exclusion of women was not intended to be implied; since if one goes beyond what can be immediately carried and professes to take one’s stand on a principle, one should go the whole length of the principle. I have entered thus particularly into this matter because my conduct on this occasion gave great displeasure to the Tory and Tory-Liberal press, who have charged me ever since with having shewn myself, in the trials of public life, intemperate and passionate.^[*] I do not know what they expected from me; but they had reason to be thankful to me if they knew from what I had in all probability preserved them. And I do not believe it could have been done, at that particular juncture, by any one else. No other person, I believe, had at that moment the necessary influence for restraining the working classes, except Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, neither of whom was available: Mr. Gladstone, for obvious reasons; Mr. Bright, because he was out of town.

When, some time later, the Tory Government brought in a bill to prevent public meetings in the Parks, I not only spoke strongly in opposition to it, but formed one of a number of advanced Liberals, who, aided by the very late period of the Session, succeeded in defeating the Bill by what is called talking it out.^[†] It has not since been renewed.

On Irish affairs also I felt bound to take a decided part. I was one of the foremost in the deputation of Members of Parliament who prevailed on Lord Derby to spare the life of the condemned Fenian insurgent, General Burke. The Church question was so vigorously handled by the leaders of the party, in the session of 1868, as to require no more from me than an emphatic adhesion; but the land question was by no means in so advanced a position: the superstitions of landlordism had up to that time been little challenged, especially in Parliament, and the backward state of the question, so far as concerned the Parliamentary mind, was evidenced by the extremely mild measure brought in by Lord Russell’s Government in 1866, which nevertheless could not be carried.^[‡] On that bill I delivered one of my most careful speeches, in which I attempted to lay down some of the principles of the subject, in a manner calculated less to stimulate friends, than to conciliate and convince opponents.^[§] The engrossing subject of Parliamentary Reform prevented either this bill, or one of a similar character brought in by Lord Derby’s Government,^[¶] from being carried through. They never got beyond the second reading. Meanwhile the signs of Irish disaffection had become much more decided; the demand for complete separation between the two countries had assumed a menacing aspect, and there were few who did not feel that if there was still any chance of reconciling Ireland to British connexion, it could only be by the adoption of much more thorough reforms in the territorial and social relations of the country, than had yet been contemplated. The time seemed to me to have come when it would be useful to speak out my whole mind; and the result was my pamphlet England and Ireland,^[*] which was written in the winter of 1867, and published shortly before the commencement of the session of 1868. The leading features of the pamphlet were on the one hand an argument to shew the undesirableness, for Ireland as well as England, of separation between the countries, and on the other, a proposal for settling the land question by giving to the existing tenants a permanent tenure at a fixed rent, to be assessed after due enquiry by the State.

The pamphlet was not popular, except in Ireland, as I did not expect it to be. But, if no measure short of that which I proposed would do full justice to Ireland, or afford a prospect of conciliating the mass of the Irish people, the duty of proposing it was imperative; while if on the other hand, there was any intermediate course which had a claim to a trial, I well knew that to propose something which would be called extreme was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experiment. It is most improbable that a measure conceding so much to the tenantry as Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Land Bill,^[†] would have been proposed by a Government, or could have been carried through Parliament, unless the British public had been led to perceive that a case might be made, and perhaps a party formed, for a measure considerably stronger. It is the character of the British people, or at least of the higher and middle classes who pass muster for the British people, that to induce them to approve of any change it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance; my proposal was condemned, but any scheme of Irish Land reform, short of mine, came to be thought moderate by comparison. I may observe that the attacks made on my plan usually gave a very incorrect idea of its nature. It was usually discussed as a proposal that the State should buy up the land and become the universal landlord; though in fact it only offered to each individual landlord this as an alternative, if he liked better to sell his estate than to retain it on the new conditions; and I fully anticipated that most landlords would continue to prefer the position of landowners to that of Government annuitants, and would retain their existing relation to their tenants, often on more indulgent terms than the full rents on which the compensation to be given them by Government would have been based. This and many other explanations I gave in a speech on Ireland, in the debate on Mr. Maguire’s Resolution, early in the session of 1868.^[‡] A corrected report of this speech, together with my speech on Mr. Fortescue’s Bill, has been published (not by me, but with my permission) in Ireland.

Another public duty, of a most serious kind, it was my lot to have to perform, both in and out of Parliament, during these years. A disturbance in Jamaica, provoked in the first instance by injustice, and exaggerated by rage and panic into a premeditated rebellion, had been the motive or excuse for taking hundreds of innocent lives by military violence or by sentence of what were called courts martial, continuing for weeks after the brief disturbance had been put down; with many added atrocities of destruction of property, flogging women as well as men, and a great display of the brutal recklessness which generally prevails when fire and sword are let loose. The perpetrators of these deeds were defended and applauded in England by the same kind of people who had so long upheld negro slavery: and it seemed at first as if the British nation was about to incur the disgrace of letting pass without even a protest, excesses of authority as revolting as any of those for which, when perpetrated by the instruments of other governments, Englishmen can hardly find terms sufficient to express their abhorrence. After a short time, however, an indignant feeling was roused; a voluntary Association formed itself under the name of the Jamaica Committee, to take such deliberation and action as the case might admit of, and adhesions poured in from all parts of the country. I was abroad at the time but I sent in my name to the Committee as soon as I heard of it, and took an active part in its proceedings from the time of my return. There was much more at stake than only justice to the Negroes, imperative as was that consideration. The question was, whether the British dependencies, and eventually perhaps Great Britain itself, were to be under the government of law, or of military license; whether the lives and persons of British subjects are at the mercy of any two or three officers however raw and inexperienced or reckless and brutal, whom a panic-stricken Governor or other functionary may assume the right to constitute into a so-called Court Martial. This question could only be decided by an appeal to the tribunals; and such an appeal the Committee determined to make. Their determination led to a change in the Chairmanship of the Committee, as the Chairman, Mr. Charles Buxton, thought it not unjust indeed, but inexpedient, to prosecute Governor Eyre and his principal subordinates in a criminal court: but a numerously attended General meeting of the Association having decided this point against him, Mr. Buxton withdrew from the Committee, though continuing to work in the cause, and I was, quite unexpectedly on my own part, proposed and elected Chairman. It became, in consequence, my duty to represent the Committee in the House, sometimes by putting questions to the Government, sometimes as the recipient of questions more or less provocative, addressed by individual members to myself; but especially as speaker in the important debate originated in the session of 1866 by Mr. Buxton: and the speech I then delivered is that which I should probably select as the best of my speeches in Parliament.^* For more than two years we carried on the combat, trying every avenue legally open to us, to the courts of criminal justice. A bench of magistrates in one of the most Tory counties in England dismissed our case: we were more successful before the magistrates at Bow Street; which gave an opportunity to the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, Sir Alexander Cockburn, for delivering his celebrated charge, which settled the law of the question in favour of liberty, as far as it is in the power of a judge’s charge to settle it.^[*] There, however, our success ended, for the Old Bailey Grand Jury by throwing out our bill prevented the case from coming to trial. It was clear that to bring English functionaries to the bar of a criminal court for abuses of power committed against negroes and mulattoes, was not a popular proceeding with the English middle classes. We had however redeemed, so far as lay in us, the character of our country, by shewing that there was at any rate a body of persons determined to use all the means which the law afforded to obtain justice for the injured. We had elicited from the highest criminal judge in the nation an authoritative declaration that the law was what we maintained it to be; and we had given an emphatic warning to those who might be tempted to similar guilt hereafter, that though they might escape the actual sentence of a criminal tribunal, they were not safe against being put to some trouble and expense in order to avoid it. Colonial Governors and other persons in authority will have a considerable motive to stop short of such extremities in future.

As a matter of curiosity I kept some specimens of the abusive letters, almost all of them anonymous, which I received while these proceedings were going on. They are evidence of the sympathy felt with the brutalities in Jamaica by the brutal part of the population at home. They graduated from coarse jokes, verbal and pictorial, up to threats of assassination.^[†]

Among other matters of importance in which I took an active part, but which excited little interest in the public, two deserve particular mention. I joined with several other independent Liberals in defeating an Extradition Bill, introduced at the very end of the session of 1866 and by which, though surrender avowedly for political offences was not authorised, political refugees, if charged by a foreign government with acts which are necessarily incident to all attempts at insurrection, would have been surrendered to be dealt with by the criminal courts of the government against which they had rebelled: thus making the British Government an accomplice in the vengeance of foreign despotisms.^[*] The defeat of this proposal led to the appointment of a Select Committee (in which I was included) to examine and report on the whole subject of Extradition Treaties;^[†] and the result was that in the Extradition Act, which passed through Parliament after I had ceased to be a member, opportunity is given to any one whose extradition is demanded, of being heard before an English Court of justice to prove that the offence with which he is charged is really political.^[‡] The cause of European freedom has thus been saved from a serious misfortune, and our own country from a great iniquity. The other subject to be mentioned is the fight kept up by a body of advanced Liberals in the session of 1868, on the Bribery Bill of Mr. Disraeli’s Government,^[§] in which I took a very active part. I had taken council with several of those who had applied their minds most carefully to the details of the subject—Mr. W. D. Christie, Serjeant Pulling, Mr. Chadwick—as well as bestowed much thought of my own, for the purpose of framing such amendments and additional clauses as might make the Bill really effective against the numerous modes of corruption, direct and indirect, which might otherwise, as there was much reason to fear, be increased instead of diminished by the Reform Act. We also aimed at engrafting on the Bill, measures for diminishing the mischievous burthen of what are called the legitimate expenses of elections. Among our many amendments was that of Mr. Fawcett for making the returning officer’s expenses a charge on the rates instead of on the candidates;^[¶] another was the prohibition of paid canvassers, and the limitation of paid agents to one for each candidate; a third was the extension of the precautions and penalties against bribery, to municipal elections, which are well known to be not only a preparatory school for bribery at parliamentary elections, but an habitual cover for it. The Conservative Government, however, when once they had carried the leading provision of their Bill (for which I voted and spoke).^[∥] the transfer of the jurisdiction in elections from the House of Commons to the Judges, made a determined resistance to all other improvements: and after one of our most important proposals, that of Mr. Fawcett, had actually obtained a majority, they summoned the strength of their party and threw out the clause in a subsequent stage. The Liberal party in the House was greatly dishonoured by the conduct of many of its members in giving no help whatever to this attempt to secure the necessary conditions of an honest representation of the people. With their large majority in the House they could have carried all the amendments, or better ones if they had better to propose. But it was late in the Session; members were eager to set about their preparations for the impending General Election: and while some (such as Sir Robert Anstruther) honourably remained at their post, though rival candidates were already canvassing their constituency, a much greater number placed their electioneering interests before their public duty. Many Liberals also looked with indifference on legislation against bribery, thinking that it merely diverted public interest from the Ballot, which they considered, very mistakenly as I expect it will turn out, to be a sufficient, and the only, remedy. From these causes our fight, though kept up with great vigour for several nights, was wholly unsuccessful, and the practices which we sought to render more difficult, prevailed more widely than ever in the first General Election held under the new electoral law.

In the general debates on Mr. Disraeli’s Reform Bill, my participation was limited to the one speech already mentioned; but I made the Bill an occasion for bringing the two greatest improvements which remain to be made in representative government formally before the House and the nation. One of them was Personal, or as it is called with equal propriety, Proportional Representation. I brought this under the consideration of the House, by an expository and argumentative speech on Mr. Hare’s plan;^[*] and subsequently I was active in support of the very imperfect substitute for that plan, which, in a small number of constituencies, Parliament was induced to adopt.^[†] This poor makeshift had scarcely any recommendation, except that it was a partial recognition of the evil which it did so little to remedy: as such however it was attacked by the same fallacies, and required to be defended on the same principles, as a really good measure; and its adoption in a few parliamentary elections, as well as the subsequent introduction of what is called the Cumulative Vote in the elections for the London School Board,^[‡] have had the good effect of converting the equal claim of all electors to a proportional share in the representation, from a subject of merely speculative discussion, into a question of practical politics, much sooner than would otherwise have been the case.

This assertion of my opinions on Personal Representation cannot be credited with any considerable or visible amount of practical result. It was otherwise with the other motion which I made in the form of an amendment to the Reform Bill, and which was by far the most important, perhaps the only really important public service I performed in the capacity of a Member of Parliament: a motion to strike out the words which were understood to limit the electoral franchise to males, thereby admitting to the suffrage all women who as householders or otherwise possess the qualification required of male electors.^[*] For women not to make their claim to the suffrage at the time when the elective franchise was being largely extended, would have been to abjure the claim altogether; and a movement on the subject was begun in 1866, when I presented a petition for the suffrage signed by a considerable number of distinguished women.^[†] But it was as yet uncertain whether the proposal would obtain more than a few stray votes in the House: and when, after a debate in which the speakers on the contrary side were conspicuous by their feebleness, the votes recorded in favour of the motion amounted to 73—made up by pairs and tellers to above 80—the surprise was general and the encouragement great: the greater too because one of those who voted for the motion was Mr. Bright, a fact which could only be attributed to the impression made on him by the debate, as he had previously made no secret of his nonconcurrence in the proposal. The time appeared to my daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, to have come for forming a Society for the extension of the suffrage to women. The existence of the Society is due to my daughter’s initiative; its constitution was planned entirely by her, and she was the soul of the movement during its first years, though delicate health and superabundant occupation made her decline to be a member of the Executive Committee. Many distinguished members of parliament, professors, and others, and some of the most eminent women of whom the country can boast, became members of the Society, a large proportion either directly or indirectly through my daughter’s influence, she having written the greater number, and all the best, of the letters by which adhesion was obtained, even when those letters bore my signature. In two remarkable instances, those of Miss Nightingale and Miss Mary Carpenter, the reluctance those ladies had at first felt to come forward (for it was not on their part difference of opinion) was overcome by appeals written by my daughter though signed by me. Associations for the same object were formed in various local centres, Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, and others which have done much valuable work for the cause. All the Societies take the title of branches of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage; but each has its own governing body, and acts in complete independence of the others.

I believe I have mentioned all that is worth remembering of my proceedings in the House. But their enumeration, even if complete, would give but an inadequate idea of my occupations during that period, and especially of the time taken up by correspondence. For many years before my election to Parliament I had been continually receiving letters from strangers, mostly addressed to me as a writer on philosophy, and either propounding difficulties or communicating thoughts on subjects connected with logic or political economy. In common, I suppose, with all who are known as political economists, I was a recipient of all the shallow theories and absurd proposals by which people are perpetually endeavouring to shew the way to universal wealth and happiness by some artful reorganisation of the currency. When there were signs of sufficient intelligence in the writers to make it worth while attempting to put them right, I took the trouble to point out their errors, until the growth of my correspondence made it necessary to dismiss such persons with very brief answers. Many, however, of the communications I received were more worthy of attention than these, and in some, oversights of detail were pointed out in my writings, which I was thus enabled to correct. Correspondence of this sort naturally multiplied with the multiplication of the subjects on which I wrote, especially those of a metaphysical character. But when I became a member of parliament I began to receive letters on private grievances and on every imaginable subject that related to any kind of public affairs, however remote from my knowledge or pursuits. It was not my constituents in Westminster who laid this burthen on me: they kept with remarkable fidelity the understanding on which I had consented to serve. I received indeed now and then an application from some ingenuous youth to procure for him a small government appointment: but these were few, and how simple and ignorant the writers were, was shewn by the fact that the applications came in about equally whichever party was in power. My invariable answer was, that it was contrary to the principles on which I was elected to ask favours of any Government. But on the whole hardly any part of the country gave me less trouble than my own constituents. The general mass of correspondence, however, swelled into an oppressive burthen. At this time, and thenceforth, a great proportion of all my letters (including many which found their way into the newspapers)^* were not written by me but by my daughter; at first merely from her willingness to help in disposing of a mass of letters greater than I could get through without assistance, but afterwards because I thought the letters she wrote superior to mine, and more so in proportion to the difficulty and importance of the occasion. Even those which I wrote myself were generally much improved by her, as is also the case with all the more recent of my prepared speeches, of which, and of some of my published writings, not a few passages, and those the most successful, were hers.^b

While I remained in Parliament my work as an author was unavoidably limited to the recess. During that time I wrote (besides the pamphlet on Ireland already mentioned) the Essay on Plato published in the Edinburgh Review and reprinted in the third volume of Dissertations and Discussions;^[*] and the Address which conformably to custom I delivered to the University of St. Andrews, whose students had done me the honour of electing me to the office of Rector.^[†] In this Discourse I gave expression to many thoughts and opinions which had been accumulating in me through life respecting the various studies which belong to a liberal education, their uses and influences, and the mode in which they should be pursued to render those influences most beneficial. The position I took up, vindicating the high educational value alike of the old classic and the new scientific studies, on even stronger grounds than are urged by most of their advocates, and insisting that it is only the stupid inefficiency of the usual teaching which makes those studies be regarded as competitors instead of allies, was, I think, calculated, not only to aid and stimulate the improvement which has happily commenced in the national institutions for higher education, but to diffuse juster ideas than we often find even in highly educated men on the conditions of the highest mental cultivation.

During this period also I commenced (and completed soon after I had left Parliament) the performance of a duty to philosophy and to the memory of my father, by preparing and publishing an edition of the Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind with notes bringing up the doctrines of that admirable book to the latest improvements in science and in speculation.^[‡] This was a joint undertaking: the psychological notes being furnished in about equal proportions by Mr. Bain and myself, while Mr. Grote supplied some valuable contributions on points in the history of philosophy incidentally raised, and Dr. Andrew Findlater supplied the deficiencies in the book which had been occasioned by the imperfect philological knowledge of the time when it was written. Having been originally published at a time when the current of metaphysical speculation ran in a quite opposite direction to the psychology of Experience and Association, the Analysis had not obtained the amount of immediate success which it deserved, though it had made a deep impression on many individual minds, and had largely contributed, through those minds, to create that more favourable atmosphere for the Association Psychology of which we now have the benefit. Admirably adapted for a class-book of the Experience Metaphysics, it only required to be enriched, and in some cases corrected, by the results of more recent labours in the same school of thought, to stand, as it now does, in company with Mr. Bain’s treatises, at the head of the systematic works on Analytic psychology.

In the autumn of 1868 the Parliament which passed the Reform Act was dissolved, and at the new election for Westminster I was thrown out; not to my surprise, nor, I believe, to that of my principal supporters, though in the few days preceding the election they had become more sanguine than before. That I should not have been elected at all would not have required any explanation; what excites curiosity is that I should have been elected the first time, or, having been elected then, should have been defeated afterwards. But the efforts made to defeat me were far greater on the second occasion than on the first. For one thing, the Tory Government was now struggling for existence, and success in any contest was of more importance to them. Then, too, all persons of Tory feelings were far more embittered against me individually than on the previous occasion; many who had at first been either favourable or indifferent, were vehemently opposed to my reelection. As I had shewn in my political writings that I was aware of the weak points in democratic opinions, some Conservatives, it seems, had not been without hopes of finding me an opponent of democracy: as I was able to see the Conservative side of the question, they presumed that, like them, I could not see any other side. Yet if they had really read my writings they would have known that after giving full weight to all that appeared to me well grounded in the arguments against democracy, I unhesitatingly decided in its favour, while recommending that it should be accompanied by such institutions as were consistent with its principle and calculated to ward off its inconveniences: one of the chief of these remedies being Proportional Representation, on which scarcely any of the Conservatives gave me any support. Some Tory expectations appear to have been founded on the approbation I had expressed of plural voting, under certain conditions: and it has been surmised that the suggestion of this sort made in one of the Resolutions^[*] which Mr. Disraeli introduced into the House preparatory to his Reform Bill (a suggestion which meeting with no favour he did not press) may have been occasioned by what I had written on the point: but if so, it was forgotten that I had made it an express condition that the privilege of a plurality of votes should be annexed to education, not to property, and even so, had approved of it only on the supposition of universal suffrage.^[*] How utterly inadmissible such plural voting would be under the suffrage given by the present Reform Act, is proved, to any who could otherwise doubt it, by the very small weight which the working classes are found to possess in elections even under the law which gives no more votes to any one elector than to any other.

While I thus was far more obnoxious to the Tory interest, and to many Conservative Liberals than I had formerly been, the course I pursued in Parliament had by no means been such as to make Liberals generally at all enthusiastic in my support. It has already been mentioned, how large a proportion of my prominent appearances had been on questions on which I differed from most of the Liberal party or about which they cared little, and how few occasions there had been on which the line I took was such as could lead them to attach any great value to me as an organ of their opinions. I had moreover done things which had excited, in many minds, a personal prejudice against me. Many were offended by what they called the persecution of Mr. Eyre: and still greater offence was taken at my sending a subscription to the election expenses of Mr. Bradlaugh. Having refused to be at any expense for my own election, and having had all its expenses defrayed by others, I felt under a peculiar obligation to subscribe in my turn where funds were deficient for candidates whose election was desirable. I accordingly sent subscriptions to nearly all the working class candidates, and among others to Mr. Bradlaugh. He had the support of the working classes; having heard him speak I knew him to be a man of ability, and he had proved that he was the reverse of a demagogue by placing himself in strong opposition to the prevailing opinion of the democratic party on two such important subjects as Malthusianism and Personal Representation. Men of this sort, who while sharing the democratic feelings of the working classes, judged political questions for themselves and had courage to assert their individual convictions against popular opposition, were needed, as it seemed to me, in Parliament, and I did not think that Mr. Bradlaugh’s antireligious opinions (even though he had been intemperate in the expression of them) ought to exclude him. In subscribing, however, to his election, I did what would have been highly imprudent if I had been at liberty to consider only the interests of my own reelection; and, as might be expected, the utmost possible use, both fair and unfair, was made of this act of mine, to stir up the electors of Westminster against me. To these various causes, combined with an unscrupulous use of the usual pecuniary and other influences on the side of my Tory competitor^[†] while none were used on my side, it is to be ascribed that I failed at my second election after having succeeded at the first. No sooner was the result of the election known than I received three or four invitations to become a candidate for other constituencies, chiefly counties; but even if success could have been expected, and this without expense, I was not disposed to deny myself the relief of returning to private life. I had no cause to feel humiliated at my rejection by the electors; and if I had, the feeling would have been far outweighed by the numerous expressions of regret which I received from all sorts of persons and places, and in a most marked degree from those members of the liberal party in Parliament with whom I had been accustomed to act.

Since that time little has occurred which there is need to commemorate in this place. I returned to my old pursuits and to the enjoyment of a country life in the South of Europe; alternating twice a year with a residence of some weeks or months in the neighbourhood of London. I have written various articles in periodicals (chiefly in my friend Mr. Morley’s Fortnightly Review),^[*] have made a small number of speeches on public occasions, especially at the meetings of the Women’s Suffrage Society,^[†] have published The Subjection of Women, written some years before, with some additions by my daughter and myself, and have commenced the preparation of matter for future books, of which it will be time to speak more particularly if I live to finish them.^[‡] Here, therefore, for the present, this Memoir may close.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE: EDINBURGH REVIEW

1824

EDITORS’ NOTE

Westminster Review, I (Apr., 1824), 505-41. Unsigned. Headed: “Art. X. Periodical Literature, / Edinburgh Review.” Running titles: “Periodical Literature / Edinburgh Review.” Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “An article on the Edinburgh Review, in the second number of the Westminster Review” (MacMinn, p. 5). There are no corrections or emendations in the Somerville College copies. For comment, see the Introduction, p. xxxi above.

Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review

in a former article,^[*] we analysed the various misleading interests under the influence of which the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews are placed; both as periodical publications, and as the organs of the two great parties into which the British aristocracy is divided. We then proceeded to criticize the Edinburgh Review in detail; and we began to prove, by quotations from the work itself, that it has really exhibited the vices, which we described as likely to characterize a periodical publication attached to the Opposition party.

The most prominent feature in its character—its disposition to compromise—to say a little for the aristocracy and a little for the people alternately, and always to give up so much of every important question, as to avoid an irreparable breach either with the one side or with the other; this characteristic quality of the Review we illustrated by numerous quotations, selected from the volumes preceding the year 1812. We shall now prove, by further citations, that it has since persevered, and does still persevere, in the self-same course.

The first passage which we shall extract is from an article on Spain, in the twenty-third volume. The conduct of Ferdinand in re-establishing the old despotism, contrary to the expectations which had been held out to the Spaniards, in order to stimulate their exertions for the expulsion of the French, is here spoken of with that abhorrence which it so justly deserves.^[†] The writer appears, however, to have trembled lest he should have gone too far; lest the aristocracy should take the alarm at so severe a censure on an established government; on one, too, which it was the fashion of the day to call legitimate: and he continues,

This passage is a specimen of the vague language, so convenient for the purpose of compromise, which the Opposition party makes use of when it takes the popular side of any question.

“All power is derived from the people;” “government is founded on the general consent and tacit agreement of the people:” and the like. It is obvious that the people are not in any respect benefitted by this verbal recognition of their sovereignty. It does not bring them one particle nearer to obtaining good government. This they can obtain, only by providing real and efficient securities for it. But these vague phrases, though of no service to the people, are admirably suited to the purpose of the Whigs; which is, to please the people, just as far as is consistent with not alarming the aristocracy. A well-turned rhetorical sentence asserting popular supremacy, is expected to be grateful to the ears of many among the people, who not having a clear conception of what constitutes efficient securities for good government, are incapable of discerning that mere declamation gives no security whatever. The aristocracy, on their side, risk nothing by conceding to their adversaries a general maxim which leads to no consequences. Their power and emolument remain untouched. The only thing which they have any reason to dread—the establishment of efficient securities against misrule—the Edinburgh Review, from the first, has strenuously opposed. If the people will be cajoled with fine language concerning their sovereignty, they may have as much of it as they please from the Edinburgh Review. But, if they require any thing tangible—if they ask what they are to get by this boasted sovereignty, it calls them radicals and democrats, who wish for the annihilation of property, and the subversion of the social order.

We may explain on the same principles, the warmth which the Edinburgh Review has constantly shown, in defence of the people’s right to resist oppression by rising against the government. The following passage is extracted from an article in the twenty-seventh volume,^[*] on the dangers of the Constitution:

To suppose resistance necessary, is to suppose the existence of bad government; and to speak of it as a security, is only calculated to make the people contented with a bad government, by looking to resistance as a remedy for its evils. The fact is, that resistance is any thing but a remedy: and this for two reasons. One reason is, that from the aversion which all men feel to commit their persons and their property to the hazards of a civil war, they are willing to submit to a great degree of mis-government before they will resist. But, besides, a revolution, even when it does happen, is not, in itself, productive of any good. It is useful, only in so far as it contributes to establish permanent securities for good government. Take away this effect, and the whole cost of the revolution is unmixed evil. Yet the Edinburgh Review, which has always earnestly deprecated the establishment of securities for good government, holds up the principle of resistance as our only safeguard against oppression. Why? Because this principle, like all other principles which appear to be, without really being a security, is calculated to catch the favour of the less clear-sighted part of the people; while it does not alarm any but the more timid portion of the aristocracy. All among them whose fears do not entirely overcome their reason, are aware that a successful insurrection, the only kind of resistance which they have any reason to dread, rarely happens under a regular government; and that an ordinary share of prudence on their part, might, in most cases, prevent it from happening at all. They are, therefore, well contented that the people should be hindered from turning their attention to the remedies which are effectual, by having it fixed upon remedies which are not.

The whole language of the Edinburgh Reviewers, on the subject of government, proves their wish to prevent the people from looking out for securities against misrule. They do not approve of a law or of an institution, because it is conducive to good government, but because it is favourable to liberty. They do not disapprove of a ministerial measure, because it opens a door to oppression, but because it is unconstitutional. These phrases, as we shall presently show, are extremely convenient to those who wish to compromise the question of good government.

“The constitution” either means nothing at all, or it means the aggregate of the securities, such as they are, which our present form of government affords us, against misrule. These securities are either adequate to their purpose, or they are inadequate to it. The doctrine of the Edinburgh Review is, that they are not adequate. For it is continually asserting, in the most unqualified terms, that parliament, instead of being, as by the constitution it ought to be, an efficient check upon the conduct of ministers—is, on the contrary, a ready tool in their hands. We shall only quote one passage among many, in which this charge of inefficacy is brought against the constitution:

If the securities provided by the constitution are inefficient, so inefficient as not to prevent the government from being party to any act of baseness whatever; most men will probably conclude, that it is time to think of providing more perfect securities. Not so the Edinburgh reviewers; their ideas of amelioration go no farther than to bid us cling more closely to the imperfect securities which we have. To improve the constitution, is with them a very secondary object. To preserve it is the one thing needful. The necessity of guarding it against the encroachments of ministers, is the burden of their song, even in the very article from which the above extract was taken. They admit that misgovernment may be carried very far, with the concurrence of parliament, and therefore without violating the constitution. To this kind of misgovernment, however, it appears, we are to submit. If ministers will compound not to violate the constitution, they may oppress, as much as they please, in any other way. Is this not compromise? If not, the word is without a meaning.

We are aware that, on other occasions, the Edinburgh Review has represented the constitution as standing in need of improvement, and even of considerable improvement. But this, far from invalidating the truth of our observations, is only another instance of the habitual see-saw. When the tide ran high for reform, the Edinburgh Review was compelled, to a certain extent, to go with the tide. It is enough, that it has never proposed any plan of reform which would, to any practical purpose, diminish the power of the aristocracy, or add to the people’s securities for good government. To do so would have been to renounce the compromise, to break with the aristocracy, and to adhere to the people. This did not suit the Opposition party; nor, consequently, did it suit their faithful and devoted organ.

Liberty, another favourite word with the Edinburgh Review, is equally suited with the word “constitution,” to the ends of compromise. Liberty, in its original sense, means freedom from restraint. In this sense, every law, and every rule of morals, is contrary to liberty. A despot, who is entirely emancipated from both, is the only person whose freedom of action is complete. A measure of government, therefore, is not necessarily bad, because it is contrary to liberty; and to blame it for that reason, leads to confusion of ideas. But to create confusion of ideas, is essential to the purpose of those who have to persuade the people, that small abuses should be reformed, while great ones should remain untouched. The true reason for reform is evidently much stronger in the case of a great abuse than of a small one. They cannot therefore put forward the true reason; they must put forward something, which shall have the semblance of a reason, but which they can explain away when they please, and which, therefore, cannot be turned against themselves.

Liberty is the word which they make use of for this purpose. Small abuses are to be reformed, because they are contrary to liberty. There are minor reasons, as, that they hurt the prosperity of the country, and so forth, but this is the main argument. On the other hand, when a great abuse is to be upheld, these gentlemen proceed to explain away their own doctrine: they tell us that freedom may be carried to a dangerous excess; that it is apt to degenerate into licentiousness; and they coin certain convenient phrases, “rational liberty,” “constitutional liberty,” “liberty rightly understood,” and the like: with which elegant kinds of liberty they declare the great abuses to be consistent.

The above remarks afford a key to much of the language which the Edinburgh Review has held, and still holds, concerning government. Whatever it may be necessary to say concerning their plans of reform in the detail, will be said hereafter in a separate article.^[*]

Among the instruments of misgovernment which the rulers of this country have at their command, the law of libel is justly considered one of the most dangerous: as it enables them to free themselves from that which is in itself a considerable check upon them, and without which all other checks are ineffectual, free discussion. There is no legal definition of libel: there can be no definition, so long as libel law continues in its present state, that of common, or unwritten law. A judge, dependant upon the government, is left with full power to decide any publication libellous, or not, as he pleases: whatever disposition the jury might have to set aside his opinion, being got rid of by the practice of packing special juries.^* As might have been expected under such circumstances, the judges have allowed themselves no small latitude in declaring publications to be libellous. Lord Ellenborough once said from the Bench, that a libel was any thing which hurt the feelings of any body.^[*] The common judge-made definition of a public libel, is, any thing which tends to bring the constituted authorities into hatred and contempt.^[†] But all censure of their conduct must, pro tanto, have this tendency; and most so, when their misconduct is most glaring, and the censure which is bestowed on it most urgently required. With the help, therefore, of so convenient a definition of libel, and of such convenient instruments as English judges, government have it in their power to suppress all censure whatever.

The twenty-seventh volume of the Edinburgh Review contains an article on Holt’s Law of Libel, in which this subject is canvassed at considerable length.^[‡] For the people, there is abundance of general remarks on the importance of free discussion; remarks such as we hear from no one more frequently than from Lord Eldon himself. But when the reviewer comes to something specific; when he undertakes “to find the quantity of liberty, and the species of restraint, which will secure to the press the greatest amount of free discussion consistent with the tranquillity of the community, and the safety of private character;”^[§] he proceeds in the most deliberate manner to surrender up all the essential points to the aristocracy.

The undefined nature of the offence of libel; that which is really at the root of the mischief; that which enables the government to punish as libellous any publication containing sentiments unpleasing to themselves; this enormous evil, the Edinburgh Review not only does not suggest the means of correcting, but expressly declares not to be an evil.

In the next page, however, we are told that “means may be found of limiting the sense of the word in practice as effectually as is desirable, and preventing the prosecution of any thing that at any time displeases any body, as the modern practice has been alleged to have described the offence.”^[¶]

The inconsistency of this doctrine with itself is remarkable. We are to limit the meaning of the word: if we do not, all kinds of mischief will ensue. But we are not to limit it in the only mode in which any man in his senses ever thought of limiting the meaning of a word; namely, by a definition. What is the tendency of this doctrine is evident. It is to give us something which should appear to limit the meaning of the word, without really limiting it: to deceive the people into a belief that freedom of discussion exists by law, when in fact so much of it only exists as public opinion renders it unsafe to destroy.

The two following passages form an appropriate comment upon the preceding:

And further on,

Mark the concessions which are here made to the aristocracy. “It may be libellous to state in an inflammatory way, that which, if plainly stated, would be innocent.” We are sorry the reviewer did not teach us how to draw a precise line between two modes of stating the same fact, one of them an inflammatory mode, the other not. Only entrust a judge dependant on the aristocracy, and a packed special jury, with the power of punishing all statements conveyed in what they may call inflammatory language; and nothing more is wanting to enable them to punish any statements whatever.

The other passage, however, goes even beyond this in open and undisguised enmity to free discussion. In some cases “a simple statement of facts respecting the government would be an offence against the public tranquillity:” much more, a statement accompanied by a comment, however calm and dispassionate. This gives a degree of latitude to the government, which is scarcely claimed even by the Tories themselves. Moderate Tories usually admit that calm and dispassionate discussion on the conduct of the government should be allowed. The Edinburgh Review, however, tells us, that in some cases, which it is impossible to define by law, not merely all discussion, however cool and unimpassioned, but a bare statement of facts, ought to be punished. It tells us, indeed, that these cases are rare. Happily it would not be safe, in this age and country, to say that they are not rare. But, rare as they are, it tells us that they cannot be defined: and as there must be somebody to judge, and as the Edinburgh Review has not told us who this somebody shall be, we are left to conclude that it means the government to judge: and to judge what? To judge what shall, and shall not be spoken of itself!

In return for all these concessions to the aristocracy, what is to be done for the people? Truth should be permitted to be given in evidence on the trial, and should have some weight in determining the verdict of the jury: although it would rest with the judge and packed jury to decide what degree of weight it should have. The greatest benefit of a free press is, the discussion which it calls forth concerning the conduct of the government. This discussion consists in the statement of facts and expression of opinions. We have seen how the Edinburgh Review disposes of the statement of facts; and as for the expression of opinions, how would freedom in this respect be increased by the adoption of the only remedy which the Edinburgh Review proposes for the defects of the law of libel?

Within the last six or seven years, when the desire of efficient securities for good government has become much more general than it has been at any previous period of history, the interest of all other political questions has been to a considerable degree swallowed up by that of parliamentary reform. It was to be expected, therefore, that this subject should occupy a more conspicuous place than before in the pages of the Edinburgh Review. And in the tone which the Review has adopted on this most momentous of all topics, there appears not less of the disposition to compromise than on every other subject of importance. Its ordinary course has been to speak loudly of reform in general, but specifically to approve only such plans as, if adopted, would leave the means of misgovernment with unimpaired strength in the hands of the aristocracy; and to impute either the grossest folly, or the most detestable wickedness, to those who desire a more extensive reform, as well as to those who would have no reform at all. In conformity to the habitual see-saw, they have occasionally deviated from this course.

Thus an article on America, in the thirty-first volume, contains an unusual proportion of democratic sentiments.^[*] The same observation applies to another article on the same subject, in the thirty-third volume,^[†] where a charge which had been brought against the Review of illiberality towards America, seems to have extorted from it sundry expressions in favour of popular governments, exceeding perhaps, in boldness, any which had yet appeared in its pages. America is quoted as an instance to show “within what limits popular institutions are safe and practicable, and what a large infusion of democracy is consistent with the authority of government and the good order of society.” (P. 405.) Then follows a prediction that, ere long, a struggle will take place in all the countries of Europe, for the amelioration of their political institutions; “even in England,” says the reviewer, “the more modified elements of the same principles are stirring and heaving around, above, and beneath us, with unprecedented agitation and terror” [p. 403]; and he observes that the assistance of America may be needed to give preponderance to the good cause.

In the very next number we find an article on France,^[*] which almost returns to the anti-jacobin tone of the early numbers. In direct opposition to the doctrines of the article to which we just referred; it repeats the wretched aristocratic fallacy, of which too many well-meaning persons are even now the dupes, that “wherever universal suffrage is actually established, Agrarian law may be expected to follow.” (Pp. 27-8.) It laments bitterly over the decay and discredit into which, fortunately for France, the old feudal nobility have fallen [pp. 14-16]. It says as much as it can venture to say in palliation of the vices of the old French despotism: thus, it doubts whether the abolition of the jurandes, the maîtrises, and similar commercial restrictions, was a benefit [p. 3]. It lauds the parlemens for the purity of their administration of justice [p. 17], as if it had forgotten the fate of Calas, and other transactions of a similar stamp.^* When at last it is compelled to admit that great evils existed, it tells us that “France had never been in so fair a way to see the defects of its old institutions corrected, and civil liberty introduced with success, as it was just before the Revolution. But the restless impatience of reformers could brook no delay.” [P. 18.] And then it goes on imputing all the evils of the revolution to the impatience of the reformers, and none of them to the opposition of the court. It accuses the French government, subsequent to the restoration of the Bourbons, of too great a tendency to liberalism! and vindicates Louis XVIII from the accusation of mistrusting the people, and of being insincere in his professions of a desire to establish a constitutional government in France! [P. 30.] Be it observed, also, that this article was written, not immediately after the return of the Bourbons, when it could only as yet be surmised what course they would pursue; but after the passing of the election law of 1820,^[†] by which a permanent majority in the Chamber of Deputies was secured to the Court, and but for which, neither the Spanish war, nor any of the other iniquitous measures of the French government would probably ever have taken place.^* On this law the Edinburgh Review bestows unqualified praise; because, forsooth, “the republican principle predominates in the French monarchy” [p. 28]; a defect which, it seems, is to be remedied by giving preponderance to a very different principle—the despotic. After this we need not feel surprise on being told that our own complaints against our government, including, of course, those of the Edinburgh Review, are unfounded.

We know not whether the following sentence is more remarkable for the boldness with which it begs the question, or for the unintelligible jargon in which the assumption is wrapt up, to conceal its utter falsehood:

From the length to which our remarks upon the see-saw have already extended, we have only room for one additional instance. This we shall select from an article in the thirty-seventh volume, on the Liberty of the Press and the Constitutional Association;^[*] in which, by the way, a defect in the law which, in a former article, was affirmed to be irremediable—the absence of all definition of libel—is acknowledged and complained of (p. 116). The frequent use which government has sometimes made of the privilege of ex-officio informations is here spoken of as meriting the severest censure. But the reader will judge how much value is to be attached to those declarations, when we tell him that it complains as loudly of the “culpable indifference” with which, at other times, government has abstained from prosecuting certain periodical works; although “every one else,” says the Review, “was daily sickened at the audacity and activity of their authors” (p. 112); an assertion which, if true, proves, conclusively, that the publications in question cannot have done any mischief, and, consequently, that it would have been altogether unjustifiable, upon all principles, to punish the authors.

That the spirit of compromise has been a marked characteristic of the EdinburghReview, from its commencement to the present day, insomuch that there is scarcely a question of any importance, of which it has not either given up half, or preached alternately, first on the one side and then on the other, is now, we hope, sufficiently clear to all our readers.

It shall next be our business to prove that it has been equally distinguished by the other vices to which we have shown periodical literature to be liable. And first, we shall examine how far it has made a practice of chiming in with existing prejudices.

Of its sacrifices at the altar of aristocratic prejudice, two remarkable instances occur in the first number; the one in a review of Southey’s Thalaba, the other in an article on the sugar colonies.^[*]

To most of our readers Mr. Southey is probably known only as the warm advocate of every existing abuse, and the reviler of all who think that governments were made for the people, and not the people for governments. He, and the other Lake poets, however, commenced writing with higher objects. They saw that the aristocracy, while they profess a whining sympathy with the poor as individuals, inflict the most tremendous evils, without compunction, upon the poor, en masse; and they resolved to set the example of condemning murder and robbery on a large as well as on a small scale. They saw that the aristocracy, as a class, claim merit for every crime which they do not commit; while it is urged as a reproach against the poor, that they are not always proof against temptations, which nothing less than heroic virtue could withstand. They saw this, and were indignant: they contrasted the vices of the people with the vices of the aristocracy, and bestowed the severest condemnation, where every candid mind will admit that the severest condemnation was due. In such a cause, even some exaggeration would have been excusable; there is certainly no want of exaggeration on the other side. Hear, however, the Edinburgh Review:

To blame a man for being “filled with horror and compassion at the sight of poor men shedding their blood in the quarrels of princes;” and to accuse him, on that account, of a “splenetic and idle discontent with the existing institutions of society,” is to put forth a doctrine which we could not characterise in adequate terms, and on which, therefore, we shall abstain from offering any remark. Nor will we refute the assertion, that the vices of the poor are not more excusable than those of the rich: it would be an insult both to the understanding and to the feelings of our readers. But do the rich try themselves even by the same standard as the poor? We give them full credit for their virtuous horror of poachers and of sabbath-breaking orange-women; but we submit that if vices are to be weighed by their tendency to deprave and corrupt the character, gambling, the vice of the rich, is entitled to rank somewhat above even sabbath-breaking and poaching: yet those very gentlemen who habitually enforce against poachers the utmost penalties of an atrocious law, daily receive into their houses persons notorious for gambling at Newmarket, if not in Pall Mall; but who are not, on that account, less “moral men” in the eyes of their vice-suppressing friends. While these are the habitual feelings of the higher classes—feelings which ninety-nine out of every hundred poets foster, and will continue to foster, so long as the aristocracy shall continue, as at present, to lead public opinion; what are we to think of a writer who, like the Edinburgh Reviewer, blames the hundredth for bestowing “exclusive sympathy” upon the poor?

The other article to which we alluded presents a remarkable contrast with the tone which the Edinburgh Review afterwards assumed, on the subject of negro slavery. Its object is, to prove that we ought to wish success to an armament which the French government was then fitting out against Hayti; and that we ought even, if necessary, to assist the French in their enterprise. When we consider what that enterprise was—an enterprise for the purpose of reducing a whole nation of negroes to the alternative of death, or of the most horrible slavery; and when we consider upon what ground we are directed to co-operate in it, namely, the danger to which our colonies would be exposed, by the existence of an independent negro commonwealth, we can have no difficulty in appreciating such language as the following:

To couple together “the poor” and “the profligate,” as if they were two names for the same thing, is a piece of complaisance to aristocratic morality which requires no comment. Then all who venture to doubt whether it is perfectly just and humane to aid in reducing one half of the people of Hayti to slavery, and exterminating the other half, are accused of sympathizing exclusively with the blacks. We wonder what the writer would call sympathizing exclusively with the whites. We should have thought that the lives and liberties of a whole nation, were an ample sacrifice, for the sake of a slight, or rather, as the event has proved, an imaginary addition to the security of the property of a few West-India planters. This is, indeed, to abjure “canting philanthropy.” What it is that the reviewer gives us in the place of it we leave to the reader to judge.

In the third volume there is a passage, in an article^[*] on Millar’s View of the English Government, where the writer, attempting to draw a character of Millar, thus expresses himself:

By all in whom aristocratic bigotry has not extinguished every spark of candour or honesty, but one judgment can be passed upon a writer who can apply to the unmerited sufferings of the poor the appellation of “imaginary miseries,” and who can insinuate that the “imputed vices” of the higher orders are imputed to them without foundation.

He continues, “While no man could be more convinced of the incapacity and worthlessness of the clamorous multitude, he thought that the indirect influence of public opinion was the only safeguard of our liberties.”^[*] Can Toryism go beyond this? The passage is, besides, an amusing specimen of see-saw. The attempt to unite contradictory opinions is more undisguised, less carefully wrapped up in vague and obscure language, than is usual with the Edinburgh Review. For the aristocracy, abuse is heaped upon the people, under the name of the “clamorous multitude;” for the people, the influence of public opinion is described as the only safeguard of our liberties: the opinion of that public which, in the preceding part of the very same sentence, is accused of incapacity and worthlessness.

The Edinburgh Review could have hoped for no success with the aristocracy, had it let slip any opportunity of possessing them with high ideas of their own importance to the community. We need not wonder, therefore, to find it describing a resident gentry as one of the greatest of all blessings; and one, of which the infallible consequence would be, “the improvement of their lands, and the improvement of their tenantry in morals, in comfort, and in industry.” (Vol. V, p. 302; see also Vol. XXIV, p. 523; Vol. XXXIV, p. 326, et passim.)^[†] There is only one thing of which the writer has neglected to inform us: how these most desirable effects are brought about. The tenants, at least, are not impressed with a due sense of them; for in Scotland (and the same, we suppose, would be found to be the case in England), a higher rent is commonly paid for a farm, when it is known that the proprietor is not to reside in the neighbourhood. It is a pity that so flattering a picture as the reviewer holds up to us, should differ so widely from the real state of the facts.^*

The only remaining instance which space will permit us to notice, of the obloquy thrown upon the people by the Edinburgh Review, shall be selected from a very recent article on the Westminster Infant School.^[‡]

The reviewer mentions with regret, that this establishment, though well attended so long as it continued a free school, had fallen off considerably when the payment of three pence a week was required. This he ascribes to “that vulgar feeling which makes the poor too often greedy at once, and ungrateful; expecting as a kind of right, what their richer neighbours give in charity, and almost thinking that whoever volunteers his services in their behalf, has a personal interest in their good, and should pay for his fancy.” (P. 445.) We do not precisely see what the writer means. If he is finding fault with the poor, for not liking better to pay for what they want than to receive it gratis, we suspect it is a fault to which all men, not excepting even the reviewer himself, must plead guilty. But if he means to insinuate, that they refrain from sending their children to the school, because they suspect the motives of the gentlemen who set it on foot, the absurdity is so palpable as scarcely to need a refutation. The idea that any one, in determining whether he will avail himself of a proffered benefit, is influenced by any other considerations than, first, whether it is really a benefit, and secondly, whether the cost does not exceed the advantage, almost provokes a laugh. In this instance, there can be no doubt as to the cause of the falling-off of the school. The parents uniformly evinced the acutest sensibility to the benefits they derived from it. But a great proportion of them were from the very poorest of the people, and really could not spare threepence a week, much less fourpence or sixpence. Mark, however, the uncandidness of the reviewer; he knew that some parents chose rather to withdraw their children, than to pay threepence a week. He knew also, that some parents formerly paid fourpence or sixpence a week to the dame schools. He immediately lays it down as certain, that these two classes of persons are the same; and on these premises he accuses the poor in general of giving a preference to the dame schools!

That the poor, in all countries, instead of erring on the side of distrust, have uniformly erred on the side of confidence, is proved by their habitual submission to misgovernment. Perhaps, if it were admitted that they are habitually suspicious of the rich, the influence would be more unfavourable to their superiors than to themselves. To borrow an illustration from another branch of morality; the veracity of that man must be more than suspected, whose word is disbelieved even when he speaks the truth. By the same rule, then, if the poor habitually suspect that the rich, when they profess to serve them, are really serving their own sinister purposes, the fair inference would be, not that these suspicious habits had grown up, as suspicious habits never were known to grow up, of themselves; but that, from the frequency with which the poor have seen their interests disregarded by the rich, they cannot bring themselves to repose any confidence in the professions which they hear from those rich, of a desire to serve them.^*

The Edinburgh Review has pandered with as much perseverance to national as to aristocratic prejudices. English and excellent it employs as synonymous terms; that a foreigner admires England, is a sure passport to its praise; that he does not, is of itself sufficient to draw down upon him its censure. The habits and institutions of other nations are praised exactly in proportion as they approach to the English standard; blamed in proportion as they depart from it. On the other hand, the prejudices which prevail in this country against the French, are carefully nourished and fostered. Every opportunity is taken of showing how much the character and habits of that nation differ from excellence; meaning, of course, by excellence, the English habits and character. Sometimes, indeed, a torrent of mere abuse is poured out against the French, for the sole purpose of gratifying national antipathy.

We could fill a whole article with instances of these practices; but the few which we shall select are so flagrant, that any one who peruses them, will readily dispense with the remainder.

In an article in the second volume, on Dallas’s History of the Maroons,^[*] the writer, after very properly deprecating the use of bloodhounds in hunting down the insurgent slaves, adds the following note:

The consular government was not worse than any other despotism. Nevertheless, we should not object to the censure, were it levelled against the government alone. But why are the people held responsible for the cruelties of the government? For this reason, that when the above passage was written, the English aristocracy abhorred every thing French—the government as well as the people; but the people most: because they had incurred the guilt of throwing off despotism; the government only that of substituting one despotism for another. On any of the occasions on which the Edinburgh Review has declared the English ministers worthy of impeachment; on the occasion, for instance, of the Walcheren expedition—would they have dared to lay the guilt of the ministers at the door of the English people?^[†] Yet the English people had as great a hand in the Walcheren expedition, as the French people had in the employment of blood-hounds in St. Domingo—a reflection which the reviewer probably thought not likely to occur to his antigallican readers.

An article on Dr. Black’s Lectures, in the following Number,^[‡] is remarkable for its offerings both to national antipathies and to national vanity. Upon the French men of science, the writer is peculiarly severe. He who could ascribe the invention of the most beautiful system of weights and measures ever yet known, to a combination of “innovating phrenzy and puerile vanity” [p. 22], must have sat down with a predetermination to find matter for censure. In his next charge he is almost equally unfortunate. Some French savans, it seems, in the warmth of their self-congratulation upon a most important discovery, had indulged in certain ludicrous ceremonies, repugnant indeed to English gravity, but of which the worst that can be said is, that they were a harmless piece of child’s play:

We confess we do not see any thing very atrocious in this; and we suspect no one but an Edinburgh or a Quarterly reviewer would have thought of magnifying it into a proof of “that universal charlatanerie (the word cannot be translated by a people so destitute of the thing) which renders the French national character the least respectable of any in the civilized world.” [P. 22.] John Bull, whose gullibility has been the subject of so many sarcasms, would no doubt feel agreeably surprised at being told that no such thing as charlatanerie is known in England. If he reflected, however, that this very England is the only country where a quack doctor ever succeeded, we fear he would feel inclined to doubt the sincerity of his panegyrist.

In another article in the same Number,^[*] “a vicious and perverted love of obscenity” is described as “peculiarly and characteristically the disgrace of French literature.” (P. 125.) In a subsequent article^[†] this charge is repeated, and directed more peculiarly against Diderot, whose works are affirmed to be characterized by a peculiar and revolting kind of indecency. (P. 283.) We think it sufficient to appeal to the knowledge of any one who is well versed in French literature, whether there is as much indecency in any French writer of reputation—probably in any two French writers of reputation—as there is in Shakspeare alone; Shakspeare, whom the Edinburgh Review holds up as the ne plus ultra of literary excellence.^[‡]

For some years, when the cry of the Edinburgh Review was for peace; to continue reviling the French, would have been to fight against its own object. In the more recent volumes, however, it has returned to its former practice, which it had never more than partially intermitted.

The charge of indecency against the French is one which it has thought proper frequently to repeat. At the end of an article in the thirty-first volume, on Madame d’Epinay’s Correspondence, the writer observes—“But if all the decencies and delicacies of life were in one scale, and five francs in the other, what French bookseller would feel a single moment of doubt in making his election?”^[§] Now, we take the case to be, that in this, as in most other respects, a French bookseller is very like any other bookseller. The love of gain, we are apt to think, is not peculiar to the French people: and when a writer inveighs against a particular nation, for being acted upon by the same inducements which influence men all over the world, we are at no loss in what terms to characterize his conduct.

Three recent articles, one in the thirty-fourth, one in the thirty-fifth, and another in the thirty-seventh volume,^[*] are devoted to the express purpose of extolling all English, and depreciating all French books and authors;^* of extolling the morality, taste, and knowledge of the English public, and depreciating that of the French. The writer appears not to be aware, that there are two sides to a question. In as far as he is concerned, there is only one. On the English side he enumerates nothing but excellencies; on the French side, nothing but defects. As if this were not enough, he draws largely upon his imagination for fresh excellencies to be ascribed to the English, and fresh defects to the French. Not content with pronouncing in favour of the English national taste, on every point on which it differs from the French; he traces up all such differences to the superiority of the English over the French public—first in good sense, and next in morality. A detailed analysis of these articles would not convey an adequate conception of their spirit to those who have not read them, and would be superfluous to those who have. Our limits will admit only of one specimen. Flagrant as that specimen is, it is not the worst. He presents us with what is meant to be a parallel between the eminent men of the last half-century in England and France. With this view he makes a pompous display of all the English authors who have attained, during that period, any, even the smallest, share of celebrity; down to the merest party scribblers, or vulgar versifiers, and including many whose names we never heard before.^† On the other hand, he sets up on the French side a sort of index expurgatorius, and instead of a page and a half of names pronounced worthy of immortality, he furnishes us with a list of authors whom he, by his fiat, consigns to oblivion [p. 180]. Among these are not only Jouy, Millevoye, and Raynouard, poets, to say the least, not inferior to many who are enumerated in the same article among the ornaments of the British nation: not only Ségur, Thouret, and Boissy d’Anglas, authors unquestionably far superior, both in liberality, in talents, and in style, to average English historians; but Say,—one of the few French writers who never sacrifices truth to display,—who is never led astray from the path of reason, by sentimentality, or by a taste for floridity and declamation,—Say, who first introduced the French nation to the true principles of political economy, and whose name will be mentioned with honour among the philosophers who have raised that important branch of knowledge to the rank of a science; he, too, is ranked among those “revolutionary worthies,” who will be utterly forgotten in half a century, and the very ablest of whom “would find in this country, and at this moment, at the least ten persons of more ability than himself, yet whose names are absolutely unknown.” (Ibid.)

If there is a fault with which French authors, collectively, can be charged (though even to this rule there are exceptions), it is declamation and sentimentality. And when we consider what has been the character of English literature since Johnson and Burke wrote,—when we see that, in this country, the meanest creature who can hold a pen aims at being eloquent, we cannot pronounce even declamation and sentimentality, though the common faults of French writers, to be characteristic of French literature. Observe that these, the only faults which can be justly ascribed to the French authors generally, are almost the only faults which have not been ascribed to them by the Edinburgh Review. This is not wonderful, considering of what stamp some of the works have been upon which the Edinburgh Review has been the most prodigal of its praise,^* and considering also the examples of declamation and sentimentality with which its pages abound.

The sentiments which the Edinburgh Review has put forth concerning female character, are as little creditable to itself, and exemplify as completely the characteristic malady of periodical literature, as any which we have yet quoted.

He who is restrained by indolence from improving himself, has a direct interest in preventing the improvement of others; since, if others improve, and he does not keep pace with them, he must necessarily lose his rank in their estimation. But he is most of all interested in the non-improvement of his wife. For he thinks, and he believes that others think, that he ought to be her guardian and protector: to rely, therefore, upon her for protection and guidance, instead of extending it to her, is more than usually humiliating. There is another and a very powerful motive, which renders ordinary men averse to instructed women. Every man desires that his wife should prefer him, and prefer him beyond comparison, to all other men. But if she is capable of discriminating between merit and no merit, she will not reserve for her husband alone that admiration which ought to be given wherever it is deserved; and if he is neither wiser nor better than others, he will not, by her, be rated higher, or valued more.

To these causes must be ascribed the morality which is usually chalked out for women. It is a sort of morality, the prevalence of which it would be difficult to account for in any other way. The qualities which are said to constitute excellence in a woman, are very different from those which constitute excellence in a man. It is considered meritorious in a man to be independent: to be sufficient to himself; not to be in a constant state of pupillage. In a woman, helplessness, both of mind and of body, is the most admired of attributes. A man is despised, if he be not courageous. In a woman, it is esteemed amiable to be a coward. To be entirely dependant upon her husband for every pleasure, and for exemption from every pain; to feel secure, only when under his protection; to be incapable of forming any opinion, or of taking any resolution without his advice and aid; this is amiable, this is delicate, this is feminine: while all who infringe on any of the prerogatives which man thinks proper to reserve for himself; all who can or will be of any use, either to themselves or to the world, otherwise than as the slaves and drudges of their husbands, are called masculine, and other names intended to convey disapprobation. Even they who profess admiration for instructed women, not unfrequently select their own wives from among the ignorant and helpless.

That the Edinburgh Review has never stood up manfully to resist this prejudice, is in itself no trifling charge. But it has done more: it has repeatedly given a direct sanction to it. Madame De Staël, Miss Edgeworth, and other eminent women, were to be praised; it could not, therefore, in distinct terms, number incapacity among female virtues. But it could say, “Shakspeare has expressed the very perfection of the feminine character, existing only for others, and leaning for support on the strength of its affections.”^* A character which has nothing to lean upon but the strength of its affections, must be a helpless character indeed. This is vague enough; and, like almost every thing which the Edinburgh Review says in defence of prejudices, admits of being explained away. The tendency of it, however, is manifest; and it is equally evident, that the vague language in which it is wrapped up, only serves to render it the more pernicious, by inveigling many into assent, who would shrink from the proposition, if presented to them in its naked deformity.

Such additional remarks as our limits will admit of shall be devoted to illustrate the morality of the Edinburgh Review.

This, it might be thought, is a labour which, after the specimens already exhibited, might be spared. What can be more immoral than the see-saw? a practice which is, throughout, a mere sacrifice of truth to convenience: a practice which habituates its votaries to play fast and loose with opinions—to lay down one, and take up another, with every change of audience? Can there be a spectacle more repugnant to that candour and sincerity which are so essential a part of morality, than a continual attempt to varnish over inconsistencies, and to reconcile in appearance doctrines which are really irreconcileable? What immorality, again, can exceed that of pandering to those prejudices which render one nation the enemy of another, or one portion of the people the enemy of the mass?

In the Whig morality, however, as delivered in the Edinburgh Review, there are some features which call for a more detailed examination.

In the following passage, extracted from an article in the twentieth volume on Leckie’s View of the English Government,^[*] we have a tolerable specimen of the sort of conduct which answers to the Whig ideas of public virtue:

Observe the course which is here chalked out for a public man. The first thing he has to do is to choose a party. As he is to fix his choice upon the party of whose measures he approves, one would think he ought to stand by it so long as he approves of its measures, and no longer. Such would be the dictate of honesty; but such is not the dictate of the Edinburgh Review. To stand by it in all things which he approves, in all things which are indifferent, and in some things which he disapproves: this is the Whig morality. By supporting it in things which he approves, he is only doing what he might have done, and kept, notwithstanding, perfectly clear from the trammels of party. The only thing peculiar to the party system, is the obligation to stand by his party in things which are indifferent, and in things which he disapproves. Observe, now, what this implies. To support the party in things which are indifferent, he must profess to believe them not to be indifferent. To support the party in things which he disapproves, he must, where he really disapproves, profess to approve. He must pretend to hold, and act as if he held, opinions directly contrary to his real opinions.

Another rule of party morality is pretty clearly expressed in the foregoing passage—“He will attack not only all that he individually disapproves in the conduct of the adversary, but all that might appear indifferent and tolerable enough to a neutral spectator, if it afford an opportunity to weaken him in the public opinion.” For the sake of weakening the minister in the public opinion, a deception is to be practised upon the public: means are to be used for misleading them, by instilling into them a false opinion, by persuading them that the minister has acted wrong, when in truth he has acted right. We presume it would be meritorious to invent any convenient sophism which should have the effect of furthering so laudable an object.

The reader will do well to peruse, as a specimen of the Whig style of argument, an elaborate article on the state of parties in the thirtieth volume, in which all this jesuitry is vindicated under the name of concert and co-operation.^[*] The ministry—such is the language—have an organized and well-disciplined body of adherents constantly at their devotion: when bad men combine, good men must unite; and in this, as in every thing else, small things must be yielded for the sake of great ones.

Let us bear in mind what sort of “concert” it is, which is here recommended: a concert which consists in opposing the ministry when they are right, supporting the opposition when they are wrong: a concert of which the fundamental principle is, that every thing to which the majority of the party is favourable, shall be supported by the whole; every thing to which the majority is adverse, opposed by the whole. To call this “yielding in small things for the sake of great ones,”^[†] is to beg the question. There are sufficient reasons to make it certain that the yielding will be precisely in those things which are the most important of all.

While public men continue to be, what public men, with few exceptions, are at present, so little versed in the science of human nature, so little skilled in predicting effects from their causes; excessive timidity must be, in the great majority of cases, the governing principle of their conduct. A short-sighted man is ever timid. He sees that, under the present system, person and property are to a certain degree secure. Change the system, and he knows not what will happen. Not knowing what will happen, he fears the worst. And though he dreads great changes most, his opposition extends even to the smallest. Innovation once begun, though it be but in a trifle, he knows not when or where it will end.

In the present situation of Great Britain, and of all countries in Europe, extensive and searching reforms are imperatively required. All half measures are useless, with reference to the production of any great or permanent good. To effect extensive and searching reforms, boldness and decision are absolutely necessary. Boldness and decision, however, are qualities, in which, for the reasons which we have stated, the public men of the present day, at least the great majority of them, are, of necessity, and to a lamentable degree, deficient. All decisive measures, therefore, are sure to meet with opposition at their hands. They never venture to strike at the root of the evil. Some miserable palliative is all they dare to apply. It is to the more manly and clear-sighted alone, that the advocate of effectual improvement must look for support. Here, however, the evils of the party system are most clearly shown. The clear-sighted and manly, who would have been instruments of good, become instruments of mischief. Instead of aiding effectual improvement, they are compelled to oppose it. They are dragged down to the level of the meanest animal who can give a vote; they dare not advance a step without his previous sanction; they are pressed into the service of every abuse which he in his wisdom may consider it unsafe to remove.

This is to “yield in small things for the sake of great ones.” But what are the great ones? What is the end, for which every thing which is of most importance, and almost every thing which is of any importance, is to be sacrificed? Simply the displacement of the ministry: an important object, we admit, to those who hope to succeed them; but would it be of any benefit to the people? Even on the principles of the Edinburgh Review it would not. For if the removal of a particular set of ministers is of so much importance, that ministry must have been guilty of immense mischief: of what sort then must be the constitution which permitted them to do so? And if the constitution be such as not to prevent an abuse of trust, by what right does the opposition lay claim to more confidence than the ministry?

When such is the state of the question; to talk of the necessity of concert, is to talk in the air. No one is more sensible of the necessity of concert than ourselves. Not that sort of concert which consists in speaking and voting on one side, thinking and feeling on the other—but a concert which involves no sacrifice of principle—a concert for mutual aid among those who agree, without imposing fetters upon those who differ; a concert, in short, not for men, but for measures. All would then co-operate, where all were agreed; and the advocate of bold and decisive measures—of the only measures which in the present state of the world can be of great or permanent utility; would have the support of every sincere man whom he could convince.

Even though it had not been in our power to quote, as we have done, from the pages of the Edinburgh Review, explicit declarations in favour of bad morality—the morality of party—that Review would still have been far from blameless on the moral score. There is such a thing as negative immorality—there is the immoral by omission; and of this it stands convicted out of its own mouth. Witness the following extracts from an article in the twenty-first volume.^[*] In what respect does a moral work differ from one which is not moral? In aiming at rendering mankind wiser and better. What, then are we to think of a publication which declares all improvement in wisdom and in virtue, to be hopeless?

Then follows a series of paragraphs to corroborate this assertion. We copy one or two of them. They throw some light upon the logic as well as upon the morality of the Edinburgh Review.

We must call the attention of our readers to one short passage more.

We are here told, not obscurely, but distinctly—not indirectly, but in as many words—that morality will never be better understood than at present; that morality will never be better practised than at present; that mankind will never be more prudent than they now are; that vigour of intellect and sound views of human affairs are oftener found and better listened to at this moment, than they are likely to be at any future period.

This is a bold attempt to catch the favour of aristocracy, by affording a new pretext for checking the diffusion of knowledge. In the mean time, how gross is the hypocrisy of which, by its own confession, the Edinburgh Review must have been guilty, as often as it has cried out, and it has cried out often, for the instruction, and, above all, for the moral instruction of the people! We think also, that it may fairly be asked, by what title a work which sets out by assuming the impossibility of human improvement, can be supposed to have human improvement at heart, or to have any object whatever in view, beyond the mere temporary amusement of its readers?

And, indeed, if the value which a writer sets upon morality can be gathered from the judgments which he passes upon other writers, the Edinburgh Review has not traced its own portrait with too severe a pencil.

The examples which we shall adduce of this part of its character are not to be viewed as isolated instances, but as illustrative of its general practice. To be over-partial to this or that writer is a trifling offence. But habitually to bestow praise, not upon one production only, but upon many, without for a moment adverting to their moral tendency, implies a state of mind on which we shall leave the reader to his own reflections.

We shall select, as our first instance, the tenor of its criticism upon Shakspeare: if that can be called criticism, where all is unmingled admiration.

No one, we suppose, will dispute to Johnson the title of an admirer of Shakspeare, though not, perhaps, an admirer to the taste of the Edinburgh Review: for he contented himself with being the ablest and most successful of the eulogists of Shakspeare as a poet; and did not, as some have done, hold him up as a perfect teacher of morality also.

We should be sorry to be suspected of affecting prudery. It is one thing to be a moralist, another thing to be a poet; and a high degree of excellence in the one capacity is not incompatible with great deficiency in the other. But we assert that in a species of writing which admits so easily of being made subservient to morality, to be without a moral object is one of the greatest of defects; and we do say, that amid all the praises which the Edinburgh Review has lavished upon Shakspeare, its never having uttered even a wish that the moral tendency of his plays had been more decided, gives the lie direct to all its professions of zeal for morality. But the Edinburgh Review is written for Englishmen: Shakspeare is the idol of Englishmen: Shakspeare, therefore, must be praised, and for the more complete satisfaction of his admirers, all his merits must be exaggerated, and all his demerits must be sunk. To render men wiser or better is but a secondary concern: to please the public taste, is the first.

If to write without a moral purpose be a fault which the barbarity even of Shakspeare’s age cannot extenuate, we presume it will be held to be still less excusable in Sir Walter Scott. He too shows no decided leaning between virtue and vice. There is no one of his productions from which, unless it be by chance, any one useful lesson can be derived. It is impossible to peruse them without being convinced that amusement, and amusement only, is there studied. This highly-gifted author, is, like Shakspeare, an object of admiration to the Edinburgh Review;^[*] but not, like Shakspeare, of unqualified admiration. It has not judged him faultless; it has found defects; other defects, but never that of wanting a moral purpose; never has it abated, on this account, one iota of its praise; never for a moment has it lamented that his productions were not useful, as well as agreeable.

This indifference to the moral tendency of a work is perfectly consistent with the declaration of the Edinburgh Review, that the human race is without the capacity of moral improvement. But it forms a notable contrast with the scrupulosity which the same Review has assumed, when opprobrium is to be heaped upon an unpopular writer: upon Voltaire, for example: towards whom it seems to think that it is scarcely possible to be too foul-mouthed. “To him, more than to any other individual, the eighteenth century owes, we fear, its crimes.”^* Such is its ordinary language. Yet it cannot be said of Voltaire as it can of Shakspeare, that virtue and vice appear to be nearly indifferent in his eyes. He was even remarkable for the contrary quality. With Voltaire, even in his lighter pieces, to make the reader wiser and better is the consideration to which all others are subordinate. It is the part, not of moralists, but of bigots, to be blinded by the irreligious tendency of some of his writings, to the transcendant importance of the services which he rendered to mankind. It is the characteristic of fanaticism to find nothing which is not odious in the objects of its pious abhorrence. As to the hackneyed charge of licentiousness, we do not hesitate to meet it with a direct contradiction. Excepting, perhaps, the Pucelle d’Orleans,^[†] one of his earlier productions, and published, as is well known, not only without his consent, but against his will—bring together all the licentious passages in all his voluminous works—set them against the indecencies of a single play of Shakspeare—and let any man of common candor and honesty be judge between them. But the besetting sin of Voltaire was, that he waged war against aristocratic prejudices. This it is which has drawn upon him the hatred of the aristocracy; this it is, which constitutes his title to the reproaches of the Edinburgh Review.

There is one part of the language of the Edinburgh Review concerning morals, on which it is necessary to offer a few remarks: as it might otherwise lead to the supposition, that we have been guilty of misrepresentation; that our accusation against it, of a disregard for morality, is untrue; that far from showing disregard, it has gone into the opposite extreme. This might be said, and, at first sight, with some appearance of truth. It is no doubt true, that there is one branch of morals on which it has affected even prudery. Of this we gave some instances in our former number.^[*] We could point out many articles, which, as examples of what is termed cant, have, we think, rarely been surpassed. Of such a kind are the various articles on Moore’s amatory poetry. Even the ancients are considered very immoral, if their ideas, on this branch of morality, do not precisely correspond with those of the Edinburgh Review.^* In the second volume, there is a long tirade against the morality of Anacreon;^† and at a later period Plato is represented as exceedingly wicked, for having expounded, in his Republic, the footing upon which he thought that the marriage contract could most advantageously be placed.^‡ Still more recently Mr. Edgeworth is blamed for having informed the world, in his posthumous memoirs, of his successive marriage of two sisters, that is, for not having made himself appear to the world other than what he really was.^§

That one offence is at all palliated by committing another, is what we cannot admit. Among all conceivable methods of atoning for the offence of leaving all other virtues to shift for themselves—to lay an excessive and disproportionate stress upon those which are of least importance to society, is surely the most extraordinary. Why this class of acts is thus exalted above all others, one obvious consideration will go far to explain. This is a branch of morality of which the priests have been suffered, for their own purposes, to assume the regulation, and they have accordingly laid down, not that system of rules which is most conducive to the well-being of the two sexes, or of society at large; but that which is best calculated to promote their ascendancy. To these virtues, therefore—the virtues of priestcraft—the aristocracy clings, as the firmest support of the consecrated prop: and that the Edinburgh Review, habituated as it is to disregard inconsistencies, should, notwithstanding its declaration that mankind can never be made better, have gone to the full length of the prevailing cant on these subjects, can to us, after what we have seen of that Review, be matter of no surprise.

On the only remaining feature of its morality upon which we shall at present insist—its sentimentality—our limits necessarily compel us to be brief. All, however, which it is absolutely necessary to say, may, we think, be said in few words.

There is a class of persons who rest their claims to admiration, not upon any thing which they have done to benefit mankind, or even that portion of mankind with whom they are immediately in contact, but upon the possession of fine feelings and acute sensibility. They would have us believe them emancipated from all the chains which attach other mortals to the earth. To the acquisition of wealth and power, they would willingly persuade us that they are indifferent; and the pleasures of sense have no charms for them. Not satisfied with this, they insist that all others shall feel exactly as they profess to feel. Gross, sordid, grovelling, are the mildest of the epithets which they deal out against all who set any value upon the ordinary objects of human desire. To think of himself, is an offence which they can pardon in no man. Virtuous creatures! In their minds, all sordid and selfish considerations are swallowed up in the intensity of their tenderness for their fellow-men. So strong are their sympathies, so distressing their sensibility, that their reason is completely mastered, and it would be as impossible for them to withstand the irresistible strength of their emotions, as to resist the action of the elements, or to overcome the force of gravitation. It may be very fine, they admit, to be able to sit down coolly and weigh the consequences to ourselves and to others, of every thing that we do: for their parts, they never could bring themselves to endure so cold and calculating a process. What they regard with the greatest horror of all, is to look after our own interest. Many of them go so far as to stigmatise the virtue of prudence by name. But to reflect, though it be only on the best mode of serving others, though not altogether so heinous, is still considered very unfeeling; and unfeeling, with them, is synonymous with wicked. Their hearts revolt at the idea of subjecting all the refined feelings of our nature to a heartless calculation of public utility, and restraining the indulgence of every generous emotion, until every item of good and evil which can result from it, is weighed and appreciated. Does a fellow-creature in distress stand before them? The frigid systems of philosophers may teach that, in giving alms, they are encouraging idleness and improvidence, and inevitably creating more distress than they relieve. This may be very true, they allow; but heartless indeed must be the man whose hand would be stayed by such considerations! When a crime has been committed, they regulate the quantum of punishment, not according as more or less is necessary for the future prevention of the offence, but according as they do or do not sympathise with the offender. In the former case, they can scarcely endure that any punishment should be inflicted at all. They complain bitterly of the cruelty of the law, and sometimes even of law in general: they are continually placing justice and humanity in opposition, and lauding to the skies injustice under the name of mercy. On the other hand, is the offence of a sort with which they do not sympathise (and both their sympathies and antipathies are in the highest degree capricious and unreasonable), then no infliction appears too severe. Their virtuous horror of crime cannot descend to compute the exact amount of punishment which the nature of the case requires: of what consequence to them are a few degrees more or less of suffering endured by a criminal? They have another curious method of showing the intensity of their sympathies. This is, to make violent demonstrations of feeling on occasions on which practical good sense would tell them that there is no demand for more than ordinary emotion. They will not indeed submit to more labours and privations than other people, for the relief of distressed fellow-creatures: but they make amends by whining over them more.

It is not difficult to trace this sort of affectation to its cause. It originates in the common practice of bestowing upon feelings that praise which actions alone can deserve. By properly regulating his actions, a man becomes a blessing to his species. His mere feelings are a matter of consummate indifference to them. And who will say that praise is well bestowed on that which by no possibility can be of any use whatever? Not to mention that nothing is so easily counterfeited as feeling, and that the most intense demonstrations of it are not inconsistent with the total absence of the reality; what can be more absurd than to praise a man because he has a feeling; to praise him because he has something which he can no more help having, than he can help having ten fingers, or two feet, and which, for any good which it does, he might as well not have at all. The effect is, to create fictitious virtues, and thus to hold out the means of atonement for the absence of real ones; to render it possible, nay easy, to obtain a reputation for virtue, without the trouble of deserving it. Whether this is likely to give any great encouragement to real virtue, is a question which we may fairly leave it to the reader to determine.

There is a class of moralists, however, and this class unhappily includes almost all who have written on the subject of morals, who, instead of correcting, make it their business to find excuses for, the sort of persons whom we have described. To benefit mankind is, in their eyes, a secondary merit: since it is possible to benefit mankind without having fine feelings. So far do they carry this perversion of the moral sanction, that even when they bestow praise upon actions, it is not according as those actions are useful, but according to the motives which they conjecture to have influenced the actors. Another inference from their doctrine is, that to think of consequences, instead of being essential to virtue, is inconsistent with it: a man of fine feelings ought to take those feelings exclusively for his guide: and there is no one so virtuous as he who disregards consequences altogether.

That this is altogether a false doctrine, and that it is, moreover, an exceedingly pernicious doctrine, must be apparent to every one who thinks that the happiness of mankind is at least deserving of some little regard, and is not altogether to be left out of the consideration, when the fine feelings of sentimentalists are in question.

The above description may perhaps appear exaggerated, as applied to the Edinburgh Review. But it must be remembered that we have been describing an extreme case. There is probably no one who carries the sentimental principle to its full extent, but some carry it further than others. There is a certain average rate of sentimentality, which may be considered habitual among ordinarily educated English gentlemen. A periodical publication is interested in going to the full length of the existing prejudices; but it lies under no inducement to go beyond them. Whenever any one carries sentimentality beyond the average rate, he is assailed by the Edinburgh Review with the double weapon of argument and ridicule. Witness its articles on the poets of the Wordsworth school, on Karamsin’s Travels, Kotzebue’s Travels, Montgomery’s Poems, Goethe’s Life, and many other works.^* But this is only when it has the reader on its side. It will never do any thing to set the reader right—to correct his errors—to overcome his prejudices. When he is right already, it will be right along with him: a poor merit!

In a very early article, which we have already had occasion to quote, we find the following explicit declaration in favour of the principle of sentimentality:

But it is in a review of Mr. Bentham’s Traités de Législation (Vol. IV), that the most elaborate attempt is made to erect sentimentality into a system, to clothe it in the garb of philosophy, and to support it by arguments having the semblance of being drawn from the principles of human nature.^[*] Utility is here declared to be a very unsafe standard, whether in morals or in legislation; and feeling to be the only secure guide, even in making laws between man and man. This article will bear a comparison with the most barefaced specimen of petitio principii, which ever proceeded from the pen of man. To dissect its sophistry in detail would require more space than we can at present devote to the task.

ON GENIUS

1832

EDITORS’ NOTE

Monthly Repository, n.s. VI (Oct., 1832), 649-59. Signed: “Antiquus.” Headed. “On Genius”; running title: “On Genius.” Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “An article in the 70th number of the New Series of the Monthly Repository (for October 1832) headed (by the Editor) ‘On Genius’ and signed ‘Antiquus’ ” (MacMinn, p. 22). In the Somerville College copy Mill made two corrections, changing “an inferiority” to “our inferiority” (334.39), and “as, a preparation for” to “as a preparation for,” (336.15-16). For comment on the essay, see the Introduction, pp. xxxi-xxxii above.

On Genius

sir,—

You have turned your attention, and that of the readers of the Monthly Repository, to a question, with which, if we well consider its significance, none of the controversies which fill the present age with flame and fury is comparable in interest. You have shown that, without being indifferent to politics, you can see a deeper problem in the existing aspect of human affairs, than the adjustment of a ten-pound franchise; and that with no inclination to undervalue the intellect of these “latter days,”^[†] you do not write it down transcendant because steam-carriages can run twenty-five miles an hour on an iron railway; because little children are taught to march round a room and sing psalms, or because mechanics can read the Penny Magazine. You do not look upon man as having attained the perfection of his nature, when he attains the perfection of a wheel’s or a pulley’s nature, to go well as a part of some vast machine, being in himself nothing. You do not esteem the higher endowments of the intellect and heart to be given by God, or valuable to man, chiefly as means to his obtaining, first, bread; next, beef to his bread; and, as the last felicitous consummation, wine and fine linen. Rather, you seem to consider the wants which point to these bodily necessaries or indulgences, as having for their chief use that they call into existence and into exercise those loftier qualities. You judge of man, not by what he does, but by what he is. For, though man is formed for action, and is of no worth further than by virtue of the work which he does; yet (as has been often said, by one of the noblest spirits of our time) the works which most of us are appointed to do on this earth are in themselves little better than trivial and contemptible; the sole thing which is indeed valuable in them, is the spirit in which they are done.^[‡] Nor is this mere mysticism; the most absolute utilitarianism must come to the same conclusion. If life were aught but a struggle to overcome difficulties; if the multifarious labours of the durum genus hominum were performed for us by supernatural agency, and there were no demand for either wisdom or virtue, but barely for stretching out our hands and enjoying, small would be our enjoyment, for there would be nothing which man could any longer prize in man. Even men of pleasure know that the means are often more than the end: the delight of fox-hunting does not consist in catching a fox. Whether, according to the ethical theory we adopt, wisdom and virtue be precious in themselves, or there be nothing precious save happiness, it matters little; while we know that where these higher endowments are not, happiness can never be, even although the purposes for which they might seem to have been given, could, through any mechanical contrivance, be accomplished without them.

To one who believes these truths, and has obtained thus much of insight into what the writer to whom I have already alluded would call “the significance of man’s life,”^[*] it was a fitting inquiry what are really the intellectual characteristics of this age; whether our mental light—let us account for the fact as we may—has not lost in intensity, at least a part of what it has gained in diffusion; whether our “march of intellect” be not rather a march towards doing without intellect, and supplying our deficiency of giants by the united efforts of a constantly increasing multitude of dwarfs. Such, too, is actually the problem which you have proposed. Suffer, then, one who has also much meditated thereon, to represent to you in what points he considers you to have failed in completely solving, and even in adequately conceiving the question.

Have you not misplaced the gist of the inquiry, and confined the discussion within too narrow bounds, by countenancing the opinion which limits the province of genius to the discovery of truths never before known, or the formation of combinations never before imagined? Is not this confounding the mere accidents of Genius with its essentials, and determining the order of precedence among minds, not by their powers, but by their opportunities and chances? Is genius any distinct faculty? Is it not rather the very faculty of thought itself? And is not the act of knowing anything not directly within the cognizance of our senses (provided we really know it, and do not take it upon trust), as truly an exertion of genius, though of a less degree of genius, as if the thing had never been known by any one else?

Philosophic genius is said to be the discovery of new truth. But what is new truth? That which has been known a thousand years may be new truth to you or me. There are born into the world every day several hundred thousand human beings, to whom all truth whatever is new truth. What is it to him who was born yesterday, that somebody who was born fifty years ago knew something? The question is, how he is to know it. There is one way; and nobody has ever hit upon more than one—by discovery.

There is a language very generally current in the world, which implies that knowledge can be vicarious; that when a truth has become known to any one, all who follow have nothing to do but passively to receive it; as if one man, by reading or listening, could transport another man’s knowledge ready manufactured into his own skull. As well might he try the experiment upon another man’s eyesight. Those who have no eyesight of their own, or who are so placed that they cannot conveniently use it, must believe upon trust; they cannot know. A man who knows may tell me what he knows, as far as words go, and I may learn to parrot it after him; but if I would know it, I must place my mind in the same state in which he has placed his; I must make the thought my own thought; I must verify the fact by my own observation, or by interrogating my own consciousness.

The exceptions and qualifications with which this doctrine must be taken, and which are more apparent than real, will readily present themselves. For example, it will suggest itself at once that the truth of which I am now speaking is general truth. To know an individual fact may be no exercise of mind at all; merely an exercise of the senses. The sole exercise of mind may have been in bringing the fact sufficiently close for the senses to judge of it; and that merit may be peculiar to the first discoverer: there may be talent in finding where the thief is hid, but none at all in being able to see him when found. The same observation applies in a less degree to some general truths. To know a general truth is, indeed, always an operation of the mind: but some physical truths may be brought to the test of sensation by an experiment so simple, and the conclusiveness of which is so immediately apparent, that the trifling degree of mental power implied in drawing the proper inference from it, is altogether eclipsed by the ingenuity which contrived the experiment, and the sagacious forecast of an undiscovered truth which set that ingenuity to work: qualities, the place of which may now be supplied by mere imitation.

So, again, in a case of mere reasoning from assumed premises, as, for instance, in mathematics, the process bears so strong an analogy to a merely mechanical operation, that the first discoverer alone has any real difficulty to contend against; the second may follow the first with very little besides patience and continued attention. But these seeming exceptions do not trench in the least upon the principle which I have ventured to lay down. If the first discovery alone requires genius, it is because the first discovery alone requires any but the simplest and most commonplace exercise of thought. Though genius be no peculiar mental power, but only mental power possessed in a peculiar degree, what implies no mental power at all, requires to be sure no genius.

But can this be said of the conviction which comes by the comparison and appreciation of numerous and scattered proofs? Can it, above all, be said of the knowledge of supersensual things, of man’s mental and moral nature, where the appeal is to internal consciousness and self-observation, or to the experience of our common life interpreted by means of the key which self-knowledge alone can supply? The most important phenomena of human nature cannot even be conceived, except by a mind which has actively studied itself. Believed they may be, but as a blind man believes the existence and properties of colour. To know these truths is always to discover them. Every one, I suppose, of adult years, who has any capacity of knowledge, can remember the impression which he experienced when he discovered some truths which he thought he had known for years before. He had only believed them; they were not the fruits of his own consciousness, or of his own observation; he had taken them upon trust, or he had taken upon trust the premises from which they were inferred. If he had happened to forget them, they had been lost altogether; whereas the truths which we know we can discover again and again ad libitum.

It is with truths of this order as with the ascent of a mountain. Every person who climbs Mont Blanc exerts the same identical muscles as the first man who reached the summit; all that the first climber can do is to encourage the others and lend them a helping hand. What he has partly saved them the necessity of, is courage: it requires less hardihood to attempt to do what somebody has done before. It is an advantage also to have some one to point out the way and stop us when we are going wrong. Though one man cannot teach another, one man may suggest to another. I may be indebted to my predecessor for setting my own faculties to work; for hinting to me what questions to ask myself, and in what order; but it is not given to one man to answer those questions for another. Each person’s own reason must work upon the materials afforded by that same person’s own experience. Knowledge comes only from within; all that comes from without is but questioning, or else it is mere authority.

Now, the capacity of extracting the knowledge of general truth from our own consciousness, whether it be by simple observation, by that kind of self-observation which is called imagination, or by a more complicated process of analysis and induction, is originality; and where truth is the result, whoever says Originality says Genius. The man of the greatest philosophic genius does no more than this, evinces no higher faculty; whoever thinks at all, thinks to that extent, originally. Whoever knows anything of his own knowledge, not immediately obvious to the senses, manifests more or less of the same faculty which made a Newton or a Locke. Whosoever does this same thing systematically—whosoever, to the extent of his opportunity, gets at his convictions by his own faculties, and not by reliance on any other person whatever—that man, in proportion as his conclusions have truth in them, is an original thinker, and is, as much as anybody ever was, a man of genius; nor matters it though he should never chance to find out anything which somebody had not found out before him. There may be no hidden truths left for him to find, or he may accidentally miss them; but if he have courage and opportunity he can find hidden truths; for he has found all those which he knows, many of which were as hidden to him as those which are still unknown.

If the genius which discovers is no peculiar faculty, neither is the genius which creates. It was genius which produced the Prometheus Vinctus, the Oration on the Crown, the Minerva, or the Transfiguration;^[*] and is it not genius which comprehends them? Without genius, a work of genius may be felt, but it cannot possibly be understood.

The property which distinguishes every work of genius in poetry and art from incoherency and vain caprice is, that it is one, harmonious, and a whole: that its parts are connected together as standing in a common relation to some leading and central idea or purpose. This idea or purpose it is not possible to extract from the work by any mechanical rules. To transport ourselves from the point of view of a spectator or reader, to that of the poet or artist himself, and from that central point to look round and see how the details of the work all conspire to the same end, all contribute to body forth the same general conception, is an exercise of the same powers of imagination, abstraction, and discrimination (though in an inferior degree) which would have enabled ourselves to produce the selfsame work. Do we not accordingly see that as much genius is often displayed in explaining the design and bringing out the hidden significance of a work of art, as in creating it? I have sometimes thought that conceptive genius is, in certain cases, even a higher faculty than creative. From the data afforded by a person’s conversation and life, to frame a connected outline of the inward structure of that person’s mind, so as to know and feel what the man is, and how life and the world paint themselves to his conceptions; still more to decipher in that same manner the mind of an age or a nation, and gain from history or travelling a vivid conception of the mind of a Greek or Roman, a Spanish peasant, an American, or a Hindu, is an effort of genius, superior, I must needs believe, to any which was ever shown in the creation of a fictitious character, inasmuch as the imagination is limited by a particular set of conditions, instead of ranging at pleasure within the bounds of human nature.

If there be truth in the principle which the foregoing remarks are intended to illustrate, there is ground for considerable objection to the course of argument which you have adopted in the article which gave occasion to the present letter. You argue, throughout, on the obstacles which oppose the growth and manifestation of genius, as if the future discoverer had to travel to the extreme verge of the ground already rescued from the dominion of doubt and mystery, before he can find any scope for the faculty thereafter to be developed in him,—as if he had first to learn all that has already been known, and then to commence an entirely new series of intellectual operations in order to enlarge the field of human knowledge. Now I conceive, on the contrary, that the career of the discoverer is only the career of the learner, carried on into untrodden ground; and that he has only to continue to do exactly what he ought to have been doing from the first, what he has been doing if he be really qualified to be a discoverer. You might, therefore, have spared yourself the inquiry, whether new truths, in as great abundance as ever, are within reach, and whether the approach to them is longer and more difficult than heretofore. According to my view, genius stands not in need of access to new truths, but is always where knowledge is, being itself nothing but a mind with capacity to know. There will be as much room and as much necessity for genius when mankind shall have found out everything attainable by their faculties, as there is now; it will still remain to distinguish the man who knows from the man who takes upon trust—the man who can feel and understand truth, from the man who merely assents to it, the active from the merely passive mind. Nor needs genius be a rare gift bestowed on few. By the aid of suitable culture all might possess it, although in unequal degrees.

The question, then, of “the comparative influence of ancient and modern times on the development of genius,” is a simpler, yet a larger and more commanding question, than you seem to have supposed. It is no other than this: have the moderns, or the ancients, made most use of the faculty of thought, and which of the two have cultivated it the most highly? Did the ancients think and find out for themselves what they ought to believe and to do, taking nothing for granted?—and do the moderns, in comparison, merely remember and imitate, believing either nothing, or what is told them, and doing either nothing, or what is set down for them?

To this great question I am hardly able to determine whether you have said aye or no. You are pleading for the moderns against those who place the ancients above them, for civilization and refinement against the charge of being impediments to genius; yet you seem incidentally to admit that inferiority in the higher endowments, which it appeared to be your object to disprove. Your only salvo for the admission is, that, if the fact be so, it must be our own fault. Assuredly it is always our own fault. It is just as possible to be a great man now as it ever was, would but any one try. But that does not explain why we do not try, and why others, mere men like ourselves, did; any more than we can explain why the Turks are not as good sailors as the English, by saying that it is all their own fault.

I cannot say that I think you have much advanced the question by terminating where you do. If you were writing to Pagans, it might have been to the purpose to tell them that they would find in Christianity a corrective to their faults and ills; or if we had been superior to the ancients instead of inferior, as in numerous other respects we really are, Christianity might have been assigned as the cause. But to refer us to Christianity as the fountain of intellectual vigour, in explanation of our having fallen off in intellectual vigour since we embraced Christianity, will scarcely be satisfactory. In proportion as our religion gives us an advantage over our predecessors, must our inferiority to them be the more manifest if we have fallen below them after all. If genius, as well as other blessings, be among the natural fruits of Christianity, there must be some reason why Christianity has been our faith for 1500 years, without our having yet begun to reap this benefit. The important question to have resolved would have been, what is the obstacle? The solution of this difficulty I have sought in vain from your two articles—permit me now to seek it from yourself.

I complain of what you have omitted, rather than of what you have said. I have found in your general observations much that is true, much that is wise, and eternally profitable to myself and to all men. The fact which you announce, of the intimate connexion of intellectual with moral greatness, of all soundness and comprehensiveness of intellect with the sublime impartiality resulting from an ever-present and overruling attachment to duty and to truth, is deeply momentous; and, though many have known it heretofore, you also speak as one who knows it,—who therefore has discovered it in himself. It is as true now as it was of yore, that “the righteousness of the righteous man guideth his steps.”^[*] But Christianity, since it first visited the earth, has made many righteous men according to their lights, many in whom the spiritual part prevailed as far as is given to man over the animal and worldly, yet we have not proportionally abounded in men of genius.

There must, then, be some defect in our mental training, which has prevented us from turning either Christianity or our other opportunities to the account we might. Christianity, and much else, cannot have been so taught or so learnt as to make us thinking beings. Is it not that these things have only been taught and learnt, but have not been known?—that the truths which we have inherited still remain traditional, and no one among us, except here and there a man of genius, has made them truly his own?

The ancients, in this particular, were very differently circumstanced. When the range of human experience was still narrow—when, as yet, few facts had been observed and recorded, and there was nothing or but little to learn by rote, those who had curiosity to gratify, or who desired to acquaint themselves with nature and life, were fain to look into things, and not pay themselves with opinions; to see the objects themselves, and not their mere images reflected from the minds of those who had formerly seen them. Education then consisted not in giving what is called knowledge, that is, grinding down other men’s ideas to a convenient size, and administering them in the form of cram—it was a series of exercises to form the thinking faculty itself, that the mind, being active and vigorous, might go forth and know.

Such was the education of Greece and Rome, especially Greece. Her philosophers were not formed, nor did they form their scholars, by placing a suit of ready-made truths before them, and helping them to put it on. They helped the disciple to form to himself an intellect fitted to seek truth for itself and to find it. No Greek or Roman schoolboy learnt anything by rote, unless it were verses of Homer or songs in honour of the gods. Modern superciliousness and superficiality have treated the disputations of the sophists as they have those of the schoolmen, with unbounded contempt: the contempt would be better bestowed on the tuition of Eton or Westminster. Those disputations were a kind of mental gymnastics, eminently conducive to acuteness in detecting fallacies; consistency and circumspection in tracing a principle to its consequences; and a faculty of penetrating and searching analysis. They became ridiculous only when, like all other successful systems, they were imitated by persons incapable of entering into their spirit, and degenerated into foppery and charlatanerie. With powers thus formed, and no possibility of parroting where there was scarcely anything to parrot, what a man knew was his own, got at by using his own senses or his own reason; and every new acquisition strengthened the powers, by the exercise of which it had been gained.

Nor must we forget to notice the fact to which you have yourself alluded, that the life of a Greek was a perpetual conflict of adverse intellects, struggling with each other, or struggling with difficulty and necessity. Every man had to play his part upon a stage where cram was of no use—nothing but genuine power would serve his turn. The studies of the closet were combined with, and were intended as a preparation for, the pursuits of active life. There was no littérature des salons, no dilettantism in ancient Greece: wisdom was not something to be prattled about, but something to be done. It was this which, during the bright days of Greece, prevented theory from degenerating into vain and idle refinements, and produced that rare combination which distinguishes the great minds of that glorious people,—of profound speculation, and business-like matter-of-fact common sense. It was not the least of the effects of this union of theory and practice, that in the good times of Greece there is no vestige of anything like sentimentality. Bred to action, and passing their lives in the midst of it, all the speculations of the Greeks were for the sake of action, all their conceptions of excellence had a direct reference to it.

This was the education to form great statesmen, great orators, great warriors, great poets, great architects, great sculptors, great philosophers; because, once for all, it formed men, and not mere knowledge-boxes; and the men, being men, had minds, and could apply them to the work, whatever it might be, which circumstances had given them to perform. But this lasted not long: demolishing the comparatively weak attempts of their predecessors, two vast intellects arose, the one the greatest observer of his own or any age, the other the greatest dialectician, and both almost unrivalled in their powers of metaphysical analysis,—Aristotle and Plato. No sooner, by the exertions of these gigantic minds, and of others their disciples or rivals, was a considerable body of truth, or at least of opinion, got together—no sooner did it become possible by mere memory to seem to know something, and to be able for some purposes even to use that knowledge, as men use the rules of arithmetic who have not the slightest notion of the grounds of them, than men found out how much easier it is to remember than to think, and abandoned the pursuit of intellectual power itself for the attempt, without possessing it, to appropriate its results. Even the reverence which mankind had for these great men became a hinderance to following their example. Nature was studied not in nature, but in Plato or Aristotle, in Zeno or Epicurus. Discussion became the mere rehearsal of a lesson got by rote. The attempt to think for oneself fell into disuse; and, by ceasing to exercise the power, mankind ceased to possess it.

It was in this spirit that, on the rise of Christianity, the doctrines and precepts of Scripture began to be studied. For this there was somewhat greater excuse, as, where the authority was that of the Omniscient, the confirmation of fallible reason might appear less necessary. Yet the effect was fatal. The interpretation of the Gospel was handed over to grammarians and language-grinders. The words of him whose speech was in figures and parables were iron-bound and petrified into inanimate and inflexible formulæ. Jesus was likened to a logician, framing a rule to meet all cases, and provide against all possible evasions, instead of a poet, orator, and vates, whose object was to purify and spiritualize the mind, so that, under the guidance of its purity, its own lights might suffice to find the law of which he only supplied the spirit, and suggested the general scope. Hence, out of the least dogmatical of books, have been generated so many dogmatical religions—each claiming to be found in the book, and none in the mind of man; they are above thought, and thought is to have nothing to do with them; until religion, instead of a spirit pervading the mind, becomes a crust encircling it, nowise penetrating the obdurate mass within, but only keeping out such rays of precious light or genial heat as might haply have come from elsewhere.

And after all which has been done to break down these vitiating, soul-debasing prejudices, against which every great mind of the last two centuries has protested, where are we now? Are not the very first general propositions that are presented for a child’s acceptance, theological dogmas, presented not as truths believed by others, and which the child will hereafter be encouraged to know for itself, but as doctrines which it is to believe before it can attach any meaning to them, or be chargeable with the greatest guilt? At school, what is the child taught, except to repeat by rote, or at most to apply technical rules, which are lodged, not in his reason, but in his memory? When he leaves school, does not everything which a young person sees and hears conspire to tell him, that it is not expected he shall think, but only that he shall profess no opinion on any subject different from that professed by other people? Is there anything a man can do, short of swindling or forgery, (à fortiori a woman,) which will so surely gain him the reputation of a dangerous, or, at least, an unaccountable person, as daring, without either rank or reputation as a warrant for the eccentricity, to make a practice of forming his opinions for himself?

Modern education is all cram—Latin cram, mathematical cram, literary cram, political cram, theological cram, moral cram. The world already knows everything, and has only to tell it to its children, who, on their part, have only to hear, and lay it to rote (not to heart). Any purpose, any idea of training the mind itself, has gone out of the world. Nor can I yet perceive may symptoms of amendment. Those who dislike what is taught, mostly—if I may trust my own experience—dislike it not for being cram, but for being other people’s cram, and not theirs. Were they the teachers, they would teach different doctrines, but they would teach them as doctrines, not as subjects for impartial inquiry. Those studies which only train the faculties, and produce no fruits obvious to the sense, are fallen into neglect. The most valuable kind of mental gymnastics, logic and metaphysics, have been more neglected and undervalued for the last thirty years, than at any time since the revival of letters. Even the ancient languages, which, when rationally taught, are, from their regular and complicated structure, to a certain extent a lesson of logical classification and analysis, and which give access to a literature more rich than any other, in all that forms a vigorous intellect and a manly character, are insensibly falling into disrepute as a branch of liberal education. Instead of them, we are getting the ready current coin of modern languages, and physical science taught empirically, by committing to memory its results. Whatever assists in feeding the body, we can see the use of; not so if it serves the body only by forming the mind.

Is it any wonder that, thus educated, we should decline in genius? That the ten centuries of England or France cannot produce as many illustrious names as the hundred and fifty years of little Greece? The wonder is, that we should have produced so many as we have, amidst such adverse circumstances. We have had some true philosophers, and a few genuine poets; two or three great intellects have revolutionized physical science; but in almost every branch of literature and art we are deplorably behind the earlier ages of the world. In art, we hardly attempt anything except spoiled copies of antiquity and the middle ages. We are content to copy them, because that requires less trouble and less cultivated faculties than to comprehend them. If we had genius to enter into the spirit of ancient art, the same genius would enable us to clothe that spirit in ever-new forms.

Where, then, is the remedy? It is in the knowledge and clear comprehension of the evil. It is in the distinct recognition, that the end of education is not to teach, but to fit the mind for learning from its own consciousness and observation; that we have occasion for this power under ever-varying circumstances, for which no routine or rule of thumb can possibly make provision. As the memory is trained by remembering, so is the reasoning power by reasoning; the imaginative by imagining; the analytic by analysing; the inventive by finding out. Let the education of the mind consist in calling out and exercising these faculties; never trouble yourself about giving knowledge—train the mind—keep it supplied with materials, and knowledge will come of itself. Let all cram be ruthlessly discarded. Let each person be made to feel that in other things he may believe upon trust—if he find a trustworthy authority—but that in the line of his peculiar duty, and in the line of the duties common to all men, it is his business to know. Let the feelings of society cease to stigmatize independent thinking, and divide its censure between a lazy dereliction of the duty and privilege of thought, and the overweening self-conceit of a half-thinker, who rushes to his conclusions without taking the trouble to understand the thoughts of other men. Were all this done, there would be no complaint of any want of genius in modern times. But when will that hour come? Though it come not at all, yet is it not less your duty and mine to strive for it,—and first to do what is certainly and absolutely in our power, to realize it in our own persons.

I am, Sir, yours respectfully,

Antiquus.

THOUGHTS ON POETRY AND ITS VARIETIES

1833

EDITORS’ NOTE

Dissertations and Discussions, 2nd ed. (1867), Vol. I, pp. 63-94, where the title is footnoted, “Monthly Repository, January and October 1833.” Running title: “Poetry and Its Varieties.” Republished from “What Is Poetry?” MR, n.s. VII (Jan., 1833), 60-70; and “The Two Kinds of Poetry,” ibid., n.s. VII (Oct., 1833), 714-24. Both signed: “Antiquus.” Running titles as titles. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “An article headed ‘What is Poetry’ and signed Antiquus in the 73d numb. of the Monthly Repository. (In Jan. 1833)” (MacMinn, p. 24), and “An article headed ‘The two kinds of Poetry’ and signed ‘Antiquus’ in the same number of the Monthly Repository”—i.e., the number for Oct., 1833, in which his “Blakey’s History of Moral Science” appeared (MacMinn, p. 34). In the copy in Somerville College of the first of these, “paga pii” is corrected to “paga fui” (351.11); this correction was made in D&D. Also, in a passage not reprinted in D&D, Mill indicated that each “a” should read “or” in “a loveliness, a cheerfulness, a wildness, a melancholy, a terror” (353^s-s) (This is a frequent confusion in Mill’s hand.) In the Somerville College copy of the second, the dubious grammar at 364.29 is called into question by a pencilled underlining, possibly by Mill’s wife, of “impressions, is proportional”, and by a “?” in the margin; the passage, however, was unaltered in D&D, and is left unaltered here.

For comment on the essay, see the Introduction, pp. xxxii-xxxvi and xliii-xliv above.

The following text, taken from the 2nd ed. of D&D (the last in Mill’s lifetime), is collated with that in D&D, 1st ed. (1859), and those in MR. In the footnoted variants, “33” indicates MR; “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed. (1859); and “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed. (1867).

Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties

I

it has often been asked, What is Poetry? And many and various are the answers which have been returned. The vulgarest of all—one with which no person possessed of the faculties to which poetry addresses itself can ever have been satisfied—is that which confounds poetry with metrical composition: yet to this wretched mockery of a definition, many ^ahad^a been led back, by the failure of all their attempts to find any other that would distinguish what they have been accustomed to call poetry, from much which they have known only under other names.

That, however, the word ^bpoetry imports^b something quite peculiar in its nature, something which may exist in what is called prose as well as in verse, something which does not even require the instrument of words,^[*] but can speak through ^cthe^c other audible symbols called musical sounds, and even through the visible ones which are the language of sculpture, painting, and architecture; all this,^d we believe, is and must be felt, though perhaps indistinctly, by all upon whom poetry in any of its shapes produces any impression beyond that of tickling the ear. ^eThe^e distinction between poetry and what is not poetry, whether explained or not, is felt to be ^ffundamental: and where^f every one feels a difference, a difference there must be. All other appearances may be fallacious, but the appearance of a difference is^g a real difference. Appearances too, like other things, must have a cause, and that which can ^hcause^h anything, even an illusion, must be a reality. And hence, while a half-philosophy disdains the classifications and distinctions indicated by popular language, philosophy carried to its highest point ⁱframesⁱ new ones, but ^jrarely^j sets aside the old, content with correcting and regularizing them. It cuts fresh channels for thought, but^k does not fill up such as it finds readymade^l; it^l traces, on the contrary, more deeply, broadly, and distinctly, those into which the current has spontaneously flowed.

Let us then attempt, in the way of modest inquiry, not to coerce and confine nature within the bounds of an arbitrary definition, but rather to find the boundaries which she herself has set, and erect a barrier round them: not calling mankind to account for having misapplied the word ^mpoetry,^m but attempting to clear upⁿ the conception which they already attach to it, and to bring ^oforward^o as a distinct ^pprinciple^p that which, as a vague ^qfeeling^q , has really guided them in their^r employment of the term.

The object of poetry is confessedly to act upon the emotions; and therein is poetry sufficiently distinguished from what Wordsworth affirms to be its logical opposite, namely, not prose, but matter of fact or science.^[*] The one addresses itself to the belief, the other to the feelings. The one does its work by convincing or persuading, the other by moving. The one acts by presenting a proposition to the understanding, the other by offering interesting objects of contemplation to the sensibilities.

This, however, leaves us very far from a definition of poetry. ^sThis distinguishes^s it from one thing, but we are bound to distinguish it from everything. To ^tbring^t thoughts or images ^ubefore^u the mind for the purpose of acting upon the emotions, does not belong to poetry alone. It is equally the province (for example) of the novelist: and yet the faculty of the poet and ^vthat^v of the novelist are as distinct as any other two faculties; as the ^wfaculties^w of the novelist and of the orator, or of the poet and the metaphysician. The two characters may be united, as characters the most disparate may; but they have no natural connexion.

Many of the ^xgreatest^x poems are in the form of ^yfictitious narratives^y , and in almost all good ^zserious fictions^z there is true poetry. But there is a radical distinction between the interest felt in a ^astory^a as such, and the interest excited by poetry; for the one is derived from ^bincident^b , the other from the representation of ^cfeeling^c . In one, the source of the emotion excited is the exhibition of a state or states of human sensibility; in the other, of a series of states of mere outward circumstances. Now, all minds are capable of being affected more or less by representations of the latter kind, and all, or almost all, by those of the former; yet the two sources of interest correspond to two distinct, and (as respects their greatest development) mutually exclusive, characters of mind.^d

At what age is the passion for a story, for almost any kind of story, merely as a story, the most intense? In childhood. But that also is the age at which poetry, even of the simplest description, is least relished and least understood; because the feelings with which it is especially conversant are yet undeveloped, and not having been even in the slightest degree experienced, cannot be sympathized with. In what stage of the progress of society, again, is story-telling most valued, and the story-teller in greatest request and honour?—In a rude state, like that of the Tartars and Arabs at this day, and of almost all nations in the earliest ages. But in this state of society there is little poetry except ballads, which are mostly narrative, that is, essentially ^estories^e , and derive their principal interest from the ^fincidents^f . Considered as poetry, they are of the lowest and most elementary kind: the feelings depicted, or rather indicated, are the simplest our nature has; such joys and griefs as the immediate pressure of some outward event excites in rude minds, which live wholly immersed in outward things, and have never, either from choice or a force they could not resist, turned themselves to the contemplation of the world within. Passing now from childhood, and from the childhood of society, to the grown-up men and women of this most grown-up and unchildlike age—the minds and hearts of greatest depth and elevation are commonly those which take greatest delight in poetry; the shallowest and emptiest, on the contrary, are, ^gat all events, not those least^g addicted to novel-reading. This accords, too, with all analogous experience of human nature. The sort of persons whom not merely in books, but in their lives, we find perpetually engaged in hunting for excitement from without, are invariably those who do not possess, either in the vigour of their intellectual powers or in the depth of their sensibilities, that which would enable them to find ample excitement nearer^h home. The ⁱmost idle and frivolous personsⁱ take a natural delight in fictitious narrative; the excitement it affords is of the kind which comes from without. Such persons are rarely lovers of poetry, though they may fancy themselves so, because they relish novels in verse. But poetry, which is the delineation of the deeper and more secret workings of ^jhuman emotion^j , is interesting only to those to whom it recals what they have felt, or whose imagination it stirs up to conceive what they could feel, or what they might have been able to feel had their outward circumstances been different.

Poetry, when it is really such, is truth; and fiction also, if it is good for anything, is truth: but they are different truths. The truth of poetry is to paint the human soul truly: the truth of fiction is to give a true picture of ^klife^k . The two kinds of knowledge are different, and come by different ways, come mostly to different persons. Great poets are often proverbially ignorant of life. What they know has come by observation of themselves; they have found ^lwithin them^l one highly delicate and sensitive^m specimen of human nature, on which the laws ofⁿ emotion are written in large characters, such as can be read off without much study^o. Other^o knowledge of mankind, such as comes to men of the world by outward experience, is not indispensable to them as poets: but to the novelist such knowledge is all in all; he has to describe outward things, not the inward man; actions and events, not feelings; and it will not do for him to be numbered among those who, as Madame Roland said of Brissot, know man but not ^pmen^p .^[*]

All this is no bar to the possibility of combining both elements, poetry and narrative or incident, in the same work, and calling it either a novel or a poem; but so may red and white combine on the same human features, or on the same canvas^q . There is one order of composition which requires the union of poetry and incident, each in its highest kind—the dramatic. Even there the two elements are perfectly distinguishable, and may exist of unequal quality, and in the most various proportion. The incidents of a dramatic poem may be scanty and ineffective, though the delineation of passion and character may be of the highest order; as in Goethe’s ^radmirable^rsTorquato Tasso^s ;^[†] or again, the story as a mere story may be well got up for effect, as is the case with some of the most trashy productions of the Minerva press: it may even be, what those are not, a coherent and probable series of events, though there be scarcely a feeling exhibited which is not ^trepresented^t falsely, or in a manner absolutely commonplace. The combination of the two excellencies is what renders Shakespeare so generally acceptable, each sort of readers finding in him what is suitable to their faculties. To the many he is great as a story-teller, to the few as a poet.

In limiting poetry to the delineation of states of feeling, and denying the name where nothing is delineated but outward objects, we may be thought to have done what we promised to avoid—to have not ^ufound^u , but ^vmade^v a definition, in opposition to the usage of^w language, since it is established by common consent that there is a poetry called ^xdescriptive^x . We deny the charge. Description is not poetry because there is descriptive poetry, no more than science is poetry because there is such a thing as a didactic poem^y . But an object which admits of being described, or a truth which may fill a place in a scientific treatise, may ^zalso^z furnish an occasion for the generation of poetry, which we thereupon choose to call descriptive or didactic. The poetry is not in the object itself, nor in the scientific truth itself, but in the state of mind in which the one and the other may be contemplated. The mere delineation of the dimensions and colours of external objects is not poetry, no more than a geometrical ground-plan of St. Peter’s or Westminster Abbey is painting. Descriptive poetry consists, no doubt, in description, but in description of things as they appear, not as they ^aare^a ; and it paints them not in their bare and natural lineaments, but ^bseen through the medium and arrayed in the colours^b of the imagination set in action by the feelings. If a poet ^cdescribes^c a lion, he ^ddoes not describe^d him as a naturalist would, nor even as a traveller would, who was intent upon stating the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He ^edescribes^e him by ^fimagery^f , that is, by suggesting the most striking likenesses and contrasts which might occur to a mind contemplating the lion, in the state of awe, wonder, or terror, which the spectacle naturally excites, or is, on the occasion, supposed to excite. Now this is describing the lion professedly, but the state of excitement of the spectator really. The lion may be described falsely or ^gwith exaggeration^g , and the poetry be all the better; but if the human emotion be not painted with^h scrupulous truth, the poetry is bad poetry, i.e. is not poetry at all, but a failure.

Thus far our progress towards a clear view of the essentials of poetry has brought us very close to the last two attempts at a definition of poetry which we happen to have seen in print, both of them by poets and men of genius. The one is by Ebenezer Elliott, the author of Corn-Law Rhymes, and other poems of still greater merit. “Poetry,” says he, “is impassioned truth.”^[*] The other is by a writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, and comes, we think, still nearer the mark. ⁱHe definesⁱ poetry, “man’s thoughts tinged by his feelings.”^[†] There is in either definition a near approximation to what we are in search of. Every truth which ^ja human being can enunciate^j , every thought, even every outward impression, which can enter into his consciousness, may become poetry when shown through any impassioned medium, when invested with the colouring of joy, or grief, or pity, or affection, or admiration, or reverence, or awe, or even hatred or terror: and, unless so coloured, nothing, be it as interesting as it may, is poetry. But both these definitions fail to discriminate between poetry and eloquence. Eloquence, as well as poetry, is impassioned truth; eloquence, as well as poetry, is thoughts coloured by the feelings. Yet common apprehension and philosophic criticism alike recognise a distinction between the two: there is much that every one would call eloquence, which no one would think of classing as poetry. A question will sometimes arise, whether some particular author is a poet; and those who maintain the negative commonly allow, that though not a poet, he is a highly ^keloquent^k writer.^l The distinction between poetry and eloquence appears to us to be equally fundamental with the distinction between poetry and narrative, or between poetry and description^m, while it^m is still farther from having been satisfactorily cleared up than either of the othersⁿ .

Poetry and eloquence are both alike the expression or ^outterance^o of feeling. But if we may be excused the^p antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard, poetry is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience; the peculiarity of poetry appears to us to lie in the poet’s utter unconsciousness of a listener. Poetry is feeling, confessing itself to itself in moments of solitude, and ^qembodying itself^q in symbols, which are the nearest possible representations of the feeling in the exact shape in which it exists in the poet’s mind. Eloquence is feeling pouring itself ^rout^r to other minds, courting their sympathy, or endeavouring to influence their belief, or move them to passion or to action.

All poetry is of the nature of soliloquy. It may be said that poetry which is printed on hot-pressed paper and sold at a bookseller’s shop, is a soliloquy in full dress, and on the stage. ^sIt is so; but^s there is nothing absurd in the idea of such a mode of soliloquizing. What we have said to ourselves, we may tell to others afterwards; what we have said or done in solitude, we may voluntarily reproduce when we know that other eyes are upon us. But no trace of consciousness that any eyes are upon us must be visible in the work itself. The actor knows that there is an audience present; but if he act as though he knew it, he acts ill. A poet may write poetry ^tnot only^t with the intention of ^uprinting^u it^v, but^v for the express purpose of being paid for it; that it should be poetry, being written under^w such influences, is^x less probable; not, however, impossible; but no otherwise possible than if he can succeed in excluding from his work every vestige of such lookings-forth into the outward and every-day world, and can express his ^yemotions^y exactly as he has felt them in solitude, or as he ^zis conscious^z that he should feel them though they were to remain for ever unuttered^a, or (at the lowest) as he knows that others feel them in similar circumstances of solitude^a . But when he turns round and addresses himself to another person; when the act of utterance is not itself the end, but a means to an end—viz. by the feelings he himself expresses, to work upon the feelings, or upon the belief, or the will, of another,—when the expression of his emotions, or of his thoughts tinged by his emotions, is tinged also by that purpose, by that desire of making an impression upon another mind, then it ceases to be poetry, and becomes eloquence.

Poetry, accordingly, is the natural fruit of solitude and meditation; eloquence, of intercourse with the world. The persons who have most feeling of their own, if intellectual culture ^bhas^b given them a language in which to express it, have the highest faculty of poetry; those who best understand the feelings of others, are the most eloquent. The persons, and the nations, who commonly excel in poetry, are those whose character and tastes render them least dependent^c upon the applause, or sympathy, or concurrence of the world in general. Those to whom that applause, that sympathy, that concurrence are most necessary, generally excel most in eloquence. And hence, perhaps, the French, who are the ^dleast^d poetical of all great and ^eintellectual^e nations, are among the ^fmost^f eloquent: the French, also, being the most sociable, the vainest, and the least self-dependent.

If the above be, as we believe, the true theory of the distinction commonly admitted between eloquence and poetry; or ^geven^g though it be not ^hso^h , yet if, as we cannot doubt, the distinction above stated be a real boná fide distinction, it will be found to hold, not merely in the language of words, but in all other language, and to intersect the whole domain of art.

Take, for example, music: we shall find in that art, so peculiarly the expression of passion, two perfectly distinct styles; one of which may be called the poetry, the other the oratory of music. This difference, being seized, would put an end to much musical sectarianism. There has been much contention whether the ⁱmusic of the modern Italian school, that of Rossini and his successors, be impassioned or notⁱ . Without doubt, the passion it expresses is not the musing, meditative tenderness, or pathos, or grief of Mozart ^jor Beethoven^j . Yet it is passion, but ^kgarrulous^k passion—the passion which pours itself into other ears; and therein the better calculated for ^ldramatic^l effect, having a natural adaptation for dialogue. Mozart also is great in musical oratory; but his most touching compositions are in the opposite style—that of soliloquy. Who can imagine “Dove sono”^[*]heard? We imagine it overheard.^m

Purely pathetic music commonly partakes of soliloquy. The soul is absorbed in its distress, and though there may be bystanders, it is not thinking of them. When the mind is looking within, and not without, its state does not often or rapidly vary; and hence the even, uninterrupted flow, approaching almost to monotony, which a good reader, or a good singer, will give to words or music of a pensive or melancholy cast. But grief taking the form of a prayer, or of a complaint, becomes oratorical; no longer low, and even, and subdued, it assumes a more emphatic rhythm, a more rapidly returning accent; instead of a few slow equal notes, following one after another at regular intervals, it crowds note upon note, and ⁿoftenⁿ assumes a hurry and bustle like joy. Those who are familiar with some of the best of Rossini’s serious compositions, such as the air “Tu che i miseri conforti,” in the opera of Tancredi, or the duet “Ebben per mia memoria,” in La Gazza Ladra,^[*] will at once understand and feel our meaning. Both are highly tragic and passionate; the passion of both is that of oratory, not poetry. The like may be said of that most moving ^oinvocation^o in Beethoven’s Fidelio—

• Komm, Hoffnung, lass das letzte Stern
• Der Mude nicht erbleichen.

in which Madame ^pSchröder^p Devrient^q exhibited such consummate powers of pathetic expression.^[†] How different from Winter’s beautiful “Paga fui,”^[‡] the very soul of melancholy exhaling itself in solitude; fuller of meaning, and, therefore, more profoundly poetical than the words for which it was composed—for it seems to express not simple melancholy, but the melancholy of remorse.

If, from vocal music, we now pass to instrumental, we may have a specimen of musical oratory in any fine military symphony or march: while the poetry of music seems to have attained its consummation in Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont^r, so wonderful in its mixed expression of grandeur and melancholy^r .

In the arts which speak to the eye, the same distinctions will be found to hold, not only between poetry and oratory, but between poetry, oratory, narrative, and simple imitation or description.

Pure ^sdescription^s is exemplified in a ^tmere^t portrait or a ^umere^u landscape—productions of art, it is true, but of the mechanical rather than of the fine arts, being works of simple imitation, not ^vcreation^v . We say, a ^wmere^w portrait, or a ^xmere^x landscape, because it is possible for a portrait or a landscape, without ceasing to be such, to be also a ^ypicture; like Turner’s landscapes, and the great portraits by Titian or Vandyke.^y

Whatever in painting or sculpture expresses human feeling—or ^zcharacter^z , which is only a certain state of feeling grown habitual—may be called, according to circumstances, the poetry, or the eloquence, of the painter’s or the sculptor’s art: the poetry, if the feeling declares itself by such signs as escape from us when we are unconscious of being seen; the oratory, if the signs are those we use for the purpose of voluntary communication.^a

The narrative style answers to what is called historical painting, which it is the fashion among connoisseurs to treat as the climax of the pictorial art. That it is the most difficult branch of the art we do not doubt, because, in its perfection, it includes^b the perfection of all the other branches^c: as in like manner^c an epic poem, though in so far as it is epic (i.e. narrative) it is not poetry at all, is yet esteemed the greatest effort of poetic genius, because there is no kind whatever of poetry which may not appropriately find a place in it. But an historical picture as such, that is, as the representation of an incident, must necessarily, as it seems to us, be poor and ineffective. The narrative powers of painting are extremely limited. Scarcely any picture, scarcely ^deven any series^d of pictures,^e tells its own story without the aid of an interpreter^f . But it is the single figures which, to us, are the great charm even of an historical picture. It is in these that the power of the art is really seen^g. In^g the attempt to ^hnarrate^h , visible and permanent signs are ⁱtooⁱ far behind the fugitive audible ones, which follow so fast one after another, while the faces and figures in a narrative picture, even though they be Titian’s, stand still. Who would not prefer one Virgin and Child of Raphael, to all the pictures which Rubens, with his fat, frouzy Dutch Venuses, ever painted? Though Rubens, besides excelling almost every one in his mastery over^j the mechanical parts of his art, often shows real genius in ^kgrouping^k his figures, the peculiar problem of historical painting. But then, who, except a mere student of drawing and colouring, ever cared to look twice at any of the figures themselves? The power of painting lies in poetry, of which Rubens had not the slightest tincture—not in narrative, ^lwherein^l he might have excelled.

The single figures, however, in an historical picture, are rather the ^meloquence^m of painting than the poetry; they mostly (unless they are quite out of place in the picture) express the feelings of one person as modified by the presence of others. Accordingly the minds whose bent leads them rather to eloquence than to poetry, rush to historical painting. The French painters, for instance, seldom attempt, because they could make nothing of, single heads, like those glorious ones of the Italian masters, with which they might ⁿfeedⁿ themselves day after day in their own Louvre. They must all be ^ohistorical^o ; and they are, almost to a man, attitudinizers. If we wished to give^p any young artist the most impressive warning our ^qimagination^q could devise against that kind of vice in the pictorial, which corresponds to rant in the histrionic art, we would advise him to walk once up and once down the gallery of the Luxembourg^r . Every figure in French painting or statuary seems to be showing itself off before spectators: they are ^snot poetical, but in the worst style of corrupted eloquence.^s

II

^tnascitur poëta^t is a maxim of classical antiquity, which has passed to these latter days with less questioning than most of the doctrines of that early age. When it originated, the human faculties were occupied, fortunately for posterity, less in examining how the works of genius are created, than in creating them: and the adage, probably, had no higher source than the tendency common among mankind to consider all power which is not visibly the effect of practice, all skill which is not capable of being reduced to mechanical rules, as the result of a peculiar gift. Yet this aphorism, born in the infancy of psychology, will perhaps be found, now when that science is in its adolescence, to be as true as an epigram ever is, that is, to contain some truth; truth, however, which has been so compressed and bent out of shape, in order to tie it up into so small a knot of only two words, that it requires an almost infinite amount of unrolling and laying straight, before it will resume its just proportions.

We are not now intending to remark upon the grosser misapplications of this ancient maxim, which have engendered so many races of poetasters. The days are gone by, when every raw youth whose borrowed phantasies have set themselves to a borrowed tune, mistaking, as Coleridge says, an ardent desire of poetic reputation for poetic genius,^[*] while unable to disguise from himself that he had taken no means whereby he might ^ubecome^u a poet, could fancy himself a born one. Those who would reap without sowing, and gain the victory without fighting the battle, are ambitious now of another sort of distinction, and are born novelists, or public speakers, not poets. And the wiser thinkers^v understand and acknowledge that poetic excellence is subject to the same necessary conditions with any other mental endowment; and that to no one of the spiritual benefactors of mankind is a higher or a more assiduous intellectual culture needful than to the poet. It is true, he possesses this advantage over others who use the “instrument of words,”^[†] that, of the truths which he utters, a larger proportion are derived from personal consciousness, and a smaller from philosophic investigation. But the power itself of discriminating between what really is consciousness, and what is only a process of inference completed in a single instant—and the capacity of distinguishing whether that of which the mind is conscious be an eternal truth, or but a dream—are among the last results of the most matured and ^wperfect^w intellect. Not to mention that the poet, no more than any other person who writes, confines himself altogether to intuitive truths, nor has any means of communicating even these but by words, every one of which derives all its power of conveying a meaning, from a whole host of acquired notions, and facts learnt by study and experience.

Nevertheless, it seems undeniable in point of fact, and consistent with the principles of a sound metaphysics, that there are poetic natures. There is a mental and physical constitution or temperament, peculiarly fitted for poetry. This temperament will not of itself make a poet, no more than the soil will the fruit; and as good fruit may be raised by culture from indifferent soils, so may good poetry from naturally unpoetical minds. But the poetry of one who is a poet by nature, will be clearly and broadly distinguishable from the poetry of mere culture. It may not be truer; it may not be more useful; but it will be different: fewer will appreciate it, even though many should affect to do so; but in those few it will find a keener sympathy, and will yield them a deeper enjoyment.

One may write genuine poetry, and not be a poet; for whosoever writes out truly any^x human feeling, writes poetry. All persons, even the most unimaginative, in moments of strong emotion, speak poetry; and hence the drama is poetry, which else were always prose, except when a poet is one of the characters. What ^yis^y poetry, but the thoughts and words in which emotion spontaneously embodies itself? As there are few who are not, at least for ^zsome moments and in some situations, capable of some^z strong feeling, poetry is natural to most persons at some period of their lives. And any one whose feelings are genuine, though but of the average strength,—if he be not diverted by uncongenial thoughts or occupations from the indulgence of them, and if he acquire by culture, as all persons may, the faculty of delineating them correctly,—has it in his power to be a poet, so far as a life passed in writing unquestionable poetry may be considered to confer that title. But ^aought^a it to do so? Yes, perhaps, in^b a collection of “British Poets.” But “poet” is the name also of a variety of ^cman^c , not solely of the author of a particular variety of ^dbook^d : now, to have written whole volumes of real poetry, is possible to almost all kinds of characters, and implies no greater peculiarity of mental construction than to be the author of a history or a novel.

Whom, then, shall we call poets? Those who are so constituted, that emotions are the links of association by which their ideas, both sensuous and spiritual, are connected together. This constitution belongs (within certain limits) to all in whom poetry is a pervading principle. In all others, poetry is something extraneous and superinduced: something out of themselves, foreign to the habitual course of their every-day lives and characters; a^e world to which they may make occasional visits, but where they are sojourners, not dwellers, and which, when out of it, or even when in it, they think of, peradventure, but as a phantom-world, a place of ignes fatui and spectral illusions. Those only who have the peculiarity of association which we have mentioned, and which is ^fa natural though not an universal consequence^f of intense sensibility, instead of seeming not themselves when they are uttering poetry, scarcely seem themselves when uttering anything to which poetry is foreign. Whatever be the thing which they are contemplating, ^gif it be capable of connecting itself with their emotions,^g the aspect under which it first and most naturally paints itself to them, is its poetic aspect. The poet of culture sees his object in prose, and describes it in poetry; the poet of nature actually sees it in poetry.

This point is perhaps worth some little illustration; the rather, as metaphysicians (the ultimate arbiters of all philosophical criticism), while they have busied themselves for two thousand years, more or less, about the few ^huniversal^h laws of human nature, have strangely neglected the analysis of its ⁱdiversitiesⁱ . Of these, none lie deeper or reach further than the varieties which difference of nature and of education makes in what may be termed the habitual bond of association. In a mind entirely uncultivated, which is also without any strong feelings, objects, whether of sense or of intellect, arrange themselves in the mere casual order in which they have been seen, heard, or otherwise perceived. Persons of this sort may be said to think chronologically. If they remember a fact, it is by reason of a fortuitous coincidence with some trifling incident or circumstance which took place at the very time. If they have a story to tell, or testimony to deliver in a witness-box, their narrative must follow the exact order in which the events took place: dodge them, and the thread of association is broken; they cannot go on. Their associations, to use the language of philosophers, are chiefly of the successive, not the synchronous kind, and whether successive or synchronous, are mostly ^jcasual^j .

To the man of science, again, or of business, objects group themselves according to the artificial classifications which the understanding has voluntarily made for the convenience of thought or of practice. But where any of the impressions are vivid and intense, the associations into which these enter are the ruling ones: it being a well-known law of association, that the stronger a feeling is, the more ^kquickly^k and strongly it associates itself with any other object or feeling. Where, therefore, nature has given strong feelings, and education has not created factitious tendencies stronger than the natural ones, the prevailing associations will be those which connect objects and ideas with emotions, and with each other through the intervention of emotions. Thoughts and images will be linked together, according to the similarity of the feelings which cling to them. A thought will introduce a thought by first introducing a feeling which is allied with it. At the centre of each group of thoughts or images will be found a feeling; and the thoughts or images ^lwill be there only^l because the feeling was there. ^mThe^m combinations which the mind puts together,ⁿ the pictures which it paints,^o the wholes which imagination constructs out of the materials supplied by fancy, will be indebted to some dominant ^pfeeling^p , not as in other natures to a dominant ^qthought^q , for their unity and consistency of character—for what distinguishes them from incoherencies.

The difference, then, between the poetry of a poet, and the poetry of a cultivated but not naturally ^rpoetic^r mind, is, that in the latter, with however bright a halo of feeling the thought may be surrounded and glorified, the thought itself is ^salways^s the conspicuous object; while the poetry of a poet is feeling itself, employing thought only as the medium of its ^texpression^t . In the one, feeling waits upon thought; in the other, thought upon feeling. The one writer has a distinct aim, common to him with any other didactic author; he desires to convey the thought, and he conveys it clothed in the feelings which it excites in himself, or which he deems most appropriate to it. The other merely pours forth the overflowing of his feelings; and all the thoughts which those feelings suggest are floated promiscuously along the stream.

It may assist in rendering our meaning intelligible, if we illustrate it by a parallel between the two English authors of our own day who have produced the greatest quantity of true and enduring poetry, Wordsworth and Shelley. Apter instances could not be wished for; the one might be cited as the type, the exemplar, of what the poetry of culture may accomplish; the other as perhaps the most striking example ever known of the poetic temperament. How different, accordingly, is the poetry of these two great ^uwriters.^u In Wordsworth, the poetry is almost always the mere setting of a thought. The thought may be more valuable than the setting, or it may be less valuable, but there can be no question as to which was first in his mind: what he is impressed with, and what he is anxious to impress, is some proposition, more or less distinctly conceived; some truth, or something which he deems such. He lets the thought dwell in his mind, till it excites, as is the nature of thought, other thoughts, and also such feelings as the measure of his sensibility is adequate to supply. Among these thoughts and feelings, had he chosen a different walk of authorship (and there are many in which he might equally have excelled), he would probably have made a different selection of media for enforcing the parent thought: his habits, however, being those of poetic composition, he selects in preference the strongest feelings, and the thoughts with which most of feeling is naturally or habitually connected. His poetry, therefore, may be defined to be, his thoughts, coloured by, and impressing themselves by means of, emotions.^[*] Such poetry, Wordsworth has occupied a long life in producing. And well and wisely has he so done. Criticisms, no doubt, may be made occasionally both upon the thoughts themselves, and upon the skill he has demonstrated in the choice of his ^vmedia^v : for, an affair of skill and study, in the most rigorous sense, it evidently was. But he has not laboured in vain: he has exercised, and continues to exercise, a powerful, and mostly a highly beneficial influence over the formation and growth of not a few of the most cultivated and vigorous of the youthful minds of our time, over whose heads poetry of the opposite description would have flown, for want of an original organization, physical ^wor^w mental, in sympathy with it.

On the other hand, Wordsworth’s poetry is never bounding, never ebullient; has little even of the appearance of spontaneousness: the well is never so full that it overflows. There is an air of calm deliberateness about all he writes, which is not characteristic of the poetic temperament: his poetry seems one thing, himself another; he seems to be poetical because he wills to be so, not because he cannot help it: did he will to dismiss poetry, he need never again, it might almost seem, have a poetical thought. He never seems possessed by ^xany^x feeling; no emotion seems ever so strong as to have entire sway, for the time being, over the current of his thoughts. He never, even for the space of a few stanzas, appears entirely ^ygiven up^y to exultation, or grief, or pity, or love, or admiration, or devotion, or even animal spirits. He now and then, though seldom, ^zattempts^z to write as if he were; and never, we think, without leaving an impression of poverty: as the brook which on nearly level ground quite fills its banks, appears but a thread when running rapidly down a precipitous declivity. He has feeling enough to form a decent, graceful, even beautiful decoration to a thought which is in itself interesting and moving; but not so much as suffices to stir up the soul by mere sympathy with itself in its simplest manifestation, nor enough to summon up that array of “thoughts of power” which in a richly stored mind always attends the call of really intense feeling. It is for this reason, doubtless, that the genius of Wordsworth is essentially unlyrical. Lyric poetry, as it was the earliest kind, is also, if the view we are now taking of poetry be correct, more eminently and peculiarly poetry than any other: it is the poetry most natural to a really poetic temperament, and least capable of being successfully imitated by one not so endowed by nature.^a

Shelley is the very reverse of all this. Where Wordsworth is strong, he is weak; where Wordsworth is weak, he is strong. Culture, that culture by which Wordsworth has reared from his own inward nature the richest harvest ever brought forth by a soil of so little depth, is precisely what was wanting to Shelley: or let us rather say, he had not, at the period of his deplorably early death, reached sufficiently far in that intellectual progression of which he was capable, and which, if it has done so much for ^bgreatly^b inferior natures, might have made of him the ^cmost perfect, as he was already the most gifted,^c of our poets. For him, ^dvoluntary^d mental discipline had done little: the vividness of his emotions and of his sensations had done all. He seldom follows up an idea; it starts into life, summons from the fairy-land of his inexhaustible fancy some three or four bold images, then vanishes, and straight he is off on the wings of some casual association into quite another sphere. He had ^escarcely^e yet acquired the consecutiveness of thought necessary for a long poem; his more ambitious compositions too often resemble the scattered fragments of a mirror; colours brilliant as life, single images without end, but no picture. It is only when under the overruling influence of some one state of feeling, either actually experienced, or summoned up in^f the vividness of reality by a fervid imagination, that he writes as a great poet; unity of feeling being to him the harmonizing principle which a central idea is to minds of another class, and supplying the coherency and consistency which would else have been wanting. Thus it is in many of his smaller, and especially his lyrical poems. They are obviously written to exhale, perhaps to relieve, a state of feeling, or of conception of feeling, almost oppressive from its vividness. The thoughts and imagery are suggested by the feeling, and are such as it finds unsought. The state of feeling may be either of soul or of sense, or oftener (might we not say invariably?) of both: for the poetic temperament is usually, perhaps always, accompanied by exquisite senses. The exciting cause may be either an object or an idea. But whatever of sensation enters into the feeling, must not be local, or consciously ^gorganic^g , it is a ^hcondition^h of the whole frame, not of a part onlyⁱ. Likeⁱ the state of sensation produced by a fine climate, or indeed like all strongly pleasurable or painful sensations in an impassioned nature, it pervades the entire nervous system. States of feeling, whether sensuous or spiritual, which thus possess the whole being, are the fountains of that^j which we have called the poetry of poets; and which is little else than ^ka pouring forth^k of the thoughts and images that pass across the mind while some permanent state of feeling is occupying it.

To the same original fineness of organization, Shelley was doubtless indebted for another of his rarest gifts, that exuberance of imagery, which when unrepressed, as in many of his poems it is, amounts^l to a ^mfault^m . The susceptibility of his nervous system, which made his emotions intense, made also the impressions of his external senses deep and clear: and agreeably to the law of association by which, as already remarked, the strongest impressions are those which associate themselves the most easily and strongly, these vivid sensations were readily recalled to mind by all objects or thoughts which had coexisted with them, ⁿandⁿ by all feelings which in any degree resembled them. Never did a fancy so teem with sensuous imagery as Shelley’s. Wordsworth economizes an image, and detains it until he has distilled all the poetry out of it, and it will not yield a drop more: Shelley lavishes his with a profusion which is unconscious because it is inexhaustible.^o

If, then, the maxim Nascitur poëta, mean, either that the power of producing poetical compositions is a peculiar faculty which the poet brings into the world with him, which grows with his growth like any of his bodily powers, and is as independent of culture as his height, and his complexion; or that ^pany^p natural peculiarity ^qwhatever^q is implied in producing poetry, real poetry, and in any quantity—such poetry too, as, to the majority of educated and intelligent readers, shall appear quite as good as, or even better than, any other; in either sense the doctrine is false. And nevertheless, there is poetry which could not emanate but from a mental and physical constitution peculiar, not in the ^rkind,^r but in the ^sdegree^s of its susceptibility: a constitution which makes its possessor capable of greater happiness than mankind in general, and also of greater unhappiness; and because greater, so also more various. And such poetry, to all who know enough of nature to own it as being ^tin^t nature, is much ^umore^u poetry, is poetry in a far higher sense, than any other; since the common element of all poetry, that which constitutes poetry, human feeling, enters far more largely into this than into the poetry of culture. Not only because the natures which we have called poetical, really feel more, and consequently have more feeling to express; but because, the capacity of feeling being so great, feeling, when excited and not voluntarily resisted, seizes the helm of their thoughts, and the succession of ideas and images becomes the mere utterance of an emotion; not, as in other natures, the emotion a mere ornamental colouring of the thought.

Ordinary education and the ordinary course of life are constantly at work counteracting this quality of mind, and substituting habits more suitable to their own ends: if instead of ^vsubstituting,^v they were content to ^wsuperadd, there would be^w nothing to complain of. But when will education consist, not in repressing any mental faculty or power, from the uncontrolled action of which danger is apprehended, but in training up to its proper strength the corrective and antagonist power?

In whomsoever the quality which we have described exists, and is not stifled, that person is a poet. Doubtless he is a ^xgreater^x poet in proportion as the fineness of his perceptions, whether of sense or of internal consciousness, furnishes him with an ampler supply of lovely images—the vigour and richness of his intellect with a greater abundance of moving thoughts. For it is through these thoughts and images that the feeling speaks, and through their impressiveness that it impresses itself, and finds response in other hearts; and from these media of transmitting it (contrary to the laws of physical nature) increase of intensity is reflected back upon the feeling itself. But all these it is possible to have, and not be a poet; they are mere materials, which the poet shares in common with other people. What constitutes the poet is not the imagery nor the thoughts, nor even the feelings, but the law according to which they are called up. He is a poet, not because he has ideas of any particular kind, but because the succession of his ideas is subordinate to the course of his emotions.

Many who have never acknowledged this in theory, bear testimony to it in their particular judgments. In listening to an oration, or reading a written discourse not professedly poetical, when do we begin to feel that the speaker or author is putting off the character of the orator or the prose writer, and is passing into the poet? Not when he begins to show strong feeling; ^ythen^y we merely say, he ^zis in earnest, he feels^z what he says; still less when he expresses himself in imagery; ^athen^a , unless illustration be manifestly his sole object, we are apt to say, This is affectation. It is when the feeling (instead of passing away, or, if it continue, letting the train of thoughts run on exactly as they would have done if there were no influence at work but the mere intellect) becomes itself the originator of another train of association, which expels, or blends, with the former; ^bwhen (for example) either his words, or the mode of their arrangement, are such as^b we spontaneously use only when in a state of excitement, ^cproving^c that the mind is at least as much occupied by a passive state of its own feelings, as by the desire of attaining the premeditated end which the discourse has in view.^*

Our judgments of authors who lay actual claim to the title of poets, follow the same principle. ^jWhenever^j , after a writer’s meaning is fully understood, it is still matter of reasoning and discussion whether he is a poet or not, he will be found to be wanting in the characteristic peculiarity of association^k so often adverted to. When, on the contrary, after reading or hearing one or two passages, ^lwe^l instinctively and without hesitation ^mcry^m out. This is a poet, the probability is, that the passages are strongly marked with this peculiar quality. And we may add that in such case, a critic who, not having sufficient feeling to respond to the poetry, is also without sufficient philosophy to understand it though he feel it not, will be apt to pronounce, not “this is prose,” but “this is exaggeration,” “this is mysticism,” or, “this is nonsense.”

Although a philosopher cannot, by culture, make himself, in the peculiar sense in which we now use the term, a poet, unless at least he have that peculiarity of nature which would probably have made poetry his earliest pursuit; a poet may always, by culture, make himself a philosopher. The poetic laws of association are by no means incompatible with the more ordinary laws; are by no means such as ⁿmustⁿ have their course, even though a deliberate purpose require their suspension. If the peculiarities of the poetic temperament were uncontrollable in any poet, they might be supposed so in Shelley; yet how powerfully, in The Cenci,^[*] does he coerce and restrain all the characteristic qualities of his ^ogenius; what severe simplicity, in place of his usual barbaric splendour; how rigidly does he keep the feelings and the imagery in subordination to the thought.^o

The investigation of nature requires no habits or qualities of mind, but such as may always be acquired by industry and mental activity. Because ^pat one time^p the mind may be so given up to a state of feeling, that the succession of its ideas is determined by the present enjoyment or suffering which pervades it, ^qthis^q is no reason but that in the calm retirement of study, when under no peculiar excitement either of the outward or of the inward sense, it may form any combinations, or pursue any trains of ideas, which are most conducive to the purposes of philosophic inquiry: and may, while in that state, form deliberate convictions, from which no excitement will afterwards make it swerve. Might we not go even further than this? We shall not pause to ask whether it be not a misunderstanding of the nature of passionate feeling to imagine that it is inconsistent with ^rcalmness;^r whether they who so deem of it, do not ^smistake passion in the militant or antagonistic state, for the type of passion universally; do not confound passion struggling towards an outward object, with passion brooding over itself^s . But without entering into this deeper investigation; that capacity of strong feeling, which is supposed necessarily to disturb the judgment, is also the material out of which all motives are made; the motives, consequently, which lead human beings to the pursuit of truth. The greater the individual’s capability of happiness and of misery, the stronger interest has that individual in arriving at truth; and when once that interest is felt, an impassioned nature is sure to pursue this, as to pursue any other object, with greater ardour; for energy of character is ^tcommonly^t the offspring of strong feeling. If, therefore, the most impassioned natures do not ripen into the most powerful intellects, it is always from defect of culture, or something wrong in the circumstances by which the being has originally or successively been surrounded. Undoubtedly strong feelings ^urequire^u a strong intellect to carry them, as more sail requires more ballast: and when, from neglect, or bad education, that strength is wanting, no wonder if the grandest and swiftest vessels make the most utter wreck.

Where, as in ^vsome of our older poets^v , a poetic nature has been united with logical and scientific culture, the peculiarity of association arising from the finer nature so perpetually alternates with the associations attainable by commoner natures trained to high perfection, that its own particular law is not so conspicuously characteristic of the result produced, as in a poet like Shelley, to whom systematic intellectual culture, in a measure proportioned to the intensity of his own nature, has been wanting. Whether the superiority will naturally be on the side of the ^wphilosopher-poet^w or of the mere poet—whether the writings of the one ought, as a whole, to be truer, and their influence more beneficent, than those of the other—is too obvious in principle to need statement: it would be absurd to doubt whether two endowments are better than one; whether truth is more certainly arrived at by two processes, verifying and correcting each other, than by one alone. Unfortunately, in practice the matter is not quite so simple; there the question often is, which is least prejudicial to the intellect, uncultivation or malcultivation. For, as long as ^xeducation^x consists chiefly of the mere inculcation of traditional opinions, many of which, from the mere fact that the human intellect has not yet reached perfection, must necessarily be false; ^yso long as even those who are best taught, are rather taught to know the thoughts of others than to think,^y it is not always clear that the poet of acquired ideas has the advantage over him whose feeling has been his sole teacher. For, the depth and durability of wrong as well as of right impressions, is proportional to the fineness of the material; and they who have the greatest capacity of natural feeling are generally those whose artificial feelings are the strongest. Hence, doubtless, among other reasons, it is, that in an age of revolutions in opinion, the ^zcotemporary^z poets, those at least who deserve the name, those who have any individuality of character, if they are not before their age, are almost sure to be behind it. An observation curiously verified all over Europe in the present century. Nor let it be thought disparaging. However urgent may be the necessity for a breaking up of old modes of belief, the most strongminded and discerning, next to those who head the movement, are generally those who bring up the rear of it.^a

WRITINGS OF JUNIUS REDIVIVUS [I]

1833

EDITORS’ NOTE

Monthly Repository, n.s. VII (Apr., 1833), 262-70. Headed. “Writings of Junius Redivivus”; running title as title. Title footnoted. “The Producing Man’s Companion; an Essay on the Present State of Society, Moral, Political, and Physical, in England. Second Edition, with additions. [London: Wilson, 1833.] / A Tale of Tucuman, with Digressions, English and American, &c. &c. [London: Wilson, 1831.]” The first edition of Junius Redivivus’ (William Bridges Adams’s) Producing Man’s Companion was entitled The Rights of Morality (London: Wilson, 1832). The review is unsigned Not republished Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of the writings of Junius Redivivus in the 76th number of the Monthly Repository (for April 1833)” (MacMinn, p. 25). The Somerville College copy (tear sheets) is headed in Mill’s hand “From the Monthly Repository for April 1833”, and four corrections in his hand are made by cancellation and marginal addition: at 370.4 “some” is altered to “sore”; at 371.1 “with” is altered to “worth”, at 371.38 “fame” is altered to “frame”; and at 374.34 “openly” is replaced by “clearly”.

For comment on the essay, see the Introduction, pp. xxxvi-xxxviii above.

Writings of Junius Redivivus [I]

the prolific and popular writer who has stumbled upon this pseudonyme, literally, as we surmise, “in default of a better,” (for a title less indicative of his individualizing peculiarities could not well have been chosen,) has recently made himself known through our pages to as many of the readers of the Repository as had not made his acquaintance previously through some other medium.^[*] By including us among the many organs of utterance through which he speaks forth the truths which are in him, to a world which never stood more in need of truths so profitable, he has afforded to us a testimonial of his good wishes and good opinion, which we prize highly, but which would be somewhat less precious to us, if it carried with it any obligation to be silent concerning the good we think of him. We know to what constructions we expose ourselves in praising an avowed contributor to our work; but no person shall be a contributor to any work of ours whom we cannot conscientiously praise As of all other friends, so of literary auxiliaries, we hold nothing unfit to be spoken which is fit to be thought. And they who, in all cases without exception, regulate their speech by no other rule than that of sincerity and simplicity, are indeed more liable to misconstruction on any single occasion than those who are studious of appearances, but less so in their total career: on that security we rely.

On the present occasion our remarks will relate, not so much to the two books of which we have transcribed the titles, or any of the other writings of the same author, but rather to the qualities of the author himself as therein exhibited. Nor is this, when rightly considered, the least important of the aspects under which a book, be it ever so valuable, (unless it be a book of pure science,) can be looked at. Let the word be what it may, so it be but spoken with a truthful intent, this one thing must be interesting in it, that it has been spoken by man—that it is the authentic record of something which has actually been thought or felt by a human being. Let that be sure, and even though in every other sense the word be false, there is a truth in it greater than that which it affects to communicate: we learn from it to know one human soul. “Man is infinitely precious to man,”^[*] not only because where sympathy is not, what we term to live is but to get through life, but because in all of us, except here and there a star-like, self-poised nature, which seems to have attained without a struggle the heights to which others must clamber in sore travail and distress, the beginning of all nobleness and strength is the faith that such nobleness and such strength have existed and do exist in others, how few soever and how scattered. A book which gives evidence of any rare kind of moral qualities in its author is a treasure to which all the contents of all other books are as dross. What is there in the writings even of Plato or of Milton so eternally valuable to us as the assurance they give that a Plato and a Milton have been? been in this very world of ours, where, therefore, we also, according to the measure of our opportunities, may, if we will, be the like. The gospel itself is not more a gospel (ἐυαγγελίον) by the doctrines it teaches, than because it is the record of the life of Christ.

It is one of the evils of modern periodical writings, that we rarely learn from them to know their author. In those sibylline leaves wherein men scatter abroad their thoughts, or what seem their thoughts, we have little means of identifying the productions of the same sibyl; and no one particular oracle affords by itself sufficient materials for judging whether the prophet be a real soothsayer. It is so easy in a single article to pass off adopted ideas and feelings for the genuine produce of the writer’s mind; it is so difficult on one trial to detect him who, aiming only at the plausible, finds and converts to that meaner purpose the same arguments which occur to him who is earnestly seeking for the true. Would but every person who writes anonymously adopt, like Junius Redivivus, a uniform signature, whereby all the emanations of one individual mind might have their common origin attested, great would be the advantage to upright and truthful writing, and great the increase of difficulties to imposture in all its kinds and degrees. A periodical writer would then have a character to lose or to gain; the unfairness, or ignorance, or presumption which he might manifest in one production, would have their due influence in diminishing the credit of another; a comparison between different writings of the same author would disclose whether his opinions varied according to the point he had to carry, or wavered from the absence of any fixed principles of judgment. A man who pretends to the intellect or the virtue which he has not, may deceive once, but he will betray himself somewhere: it is easy to keep up a false seeming for the space of an article, but difficult for a whole literary life. If the writer, on the contrary, be wise and honest, the more we read of his writings, knowing them to be his, the more thoroughly we shall trust him, and the better we shall learn to comprehend him. Every one of his opinions or sentiments which comes to our knowledge helps us to a more perfect understanding of all the rest; and the light they reflect on each other is a protection to the author against having his meaning mistaken, worth all precautions taken together. He may then write with directness and freedom, not timidly guarding himself by a running comment of deprecatory explanation, nor encumbering his argument or interrupting the flow of his feelings by qualifications or reserves which may better be supplied from the reader’s previous acquaintance with the writer. The importance of this consideration will be most apparent to those who are most sensible how intimately all truths are connected: to those who know, that only by the general cast of an author’s opinions and sentiments, and not by any sufficient explanation which he usually has it in his power to give on that particular occasion, can we with certainty determine the sense in which he understands, and means us to understand, his own propositions.

The foregoing remarks cannot be better illustrated than by the example of the writer who furnished the occasion on which they are made. We prize the writings of Junius Redivivus for the many valuable truths which are embodied and diffused in them, truths often, as we cheerfully acknowledge, new to us, almost always newly illustrated, and to have arrived at which required, if not a subtle and profound, a penetrating, sagacious, and enlarged understanding. But this, which is so much, is the least part of what we owe to Junius Redivivus, nor are his writings chiefly precious for what they are, but for what they show him to be: in so far as is possible for inanimate letter-press, they give to the world, once more, assurance of a man. It is men the world lacks now, much more than books; or if it wants books, wants them principally for lack of men, of old mankind were often so far superior to their ideas; now their ideas are so far superior to them. There are truths spread abroad in the world in ample measure, were there but the intellect to grasp them, and the strength to act up to them. But how often does it happen that when he is most wanted, we know where to look for the man who is possessed by the truth—whose mind has absorbed it, and, better still, of whose desires and affections it has become the paramount ruler! We do not mean by the truth, this or that little bit of truth here and there, but the all of truth which a conscientious man needs in order to shape his path through the world, much more to be a light and a protection to others:—the all, or but barely so much of it as is necessary for doing any one important thing well and thoroughly.

We are grateful, then, to Junius Redivivus, that he has put the mark of common parentage upon his mind’s offspring,—that he has not cut up his literary identity into separate and small fragments, each of which might have belonged to an entire being so far inferior to what (it is impossible not to believe) he is. For if any writings of the present age bespeak a strong, healthy, and well-proportioned mental frame, his do. If he had told us his name, his birth, parentage, station, profession, all these particulars the knowledge of which is usually termed knowledge of the man, that were probably nothing: of all that in any way concerns us, his moral and intellectual being, we have assurance sufficient. With all the freshness of youthful feelings, he unites an extent of practical experience and knowledge of life, impossible in one very young, and affording the happiest earnest that the fountains of emotion at which others drink and pass on, will flow beside his path, refreshing and inspiring the whole of his earthly journey. Onesided men commonly enforce their partial views with a vehemence and an air of strong conviction which persons of more comprehensive minds are often without, being unable to throw their whole souls into a part only of the truth which lies before them: but the advantage for which others are indebted to their narrowness, Junius Redivivus derives from the excitability and ardour of his temperament: the idea or feeling required by the immediate purpose, seems to possess him as entirely as if that were the only purpose he had in life: but the other idea or feeling which ought to accompany and qualify the first, is there in reality, though appearing not, unless called for: look somewhere else and you will find the remainder of the truth supplied, and what seemed partial in the feeling, corrected by tokens that all other feelings proper to the occasion, are equally strong and equally habitual. There is an evidence of hearty conviction and energetic will in all the writings of this author which compels the persuasion that he would be as ready to act upon all he professes as to profess it: being, as we may gather from the particulars he lets fall of his own life, inured to self-reliance, and not unaccustomed to difficulties or even to emergencies. He writes as one in whom there still survived something of the spirit of the ancient heroes, along with the superior humanity and the superior refinement of modern times.

It is seldom, indeed, that a wise man’s praise can be unqualified; yet of the man Junius Redivivus, as shown in his writings, there is little or nothing to be said on the disparaging side; of the works themselves somewhat. He is not a great writer: will he ever be? Possibly not: yet only perhaps because he does not desire it: he has never shown the capacity, but then he has never shown the wish, to produce a finished performance. Is this to be regretted? we hesitate to answer yes: great writers write for posterity, but frequent writers are those who do good in their generation; and no great writer, whom we remember, was a frequent writer, except Voltaire. Junius Redivivus writes far more powerfully than could be expected, from one who has written in two years as much as would amount to many volumes, and every word of it with thought. Writing of a very high order is thrown away when it is buried in periodicals, which are mostly read but once, and that hastily: yet the only access now to the general public, is through periodicals. An article in a newspaper or a magazine, is to the public mind no more than a drop of water on a stone; and like that, it produces its effect by repetition.

The peculiar “mission” of this age, (if we may be allowed to borrow from the new French school of philosophers a term which they have abused,)^[*] is to popularize among the many, the more immediately practical results of the thought and experience of the few. This is marked out as the fittest employment for the present epoch, partly because now for the first time it can be done, partly because anything of a still higher description cannot; unless writers are willing to forego immediate usefulness, and take their chance, that what is neglected by their own age will reach posterity. In this, then, which is the great intellectual business of our time, Junius Redivivus is better qualified to render eminent service, than a more eminent writer. It is true, that all he has written, perhaps all he will ever have the inclination or the patience to write, will be ephemeral: but if each production only lasts its day or year, each new day or year produces a successor: and though his works shall perish, it will not be until they have planted in many minds, truths which shall survive them, and awakened in many hearts a spirit which will not die.

The staple of all popular writing in the present crumbling condition of the social fabric, must be politics: and politics predominate in the writings of Junius Redivivus. But he writes not as one to whom politics are all in all: he knows the limits of what laws and institutions can do: he never expresses himself, as if any form of polity could give to mankind even the outward requisites of happiness, much less render them actually happy, in spite of themselves, or as if a people individually ignorant and selfish, could as a community by any legerdemain of checks and balances conjure up a government better than the men by whom it is carried on. Politics with our author are important, but not all-important. The great concern with him is, the improvement of the human beings themselves: of which the improvement of their institutions will be a certain effect, may be in some degree a cause, and is so far even a necessary condition, that until it is accomplished, none of the other causes of improvement can have fair play. The individual man must after all work out his own destiny, not have it worked out for him by a king, or a House of Commons; but he can hardly be in a suitable frame of mind for seeing and feeling this, while he is smarting under the sense of hardship and wrong from other men. Nor is this the worst; for the laws of a country, to a great degree, make its morals. Power, and whatever confers power, have been in all ages the great objects of the admiration of mankind: the most obvious kind of power to common apprehension, is power in the state; and according as that is obtained by rank, court favour, riches, talents, or virtues, the favourable sentiments of mankind will attach themselves, and their ambition will be directed to one or another of these attributes. Plato expected no great improvement in the lot of humanity, until philosophers were kings, or kings philosophers:^[*] without indulging so romantic a wish, we believe that in the many there will be little of the requisite culture of the internal nature, and therefore little increase even of outward enjoyments, until institutions are so framed, that the ascendency over the minds of men, which naturally accompanies the supreme direction of their worldly affairs, shall be exercised, we do not say by philosophers, but at the least by honest men, and men who with adequate practical talents combine the highest appreciation of speculative wisdom.

In politics, Junius Redivivus is a radical. But since there are various kinds of radicals, it is fitting to state to which variety of the species our author belongs. Some men (it has been well said) are radicals, only because they are not lords: this will not suit our author; who, it is evident, would scorn equally to accept or to submit to, irresponsible or unearned superiority. Others are radicals, because they are of a fretful and complaining disposition, and accustomed to think present evils worse than any future contingent ones: such men in the United States would be aristocrats: be the order of things what it may, it must have some faults peculiarly its own, and those faults in the estimation of such people ensure its condemnation: neither is our author one of these. He is full of that spirit of love, which suffers little besides loveliness to be visible where loveliness is, and which boils up, and explodes in indignation only when heated by the contact of evil unmixed or predominant. Even in a semi-barbarous people, like those of Spanish America, he finds ample food for admiration and sympathy; in the Tale of Tucuman, and elsewhere, he dwells with peculiar complacency upon whatever those nations afford of beautiful or noble. Others again are radicals, merely because the taxes are too high: they can conceive of no evil except poverty, and finding themselves poor, or seeing that their neighbours are so, think it is the fault of the Government for hindering them from being rich; not so our author: he sees that there is a cause independent of Government, which makes the majority poor, and keeps them so, where it is not counteracted either by natural or artificial checks; this is, the tendency of population to a more rapid increase than is compatible with high wages. No person has inculcated this truth with greater earnestness and perseverance, or in a manner more likely to impress it upon the minds of those who are most directly interested in it, than Junius Redivivus. And there is nothing by which he is more honourably distinguished, both from the demagogue, and from the more ignorant or narrow-minded of the radicals. This is one of the most striking instances of the remark we made, that his truths are seldom half-truths. A perception of the abuses of existing Governments without a sense of the dependence of wages on a limitation of the number of labourers, has led many into grievous errors: so has a perception of the latter half-truth without the former: but let a man once clearly perceive and understand both, and his aberrations in political opinion are by that sole fact restrained within comparatively narrow limits.

Our author is a radical, because he is convinced both from principle and from history, that is both from the experience of men and of nations, that power, without accountability to those over whom, and for whose benefit it is to be exercised, is for the most part a source of oppression to them, and of moral corruption to those in whom the power resides. On the same principle we are radicals also: not that we consider the above proposition to be true without exception: nor do we in any case look upon it as embracing the whole of what ought to be taken into consideration in forming our practical conclusions: but we hold it to contain as much of the truth, as is amply sufficient to prove all institutions worthless, which like most of those which now exist, are constructed in utter defiance, or entire negligence of it.

For the details of our author’s political opinions, and his applications of them to the existing state of society in England, we refer our readers to The Producing Man’s Companion, which has been revised and greatly enlarged in this second edition. We shall make no extracts, because, to convey any but a most partial view of the contents of the volume, would require more copious citations than our space admits of, and because so interesting, and so cheap, and portable a work, should be in the hands of every one whom words of ours can influence. A connected or systematic treatise we cannot call it: the wonder is, how with so little apparent order or concatenation in his ideas, the author has contrived always to think consistently with himself. The book is like those kinds of living creatures which have joints, but no limbs: no reason can be given why the animals, or why the book, should not be twice as long; why the writer stopped when he did, or why he did not stop sooner. But all his opinions are so nicely adjusted to one another; they seem mutually to receive and give so exactly the proper, and none but the proper modifications; that in his own mind it is clear his ideas are in their right places, though when poured out upon paper they defy the very notion of arrangement, and lie one upon another in a kind of heap. This would be disagreeable if the book were very long, but being short, and made up of parts so good in themselves, it scarcely needs that they should be more artfully put together.

Our author is a most minute observer, both of things and men; the extent of his miscellaneous information is truly surprising: and most of it has evidently been acquired by himself, not derived from books. He appears to be well versed in experimental physics, and familiar with the processes of very many branches of practical industry. His sagacity and ingenuity display themselves here also in numerous contrivances, and a still greater number of prophecies of contrivances, which will probably some time or other be fulfilled. But these belong neither to the works we are reviewing, nor to the general scope of this article.

One of the most delightful qualities of this author, his lively admiration and keen enjoyment of the beautiful in all its kinds, both spiritual and physical, has been nowhere more exemplified than in his contributions to our work; and our readers do not require from us any assurance of it. Besides the value of this quality in itself, it has saved him from an error which many, and they not the most narrow-minded of our social reformers, habitually fall into; the error of expecting that the regeneration of mankind, if practicable at all, is to be brought about exclusively by the cultivation of what they somewhat loosely term the reasoning faculty; forgetting that reasoning must be supplied with premises, complete as well as correct, if it is to arrive at any conclusions, and that it cannot furnish any test of the principles or facts from which it sets out; forgetting too that, even supposing perfect knowledge to be attained, no good will come of it, unless the ends, to which the means have been pointed out, are first desired. But of this, perhaps, on another occasion, and at greater length. Our object in introducing the topic was to observe, that this error demonstrates of those who hold it either a deficiency in themselves, of all mental faculties, except the calculating understanding, or else that the other powers are so uncultivated, or so ill-cultivated, as to be at habitual variance with that faculty. It is otherwise with Junius Redivivus: his sensibility to beauty has contributed largely to quicken his intellect and expand his views; and in nothing more so than in opening his eyes to the importance of poetry and art, as instruments of human improvement on the largest scale. Where the sense of beauty is wanting, or but faint, the understanding must be contracted: there is so much which a person, unfurnished with that sense, will never have observed, to which he will never have had his attention awakened: there is so much, of the value of which to the human mind he will be an incompetent and will be apt to be a prejudiced judge; so many of the most important means of human culture which he will not know the use of, which he is almost sure to undervalue, and of which he is at least unable to avail himself in his own efforts, whether for his own good or for that of the world. It is true of this as of all the other sensibilities, that without intellect they run wild; but without them, intellect is stunted. A time will come, when the education of both will proceed hand in hand; let us rather say, when the aid of culture will be more particularly invoked to strengthen the part which is relatively deficient or at lowest, to bestow the power of appreciation, when the quality to be appreciated is one which only nature can give.

Our author is as much of a poet as intense sensibility and vigorous intellect can make him, with the assistance of a memory richly stored with accurate pictures of things seen, and well seen, and keenly enjoyed, by himself. We do not think he has much fancy: his descriptions are extremely literal, and indeed profess to be so. The Tale of Tucuman, his longest poem, was avowedly composed, not to body forth the ideal, but to delineate the actual: “To convey,” he says in the preface, “in as agreeable a form as may be, a knowledge of the manners and customs of the Southern Americans: the descriptions,” he adds, “of scenery, costume, manners, and customs, are as accurate as though it were a prose work. Most of the incidents are of actual occurrence; and living beings have sat for the portraits of the actors.”^[*] Having thus an object in view, altogether distinct from that of the poet and artist, the wonder is not great if he have not succeeded equally well in both. He had in reality a third purpose in addition; the inculcation of his opinions, concerning things in general, not excepting persons, in digressions, after the manner of Don Juan.^[†] of which he has likewise imitated the versification. The work is interesting, though most readers will, we are afraid, skip a great part of the descriptive passages, for the sake of which all the rest would appear to have been written. The claim of this publication to the character of poetry rests, we think, upon the strong human sympathies which unfold themselves in some passages of the rather meagre story. In several of our author’s shorter poems, we think there is more poetry; though still of the same grade of excellence: no high order of imagination; little beyond memory and strong feeling; both of these, however, of the best kind, and quite sufficient to ensure his being always read with pleasure. The versification is often rugged, evidently from haste: when our author writes in verse, he should write more carefully, and alter more freely; otherwise it is not worth while: the only reason for preferring verse to prose, being the music of its sound.

WRITINGS OF JUNIUS REDIVIVUS [II]

1833

EDITORS’ NOTE

Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, III (June, 1833), 347-54. Headed: “Writings of Junius Redivivus. / The Producing Man’s Companion.” Title footnoted: “The Producing Man’s Companion: an Essay on the Present State of Society, Moral, Political, and Physical, in England. By Junius Redivivus [William Bridges Adams]. Addressed to the productive classes of the community. Second edition, with additions [London:] 1833. Effingham Wilson.” Running titles: “Writings of Junius Redivivus” (to the equivalent of 384.26) and then “The Producing Man’s Companion.” The first edition of Adams’s work was entitled The Rights of Morality (London: Wilson, 1832). The review is unsigned. Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of ‘The Producing Man’s Companion’ by Junius Redivivus in the 15th number of Tait’s magazine (June 1833.)” (MacMinn, p. 32). The Somerville College copy (tear sheets) is headed in Mill’s hand: “From Tait’s Magazine for June 1833”; there are no corrections or emendations.

For comment on the essay, see the Introduction, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii above.

Writings of Junius Redivivus [II]

the anonymous, and unknown author of this work, made, we believe, his first appearance in the world of letters as a writer in the Tatler, about two years ago; since which time he has published, in quantity alone, almost as much as has been written in the same time by any editor of any daily newspaper; and even his hastiest productions so abound in ideas, are so replete with various information, and expatiate over so wide a range of subjects, in all of which he seems equally at home, that he has been suspected of being not one writer, but a literary partnership, or coterie,—a society of friends agreeing to use a common signature. But the perfect unity of spirit and tone which pervades these writings, the distinctness with which the individuality of the writer preserves and paints itself in all that issues from his pen, and the identity of the style, both in its merits and in its defects, are, to our judgment, conclusive indications that Junius Redivivus is the (somewhat inappropriate) pseudonyme of a writer who is one and indivisible. The wonder, that a single mind, and one which, by its own confession, has not numbered many years, should be capable of producing, with such rapidity, works, mostly indeed of a fugitive kind, yet of so varied a cast, and requiring attainments so multifarious and diversified,—quite accounts for the doubt whether the unity of authorship be other than fictitious.

To a large class of readers Junius Redivivus is probably best known by the letters which have appeared from time to time under his signature in the Examiner newspaper. These, however, though far from being without merit, are, in our opinion, his least valuable productions. He seems to have selected that journal as an organ chiefly for personal attacks on public characters; and it is not there that we consider his strength to lie. In the bitterness and unsparingness of his invective, he resembles his namesake, but not prototype, the elder Junius; here, however, the resemblance ceases. His vituperation is as inferior to that of Junius’s Letters,^[*] in potency, as it is superior to those mere party productions in sincerity and purity of purpose. Personalities, to be effective, must be condensed; and our author’s style is diffuse. Personalities require the most minute nicety in the adaptation of the words to the slightest shade of the thought; and our author never takes time to weigh his words. Personalities never tell with so much force as when they are indirect, containing more by implication than they proclaim by assertion; and our author always blurts out, in the plainest and straightest terms, the whole of what he has to say. Personalities are pungent nearly in proportion to the studied polish and elegance of the style in which they are conveyed; and our author is hasty and careless in the minutiæ of composition. He frequently, also, exhibits a tendency (excusable enough in any one who is writing of modern English statesmen) to put the very worst possible interpretation upon any fault, whether of act or omission, and therefore to carry his censure to a pitch of severity often greater than the facts, in the estimation of any one who is disposed to put a more charitable construction upon them, appear to justify. This greatly impairs the efficiency of his personal attacks; for readers always incline to sympathize with any one who is assailed with greater appearance of animosity than seems warranted by the grounds laid for it by the assailant himself. In this, as in many things besides, to attempt more than you have the means of succeeding in, is to accomplish less.

But no one who is conversant with the writings of Junius Redivivus, can mistake the nature or the source of this seeming bitterness of spirit. It springs from no personal ill-will towards the individuals or the classes attacked;—it is the offspring neither of an intolerant intellect nor a malignant temper, but of an intense and impatient sympathy with all who are oppressed or in bondage. It is the remark of one of the wisest of women, that they who love ardently, hate bitterly; but, if they live long enough, outgrow their hate;—and so will Junius Redivivus. He always will, he always ought to condemn all he now condemns; but in a somewhat calmer tone, and a mitigated spirit.

With this exception, we know not of a single fault to charge him with. In the work before us, and in his almost innumerable contributions (the best of which we should much like to see collected into a volume) to the Mechanics’ Magazine,^* the Tatler, the True Sun, the New Monthly Magazine, Mr. Fox’s excellent Monthly Repository, and we know not how many other works, he has attempted various kinds of composition, from the tale, poem, or descriptive sketch, to the philosophical essay. He has travelled over innumerable topics, from the humblest questions of practical mechanics, through the whole range of the applications of physical knowledge to the arts of life, up to some of the highest practical problems of moral and social science; and if we may be permitted (as every writer must, in fact, whether he avow it or not) to erect our own judgment into the standard of comparison, he has scarcely touched upon a single subject on which he has not rendered important service to the cause of truth.

Professing to be a self-educated man, our author has the merit, so much oftener found in the self-taught than in the regularly educated, viz. that his opinions are, in the only valuable sense of the word, original—that is, are his own, and not adopted from others: while great natural powers, and a wide and varied intercourse with mankind, turned to the best account by a most inquisitive and searching disposition, have supplied the place of a more extensive book-knowledge, and have saved him from the narrowness and self-conceit which are the counterbalancing failings of the self-instructed. Our author appears to us to possess, in a degree rare among minds of any class, the faculty of going straight into the very pith and marrow of a subject, and fixing at once upon the great and governing elements of a question. In a few sentences or pages, he will dispose, clearly and decisively, of topics on which many, who pass for deep thinkers, are not even able to understand the truth when it is pointed out and explained to them. Were he a profounder metaphysician, or more conversant with, and more accustomed to analyze the thoughts of those who have examined his subjects before him, or who look at them from different points of view, he would, it is true, be a more skilful controversialist;—he would dig closer to the foundations of error and fallacies, and would often root out an objection, when he now only mows it down; but in the attainment of positive and practical truth, such additional acquirements could do little more for him than he has had strength to do for himself without that assistance.

The work before us is not systematic, but desultory; it has no particular plan, scarcely even a beginning, middle, or end; but seems to consist of the results of years of thought, allowed to accumulate, and poured out altogether in a confused stream. The present is the second edition; the first was published about a year ago, under the loose and inaccurate title—The Rights of Morality.^[*] The renunciation of this and similar incorrect expressions, not only in the title-page, but throughout the work, is one of the numerous improvements, we are happy to observe, in the new edition, which is also enriched with seventy additional pages, under the name of a supplement.

As our object is to induce our readers to resort to the work itself for the stores of intellectual aliment which it contains, we shall not attempt any abstract of its contents, but shall rather select such passages as may serve for a sample of the author’s speculations, and of the general character of his mind.

Our author is a radical in the best sense of the term, that is, he is an enemy to all institutions and all usages which deliver over any portion of the species, unprotected, to the tender mercies of any other portion; whether the sacrifice be of blacks to whites, of Catholics to Protestants, of the community at large to lords and boroughmongers, of the middle and working classes to the higher, of the working classes to the middle, or (a surer test of genuine high-minded radicalism than all the rest) of women to men. Irresponsible power, by whomsoever held, or over whomsoever exercised, our author abhors. He abhors it as intensely as if he thought with the more narrow-minded and exclusive of the lovers of liberty, that nothing is necessary but knocking off the fetters of the serf, to make him fit for the proper exercise of freedom. From this mistake, however, no Tory is more perfectly exempt than Junius Redivivus; and what might otherwise be the inflammatory tendency of his vehement invectives against those whom he calls, with a slight taint of exaggeration, the “tyrannical taskmasters” of the people,^[*] receives a salutary correction from the force with which, in his appeals to the most numerous and most oppressed class, he insists upon the brutalized and degraded state of their own minds. Wretched as is the operation of bad social institutions upon the merely physical and worldly interests of mankind, in our author’s eyes, their most lamentable and most detestable property, is their depraving influence upon the human character. He regards oligarchies of all sorts with aversion, less for the wealth which they misappropriate, or the actual tyranny which they perpetrate, than because it is at once their interest and their instinct to subdue the spirit of the people, and keep them in intellectual and moral darkness. The cultivation of the minds of the people is the source to which he looks exclusively for any sensible improvement in their well-being. But he is convinced that any thing deserving the name of universal cultivation will never be had until our social institutions are purified from the infection of jobbery and lying, which poisons all that would otherwise be good in them; not until they are so re-modelled, that every vestige of irresponsible power shall disappear, and high mental faculties assiduously devoted to the disinterested pursuit of the public good, shall be the only passport to a share in the government of the nation; and, therefore, as well as for the inherent vileness of the abuses themselves does he urge war upon them with so much acrimony.

There is nothing upon which our author insists more earnestly and more frequently than this, that government is a work of nicety and difficulty, the subject of a peculiar science, requiring long study and appropriate intellectual culture.^[†] This is one of the marks by which our author’s radicalism stands most strikingly distinguished from the radicalism of a vulgar demagogue, who may generally be known by his appeals to “plain understanding” and “commonsense,” and attempts to persuade the ignorant that ignorance is no disqualification for judging of politics, and knowledge no advantage. Being convinced that few persons are capable of being good legislators, and that these few are more likely to be found among those who are compelled to be industrious, than among those who are at liberty to be idle, our author contends strongly for reducing the number of the House of Commons, and allowing salaries to the members.

Our author’s sense of the unspeakable value of intellect and knowledge, evinces itself in his proposition that men of letters, and inventors in science and art, should be pensioned at the expense of the state; patent rights and copyrights being abolished, as injurious monopolies, and not an effectual nor a skilful mode of rewarding the labour and merit of the writer or the inventor. We are the more desirous to attract notice to this feature in our author’s speculations, as the enemy are fond of imputing to persons of strong democratic opinions, a disdain of literary attainments, and of all intellectual pre-eminence.

It is one of our author’s leading doctrines, that “the whole raw material of the whole globe is the property of the whole human race, as tenants in common;” that private property in land will one day cease to exist, a reasonable compensation being made to bonâ fide possessors; and that the land will then be administered (as it is in India, and other countries of the East) for the benefit of the community generally; that, in the meantime, every human being who is born into the world, “has a moral right to live in the world, and, consequently, has a right to his share of those things, as raw materials, without which he cannot live.” [P. 13.] This, without further explanation, is somewhat vague, and susceptible of being practically misapplied; but from any such danger it is secure, if viewed in conjunction with our author’s other opinions. What is meant is this, that as nobody is to blame for being born, nobody ought to be allowed to starve while there is food in the world to feed him, when others who preceded him have engrossed, by mere occupancy, those lands and raw materials, which are no more of their making than of his; to which he has as fair a claim as they had originally; and of which, if not previously monopolized, his fractional share might have been sufficient to enable him to live.

This doctrine, the developments of which, though highly interesting we have not space to quote, might easily have misled a less expanded mind than our author’s into the vagaries of Spenceanism or Owenism. Holding, as he does, that the original appropriation of the raw material of the globe was wrongful, and the result of force or fraud, he might easily have been led, like so many well-meaning persons before him, into the notion that it is proper to redress this wrong by some of the innumerable modes, direct or indirect, of taking from those who have, to give to those who have not. From all such errors he has been kept clear, by a strong conviction of the tendency of population to tread upon the verge of subsistence; and, consequently, to render all additions to the fund for the maintenance of the labourers ineffectual for the improvement of their condition, except in so far as accompanied by increased habits of prudence. Our author has placed this subject in a light which may be new to some of our readers; and we cannot refrain from quoting him at some length.

Our author, therefore, relies for the improvement of the physical condition of the people upon that increase of prudence and self-control, as to the multiplication of their numbers, which he believes to be the natural result of even such increase of intelligence as is now actually taking place.

We must here close our extracts. We might have found numerous passages superior, as mere pieces of writing, to those we have quoted. The energy, and strong feeling with which Junius Redivivus almost always writes, occasionally rise into something deserving the name of eloquence. But we preferred to give specimens of his argumentative powers. We have quoted enough to convince, we trust, almost all our readers, that few among the writers for the day are either so bold and independent in thought, or so manly and pure in purpose, as Junius Redivivus; and we shall rejoice if such praise as ours can do any thing to spread the reputation, or (what we are sure he regards much more,) to extend the usefulness of his writings.

VIEWS OF THE PYRENEES

1833

EDITORS’ NOTE

Monthly Repository, n.s. VII (Sept., 1833), 660. This brief notice appeared in the “New Publications” section of the MR, where, along with a list of new works, there appeared notes appended to some of the titles. Here the entry reads: “Views of the Pyrenees, with Descriptions, by the Author of the Sketches Part I. Bagnères de Bigorre, and the Valley of Campan: Part II. The Pass of the Tourmalet and Barège: (9).” The note (the item here reprinted) begins: “(9) Exactly . . . .” Unsigned. Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A note at the end of the Monthly Repository for September 1833, being a notice of ‘Views from the Pyrenees’ ” (MacMinn, p. 33). No copy in the Somerville College library.

The work, actually entitled neither “Views of . . .” nor “Views from . . . ,” but “Views in . . . ,” has a text by Mrs. R. E. Young, with ten plates based on her sketches. It was published in London by the author, and Leggatt, Colnaghi and Son, Moon, Boys, and Graves, and Walther, in 1831. For comment, see the Introduction, p. xxxviii above.

Views of the Pyrenees

exactly thirteen years ago, when the continent had been but a few years open to the annual influx from England, of those who travel either to refresh themselves after the toils of business, or because they have no business to toil at, we, who belong to the former class, visited the lovely and majestic scenery delineated in these sketches; and we have often wondered since, that so few persons among the crowds of pleasure-hunters have diverged from the beaten track of the Rhine, Switzerland, and Italy, to visit a region equally accessible, and quite equally worthy to be sought. Of late years we have reason to believe, that the scenery of the Pyrenees has been treated with less negligence, and that our tourists having grown familiar with the more celebrated regions to which they at first flocked, are resorting in considerable numbers to this comparatively untrodden soil. The beautiful sketches which we have now the pleasure of noticing, and which, we understand, are the production of a lady, will, we think, send many visitants to these glorious mountains, in whom the desire was not yet awakened, and will be a beautiful and interesting ornament of a drawing-room table for the still larger class who remain at home.

TENNYSON’S POEMS

1835

EDITORS’ NOTE

London Review, I (equivalent to Westminster Review, XXX) (July, 1835), 402-24. Headed. “(Art. VII.) / Tennyson’s Poems / 1. Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson. [London:] Effingham Wilson: 1830. / 2. Poems. By Alfred Tennyson. [London:] Moxon: 1833.” Running title: “Tennyson’s Poems.” Signed: “A.” Not republished Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Tennyson’s Poems in the same number of the same work”—i.e., the London Review for July, 1835, in which his “Rationale of Political Representation” appeared (MacMinn, p. 45). In the Somerville College copy (tear sheets), at 399.21 “pots” has been corrected by pencilled interlineation to “plots”.

For comment, see the Introduction, pp. xxxix and xliv-xlv above.

Tennyson’s Poems

towards the close of the year 1830 appeared a small volume of poems, the work of a young and unknown author, and which, with considerable faults (some of them of a bad kind), gave evidence of powers such as had not for many years been displayed by any new aspirant to the character of a poet. This first publication was followed in due time by a second, in which the faults of its predecessor were still visible, but were evidently on the point of disappearing; while the positive excellence was not only greater and more uniformly sustained, but of a higher order. The imagination of the poet, and his reason, had alike advanced: the one had become more teeming and vigorous, while its resources had been brought more habitually and completely under the command of the other.

The notice which these poems have hitherto received from the more widely-circulated and influential organs of criticism consists, so far as we are aware, of two articles—a review of the first publication, in Blackwood’s Magazine, and of the second, in the Quarterly Review.^[*] The article in Blackwood, along with the usual flippancy and levity of that journal, evinced one of its better characteristics—a genuine appreciation and willing recognition of genius. It was not to be expected that a writer in Blackwood could accomplish a criticism on a volume of poetry, without cutting capers and exhibiting himself in postures, as Drawcansir says, “because he dare.”^[†] The article on Mr. Tennyson is throughout in a strain of mocking exaggeration. Some reviewers write to extol their author, others to laugh at him; this writer was desirous to do both—first to make the book appear beyond all measure contemptible, next in the highest degree admirable—putting the whole force of his mind alternately into these two purposes. If we can forgive this audacious sporting with his reader and his subjects, the critique is otherwise not without merit. The praise and blame, though shovelled out rather than measured, are thrown into the right places; the real merits and defects of the poems are pointed out with discrimination, and a fair enough impression left of the proportion between the two; and it is evident that if the same writer were to review Mr. Tennyson’s second publication, his praise, instead of being about equally balanced by his censure, would be but slightly qualified by it.

Of Mr. Tennyson’s two volumes, the second was the only one which fell into the hands of the Quarterly Reviewer; and his treatment of it, compared with the notice taken by Blackwood of its more juvenile predecessor, forms a contrast, characteristic of the two journals. Whatever may be in other respects our opinion of Blackwood’s Magazine, it is impossible to deny to its principal writers (or writer) a certain susceptibility of sense, a geniality of temperament. Their mode of writing about works of genius is that of a person who derives much enjoyment from them, and is grateful for it. Genuine powers of mind, with whatever opinions connected, seldom fail to meet with response and recognition from these writers. The Quarterly Review, on the other hand, both under its original and under its present management, has been no less characterised by qualities directly the reverse of these. Every new claim upon its admiration, unless forced upon it by the public voice, or recommended by some party interest, it welcomes, not with a friendly extension of the hand, but with a curl of the lip: the critic (as we figure him to ourselves) taking up the book, in trusting anticipation of pleasure, not from the book, but from the contemplation of his own cleverness in making it contemptible. He has not missed the opportunity of admiring himself at the expense of Mr. Tennyson: although, as we have not heard that these poems have yet, like those of Mr. Robert Montgomery, reached the eleventh edition,^[*] nor that any apprehension is entertained of danger to the public taste from their extravagant popularity, we may well be astonished that performances so utterly worthless as this critic considers them, should have appeared to him deserving of so much attention from so superior a mind. The plan he adopts is no new one, but abundantly hacknied: he selects the few bad passages (not amounting to three pages in the whole), and such others as, by being separated from the context, may be made to look ridiculous; and, in a strain of dull irony, of which all the point consists in the ill-nature, he holds forth these as a specimen of the work. A piece of criticism, resembling, in all but their wit, the disgraceful articles in the early Numbers of the Edinburgh Review, on Wordsworth and Coleridge.^[†]

Meanwhile, these poems have been winning their way, by slow approaches, to a reputation, the exact limits and measure of which it would be hazardous at present to predict, but which, we believe, will not ultimately be inconsiderable. Desiring, so far as may depend upon us, to accelerate this progress, and also not without a desire to exhibit, to any who still have faith in the Quarterly Review, the value of its critical judgments, we propose to lay before those of our readers who are still unacquainted with the poems, such specimens as may justify the terms in which we have spoken of them—interspersing or subjoining a few remarks on the character and the present state of developement of Mr. Tennyson’s poetic endowment.

Of all the capacities of a poet, that which seems to have arisen earliest in Mr. Tennyson, and in which he most excels, is that of scene-painting, in the higher sense of the term: not the mere power of producing that rather vapid species of composition usually termed descriptive poetry—for there is not in these volumes one passage of pure description: but the power of creating scenery, in keeping with some state of human feeling; so fitted to it as to be the embodied symbol of it, and to summon up the state of feeling itself, with a force not to be surpassed by anything but reality. Our first specimen, selected from the earlier of the two volumes, will illustrate chiefly this quality of Mr. Tennyson’s productions. We do not anticipate that this little poem will be equally relished at first by all lovers of poetry: and indeed if it were, its merit could be but of the humblest kind; for sentiments and imagery which can be received at once, and with equal ease, into every mind, must necessarily be trite. Nevertheless, we do not hesitate to quote it at full length. The subject is Mariana, the Mariana of Measure for Measure, living deserted and in solitude in the “moated grange.”^[*] The ideas which these two words suggest, impregnated with the feelings of the supposed inhabitant, have given rise to the following picture:

• • With blackest moss the flower-plots
  • Were thickly crusted, one and all,
  • The rusted nails fell from the knots
  • That held the peach to the garden-wall
  • The broken sheds looked sad and strange,
  • Unlifted was the clinking latch,
  • Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
  • Upon the lonely moated grange.
  • She only said, “My life is dreary,
  • He cometh not,” she said;
  • She said, “I am aweary, aweary;
  • I would that I were dead!”
• • Her tears fell with the dews at even,
  • Her tears fell ere the dews were dried,
  • She could not look on the sweet heaven,
  • Either at morn or eventide.
  • After the flitting of the bats,
  • When thickest dark did trance the sky,
  • She drew her casement-curtain by,
  • And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
  • She only said, “The night is dreary,
  • He cometh not,” she said:
  • She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
  • I would that I were dead!”
• • Upon the middle of the night,
  • Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
  • The cock sung out an hour ere light:
  • From the dark fen the oxen’s low
  • Came to her: without hope of change,
  • In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn,
  • Till cold winds woke the grey-eyed morn
  • About the lonely moated grange.
  • She only said, “The day is dreary,
  • He cometh not,” she said;
  • She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
  • I would that I were dead!”
• • About a stone-cast from the wall,
  • A sluice with blackened waters slept,
  • And o’er it many, round and small,
  • The clustered marishmosses crept.
  • Hard by a poplar shook alway,
  • All silver-green with gnarled bark,
  • For leagues no other tree did dark
  • The level waste, the rounding grey.
  • She only said, “My life is dreary,
  • He cometh not,” she said;
  • She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
  • I would that I were dead!”
• • And ever when the moon was low,
  • And the shrill winds were up an’ away,
  • In the white curtain, to and fro,
  • She saw the gusty shadow sway.
  • But when the moon was very low,
  • And wild winds bound within their cell,
  • The shadow of the poplar fell
  • Upon her bed, across her brow.
  • She only said, “The night is dreary,
  • He cometh not,” she said;
  • She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
  • I would that I were dead!”
• • All day within the dreamy house,
  • The doors upon their hinges creaked,
  • The blue-fly sung i’ the pane; the mouse
  • Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,
  • Or from the crevice peered about.
  • Old faces glimmered through the doors,
  • Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
  • Old voices called her from without.
  • She only said, “My life is dreary,
  • He cometh not,” she said;
  • She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
  • I would that I were dead!”
• • The sparrow’s chirrup on the roof,
  • The slow clock ticking, and the sound
  • Which to the wooing wind aloof
  • The poplar made, did all confound
  • Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
  • When the thickmoted sunbeam lay
  • Athwart the chambers, and the day
  • Downsloped was westering in his bower
  • Then, said she, “I am very dreary,
  • He will not come,” she said;
  • She wept, “I am aweary, aweary,
  • Oh God, that I were dead!”^[*]

In the one peculiar and rare quality which we intended to illustrate by it, this poem appears to us to be pre-eminent. We do not, indeed, defend all the expressions in it, some of which seem to have been extorted from the author by the tyranny of rhyme; and we might find much more to say against the poem, if we insisted upon judging of it by a wrong standard. The nominal subject excites anticipations which the poem does not even attempt to fulfil. The humblest poet, who is a poet at all, could make more than is here made of the situation of a maiden abandoned by her lover. But that was not Mr. Tennyson’s idea. The love-story is secondary in his mind. The words “he cometh not” are almost the only words which allude to it at all. To place ourselves at the right point of view, we must drop the conception of Shakspeare’s Mariana, and retain only that of a “moated grange,” and a solitary dweller within it, forgotten by mankind. And now see whether poetic imagery ever conveyed a more intense conception of such a place, or of the feelings of such an inmate. From the very first line, the rust of age and the solitude of desertion are, on the whole, picture. Words surely never excited a more vivid feeling of physical and spiritual dreariness: and not dreariness alone—for that might be felt under many other circumstances of solitude—but the dreariness which speaks not merely of being far from human converse and sympathy, but of being deserted by it.

Our next specimen shall be of a character remote from this. It is the second of two poems, “The May Queen” and “New Year’s Eve”^[†] —the one expressing the wild, overflowing spirits of a light-hearted girl, just chosen Queen of the May; the latter, the feelings of the same girl some months afterwards, when dying by a gradual decay. We regret that the opening of the latter poem must lose in our pages the effect of contrast produced by its immediately succeeding the former:

• • If you’re waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear,
  • For I would see the sun rise upon the glad Newyear.
  • It is the last Newyear that I shall ever see,
  • Then ye may lay me low i’ the mould, and think no more o’ me
• • To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind
  • The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;
  • And the Newyear’s coming up, mother, but I shall never see
  • The may upon the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.
• • Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day;
  • Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;
  • And we danced about the maypole and in the hazel-copse,
  • Till Charles’s wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.
• • There’s not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane:
  • I only wish to live till the snow-drops come again:
  • I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high—
  • I long to see a flower so before the day I die
• • The building rook will caw from the windy tall elmtree
  • And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
  • And the swallow will come back again with summer o’er the wave,
  • But I shall he alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.
• • Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave o’ mine,
  • In the early early morning the summer sun will shine,
  • Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
  • When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.
• • When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light,
  • Ye’ll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
  • When from the dry dark would the summer airs blow cool,
  • On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
• • Ye’ll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
  • And ye’ll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.
  • I shall not forget ye, mother, I shall hear ye when ye pass,
  • With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass
• • I have been wild and wayward, but ye’ll forgive me now;
  • Ye’ll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow;
  • Nay—nay, ye must not weep, nor let your grief be wild,
  • Ye should not fret for me, mother, ye have another child.
• • If I can I’ll come again, mother, from out my resting place;
  • Though ye’ll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
  • Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what ye say,
  • And be often—often with ye when ye think I’m far away.
• • Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for evermore,
  • And ye see me carried out from the threshold of the door;
  • Don’t let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green:
  • She’ll be a better child to you than ever I have been.
• • She’ll find my garden tools upon the granary floor:
  • Let her take ’em: they are hers: I shall never garden more:
  • But tell her, when I’m gone, to train the rosebush that I set,
  • About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.
• • Good-night, sweet mother: call me when it begins to dawn
  • All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;
  • But I would see the sun rise upon the glad Newyear,
  • So, if you’re waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.

This poem is fitted for a more extensive popularity than any other in the two volumes. Simple, genuine pathos, arising out of the situations and feelings common to mankind generally, is of all kinds of poetic beauty that which can be most universally appreciated; and the genius implied in it is, in consequence, apt to be overrated, for it is also of all kinds that which can be most easily produced. In this poem there is not only the truest pathos, but (except in one passage)^* perfect harmony and keeping.

The next poem which we shall quote is one of higher pretensions. Its length exceeds the usual dimensions of an extract. But the idea which would be given of the more perfect of Mr. Tennyson’s poems, by detached passages, would be not merely an incomplete but a false idea. There is not a stanza in the following poem which can be felt or even understood as the poet intended, unless the reader’s imagination and feelings are already in the state which results from the passage next preceding, or rather from all which precedes. The very breaks, which divide the story into parts, all tell.

If every one approached poetry in the spirit in which it ought to be approached, willing to feel it first and examine it afterwards, we should not premise another word. But there is a class of readers, (a class, too, on whose verdict the early success of a young poet mainly depends,) who dare not enjoy until they have first satisfied themselves that they have a warrant for enjoying; who read a poem with the critical understanding first, and only when they are convinced that it is right to be delighted, are willing to give their spontaneous feelings fair play. The consequence is, that they lose the general effect, while they higgle about the details, and never place themselves in the position in which, even with their mere understandings, they can estimate the poem as a whole. For the benefit of such readers, we tell them beforehand, that this is a tale of enchantment; and that they will never enter into the spirit of it unless they surrender their imagination to the guidance of the poet, with the same easy credulity with which they would read the Arabian Nights, or, what this story more resembles, the tales of magic of the middle ages.

Though the agency is supernatural, the scenery, as will be perceived, belongs to the actual world. No reader of any imagination will complain, that the precise nature of the enchantment is left in mystery.

• THE LEGEND OF THE LADY OF SHALOTT
• • Part the First
  • On either side the river lie
  • Long fields of barley and of rye,
  • That clothe the wold, and meet the sky;
  • And thro’ the field the road runs by
  • To manytower’d Camelot.
  • The yellowleavèd waterlily,
  • The green-sheathèd daffodilly,
  • Tremble in the water chilly,
  • Round about Shalott.
• • Willows whiten, aspens shiver,
  • The sunbeam-showers break and quiver
  • In the stream that runneth ever
  • By the island in the river,
  • Flowing down to Camelot.
  • Four grey walls and four grey towers
  • Overlook a space of flowers,
  • And the silent isle imbowers
  • The Lady of Shalott.
• • Underneath the bearded barley,
  • The reaper, reaping late and early,
  • Hears her ever chanting cheerly,
  • Like an angel, singing clearly,
  • O’er the stream of Camelot.
  • Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,
  • Beneath the moon, the reaper weary
  • Listening whispers, “ ’Tis the fairy
  • Lady of Shalott.”
• • The little isle is all inrailed
  • With a rose-fence, and overtrailed
  • With roses: by the marge unhailed
  • The shallop flitteth silken-sailed,
  • Skimming down to Camelot.
  • A pearl garland winds her head:
  • She leaneth on a velvet bed,
  • Full royally apparellèd.
  • The Lady of Shalott.
• • Part the Second
  • No time has she to sport and play:
  • A charmèd web she weaves alway,
  • A curse is on her, if she stay
  • Her weaving, either night or day,
  • To look down to Camelot.
  • She knows not what the curse may be;
  • Therefore she weaveth steadily,
  • Therefore no other care hath she,
  • The Lady of Shalott.
• • She lives with little joy or fear.
  • Over the water, running near,
  • The sheepbell tinkles in her ear.
  • Before her hangs a mirror clear,
  • Reflecting towered Camelot.
  • And, as the mazy web she whirls,
  • She sees the surly village-churls,
  • And the red-cloaks of market-girls,
  • Pass onward from Shalott.
• • Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
  • An abbot or an ambling pad,
  • Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
  • Or longhaired page, in crimson clad,
  • Goes by to towered Camelot.
  • And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue.
  • The knights come riding, two and two
  • She hath no loyal knight and true,
  • The Lady of Shalott
• • But in her web she still delights
  • To weave the mirror’s magic sights.
  • For often thro’ the silent nights,
  • A funeral, with plumes and lights
  • And music, came from Camelot.
  • Or, when the moon was overhead,
  • Came two young lovers, lately wed:
  • “I am half-sick of shadows,” said
  • The Lady of Shalott.
• • Part the Third
  • A bow-shot from her bower-eaves
  • He rode between the barley-sheaves
  • The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
  • And flamed upon the brazen greaves
  • Of bold Sir Launcelot
  • A redcross knight for ever kneeled
  • To a lady in his shield,
  • That sparkled on the yellow field,
  • Beside remote Shalott.
• • The gemmy bridle glittered free,
  • Like to some branch of stars we see
  • Hung in the golden galaxy.
  • The bridle-bells rang merrily
  • As he rode down from Camelot
• • And, from his blazoned baldric slung,
  • A mighty silver bugle hung,
  • And, as he rode, his armour rung,
  • Beside remote Shalott
• • All in the blue unclouded weather,
  • Thickjewelled shone the saddle-leather.
  • The helmet, and the helmet-feather,
  • Burned like one burning flame together,
  • As he rode down from Camelot.
  • As often thro’ the purple night,
  • Below the starry clusters bright,
  • Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
  • Moves over green Shalott.
• • His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed.
  • On burnished hooves his war-horse trode
  • From underneath his helmet flowed
  • His coalblack curls, as on he rode,
  • As he rode down from Camelot
  • From the bank, and from the river,
  • He flashed into the crystal mirror,
  • “Tirra lirra, tirra lirra,”
  • Sang Sir Launcelot.^*
• • She left the web: she left the loom:
  • She made three paces thro’ the room.
  • She saw the waterflower bloom.
  • She saw the helmet and the plume:
  • She looked down to Camelot.
  • Out flew the web, and floated wide,
  • The mirror cracked from side to side,
  • “The curse is come upon me,” cried
  • The Lady of Shalott.
• • Part the Fourth
  • In the stormy eastwind straining,
  • The pale-yellow woods were waning,
  • The broad stream in his banks complaining,
  • Heavily the low sky raining
  • Over towered Camelot:
  • Outside the isle a shallow boat
  • Beneath a willow lay afloat,
  • Below the carven stern she wrote,
  • The Lady of Shalott.
• • A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight.
  • All raimented in snowy white
  • That loosely flew, (her zone in sight,
  • Clasped with one blinding diamond bright,)
  • Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot,
  • Though the squally eastwind keenly
  • Blew, with folded arms serenely
  • By the water stood the queenly
  • Lady of Shalott.
• • With a steady, stony glance—
  • Like some bold seer in a trance,
  • Beholding all his own mischance,
  • Mute, with a glassy countenance—
  • She looked down to Camelot.
  • It was the closing of the day,
  • She loosed the chain, and down she lay,
  • The broad stream bore her far away,
  • The Lady of Shalott
• • As when to sailors while they roam,
  • By creeks and outfalls far from home,
  • Rising and dropping with the foam,
  • From dying swans wild warblings come,
  • Blown shoreward; so to Camelot
  • Still as the boathead wound along,
  • The willowy hills and fields among,
  • They heard her chanting her deathsong,
  • The Lady of Shalott
• • A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,
  • She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
  • Till her eyes were darkened wholly,
  • And her smooth face sharpened slowly^*
  • Turned to towered Camelot:
  • For ere she reached upon the tide
  • The first house by the waterside,
  • Singing in her song she died,
  • The Lady of Shalott.
• • Under tower and balcony,
  • By gardenwall and gallery,
  • A pale, pale corpse she floated by,
  • Deadcold, between the houses high,
  • Dead into towered Camelot.
  • Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
  • To the plankèd wharfage came,
  • Below the stern they read her name,
  • “The Lady of Shalott.”^*

In powers of narrative and scene-painting combined, this poem must be ranked among the very first of its class. The delineation of outward objects, as in the greater number of Mr. Tennyson’s poems, is, not picturesque, but (if we may use the term) statuesque; with brilliancy of colour superadded. The forms are not, as in painting, of unequal degrees of definiteness; the tints do not melt gradually into each other, but each individual object stands out in bold relief, with a clear decided outline. This statue-like precision and distinctness, few artists have been able to give to so essentially vague a language as that of words: but if once this difficulty be got over, scene-painting by words has a wider range than either painting or sculpture; for it can represent (as the reader must have seen in the foregoing poem), not only with the vividness and strength of the one, but with the clearness and definiteness of the other, objects in motion. Along with all this, there is in the poem all that power of making a few touches do the whole work, which excites our admiration in Coleridge. Every line suggests so much more than it says, that much may be left unsaid: the concentration, which is the soul of narrative, is obtained, without the sacrifice of reality and life. Where the march of the story requires that the mind should pause, details are specified; where rapidity is necessary, they are all brought before us at a flash. Except that the versification is less exquisite, the “Lady of Shalott” is entitled to a place by the side of the “Ancient Mariner,” and “Christabel.”^[*]

Mr. Tennyson’s two volumes contain a whole picture-gallery of lovely women: but we are drawing near to the limits of allowable quotation. The imagery of the following passage from the poem of “Isabel,” in the first volume, is beautifully typical of the nobler and gentler of two beings, upholding, purifying, and, as far as possible, assimilating to itself the grosser and ruder:

• A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,
• Till in its onward current it absorbs
• With swifter movement and in purer light
• The vexed eddies of its wayward brother—
• A leaning and upbearing parasite,
• Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,
• With clustered flowerbells and ambrosial orbs
• Of rich fruitbunches leaning on each other.^[*]

We venture upon a long extract from what we consider the finest of these ideal portraits, the “Eleänore.” The reader must not, in this case, look for the definiteness of the “Lady of Shalott;” there is nothing statuesque here. The object to be represented being more vague, there is greater vagueness and dimness in the expression. The loveliness of a graceful woman, words cannot make us see, but only feel. The individual expressions in the poem, from which the following is an extract, may not always bear a minute analysis; but ought they to be subjected to it? They are mere colours in a picture; nothing in themselves, but everything as they conduce to the general result.

• • How may fullsailed verse express,
  • How may measured words adore
  • The fullflowing harmony
  • Of thy swanlike stateliness,
  • Eleänore?
  • The luxuriant symmetry
  • Of thy floating gracefulness,
  • Eleänore?
  • Every turn and glance of thine,
  • Every lineament divine,
  • Eleänore,
  • And the steady sunset glow
  • That stays upon thee? For in thee
  • Is nothing sudden, nothing single,
  • Like two streams of incense free
  • From one censer, in one shrine,
  • Thought and motion mingle,
  • Mingle ever Motions flow
  • To one another, even as tho’
  • They were modulated so
  • To an unheard melody,
  • Which lives about thee, and a sweep
  • Of richest pauses, evermore
  • Drawn from each other mellowdeep—
  • Who may express thee, Eleänore?
• • I stand before thee, Eleänore,
  • I see thy beauty gradually unfold,
  • Daily and hourly, more and more
  • I muse, as in a trance, the while
  • Slowly, as from a cloud of gold,
  • Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile.
  • I muse, as in a trance, whene’er
  • The languors of thy lovedeep eyes
  • Float on to me. I would I were
  • So tranced, so rapt in ecstacies,
  • To stand apart, and to adore,
  • Gazing on thee for evermore,
  • Serene, imperial Eleänore!
• • Sometimes, with most intensity
  • Gazing, I seem to see
  • Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep,
  • Slowly awakened, grow so full and deep
  • In thy large eyes, that, overpowered quite,
  • I cannot veil, or droop my sight,
  • But am as nothing in its light.
  • As though a star, in inmost heaven set,
  • Ev’n while we gaze on it,
  • Should slowly round its orb, and slowly grow
  • To a full face, there like a sun remain
  • Fixed—then as slowly fade again,
  • And draw itself to what it was before,
  • So full, so deep, so slow
  • Thought seems to come and go
  • In thy large eyes, imperial Eleänore.
• • As thunderclouds that, hung on high
  • Did roof noonday with doubt and fear,
  • Floating through an evening atmosphere
  • Grow golden all about the sky,
  • In thee all passion becomes passionless,
  • Touched by thy spirit’s mellowness,
  • Losing his fire and active might
  • In a silent meditation,
  • Falling into a still delight
  • And luxury of contemplation:
  • As waves that from the outer deep
  • Roll into a quiet cove,
  • There fall away, and lying still,
  • Having glorious dreams in sleep,
  • Shadow forth the banks at will;
  • Or sometimes they swell and move,
  • Pressing up against the land,
  • With motions of the outer sea:
  • And the selfsame influence
  • Controlleth all the soul and sense
  • Of Passion gazing upon thee.
  • His bowstring slackened, languid Love,
  • Leaning his cheek upon his hand,
  • Droops both his wings, regarding thee,
  • And so would languish evermore,
  • Serene, imperial Eleänore.^[*]

It has for some time been the fashion, though a fashion now happily on the decline, to consider a poet as a poet, only so far as he is supposed capable of delineating the more violent passions; meaning by violent passions, states of excitement approaching to monomania, and characters predisposed to such states. The poem which follows will show how powerfully, without the slightest straining, by a few touches which do not seem to cost him an effort, Mr. Tennyson can depict such a state and such a character.

• THE SISTERS
• • We were two daughters of one race.
  • She was the fairest in the face:
  • The wind is blowing in turret an’ tree
  • They were together, and she fell.
  • Therefore revenge became me well
  • O the Earl was fair to see!
• • She died: she went to burning flame.
  • She mixed her ancient blood with shame.
  • The wind is howling in turret an’ tree
  • Whole weeks and months, and early and late,
  • To win his love I lay in wait:
  • O the Earl was fair to see!
• • I made a feast; I bad him come:
  • I won his love, I brought him home
  • The wind is roaring in turret an’ tree
  • And after supper, on a bed,
  • Upon my lap he laid his head:
  • O the Earl was fair to see!
• • I kissed his eyelids into rest;
  • His ruddy cheek upon my breast
  • The wind is raging in turret an’ tree.
  • I hated him with the hate of hell,
  • But I loved his beauty passing well
  • O the Earl was fair to see!
• • I rose up in the silent night
  • I made my dagger sharp and bright.
  • The wind is raving in turret an’ tree
  • As half-asleep his breath he drew.
  • Three times I stabbed him through and through.
  • O the Earl was fair to see!
• • I curled and combed his comely head,
  • He looked so grand when he was dead.
  • The wind is blowing in turret an’ tree
  • I wrapped his body in the sheet
  • And laid him at his mother’s feet.
  • O the Earl was fair to see!^[*]

The second publication contains several classical subjects treated with more or less felicity. The story of the Judgment of Paris, recited by Œnone, his deserted love, is introduced in the following stately manner:

• There is a dale in Ida, lovelier
• Than any in old Ionia, beautiful
• With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean
• Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn
• A path through steepdown granite walls below,
• Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front
• The cedarshadowy valleys open wide.
• Far-seen, high over all the Godbuilt wall
• And many a snowycolumned range divine,
• Mounted with awful sculptures—men and Gods,
• The work of Gods—bright on the dark blue sky
• The windy citadel of Ilion
• Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came
• Mournful Œnone, wandering forlorn
• Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck,
• Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold,
• Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest;
• She, leaning on a vine-entwinèd stone,
• Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow
• Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.^*

The length to which our quotations have extended, and the unsatisfactoriness of short extracts, prevent us from giving any specimen of one of the finest of Mr. Tennyson’s poems, the “Lotos-eaters.” The subject is familiar to every reader of the Odyssey.^[*] The poem is not of such sustained merit in the execution as some of the others; but the general impression resembles an effect of climate in a landscape: we see the objects through a drowsy, relaxing, but dreamy atmosphere, and the inhabitants seem to have inhaled the like. Two lines near the commencement touch the key-note of the poem:

• In the afternoon they came unto a land
• Wherein it seemèd always afternoon

The above extracts by no means afford an idea of all the variety of beauty to be found in these volumes. But the specimens we have given may, we hope, satisfy the reader, that if he explore further for himself, his search will be rewarded. We shall only subjoin a few remarks, tending to an estimation of Mr. Tennyson’s general character as a writer and as a poet.

There are in the character of every true poet, two elements, for one of which he is indebted to nature, for the other to cultivation. What he derives from nature, is fine senses: a nervous organization, not only adapted to make his outward impressions vivid and distinct (in which, however, practice does even more than nature), but so constituted, as to be, more easily than common organizations, thrown, either by physical or moral causes, into states of enjoyment or suffering, especially of enjoyment: states of a certain duration; often lasting long after the removal of the cause which produced them; and not local, nor consciously physical, but, in so far as organic, pervading the entire nervous system. This peculiar kind of nervous susceptibility seems to be the distinctive character of the poetic temperament. It constitutes the capacity for poetry; and not only produces, as has been shown from the known laws of the human mind, a predisposition to the poetic associations, but supplies the very materials out of which many of them are formed.^* What the poet will afterwards construct out of these materials, or whether he will construct anything of value to any one but himself, depends upon the direction given, either by accident or design, to his habitual associations. Here, therefore, begins the province of culture; and, from this point upwards, we may lay it down as a principle, that the achievements of any poet in his art will be in proportion to the growth and perfection of his thinking faculty.

Every great poet, every poet who has extensively or permanently influenced mankind, has been a great thinker;—has had a philosophy, though perhaps he did not call it by that name;—has had his mind full of thoughts, derived not merely from passive sensibility, but from trains of reflection, from observation, analysis, and generalization; however remote the sphere of his observation and meditation may have lain from the studies of the schools. Where the poetic temperament exists in its greatest degree, while the systematic culture of the intellect has been neglected, we may expect to find, what we do find in the best poems of Shelley—vivid representations of states of passive and dreamy emotion, fitted to give extreme pleasure to persons of similar organization to the poet, but not likely to be sympathized in, because not understood, by any other persons; and scarcely conducing at all to the noblest end of poetry as an intellectual pursuit, that of acting upon the desires and characters of mankind through their emotions, to raise them towards the perfection of their nature. This, like every other adaptation of means to ends, is the work of cultivated reason; and the poet’s success in it will be in proportion to the intrinsic value of his thoughts, and to the command which he has acquired over the materials of his imagination, for placing those thoughts in a strong light before the intellect, and impressing them on the feelings.

The poems which we have quoted from Mr. Tennyson prove incontestably that he possesses, in an eminent degree, the natural endowment of a poet—the poetic temperament. And it appears clearly, not only from a comparison of the two volumes, but of different poems in the same volume, that, with him, the other element of poetic excellence—intellectual culture—is advancing both steadily and rapidly; that he is not destined, like so many others, to be remembered for what he might have done, rather than for what he did; that he will not remain a poet of mere temperament, but is ripening into a true artist. Mr. Tennyson may not be conscious of the wide difference in maturity of intellect, which is apparent in his various poems. Though he now writes from greater fulness and clearness of thought, it by no means follows that he has learnt to detect the absence of those qualities in some of his earlier effusions. Indeed, he himself, in one of the most beautiful poems of his first volume (though, as a work of art, very imperfect), the “Ode to Memory,” confesses a parental predilection for the “first-born” of his genius.^[*] But to us it is evident, not only that his second volume differs from his first as early manhood from youth, but that the various poems in the first volume belong to different, and even distant stages of intellectual development;—distant, not perhaps in years—for a mind like Mr. Tennyson’s advances rapidly—but corresponding to very different states of the intellectual powers, both in respect of their strength and of their proportions.

From the very first, like all writers of his natural gifts, he luxuriates in sensuous^* imagery; his nominal subject sometimes lies buried in a heap of it. From the first, too, we see his intellect, with every successive degree of strength, struggling upwards to shape this sensuous imagery to a spiritual meaning;^* to bring the materials which sense supplies, and fancy summons up, under the command of a central and controlling thought or feeling. We have seen, by the poem of “Mariana,” with what success he could occasionally do this, even in the period which answers to his first volume; but that volume contains various instances in which he has attempted the same thing, and failed. Such, for example, are, in our opinion, the opening poem, “Claribel,” and the verses headed “Elegiacs.”^[*] In both, there is what is commonly called imagination—namely, fancy: the imagery and the melody actually haunt us; but there is no harmonizing principle in either;—no appropriateness to the spiritual elements of the scene. If the one poem had been called “A solitary Place in a Wood,” and the other, “An Evening Landscape,” they would not have lost, but gained. In another poem, in the same volume, called “A Dirge,” and intended for a person who, when alive, had suffered from calumny—a subject which a poet of maturer powers would have made so much of, Mr. Tennyson merely glances at the topics of thought and emotion which his subject suggested, and expatiates in the mere scenery about the grave.^†

Some of the smaller poems have a fault which in any but a very juvenile production would be the worst fault of all: they are altogether without meaning: none at least can be discerned in them by persons otherwise competent judges of poetry; if the author had any meaning, he has not been able to express it. Such, for instance, are the two songs on the Owl; such, also, are the verses headed “The How and the Why,” in the first volume, and the lines on To-day and Yesterday, in the second.^[*] If in the former of these productions Mr. Tennyson aimed at shadowing forth the vague aspirations to a knowledge beyond the reach of man—the yearnings for a solution of all questions, soluble or insoluble, which concern our nature and destiny—the impatience under the insufficiency of the human faculties to penetrate the secret of our being here, and being what we are—which are natural in a certain state of the human mind; if this was what he sought to typify, he has only proved that he knows not the feeling—that he has neither experienced it, nor realized it in imagination. The questions which a Faust calls upon earth and heaven, and all powers supernal and infernal, to resolve for him, are not the ridiculous ones which Mr. Tennyson asks himself in these verses.

But enough of faults which the poet has almost entirely thrown off merely by the natural expansion of his intellect. We have alluded to them chiefly to show how rapidly progressive that intellect has been.^* There are traces, we think, of a continuance of the same progression, throughout the second as well as the first volume.

In the art of painting a picture to the inward eye, the improvement is not so conspicuous as in other qualities; so high a degree of excellence having been already attained in the first volume. Besides the poems which we have quoted, we may refer, in that volume, to those entitled, “Recollections of the Arabian Nights,” “The Dying Swan,” “The Kraken,” and “The Sleeping Beauty.”^[†] The beautiful poems (songs they are called, but are not) “In the glooming light,” and “A spirit haunts the year’s last hours,” are (like the “Mariana”) not mere pictures, but states of emotion, embodied in sensuous imagery.^[‡] From these, however, to the command over the materials of outward sense for the purpose of bodying forth states of feeling, evinced by some of the poems in the second volume, especially “The Lady of Shalott” and “The Lotos-eaters,” there is a considerable distance; and Mr. Tennyson seems, as he proceeded, to have raised his aims still higher—to have aspired to render his poems not only vivid representations of spiritual states, but symbolical of spiritual truths. His longest poem, “The Palace of Art,” is an attempt of this sort.^[*] As such, we do not think it wholly successful, though rich in beauties of detail; but we deem it of the most favourable augury for Mr. Tennyson’s future achievements, since it proves a continually increasing endeavour towards the highest excellence, and a constantly rising standard of it.

We predict, that, as Mr. Tennyson advances in general spiritual culture, these higher aims will become more and more predominant in his writings; that he will strive more and more diligently, and, even without striving, will be more and more impelled by the natural tendencies of an expanding character, towards what has been described as the highest object of poetry, “to incorporate the everlasting reason of man in forms visible to his sense, and suitable to it.”^[†] For the fulfilment of this exalted purpose, what we have already seen of him authorizes us to foretell with confidence, that powers of execution will not fail him; it rests with himself to see that his powers of thought may keep pace with them. To render his poetic endowment the means of giving impressiveness to important truths, he must, by continual study and meditation, strengthen his intellect for the discrimination of such truths; he must see that his theory of life and the world be no chimera of the brain, but the well-grounded result of solid and mature thinking;—he must cultivate, and with no half devotion, philosophy as well as poetry.

It may not be superfluous to add, that he should guard himself against an error, to which the philosophical speculations of poets are peculiarly liable—that of embracing as truth, not the conclusions which are recommended by the strongest evidence, but those which have the most poetical appearance;—not those which arise from the deductions of impartial reason, but those which are most captivating to an imagination, biassed perhaps by education and conventional associations. That whatever philosophy he adopts will leave ample materials for poetry, he may be well assured. Whatever is comprehensive, whatever is commanding, whatever is on a great scale, is poetical. Let our philosophical system be what it may, human feelings exist: human nature, with all its enjoyments and sufferings, its strugglings, its victories and defeats, still remain to us; and these are the materials of all poetry. Whoever, in the greatest concerns of human life, pursues truth with unbiassed feelings, and an intellect adequate to discern it, will not find that the resources of poetry are lost to him because he has learnt to use, and not abuse them. They are as open to him as they are to the sentimental weakling, who has no test of the true but the ornamental. And when he once has them under his command, he can wield them for purposes, and with a power, of which neither the dilettante nor the visionary have the slightest conception.

We will not conclude without reminding Mr. Tennyson, that if he wishes his poems to live, he has still much to do in order to perfect himself in the merely mechanical parts of his craft. In a prose-writer, great beauties bespeak forgiveness for innumerable negligences; but poems, especially short poems, attain permanent fame only by the most finished perfection in the details. In some of the most beautiful of Mr. Tennyson’s productions there are awkwardnesses and feeblenesses of expression, occasionally even absurdities, to be corrected; and which generally might be corrected without impairing a single beauty. His powers of versification are not yet of the highest order. In one great secret of his art, the adaptation of the music of his verse to the character of his subject, he is far from being a master: he often seems to take his metres almost at random. But this is little to set in the balance against so much excellence; and needed not have been mentioned, except to indicate to Mr. Tennyson the points on which some of his warmest admirers see most room and most necessity for further effort on his part, if he would secure to himself the high place in our poetic literature for which so many of the qualifications are already his own.

APHORISMS: THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD

1837

EDITORS’ NOTE

London and Westminster Review, IV & XXVI (Jan., 1837), 348-57. Headed: “Art. III. / [Arthur Helps,] Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd. [London:] Wix, New Bridge Street, Blackfriars. 1835 12mo. pp. 111.” Running titles: “Aphorisms. / Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd.” Signed. “A.” Part republished as “Aphorisms. A Fragment” in D&D, Vol. I, pp. 206-10, where the title is footnoted. “London and Westminster Review, January 1837,” and the running title is “Aphorisms.” Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of a book entitled ‘Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd’—running title: ‘Aphorisms.’ In the London and Westminster Review for January 1837 (No. 8 and 51)” (MacMinn, p. 48). There are no corrections or emendations in the Somerville College copy (tear sheets) of the L&WR version.

For comment, see the Introduction, pp. xxxix-xl above.

Because only part of the text was republished, the copy-text is the L&WR article, which has been collated with the extract in D&D, 1st and 2nd eds. In the footnoted variants, “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed. (1859): “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed. (1867).

Aphorisms: Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd

^athere are two kinds of wisdom: in the one, every age in which science flourishes, surpasses, or ought to surpass, its predecessors; of the other, there is nearly an equal amount in all ages. The first is the wisdom which depends upon long chains of reasoning, a comprehensive survey of the whole of a great subject at once, or complicated and subtle processes of metaphysical analysis: this is properly philosophy^b: the^b other is that acquired by^c experience of life, and a good use of the opportunities possessed by all who have mingled much with the world, or who have a large share of human nature in their own breasts. This unsystematic wisdom, drawn by acute minds in all periods of history from their personal experience, is properly termed the wisdom of ages; and every lettered age has left a portion of it upon record. It is nowhere more genuine than in the old fabulists, Æsop and others. The speeches in Thucydides are among the most remarkable specimens of it.^[*] Aristotle and Quintilian have worked up rich stores of it into their systematic writings; nor ought Horace’s Satires, and especially his Epistles,^[†] to be forgotten. But the form in which this kind of wisdom most naturally embodies itself is that of aphorisms; and such, from the Proverbs of Solomon to our own day, is the shape it has oftenest assumed.

Some persons, who cannot be satisfied unless they have the forms of accurate knowledge as well as the substance, object to aphorisms because they are unsystematic. These objectors forget that to be unsystematic is of the essence of all truths which rest on specific experiment. A systematic treatise is the most natural form for delivering truths which grow out of one another; but truths, each of which rests upon its own independent evidence, may^d, we venture to think,^d be exhibited in the same unconnected state in which they were discovered. Philosophy may afterwards trace the connection among these truths, detect the more general principles of which they are manifestations, and so systematize the whole. But we need not wait till this is done before we record them and act upon them. On the contrary, these detached truths are at once the materials and the tests of philosophy itself; since philosophy is not called in to prove them, but may very justly be required to account for them.

A more valid objection to aphorisms, as far as it goes, is, that they are very seldom exactly true; but then this, unfortunately, is an objection to all human knowledge. A proverb or an apophthegm—any proposition epigrammatically expressed—almost always goes more or less beyond the strict truth: the fact which it states is ^estated^e in a more unqualified manner than the truth warrants. But, when logicians have done their best to correct the proposition by just modifications and limitations, is the case much mended? Very little. Every really existing Thing is a compound of such innumerable properties, and has such an infinity of relations with all other things in the universe, that almost every law to which it appears ^fto us^f to be subject is liable to be set aside, or frustrated, either by some other law of the same object or by the laws of some other object which interferes with it: and as no one can possibly foresee or grasp all these contingencies, much less express them in such an imperfect language as that of words, no one ^gneed^g flatter himself that he can lay down propositions sufficiently specific to be available for practice, which he may afterwards apply mechanically without any exercise of thought. It is given to no human being to stereotype a set of truths, and walk safely by their guidance with his mind’s eye closed. Let us envelop our proposition with what exceptions and qualifications we may, fresh exceptions will turn up, and fresh qualifications be found necessary, the moment any one attempts to act upon it. Not aphorisms, therefore, alone, but all general propositions whatever, require to be taken with a large allowance for inaccuracy; and, we may venture to add, this allowance is much more likely to be made when, the proposition being avowedly presented without any limitations, every one must see that he is left to make the limitations for himself.

If aphorisms were less likely than systems to have truth in them, it would be difficult to account for the fact that almost all books of aphorisms, which have ever acquired a reputation, have retained ^hit; and, we apprehend, have generally^h deserved to retain it; while, how wofully the reverse is the case with systems of philosophy no student is ignorant. One reason for this difference may be, that books of aphorisms are seldom written but by persons of genius. There are, indeed, to be found books like Mr. Colton’s Lacon^[*] —centos of trite truisms and trite falsisms pinched into epigrams. But, on the whole, he who draws his thoughts (as Coleridge says) from a cistern, and not from a spring,^[*] will generally be more sparing of them than to give ten ideas in a page instead of ten pages to an idea. And where there is originality in aphorisms there is generally truth, or a bold approach to some truth which really lies beneath. A scientific system is often spun out of a few original assumptions, without any intercourse with nature at all; but he who has generalized copiously and variously from actual experience, must have thrown aside so many of his first ⁱobservationsⁱ as he went on, that the residuum can hardly be altogether worthless.

Of books of aphorisms, written by men of genius, the Pensées of Pascal is, perhaps, the least valuable in comparison with its reputation; but even this, in so far as it is aphoristic, is acute and profound: it fails^j, where^j it is perverted by the author’s systematic views on religion.^[†] La Rochefoucault, again, has been inveighed against as a “libeller of human nature,” &c.^k, merely^k from not understanding his drift. His Maxims are a series of delineations, by a most penetrating observer, of the workings of habitual selfishness in the human breast; and they are true to the letter, of all thoroughly selfish persons, and of all ^lpersons whatever^l in proportion as they are selfish.^[‡] A man of a warmer sympathy with mankind would, indeed, have enunciated his propositions in less sweeping terms; not that there was any fear of leading the world into the mistake that there was neither virtue nor feeling in it; but because a generous spirit could not have borne to chain itself down to the contemplation of littleness and meanness, unless for the express purpose of showing to others against what degrading influences, and in what an ungenial atmosphere, it was possible to maintain elevation of feeling and nobleness of conduct. The error of La Rochefoucault has been avoided by Chamfort, the more high-minded and more philosophic La Rochefoucault of the eighteenth century. In his posthumous work, ^mthe^mPensées, Maximes, Caractères, et Anecdotes (a book which, to its other merits, adds that of being one of the best collections of bons mots in existence),^[§] he lays open the basest parts of vulgar human nature, with as keen an instrument and as unshrinking a hand as his precursor; but not with that cool indifference of manner, like a man who is only thinking of saying clever things; he does it with the concentrated bitterness of one whose own life has been made valueless to him by having his lot cast among these basenesses, and whose sole consolation is in the thought that human nature is not the wretched thing it appears, and that, in better circumstances, it will produce better things. Nor does he ever leave his reader, for long together, without being reminded, that he is speaking, not of what might be, but of what now is.^a

Much might here be said of Burke, whose γνω̑μαι are the best, if not the only valuable, part of his writings; of Goethe, and Bacon, the greatest masters, perhaps, of aphoristic wisdom upon record. But we must abridge. Let us turn rather to the fact that our own age and nation have given birth to some not contemptible productions of the same kind,^* and that one of these lies before us, some specimens of which will be interesting to our readers.

This little volume, entitled Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, is a work of extraordinary promise, if, as we have heard, and as there is some internal evidence, it is the production of a young man who has just left the university. All the indications of a thoughtful, and, on every matter to which it has yet turned its attention, really original mind are here. The “Thoughts” are really thoughts: that is, they are drawn from things, and not from books or tradition; and this is no less evident in the author’s failures than in his successes. Whether he shoots over the heads of his predecessors, or timidly throws out some small fragment of a truth which others before him have seen in all its plenitude, in either case it is because he speaks what he himself has felt or observed, and stops where that stops. We have spoken of failures; but these are far from numerous. The book contains one hundred and sixty-four maxims; among which are five or six decidedly false, or questionable, and fifty or sixty truths which have been as well or better said before. The remainder are a real addition to the world’s stock of just thoughts happily expressed; and some of these may be ranked with the best things of the best satirists, while others give evidence of a soul far above that of any satirist—far too habitually intent upon its own ideal standard to bestow any other than an incidental notice upon the shortcomings of others.

We cannot better commence our quotations than with one which is in the very spirit of La Rochefoucault, and might be prefixed as a motto to every book containing novelties in thought:

We quote those which follow, not as the best, but as being in a similar vein:

The following is an observation of very great reach and importance:

The explanation of this is to be found in another maxim of our author:

How true! how obvious! yet how seldom adverted to, and, we think, never written before. The reason which a man gives for his conduct is not that which he feels, but that which he thinks you are most likely to feel. It often requires less moral courage to do a noble action than to avow that it proceeds from a noble motive. They who act on higher motives than the multitude suffer their conduct to be imputed to their personal position, to their friends, to their humour, even to some object of personal advancement—to anything, in short, which will not involve a reproach to others for not doing the like. They would rather the mean should think them as mean as themselves than incur the odium of setting up to be better than their neighbours, or the danger of giving others any cause to infer that they despise them.

The two which follow are in a vein of thought somewhat similar:

And again:

There is nothing which persons oftener overlook, in judging of the characters of others, than that there are portions of those characters which possibly would never be shown to them. They think they know a person thoroughly, because they have seen and conversed with him under all varieties of circumstances. They have seen him under all circumstances, except that of their own absence.

The maxims we have hitherto quoted relate chiefly to our judgments of others; the following are to aid our self-judgment:

The following is true, and ingeniously expressed.

The next is one which many will not understand, but which all who do understand will recognise the truth of: we have never met with it before:

We know not if the state of mind of the common herd, on subjects of speculation, was ever more happily characterized than in the following observation:

It is, too truly, so: the motive which induces most people to wish for certainty is the uneasiness of doubt; that uneasiness removed, they turn on their pillow and go to sleep: as if truths were meant to be assented to, but not acted upon. We think the having attained a truth should be the signal for rousing oneself, and not for sleeping; unless it be a reason for renouncing your voyage that you have just acquired a compass to steer by. Nor is the fact of having arrived at a “decided opinion,” even though it be a true one, any reason for not thinking more on the subject; otherwise the time will soon come when, instead of knowing the truth, you will only remember that you have known it, and continue believing it on your own authority: which is nearly as pernicious a form of taking upon trust as if you believed it on the authority of popes or councils.

The next, though stated too universally, is both ingenious and just:

The following is a genuinely poetical thought expressed in fine prose:

The following are not new, but they are truths which cannot be too often repeated:

This is especially true of ideas. A great idea always dawns upon the intellect by degrees, and is seen confusedly for a long period, during which the attempt to seize it and fix it in words would merely disturb the process by which the different rays of light are gradually made to converge, until at last the truth flashes upon the mind’s eye a completed image. But if there be one thing, more than another, which is brought to perfection in silence, it is, a fine character: for first, no one who talks much, has time, or is likely to have a taste, for solitary reflection; and next, it is impossible that those who habitually give out their most cherished feelings to all comers, can permanently maintain a tone of feeling much above what is prevalent among those by whom they are surrounded.

When our author has lived longer, he will be able to give still more pregnant instances than that of The Excursion. His remark is true of all books, whether of poetry, philosophy, or fictitious narrative, the matter of which is drawn from the personal experiences of the finer natures or the profounder intellects.

There are occasional lapses in this volume, obviously the effect of inexperience. Thus the author has persuaded himself, Heaven knows how, that “the love of being considered well-read is one of the most fatal of all the follies which subdue the present generation” (p. 51); and thereupon he says, very truly and profitably, that what we are the better for is not what we have read, but what we have assimilated; and that “those who are much engaged in acquiring knowledge, will not always have time for deep thought or intense feeling.” (P. 49.) For our part, we are heartily glad to hear that there are some circles in which “the love of being considered well-read” is still the besetting sin: we, unless to run through newspapers and Guides to Knowledge and magazines and novels is to be well-read, have not happened to fall in with many such people. There are so few well-read persons in this generation (in this country we mean) that any charlatan who sets up for the character can get his pretensions admitted without question, no one having depth enough of his own to fathom another person’s shallowness. We are, thanks to our Church and our Universities, a most unlearned nation. Those “venerable institutions” have nearly rooted out learning from among us.

Besides these errors of inexperience, our author sometimes stops curiously short of some obvious inference from his own observations. Thus he notices, what has so often been noticed, the superiority of women over men in patient endurance, and dismisses the subject with an expression of idle wonder. The power of endurance in women is the faithful measure of how much they have to endure. If all dark-haired men were condemned by their organization to incessantly recurring physical suffering—and if, in addition to this, their very minutest act, and their very smallest enjoyment, required the consent, either express or tacit, of another, he on his part being under no reciprocity of that obligation—dark-haired men would soon be distinguished for the virtue of endurance: and doubtless it would, ere long, be regarded as one of their natural gifts, as the virtue appropriate to their kind; and their capacity of patience would be thought ample justification for giving them much to be patient of.

We take leave of Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd with a feeling towards the author which we seldom entertain towards any of the young writers of this writing generation—namely, a full determination to read his next production, whatever it may be.

WARE’S LETTERS FROM PALMYRA

1838

EDITORS’ NOTE

London and Westminster Review, VI & XXVIII (Jan., 1838), 436-70. Headed: “Art. V.—[William Ware,] Letters of Lucius Manlius Piso, from Palmyra, to his Friend, Marcus Curtius, at Rome. Now first translated and published. 2 vols. 12mo. New York: [Francis,] 1837.” Running title: “Letters from Palmyra.” Signed: “S.” The concluding two paragraphs republished as “A Prophecy / (From a Review of ‘Letters from Palmyra.’)” in D&D, Vol. I, pp. 284-6, where the title is footnoted. “London and Westminster Review, January 1838” and the running title is “A Prophecy.” Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of a book entitled ‘Letters of Lucius Piso from Palmyra’ in the London and Westminster Review for January 1838 (No. 12 and 55.)” (MacMinn, p. 50). There are no corrections or emendations in the Somerville College copy (tear sheets) of the L&WR version.

For comment, see the Introduction, p. xl above.

Because only part of the text was republished, the copy-text is the L&WR article, which has been collated with the extract in D&D, 1st and 2nd eds. In the footnoted variants, “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed. (1859), “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed. (1867).

Ware’s Letters from Palmyra

speaking of the difficulties which in America retard the formation of a vigorous and original National Literature, and of the copies and imitations, mere echoes of the inspired voices of the Old World, which must in the mean time be accepted as great things, until a greater appear, Miss Martineau says:

Such testimony from one who has so clearly discerned, and so forcibly drawn, the characteristic deficiencies of American literature (which, as we have observed in a former article,^† are no other than the deficiencies of provincial literature in general) excited a natural desire for a nearer acquaintance with the production so highly commended. We have read the Letters from Palmyra (which are now complete), and can vouch that the sequel not only “answers to the early portions,” but is executed with a more vigorous hand, and adds to every good characteristic which the work possessed from its commencement, an animation of style and a dramatic talent which we did not equally recognize in the introductory letters. As this interesting work is still unknown in England, except to the few into whose hands a stray copy of the American edition has chanced to fall, we will lay a short account of it before our readers; rather desirous of making its contents known, than of subjecting them to a rigid critical examination. The young literature of a great people in a state of adolescence, who have not yet found leisure for much other employment of their activity than “felling the largest tree in four minutes,” and carrying bags of cotton from the great experimental farm of the world to the great workshop of it, must not be tried by the standard of what has been accomplished during three thousand years, with all appliances and means,^[*] by the labours and inspirations of a select literary class writing for a numerous leisured one. Without making any lofty pretensions for this little book, or challenging in its behalf any comparisons with the great works of art which ennoble an age, we have found as much in it, both to love and to admire, as may well justify us in claiming for it a few moments of that attention which is bestowed so readily upon the merely passing productions of the time, to compare almost any of which with this would be nearly as absurd as it would be to place this on a level with the noblest and most enduring monuments of the present age.

We must premise a few words to prevent disappointment. The reader need expect nothing highly wrought, nothing stimulating in this book. It is not of the passionate school. It will be more to the taste of the admirers of Fenelon or Barthelemy than of Byron; indeed, it reminds us forcibly of the first of these writers, by its union of a gentle and peace-loving spirit with the warmest sympathy for the active and energetic virtues, and a facility of kindling, with the imagination merely, at the conception of scenes of bloodshed and mortal struggle; a combination which, like almost all blending of qualities superficially incompatible, is both evidence and cause of a general healthiness of intellect and feeling. But if, from Miss Martineau’s high estimate of this book in comparison with American literature generally, any one should expect to find in it, as a work of fiction, the stirring action on the imagination and breathless excitement with which we read the novels of Brockden Brown^* (a man of true genius, little estimated by his cotemporaries, and whom Miss Martineau has unaccountably over-looked), or even the less deeply-seated but almost equally enchaining interest of the best productions of Cooper—or (we will venture to add) the wild flashes of truth and reality, the actual observation of human nature and personal experience of feeling, which we occasionally find, amidst much extravagance and absurdity, in the eccentric writings of John Neal;^* whoever takes up this book with any such hope will soon lay it down. It is another kind of work altogether. It belongs to a class of fictitious writings, which bears to an ordinary or even a historical novel or romance, the relation which Shakspeare’s historical plays bear to his tragedies. If King John, or King Henry the Fourth, were altogether fictitious stories, they would be very poor ones. In them the author does not invent the incidents and characters which suit him best, but takes those which a certain period of history presents him with, and gives life and reality to those: he tells, not a story, but the story, as it may have occurred, and did, for aught we know, actually occur. We should read those plays not certainly without pleasure, but with far less of it, if that portion of the interest were cut off which is derived from the fact that the events which are described and the characters which are drawn did actually exist.

The Letters from Palmyra are written with a similar aim. Not that they are a mere delineation of historical events and personages. Many of the characters, and their personal adventures and actions, are fictitious; and among these is the hero (as we suppose we must call him) the imaginary writer of the letters, who—though a spectator and not an actor in the great drama of the book, the greatness and fall of Palmyra—excites a personal interest in us by the sentiments which, like the chorus of a Greek tragedy, he is made the organ of—and, for his own part, fulfils with propriety the essential functions of a novel-hero, by saving the Queen’s life, and by duly falling in love and being married. But though, as our extracts will show, the book, in its merely fictitious parts, displays much of the talent of the novel-writer, it could not afford to dispense with the interest derived from its relation to the history of the period; to Zenobia, Longinus, and the other real characters, who, as Miss Martineau says, “live and move in natural majesty” in its pages; and to that curious, eminently interesting, and yet, we may almost say, neglected period in the progress of the world and of mankind, of which it is the great merit of these letters that they really, and so far as we know for the very first time, present us with a living picture.

The author has been peculiarly happy in the choice of his historical period. From the time of Nero or Vespasian to that of Constantine, there is a space of about three hundred years, during which some of the greatest things were transacted which ever were transacted upon this earth, and the least like any other known series of events. Nor were these transactions performed in some little corner of the globe, but over the whole civilized world at once. During those centuries Christianity was working itself upwards, from the poorest and most despised classes and races of mankind, through the whole body of civilized society to the highest summits—from whence, mingled with the polluted streams which in such a state of society emanate from such places, it again flowed forth, and overspread barbarous countries and unknown races of men with its fructifying and wholesome waters, and with the foulness that was mixed therewith. During the same three centuries, military despotism was working in the opposite direction, from those high places downwards, into the very vitals of the people: sucking up and consuming their substance, to the extent of actual depopulation; allowing no one to live who was strong enough or good enough to be conspicuous and an object of jealousy; preying upon mankind and letting them prey upon one another, until no law remained but that of the strongest, and no refuge from tyranny but in the cunning and treachery of the slave; killing by inanition whatever of liberal pursuits or intellectual culture could be so killed: and in fine, trampling down the most advanced nations of the earth into a state of moral imbecility and corruption, from which one-half of the enervated Roman Empire has never since recovered itself:—nor could anything have recovered the other half, but being conquered and overrun by a hardy race of primitive barbarians; who, bringing again into the civilized world what had so long been wanting—their rude energy, and ardent love of personal freedom—found and yielded to the tempering and soul-awakening influence of the gentlest and at the same time the most powerful of religions: and by this intermixture produced the modern European character.

This double movement, of Christianity mounting up from the low places, and of tyranny descending from the heights, composes the history of the first three centuries of our era: and this history, do we find it in the books? Until the present generation it may safely be said, that no historian had seen more than a glimpse of it. M. Guizot first, in his “Essay on the Municipal Institutions of the Romans,” showed us despotism in the concrete, coming home to every peasant’s hearth.^[*] As for Christianity, historians and martyrologists have shown us the sufferings of the Christian Church and its triumph; Nero’s pitch-jackets and Constantine’s labarum. But where do we see, and who has mentally depicted to himself, that irresistible under-current of Christianity, which must have been flowing with ever-increasing rapidity in the silent depths; when nothing was visible on the surface of society but a philosophically incredulous Few, and a populace ever gaping for new and more barbarous superstitions, for a “Syrian Goddess,” an Isis, or a Cybele? The period in which the power of Christianity had begun to be felt, without being publicly recognized, has never, we believe, been chosen for illustration, even by any writer of fiction, previous to these letters.

In this great portion of the world’s history, the mind dwells with peculiar interest upon the episode of Palmyra; which, though little connected with the main plot, commands attention, both for its own surprising nature, and for the interesting characters which figure in it. An insignificant town, in the very centre of a vast desert (“Tadmor in the wilderness,” recorded to have been among the towns built by Solomon),^[*] with no agricultural resources, no advantages over the burning sands around, except copious springs—a place, says Pliny the naturalist, velut terris exempta a rerum naturâ^[†] —starts up almost at the first moment when it is heard of in civilized literature, into an imperial city able to dispute the empire of the East with Rome herself; and of a magnificence, the remains of which, sixteen hundred years later, are still the admiration of the world:^* then, crushed as suddenly by the terrible vengeance of a despotic conqueror, it sinks at once into oblivion and is heard of no more. The ignorant and uninquiring historians of the later Roman Empire have told us nothing which can satisfactorily account for this meteor-like apparition of a great and flourishing capital in a dreary wilderness. Doubtless the true origin of the wealth of Palmyra, as shown by Gibbon,^[‡] and by a recent traveller (Mr. Addison),^† was her geographical position, directly on the main track which is even now followed by the caravans passing between the Persian Gulph and the Mediterranean: then the great line of commercial communication, and likely again to become that of commercial intelligence, between the east and the west. Palmyra was the emporium of the commerce of India—the Venice of the desert. But if these advantages of situation, which rendered her greatness possible, had been of themselves sufficient to produce it, Palmyra would have revived after her destruction by Aurelian. The greatest natural advantages suffice not without wise guidance. The glories of Palmyra were the creation of Odenatus and Zenobia; and fell when they fell. Of the latter and more illustrious of these personages, the heroine of the Letters, we shall now speak in the words of Gibbon, who, in his description of her, translates almost literally from her biography in the Augustan History, by Trebellius Pollio.^[*]

Odenatus having been cut off by private revenge, Zenobia punished his murderer, and,

Her administration was at once firm and gentle: “the severity,” says Pollio, “of a tyrant when necessity demanded it; the clemency of good princes when that was required by piety.”^[†] She had the rarest of virtues in a despotic ruler, strict economy; yet she was “larga prudenter,”^[‡] judiciously liberal. “She blended,” continues Gibbon, “with the popular manners of Roman princes, the stately pomp of the courts of Asia, and exacted from her subjects the same adoration that was paid to the successors of Cyrus.”^[§]

To have such a character to depict, in a period of history so barren (at least in the high places) of individual goodness or greatness, is a bonne fortune to a writer of fiction. And the moment of the greatest splendour of Palmyra and of Zenobia, that immediately preceding the war by which they were ruined, has been chosen by the author of the Letters for the commencement of his tale.

The supposed writer of the letters is a young and high-born Roman, Lucius Piso, who, having received intelligence that his brother Calpurnius (supposed to have perished after the memorable overthrow of the Emperor Valerian by Sapor, King of Persia) was still alive and in captivity, sets out for Palmyra on an attempt to effect his liberation. The first hope of attaining it, rested upon the intercession of the powerful Zenobia, whose good offices Piso hoped to ensure through the influence of one of her chief counsellors, Gracchus, a noble Roman, and an early friend of his house. This Gracchus, and his daughter Fausta, are two of the principal characters of the book: the former a personification of a bland and affectionate old man and a prudent counsellor; the latter, a young and beautiful heroine, worshipping Zenobia, and an imitator and emulator of her splendid qualities.

The first letter describes the voyage from Rome to Berytus in Syria, during which Piso forms an acquaintance with two persons, a Jew and a Christian, who re-appear at intervals throughout the narrative. This is followed by the journey across the Desert, and the first aspect of the magnificent Eastern capital. It is described in accordance with the evidence of its existing remains: and what had hitherto been, in our imagination, merely a picture like that in Byron’s “Dream,”^[¶] of fallen columns and among them camels grazing, is very successfully peopled and vivified with the hum and stir of a busy commercial city and the splendour of an Eastern throne.

On turning a corner the chariot comes suddenly in sight of the world-famous Temple of the Sun:

Into the scene thus prepared, the author at once introduces Zenobia and all the historical characters of the book:

With these personages, all of whom except the Princess Julia are historical, we are made intimately acquainted in the scenes and conversations, which, alternately with the progress of Piso’s attempt to recover his brother, occupy the whole of the first volume. Our author has not escaped the danger to which writers of his class are most liable. Very few writers can maintain sufficient discrimination between one of their good characters and another: and his are too much alike; they are all heroes or heroines, and all, with some slight exceptions, heroes and heroines of the same sort. Longinus, the great philosophical ornament of his age, one of the latest authors who, in the decline of letters, maintained their place among the great writers of antiquity, is not sufficiently distinguished from Gracchus, who is also a philosopher—an Epicurean indeed, while the other is a Platonist, but in the main he philosophizes in much the same way, and, to our thinking, full as wisely. Fausta is but a lesser Zenobia; and the Princess Julia differs from them both, only by having somewhat less strength and somewhat more gentleness, and by being a semi-convert to Christianity. This last is hardly a distinction, as the author (we fear without historical authority) represents most of his good characters (except Zenobia herself, whose partialities are rather towards Judaism) as either entertaining from the beginning of the book, or acquiring in the course of it, sentiments which must very soon have ended in their complete adoption of Christianity. The effect of this uniformity of character is, that the reader is not strongly interested in any of the personages, considered as an individual. But, all things duly weighed, we question whether this is a defect. In the first place, that there would really have been among the intimate companions and chosen advisers of so remarkable a person as Zenobia as much resemblance (either original or caught from her) to the great features of her own character as is here assigned to them, is in itself highly probable. And what spoils the personages as individual figures, improves the effect of the entire picture. We see what we wish to see, Zenobia as the centre of the whole, with a small band of devoted friends forming an inner circle round her, and an enthusiastic and worshipping people for the framework beyond. The effect, in this view of the design, is completely what it was intended to be. Zenobia alone stands out as an individual character. We see in her all the natural qualities of a great and good despot: the lofty and almost godlike feelings derived from the consciousness of vast power won by wisdom and energy and exercised with virtue; the passion for excitement, to which not to reign were not to live; the unbending pride which cannot brook a diminution of importance, and the self-confidence which feels assured of victory when rushing into the most hopeless enterprises. The author has very skilfully and naturally bespoken our indulgence for these pardonable weaknesses, by depicting them as, what they most probably were, the weaknesses not more of Zenobia herself than of her people, intoxicated with their own greatness, and fondly believing that the world in arms must give way before the irresistible genius of their queen. Even with this rash confidence the author makes us sympathize; the reader becomes a Palmyrene, and feels with the Palmyrenes their enthusiasm. His management of the character of Zenobia herself is in this respect extremely skilful. After the scene in the amphitheatre, in which her sons appear with the imperial purple of the Cæsars, a presumption which is the immediate cause of the rupture with Rome—being asked “Why put at hazard the peace and prosperity of this fair realm for a shadow—a name? What is it to you or to me that Timolaus, Herennianus, and Vabalathus, be hailed by the pretty style of Cæsar?” [Ibid., p. 93.] The Queen replies.

The author has managed well the only weakness of his greatest character. He has so well seized the light in which the unmeasured love of power and of its trappings represents itself to itself in a mind fit for better things; he has blended so much of greatness with its littleness, that in her it scarcely appears to be a fault. Hear her afterwards, at the deliberation in council upon Aurelian’s warlike message, thus avow and justify, on the noblest grounds, her love of dominion:

We pass over the letters in which we are introduced to the private life, the social intercourse and amusements, the conversations and speculations of Zenobia and her friends. In these, the first philosopher of his age being one of the interlocutors, and some of the others being persons who had listened approvingly to the teachers of Christianity, the subjects touched are naturally those of the highest and most solemn nature; but there is nothing controversial in the tone, and the dialogue exhibits fairly enough what may be conceived to have been in that age the feelings of persons like those represented, in regard to the great problem of human existence, in this life and in a life to come. Piso’s thoughts incline him more and more towards the Christian faith, of which the sincere and pure-minded votaries are typified in Probus (the Christian with whom Piso became acquainted on his voyage from Rome), and the more vain-glorious and worldly-minded in Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, whom it is historically true that Zenobia protected and countenanced.

We quote a passage of another kind: the tableau de mœurs which concludes the description of a trial of strength and skill in martial exercises. The trial was “to throw the lance with such unerring aim and force, as to pass through an aperture in a shield of fourfold ox-hide, of a size but slightly larger than the beam of the lance, so as not so much as to graze the sides of the perforated place.” (Ibid., Vol. I, p. 138.) The incapable sons of Zenobia, genuine samples of hereditary oriental princes, try their skill, and fail with different degrees of disgrace. Zabdas, the stern and swarthy warrior already mentioned,

Zenobia herself next makes the attempt, and succeeds, but

Fausta follows, and her success is perfect. There remains the Princess Julia; the gentle and sensitive character of the story, and the one with whom, of course, Piso is to fall in love.

The villain of the tale now makes his appearance.

The sports are interrupted by the arrival of an embassy from Aurelian, demanding from Zenobia the renunciation of all those provinces of the Roman empire which, during the anarchy of the “Thirty Tyrants,” she and her husband had severed from it. The penalty of refusal is war. A large and interesting portion of the book is occupied by the reception of the ambassadors, their several audiences, the deliberations of the queen and her counsellors on the propositions they bring, and their dismissal with a dignified refusal.

The underplot of the drama meanwhile proceeds; and Piso’s brother is rescued from his Persian captivity through the instrumentality of Isaac the Jew; a personage who stands among the sceptics and half-believers of the story, a complete picture of a man who is wholly a believer, and whose life is devoted to the cause in which he has faith, that of his lost Jerusalem. He alone, of all the characters in the book, hates Christianity; and though full of the kindly feelings which our author, to the credit of his own, liberally bestows upon almost all his personages, he undertakes the rescue of Calpurnius in no spirit of love and charity, but in consideration of “one talent” if he lives, and two talents if he dies, to be bestowed upon his sacred cause. Calpurnius proves to have been, by Rome’s long neglect of him in his captivity, exasperated into the bitterest hatred of the Roman name: he repairs to Palmyra, distinguishes himself in Zenobia’s army, survives her defeat, and ends by marrying Fausta. We can only quote, from the well-told tale of Isaac’s perils and adventures in the desert and in the Persian capital, the story of his encounter with Manes, the great heresiarch, founder of the Manichean religion:

Piso in the meantime has ventured to ask Julia in marriage from the queen, and been refused. In consistency with what history records of her, Zenobia is sceptical and even scornful on the subject of love—of all at least in love which distinguishes it from friendship; declares her daughter and herself wedded irrevocably and exclusively to the interests of Palmyra, and Julia the destined bride of the Persian prince, Hormisdas:

We now arrive at a scene of peril.

Notwithstanding this great service, the Queen’s inflexibility does not give way, “Palmyra married to Persia, through Julia married to Hormisdas,” [ibid., p. 33,] is the irrevocable decree; nor is it reversed while Palmyra remains a kingdom.

Piso’s brother joins the Palmyrene host: Piso himself cannot fight against Rome, but accepts the commission to keep a watchful eye upon Antiochus and his profligate followers in the city. The Queen marches out to encounter Aurelian: her appearance on the day of departure is thus described:

Her address, which we cannot venture to quote, being concluded—

The campaign is related with great spirit and fidelity to history. After the loss of two battles the Queen shuts herself up in Palmyra, whither she is followed by Aurelian, and closely besieged. The various incidents of the siege, the treachery of the base Antiochus, Zenobia’s escape to seek for assistance at the Persian court, and her capture by Aurelian’s troops, are told with much vigour and animation. But we hurry to a scene which far surpasses any of our other quotations in dramatic interest, the first interview of the Emperor Aurelian with the captive Queen.

The character of Aurelian is finely drawn. The rude soldier, risen from the ranks to the empire—the stern disciplinarian, known to the army by the nickname of “Hand to his Sword”—the sovereign whose “love of justice,” says Gibbon, “often became a blind and furious passion,” who “disdained to hold his power by any other title than that of the sword, and governed by right of conquest an empire which he had saved and subdued,”^[*] is painted as he was, with his scorn of all low and treacherous vice, his strong and savage passions and generous impulses, and that magnanimity and clemency so characteristic of kings, which after having humbled consents to spare the crowned heads with whom it sympathizes, but makes its vengeance fall with tenfold weight upon their comparatively unoffending subjects with whom it does not sympathize. The generous hero who heaped benefits and honours upon Zenobia, and admitted Tetricus, the abdicated Emperor of Gaul, to his friendship and intimacy (not, however, until he had led them both, Zenobia almost weighed down to the earth with gems and gold, after his car of triumph)—this chivalrous conqueror could not satiate his rage with less than the blood of the illustrious Longinus, and the other friends and counsellors of the Queen: and as for the city of Palmyra (not indeed till after one more attempt to assert its independence), he burnt it to the ground, and put all the inhabitants, old men, women, and children, indiscriminately to the sword. The last hours of Longinus are portrayed by our author in the very spirit in which, in two sentences, they are delineated by Gibbon: “Genius and learning were incapable of moving a fierce, unlettered soldier, but they had served to elevate and harmonise the soul of Longinus. Without uttering a complaint, he calmly followed the executioner, pitying his unhappy mistress, and bestowing comfort on his afflicted friends.”^[†]

We must give the reader one more glimpse of Zenobia, a captive and at Rome. It is from the description of Aurelian’s triumph—that triumph which was opened, says Gibbon,^[‡] by twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the living wonders of every climate in the empire; in which the triumphal car of the Emperor was drawn by four stags; and “the pomp was so long and so various that, although it opened with the dawn of day, the slow majesty of the procession ascended not the Capitol before the ninth hour from sunrise.”^[§] After a lively description of the show, Piso continues:

The Emperor presents Zenobia (conformably to history) with a villa at Tibur; treats her with distinguished honour, and her daughter Livia becomes the Roman Empress. Relieved now from the burthens, as well as defeated in the ambitious aspirations, of the Queen of Palmyra, she is no longer deaf to the entreaties of Julia and of Piso: and at the conclusion we are allowed to believe that in the splendour of one of her children, and the domestic felicity of another, she found, if not happiness, consolation for her own downfall.

A few words remain to be added, by way of a general estimate of the merits of the work.

Doubtless this writer is not the great artist whom Miss Martineau tells us^[*] that the American people are looking for—a Messiah who will one day arise, but probably (as Messiahs are wont) in such a shape that those who were the first to prophesy his coming will be the last to recognise him when come. This author has no claims to so great an honour. He has made no new revelations to us out of the depths of human feeling, has conceived no new and interesting varieties of spiritual nature, nor announced any original and pregnant views of human affairs. But there is that in him which, in the present state of literature, deserves to be prized most highly, and which entitles him to a most honourable place among the writers not only of his own country, but of ours at the present time. We do not refer to his power of throwing his own mind, and of making his readers throw theirs, into the minds and into the circumstances of persons who lived far off and long ago; of making us see things as those persons saw, or might have seen them; of making us feel with them, and, in some measure, understand them. We give him a higher praise; he is one of the few (and among writers of fiction they never were so few as in this age) who can conceive, with sufficient strength and reality to be able to represent, genuine unforced nobleness of character.

^aThe time was, when it was thought that the best and most appropriate office of fictitious narrative was to awaken high aspirations, by the representation, in interesting circumstances, of characters conformable indeed to human nature, but whose actions and sentiments were of a more generous and loftier^border^b than are ordinarily to be met with by everybody in every-day life. But now-a-days nature and probability are thought to be violated, if there be shown to the reader, in the personages with whom he is called upon to sympathize, characters on a larger scale than himself, or^c the persons he is accustomed to meet ^dwith^d at a dinner or a quadrille party. Yet, from such representations, familiar from early youth, have not only the noblest minds in modern Europe derived^e what made them noble, but even the commoner spirits what made them understand and respond to nobleness. And this is Education. It would be well if the more narrow-minded portion, both of the religious and of the scientific education-mongers, would consider whether the books which they are banishing from the hands of youth, were not instruments of national education to the full as powerful as the catalogues of physical facts and theological dogmas which they have substituted—as if science and religion were to be taught, not by imbuing the mind with their spirit, but by cramming the memory with summaries of their conclusions. Not what a boy or a girl can repeat by rote, but what they have learnt to love and admire, is what forms their character. The chivalrous spirit has almost disappeared from books of education; the popular novels of the day teach nothing but (what is already too soon learnt from actual life) lessons of worldliness, with at most the huckstering virtues which conduce to getting on in the world; and, for the first time perhaps in history, the youth of both sexes of the educated classes are universally growing up unromantic. What will come in mature age from such a youth, the world has not yet had time to see. But the world may rely upon it, that Catechisms, whether Pinnock’s^[*] or the Church of England’s,^[†] will be found a poor substitute for those old romances, whether of chivalry or of faery, which, if they did not give a true picture of actual life, did not give a false one, since they did not profess to give any, but (what was much better) filled the youthful imagination with pictures of heroic men, and of what are at least as much wanted, heroic women. The book before us does this^f. And^f greatly is any book to be valued, which in this age, and in a form suited to it, ^gand not only unexceptionable but fitted to be most acceptable to the religious reader,^g does its part towards keeping alive the chivalrous spirit, which was the best part of the old romances; towards giving to the aspirations of the young and susceptible a noble direction, and keeping present to the mind an exalted standard of worth, by placing before it heroes and heroines worthy of the name.

It is an additional title to praise in this author, that his great women are imagined in the very contrary spirit to the modern cant, according to which a heroic woman is supposed to be something intrinsically different from the best sort of heroic men. It was not ^hthought so^h in the days of Artemisia or Zenobia, or in that era of great statesmen and stateswomen, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the daughters of royal houses were governors of provinces, and displayed, as such, talents for command equal to any of their husbands or brothers—and when negociations which had baffled the first diplomatists of Francis and of Charles V, were brought to a successful issue by the wisdom and dexterity of two princesses.^[‡] The book before us is in every line a virtual protest against the narrow and degrading doctrine which has grown out of the false refinement of later times. And it is the author’s avowed belief, that one of the innumerable great purposes of Christianity was to abolish the distinction between the two characters, by teaching that neither of them can be really admirable without the qualities supposed to be distinctive of the other, and by exhibiting, in the person of its Divine Founder, an equally perfect model of both.^a

WRITINGS OF ALFRED DE VIGNY

1838

EDITORS’ NOTE

Dissertations and Discussions, 2nd ed. (1867), Vol. I, pp. 287-329. Title footnoted: “Consisting of—1. Souvenirs de Servitude et de Grandeur Militaires. 2. Cinq-Mars, ou, une Conjuration sous Louis XIII. 3. Stello; ou, les Consultations du Docteur Noir. 4. Poemes. 5. Le More de Venise, tragédie traduite de Shakespeare en Vers Français. 6. La Maréchale d’Ancre, drame. 7. Chatterton, drame.—London and Westminster Review, April 1838.” Running title: “Alfred de Vigny.” Republished from L&WR, VII & XXIX (Apr., 1838), 1-44, where it is headed. “Art. I.—Œuvres de Alfred de Vigny. Bruxelles [and Leipzig: Hochhausen and Fournes], 1837. Consisting of [the same list as above].” Running titles, left-hand, “Poems and Romances of Alfred de Vigny”; right-hand, “Royalist Poetry” (the equivalent of pp. 466.28-471.26), “Cinq-Mars” (pp. 472.26-475.7), “Military Recollections” (pp. 487.28-492.17), “Stello” (pp. 493.16-496.11), and “Moïse, Eloa, etc.” (pp. 497.13-500.9). Signed: “A.” Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “An article on the ‘Poems and Romances of Alfred de Vigny’ in the same number of the same review”—i.e., as that (Jan., 1838) in which “Ware’s Letters from Palmyra” appeared, but in fact the article was in the next number (Apr., 1838); the copyist who transcribed the bibliography may have allowed her eye to jump back to the preceding entry, for “Radical Party and Canada,” which properly concludes “in the same number of the same review” (MacMinn, p. 50). The copy (tear sheets) of the L&WR version in Somerville College has no corrections or emendations.

For comment, see the Introduction, pp. xl-xli above.

The following text, taken from the 2nd ed. of D&D (the last in Mill’s lifetime) is collated with that in D&D, 1st ed., and that in L&WR. In the footnoted variants, “38” indicates L≀ “59” indicates D&D, 1st ed. (1859); and “67” indicates D&D, 2nd ed. (1867).

Writings of Alfred de Vigny

in the french mind (the most active national mind in Europe at the present moment) one of the most^a stirring elements, and among the fullest of promise for the futurity of France and of the world, is the Royalist, or Carlist, ingredient. We are not now alluding to the attempts of M. de Genoude, and that portion of the Carlist party of which the Gazette de France is the organ, to effect an alliance between legitimacy and universal suffrage; nor to the eloquent anathemas hurled against ^bthe existing^b institutions of society^c by a man of a far superior order, the Abbé de la Mennais, whose original fervour of Roman Catholic absolutism has given place to a no less fervour of Roman Catholic ultra-Radicalism. These things too have their importance as symptoms, and even intrinsically are not altogether without their value. But we would speak rather of the somewhat less obvious inward working, which (ever since the Revolution of 1830 annihilated the Carlist party as a power in the State) has been going on in the minds of that accomplished and^d numerous portion of the educated youth of France, whose family connexions or early mental impressions ranked them with the defeated party; who had been brought up, as far as the age permitted, in the old ideas of monarchical and Catholic France; were allied by their feelings or imaginations with whatever of great and heroic those old ideas had produced in the past; had not been sullied by participation in the selfish struggles for Court favour and power, of which the same ideas were the pretext in the present—and to whom the Three Days were really the destruction of something which they had loved and revered, if not for itself, at least for the reminiscences associated with it.

These reflections present themselves naturally when we are about to speak of the writings of Alfred de Vigny, one of the earliest in date, and one of the most genuine, true-hearted, and irreproachable in tendency and spirit, of the new school of French literature, termed the romantic. It would, in fact, be impossible to understand M. de Vigny’s writings, especially the later and better portion, or to enter sympathizingly into the peculiar feelings which pervade them, without this clue. M. de Vigny is, in poetry and art, as a ^estill more eminent^e man, M. de Tocqueville, is in philosophy, a result of the influences of the age upon a mind and character trained up in opinions and feelings opposed to those of the age. Both these writers, educated in one set of views of life and society, found, when they attained manhood, another set predominant in the world they lived in, and, at length, after 1830, enthroned in its high places. The contradictions they had thus to reconcile—the doubts and perplexities and misgivings which they had to find the means of overcoming before they could see clearly between these cross-lights—were to them that, for want of which so many otherwise well-educated and naturally-gifted persons grow up hopelessly commonplace. To go through life with a set of opinions ready-made and provided for saving them the trouble of thought, was a destiny that could not be theirs. Unable to satisfy themselves with either of the conflicting formulas which were given them for the interpretation of what lay in the world before them, they learnt to take formulas for what they were worth, and ^fto^f look into the world itself for the philosophy of it. They looked with both their eyes, and saw much there, which was neither in the creed they had been taught, nor in that which they found prevailing around them: much that the prejudices, either of Liberalism or of Royalism, amounted to a disqualification for the perception of, and which would have been hid from themselves if the atmosphere of either had surrounded them both in their youth and in their maturer years.

That this conflict between a Royalist education, and the spirit of the modern world, triumphant in July 1830, must have gone for something in giving to the speculations of a philosopher like M. de Tocqueville the catholic spirit and comprehensive range which distinguish them, most people will readily admit. But, that the same causes must have exerted an analogous influence over a poet and artist, such as Alfred de Vigny is in his degree; that a political revolution can have given to the genius of a poet what principally distinguishes it—may not appear so obvious, at least to those who, like most Englishmen, rarely enter into either politics or poetry with their whole soul. Worldly advancement, or religion, are an Englishman’s real interests: for Politics, except in connexion with one of those two objects, and for Art, he keeps only bye-corners of his mind, which naturally are far apart from each other: and it is but a ^gsmall^g minority among Englishmen who can comprehend, that there are nations among whom Politics, or the pursuit of social well-being, and Poetry, or the love of ^hbeauty^h and of imaginative emotion, are passions as intense, as absorbing—influencing as much the whole tendencies of the character, and constituting as large a part of the objects in life of a considerable portion of the cultivated classes, as either the religious feelings, or those of worldly interest. Where both politics and poetry, instead of being either a trade or a pastime, are takenⁱ completely au sérieux, each will be more or less coloured by the other; and that close relation between an author’s politics and his poetry, which with us is only seen^j in the great poetic figures of their age,^k a Shelley, a Byron, or a Wordsworth, is broadly conspicuous in France (for example), through the whole range of her literature.

It may be worth while to employ a moment in considering what are the general features which, in an age of revolutions, may be expected to distinguish a Royalist or Conservative from a Liberal or Radical poet or imaginative writer. We are not speaking of political poetry, of Tyrtæus^[*] or Korner,^[†] of Corn-Law Rhymes,^[‡] or sonnets on the Vaudois or on Zaragoza;^[§]lthese^l are rather oratory than poetry. We have nothing to do with the Radical poet as the scourge of the oppressor, or with the Tory one as the ^mdenouncer of^m infidelity or jacobinism. They are not poets by virtue of what is negative or combative in their feelings, but by what is positive and sympathizingⁿ . The pervading spirit, then, of the one, will be love of the Past; of the other, faith in the Future. The partialities of the one will be towards things established, settled, regulated; of the other, towards human free-will, cramped and fettered in all directions, both for good and ill, by those establishments and regulations. Both^o, being poets,^o will have a heroic sympathy with heroism^p ; but the one will respond most readily to the heroism of endurance and self-control, the other to that of ^qaction^q and struggle. Of the virtues and beauties of our common humanity, the one will view with most affection those which have their natural growth under the shelter of fixed habits and firmly settled opinions: local and family attachments, tranquil tastes and pleasures, those gentle and placid feelings towards man and nature, ever most easy to those upon whom is not imposed the burthen of being their own protectors and their own guides. ^rGreater^r reverence, deeper humility, the virtues of abnegation and forbearance carried to a higher degree, will distinguish his favourite personages: while, as subjection to a common faith and law brings the most diverse characters to the same standard, and tends more or less to efface their differences, a certain monotony of goodness will be apparent, and a degree of distaste for prononcé characters, as being ^snearly^s allied to ill-regulated ones. The sympathies of the Radical or Movement poet will take the opposite direction. Active qualities are what he will demand, rather than passive; those which fit ^tpersons^t for making changes in the circumstances which surround them, rather than for accommodating themselves to those circumstances. Sensible he must of course be of the necessity of restraints, but ^usince he is^u dissatisfied with those which exist, his dislike of established opinions and institutions turns naturally into sympathy with all things, not in themselves bad, which those opinions and institutions restrain, that is, ^vwith^v all natural human feelings. Free and vigorous developments of human nature, even when he cannot refuse them his disapprobation, will command his sympathy: a more marked individuality will usually be conspicuous in his creations; his heroic characters will be all armed for conflict, full of energy and strong self-will, of grand conceptions and brilliant virtues, but, in habits of virtue, often below those of the Conservative school: there will not be so broad and black a line between his good and bad personages; his characters of principle will be more tolerant of his characters of mere passion. Among human affections, the Conservative poet will give the preference to those which can be invested with the character of duties; to those of which the objects are as it were marked out by the arrangements ^weither^w of nature ^xor of society^x , we ourselves exercising no choice: as the parental—the filial—the conjugal ^yafter^y the irrevocable union, or a solemn betrothment equivalent to it, and with due observance of all decencies, both real and conventional. The other will delight in painting the affections which choose their own objects, especially the most powerful of these, passionate love; and of that, the more vehement oftener than the more graceful aspects; will select by preference its subtlest workings, and its most unusual and unconventional forms; will show it at war with the forms and customs of society, nay even with its laws and its religion, if the laws and tenets which regulate that branch of human relations are among those which have begun to be murmured against. By the Conservative, feelings and states of mind which he disapproves will be indicated rather than painted; to lay open the morbid anatomy of human nature will appear to him contrary to good taste always, and often to morality: and inasmuch as feelings intense enough to threaten established decorums with any danger of violation will most frequently have the character of morbidness in his eyes, the representation of passion in the colours of reality will commonly be left to the Movement poet. To him, whatever exists will appear, from that alone, fit to be represented: to probe the wounds of society and humanity is part of his business, and he will neither shrink from exhibiting what is in nature, because it is morally culpable, nor because it is physically revolting. Even in their representations of inanimate nature there will be a difference. The pictures most grateful and most familiar to the one will be those of a universe at peace within itself—of stability and duration—of irresistible power serenely at rest, or moving in fulfilment of the established arrangements of the universe: whatever suggests unity of design, and the harmonious co-operation of all the forces of nature towards ^zends^z intended by a Being in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of change. In the creations of the other, nature will oftener appear in the relations which it bears to the individual, rather than to the scheme of the universe; there will be a larger place assigned to those of its aspects which reflect back the troubles of an unquiet soul, the impulses of a passionate, or the enjoyments of a voluptuous one; and on the whole, here too the Movement poet will extend so much more widely the bounds of the permitted, that his sources both of effect and of permanent interest will have a far larger range; and he will generally be more admired than the other, by all those by whom he is not actually condemned.

There is room in the world for poets of both these kinds; and the greatest will always partake of the nature of both. A comprehensive and catholic mind and heart will doubtless feel and exhibit all these different sympathies, each in its due proportion and degree; but what that due proportion may happen to be, is part of the larger question which every one has to ask of himself at such periods, viz., whether it were for the good of humanity at the particular era, that Conservative or Radical feeling should most predominate? For there is a perpetual antagonism between these two; and until ^ahuman affairs^a are ^bmuch better^b ordered ^cthan they are likely to be for some time to come^c , each will require to be, in a greater or less degree, tempered by the other: nor until the ordinances of law and of opinion are so framed as to give full scope to all individuality not positively noxious, and to restrain all that is noxious, will the two classes of sympathies ever be entirely reconciled.

Suppose, now, a poet of conservative sympathies, surprised by the shock of a revolution, which sweeps away the surviving symbols of what was great in the Past, and decides irrevocably the triumph of new things over the old: what will be the influence of this event on his imagination and feelings? To us it seems that they will become both sadder and wiser. He will lose that blind faith in the Past, which previously might have tempted him to fight for it with a mistaken ardour, against what is generous and worthy in the new doctrines. The fall of the objects of his reverence, will naturally, if he has ^dany discernment^d , open ^ehis mind^e to the perception of that in them whereby they deserved to fall. But while he is thus disenchanted of the old things, he will not have acquired that faith in the new, which ^fanimates^f the Radical poet. Having it not before, there is nothing in the triumph of those new things which can inspire him with it: institutions and creeds fall by their own badness, not by the goodness of that which strikes the actual blow. The destiny of mankind, therefore, will naturally appear to him in rather sombre colours; gloomy he may not be, ^gbut he will everywhere tend^g to the elegiac, to the contemplative and melancholy rather than to the epic and active; his song will be a subdued and plaintive symphony, more or less melodious according to the measure of his genius, on the old theme of blasted hopes and defeated aspirations. Yet there will now be nothing partial or one-sided in his sympathies: no sense of a conflict to be maintained, of a position to be defended against assailants, will warp the impartiality of his pity—will make him feel that there are wrongs and sufferings which must be dissembled, inconsistencies which must be patched up, vanities which he must attempt to consider serious, false pretences which he must try to mistake for truths, lest he should be too little satisfied with his own cause to do his duty as a combatant for it: he will no longer feel obliged to treat all that part of human nature which rebelled against the old ideas, as if it were accursed—all those human joys and sufferings, hopes and fears, which ^hare^h the strength of the new doctrines, and which the old ones did not take sufficient account of, as if they were unworthy of his sympathy. His heart will open itself freely and largely to the love of all that is loveable, to pity of all that is pitiable: every cry of suffering humanity will strike a responsive chord in his breast; whoever carries nobly his own share of the general burthen of human life, or generously helps to lighten that of ⁱothersⁱ , is sure of his homage; while he has a deep fraternal charity for the erring and disappointed—for those who have aspired and fallen—who have fallen because they have aspired, because they too have felt those infinite longings for something greater than merely to live and die, which he as a poet has felt—which, as a poet, he cannot but have been conscious that he would have purchased the realization of by an even greater measure of error and suffering—and which, as a poet disenchanted, he knows too well the pain of renouncing, not to feel a deep indulgence for those who are victims of their inability to make the sacrifice.

In this ideal portraiture may be seen the genuine lineaments of Alfred de Vigny. The same features may, indeed, be traced more or less, in the greater part of the Royalist literature of young France; even in Balzac all these characteristics are distinctly visible, blended of course with his individual peculiarities, and modified by them. But M. de Vigny is ^ja more^j perfect type, because he, more entirely than most others, writes from his real feelings, and not from mere play of fancy. Many a writer in France, of no creed at all, and who therefore gives himself all the latitude of a Movement poet, is a Royalist with his imagination merely, for the sake of the picturesque effect of donjons and cloisters, crusaders and troubadours. And in retaliation many a Liberal or Republican critic will stand up stiffly for the old school in literature, for the grand siècle, becuase, like him, it ^ktakes^k its models from Greece or Rome; and will keep no terms with the innovators who find anything grand and poetical in the middle ages, or who fancy that barons or priests may look well in rhyme. But this is accident; an exception to the ordinary relation between political opinions and poetic tendencies. A Radical who finds his political beau idéal still ^lfarther^l back in the Past than the Royalist finds his, is not the type of a Radical poet; he will more resemble the Conservative poet of ages back: less of the Movement spirit may be found in him, than in many a nominal Royalist whose Royalist convictions have no very deep root. But when we would see the true character of a Royalist poet, we must seek for it in one like M. de Vigny, a conservative in feeling, and not in mere fancy, and a man (^mif we may judge from his writings^m ) ofⁿ rare simplicity of heart, and freedom from egotism and self-display. The most complete exemplification of the feelings and views of things which we have described as naturally belonging to the Royalist poet of young France, will be found in his ^oproductions^o , subsequent to the Revolution of 1830. But we must first see him as he was before 1830, and in writings in which the qualities we have enumerated had as yet manifested themselves only in a small degree.

Count Alfred de Vigny was born on the 27th ^pof^p March 1799, at Loches in Touraine, that province which has given birth to so many of the literary celebrities of France. His father was an old cavalry officer of ancient lineage, who had served in the Seven Years War, and whose stories of his illustrious friends Chevert and d’Assas, and of the great Frederic (who was not a little indebted even for his victories, to the prestige he exercised over the enthusiastic imaginations of the French officers who fought against him), were the earliest nourishment of the son’s childish aspirations. In the latter years of Napoleon our author was a youth at college; and he has ^qdescribed^q , in the first chapter of his Souvenirs de Servitude Militaire, the restless and roving spirit, the ardour for military glory and military adventure, the contempt of all pursuits and wishes not terminating in a Marshal’s bâton, which were the epidemic diseases of every French schoolboy during those years when “the beat of drum,” to use his own expression, “drowned the voice of the teacher,”^[*] and of which M. de Vigny confesses, in all humility, that the traces in himself are not entirely effaced. On the fall of Napoleon, he entered, at sixteen, into the royal guard; accompanied the Bourbons to Ghent during the Hundred Days, and remained in the army up to 1828. Fourteen years a soldier without seeing any service (for he was not even in the ^rbrief^r Spanish campaign)—the alternation of routine duties and enforced idleness, the ennui of an active profession without one opportunity for action except in obscure and painful civil broils, would have driven many to find relief in dissipation; M. de Vigny found it in contemplation and solitary thought.

M. de Vigny’s first publications were poems, of which we shall say a few words presently, and which, whatever be the opinion formed of their absolute merit, are considered by a sober and impartial critic, M. Sainte-Beuve, as of a more completely original character than those of either Lamartine or Victor Hugo.^[†] It is^v , therefore, ^wonly in the common course of things,^w that they were ^xat the time^x but moderately successful. The first of his works which attained popularity was Cinq-Mars, or a Conspiracy under Louis XIII, an historical romance of the school of Sir Walter Scott, then at the height of his popularity in France, and who was breathing the breath of life into the historical literature of France, and, through France, of all Europe.^y

M. de Vigny has chosen his scene at that passage of French history, which completed the transformation of the feudal monarchy of the middle ages into the despotic and courtly monarchy of Louis XIV. The iron hand of Richelieu, reigning in the name of a master who both feared and hated him, but whom habit and conscious incapacity rendered his slave, had broken the remaining strength of those great lords, once powerful enough to cope single-handed with their sovereign, and several of whom, by confederating, could, to a very late period, dictate for themselves terms of capitulation. The crafty and cruel policy of the minister had mowed down all of ^zthese^z who, by position and personal qualities, stood pre-eminent above the rest. As for those whom, because they could not be dangerous to him, he spared, their restlessness and turbulence, surviving their power, might, during a royal minority, break out once more into impotent and passing tumults, but the next generation of them were and could be nothing but courtiers; an aristocracy still for purposes of rapine and oppression, for resistance to the despotism of the monarch they were as the feeblest of the multitude. A most necessary and salutary transformation in European society, and which, whether completed by the hands of a Richelieu or a Henry the Seventh, was, as M. de Vigny clearly sees (and perhaps no longer laments), the destined and inevitable preparation for the era of modern liberty and democracy. But the age was one of those (there are several of them in history) in which the greatest and most beneficial ends were accomplished by the basest means. It was the age of struggle between unscrupulous intellect and brute force; intellect not yet in a condition to assert its inherent right of supremacy by pure means, and no longer wielding, as in the great era of the Reformation, the noble weapon of an honest popular enthusiasm. Iago prime minister, is the type of the men who crumbled into dust the feudal aristocracies of Europe. In no period were the unseen springs both of the good and the evil that was done, so exclusively the viler passions of humanity: what little of honourable or virtuous feeling might exist in high places during that era, ^awas^a probably ^boftenest^b found in the aristocratic faction so justly and beneficially extirpated; for in the rule of lawless force, some noble impulses are possible in the rulers at least—in that of cunning and fraud, none.

Towards the close of Richelieu’s career, when the most difficult part of his task was done, but his sinking health, and the growing jealousy and fear of that master, one word of whom would even then have dismissed him into private life, made the cares of his station press heavier on him, and required a more constant and anxious watchfulness than ever; it was his practice to amuse the frivolous monarch with a perpetual succession of new favourites, who served his purpose till Louis was tired of them, or whom, if any of them proved capable of acquiring a permanent tenure of the royal favour, and of promoting other designs than his own, he well knew how to remove. The last, the most accomplished, and the most unfortunate of these was Henri d’Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars, and of him our author has made the hero of his tale.^c*

* * * * *

Such is Cinq-Mars, or a Conspiracy under Louis XIII—a work not free from the fault, so far as it is a fault, most common in the romantic literature of young France; it partakes somewhat of the “Literature of Despair;”^[*] it too much resembles M. Eugène Sue’s ^dearly^d novels,^[†] in which every villain dies honoured and prosperous at a good old age, after every innocent person in the tale has been crushed and exterminated by him without pity or remorse—through which the mocking laugh of a chorus of demons seems to ring in our ears that the world is delivered over to ^ean^e evil spirit, and that man is his creature and his prey. But such is not the character of M. de Vigny’s writings, and the resemblance in this single instance is only casual. Still, as a mere work of art, if the end of art be, as conceived by the ancients and by the great German writers, the production of the intrinsically beautiful, Cinq-Mars cannot be commended. A story in which the odious and the contemptible in man and life act so predominant a part, which excites our scorn or our hatred so much more than our pity—comes within a far other category than that of the Beautiful, and can be justified on no canons of taste of which that is the end. But it is not possible for the present generation of France to restrict the purposes of art within this limit. They are too much in earnest. They take life too much au sérieux. It may be possible (what some of his ^fmore^f enthusiastic admirers say of Goethe) that a thoroughly earnest mind may struggle upwards through the region of clouds and storms to an untroubled summit, where all other good sympathies and aspirations confound themselves in a serene love and culture of the calmly beautiful—looking down upon the woes and struggles of perplexed humanity with as calm a gaze (though with a more helping arm) as that of him who is most placidly indifferent to human weal. But however this may be, the great majority of persons in earnest will remain always in the intermediate region; will feel themselves more or less militant in this world—having something to pursue in it, different from the Beautiful, different from their own mental tranquillity and health, and which they will pursue, if they have the gifts of an artist, by all the resources of art, whatever becomes of canons of criticism, and beauty in the abstract. The writers and readers of works of imagination in France have the desire of amusement as much as English readers, the sense of ^gbeauty^g generally much more; but they have also, very generally, a thirst for something which shall address itself to their real-life feelings, and not to those of imagination merely—which shall give them an idea or a sentiment connected with the actual world. And if a story or a poem is ^hpossessed^h by an idea—if it powerfully exhibits some form of real life, or some conception respecting human nature or society which may tend to consequences, not only is it not necessarily expected to represent abstract beauty, but it is pardoned for exhibiting even hideousness. These considerations should enable us to understand and tolerate such works as Le Père Goriot, of Balzac, or Leoni, of George Sand, and to understand, ⁱifⁱ we do not tolerate, such as the Antony, or Richard Darlington, of Alexandre Dumas.^[*]

Now, among the ideas with which French literature has been ^jpossessed^j for the last ten years, is that of realizing, and bringing home to the imagination, the history and spirit of past ages. Sir Walter Scott, having no object but to please, and having readers who only sought to be pleased, would not have told the story of Richelieu and^k Cinq-Mars without greatly softening the colouring; and the picture would have been more agreeable than M. de Vigny’s, but it would not have been so true to the age. M. de Vigny preferred the truer to the more pleasing, and his readers have sanctioned the preference.

Even according to this view of its object, the work has obvious defects. The characters of some of the subordinate personages, Friar Joseph for instance, are even more revolting than the truth of history requires. De Thou, the pious and studious man of retirement, cast out into storms for which he was never meant—the only character of principle in the tale, yet who sacrifices principle as well as life to romantic friendship—is but coldly represented; his goodness is too simple, his attachment too instinctive, too dog-like, and so much intensity of friendship is not sufficiently accounted for; Balzac would have managed these things better. The author also crowds his story too much with characters; he cannot bear that any celebrated personage whom the age affords should be passed over, and consequently introduces many who ought not to ^lhave been^l drawn at all unless they could be drawn truly, and on whom he has not been able to employ the same accurate study as he has on his principal characters.^m Richelieu andⁿ Louis ^oXIII^o are^p historical figures ^qof^q which he has taken the trouble to ^rform a well-digested conception^r ; but he can know ^slittle^s of Milton, whom he introduces, on his way from Italy, reading his Paradise Lost, not written till twenty years after, to Corneille, Descartes, and a crowd of other poets, wits, and philosophers, in the ^tsalon^t of the celebrated courtezan, Marion ^uDelorme.^u But these are minor blemishes. As a specimen of art employed in embodying the character of an age, ^vthe merit of Cinq-Mars is very great. The^v spirit of the age penetrates every nook and corner of it; the same atmosphere which hangs over the personages of the story hangs over us; we feel the eye of the omnipresent Richelieu upon us, and the influences of France in its Catholic and aristocratic days, of ardent, pleasure-loving, laughter-loving, and danger-loving France, all ^waround^w us. To this merit is to be added,^x that the representations of feeling are always simple and graceful; the author has not, like so many inferior writers, supplied by the easy resource of mere exaggeration of colouring, the incapacity to show us anything subtle or profound, any trait we knew not before, in the workings of passion in the human heart. On the whole, Cinq-Mars is admirable as a first production of its kind, but altogether of an inferior order to its successors, the Grandeur et Servitude Militaires, and Stello; to which we proceed.

Of M. de Vigny’s prose works. Cinq-Mars alone was written previous to the revolution of 1830; and though the ^yroyalist^y tendency of the author’s political opinions is manifest throughout—indeed the book is one long protest against the levelling of the feudal aristocracy—it does not, nor does any part of the ^zroyalist^z literature of the last twenty years, entirely answer to our description of the Conservative school of poetry and romance. To find a real Conservative literature in France one must look earlier than the first Revolution, as, to study the final transformation of that literature, one must descend below the last. One must distinguish three periods; Conservatism triumphant, Conservatism militant, Conservatism vanquished. The first is represented by Racine, Fénélon, and Voltaire in his tragedies, before he quitted the paths of his predecessors. Jean Jacques Rousseau is the father and founder of the Movement literature of France, and Madame de Staël its second great apostle: in them first the revolt of the modern mind against the social arrangements and doctrines which had descended from of old, spoke with the inspired voice of genius.^a At the head of the literature of Conservatism in its second or militant period, stands Chateaubriand: a man whose name marks one of the turning points in the literary history of his country: ^bpoetically a Conservative^b to the inmost core—rootedly feudal and Catholic—whose genius burst into life during the tempest of a revolution which hurled down from their pedestals all his objects of reverence; which saddened his imagination, modified (without impairing) his Conservatism by the addition of its ^cmultiform^c experiences, and made the world to him too full of disorder and gloom, too much a world without harmony, and ill at ease, to allow of his exhibiting the pure untroubled spirit of Conservative poetry as^d exemplified in Southey, or still more in Wordsworth. To this literature, of Conservatism discouraged but not yet disenchanted, still hopeful and striving to set up again its old idols, Cinq-Mars belongs. From the final and hopeless overthrow of the old order of society in July 1830, begins the era of Conservatism disenchanted—Conservatism which is already in the past tense—which for practical purposes is abandoned, and only contributes its share, as all past associations and experiences do, towards shaping and colouring the individual’s impressions of the present.

This is the character which pervades the two principal of M. de Vigny’s more recent works, the Servitude et Grandeur Militaires, and Stello. He has lost his faith in Royalism, and in the system of opinions connected with it. His eyes are opened to all the iniquities and hypocrisies of the state of society which is passing away. But he cannot take up with any of the systems of politics, and of either irreligious or religious philosophy, which profess to lay open the mystery of what is to follow, and to guarantee that the new order of society will not have its own iniquities and hypocrisies of as dark a kind. He has no faith in any systems, ^eor^e in man’s power of prophecy; nor is he sure that the new tendencies of society, take them for all in all, have more to satisfy the wants of a thoughtful and loving spirit, than the old had; at all events not so much more, as to make the condition of human nature a cheerful subject to him. He looks upon life, and sees most things crooked, and (saving whatever assurance his religious impressions may ^fafford^f to him that in some unknown way all things must be working for good) sees not how they shall be made straight. This is not a happy state of mind, but it is not an unfavourable one to poetry. If the ^gworse^g forms of it produce a “Literature of Despair,” the better are seen in a writer like M. de Vigny—who having now no ^htheories of his own or of his teachers^h to save the credit of, looks life steadily in the face—applies himself to understanding whatever of evil, and of heroic struggle with evil, it presents to his individual experience—and gives forth his pictures of both, with deep feeling, but with the calmness of one who has no point to carry, no quarrel to maintain, over and above “the general one of every son of Adam with his lot here below.”

M. de Vigny has been a soldier, and he has been, and is, a poet: the situation and feelings of a soldier (especially a soldier not in active service), and, so far as the measure of his genius admits, those of a poet, are what he is best acquainted with, and what, therefore, as a man of earnest mind, not now taking anything on trust, it was most natural he should attempt to delineate. The Souvenirs Militaires are the embodiment of the author’s experiences in the one capacity, Stello, in the other. Each consists of three touching and beautifully told stories, founded on fact, in which the life and position of a soldier in modern times, and of a poet at all times, in their relation to society, are shadowed out. In relation to society chiefly; for that is the prominent feature in all the speculations of the French mind; and thence it is that their poetry is so much shallower than ours, and their works of fiction so much deeper; that, of the metaphysics of every mode of feeling and thinking, so little is to be learnt from them, and of its social influences so much.

The soldier, and the poet, appear to M. de Vigny alike misplaced, alike ill at ease, in the present condition of human life. In the soldier he sees a human being set apart for a profession doomed to extinction, and doomed consequently, in the interval, to a continual decrease of dignity and of the sympathies of mankind. War he sees drawing to a close; compromises and diplomatic arrangements now terminate the differences among civilized nations; the army is reduced more and more to mere parade, or the functions of a police; called out from time to time, to shed its own blood and that of malcontent fellow-citizens in tumults where much popular hatred is to be earned, but no glory; disliked by taxpayers for its burthensomeness; looked down upon by the industrious for its enforced idleness: its employers themselves always in dread of its numbers, and jealous of its restlessness, which, in a soldier, is but the impatience of a man who is useless and nobody, for a chance of being useful and ⁱof beingⁱ something. The soldier thus remains with all the burthens, all the irksome restraints of his condition, aggravated, but without the hopes which lighted it up, the excitements which gave it zest. Those alone, says M. de Vigny, who have been soldiers, know what servitude is. To the soldier alone is obedience, passive and active, the law of his life, the law of every day and of every moment; obedience not stopping at sacrifice, nor even at crime. In him alone is the abnegation of his self-will, of his liberty of independent action, absolute and unreserved; the grand distinction of humanity, the responsibility of the individual as a moral agent, being made over, once for all, to superior authority. The type of human nature which these circumstances create, well deserves the study of the artist and the philosopher. M. de Vigny has deeply meditated on it. He has drawn with delicacy and profundity that mixture of Spartan and stoical impassibility with child-like insouciance and bonhomie, which is the result, on the one hand, of a life of painful and difficult obedience to discipline—on the other, of a conscience freed from concern or accountability for the quality of the actions of which that life is made up. On the means by which the moral position of the soldier might be raised, and his hardships alleviated, M. de Vigny has ^jideas^j worthy of the consideration of him who is yet to come—the statesman who has care and leisure for plans of social amelioration unconnected with party contests and the cry of the hour. His stories, full of melancholy beauty, will carry into thousands of minds and hearts which would otherwise have been unvisited by it, a conception of a soldier’s trials and a soldier’s virtues it times which, like ours, are not those of martial glory.

The first of these tales at least, if not all the three, if the author’s words are to be taken literally, is unvarnished fact. But familiar as the modern French romance-writers have made us with the artifice of assimilating their fictions, for the sake of ^kartistic^k reality, to actual recollections, we dare not trust these appearances; and we must needs suppose that, though suggested by facts, the stories are indebted to M. de Vigny’s invention not only for their details, but for some of their main circumstances. If he ^lhad been^l so fortunate as to meet with facts which, related as they actually occurred, served so perfectly as these do his purposes of illustration, he would hardly have left any possibility of doubt as to their authenticity. He must know the infinite distance, as to power of influencing the mind, between the best contrived and most probable fiction, and the smallest fact.

The first tale, “Laurette, ou Le Cachet Rouge,”^[*] is the story of an old chef de bataillon (an intermediate grade between captain and major), whom the author, when following Louis XVIII in the retreat to Ghent, overtook on his march. This old man was leading along the miry road, on a day of pelting rain, a shabby mule drawing “a little wooden cart covered over with three hoops and a piece of black oilcloth, and resembling a cradle on a pair of wheels.”^[†] On duty he was ^mescorting^m the King as far as the frontier, and on duty he was about to return from thence to his regiment, to fight ⁿagainstⁿ the King at Waterloo. He had begun life at sea, and had been taken from the merchant service to command a brig of war, when the navy, like the army, was left without officers by the emigration. In 1797, under the government of the Directory, he weighed anchor for Cayenne, with sixty soldiers and a prisoner, one of those whom the coup d’état of the 18th ^oof^o Fructidor had consigned to deportation. Along with this prisoner, whom he was ordered to treat with respect, he received a packet “with three red seals, the middle one of enormous size,”^[*] not to be opened till the vessel reached one degree north of the Line. As he was nailing-up this packet, the possession of which made him ^pfeel^p uncomfortable, in a nook of his cabin, safe and in sight, his prisoner, a mere youth, entered, holding by the hand a beautiful girl of seventeen. His offence, it appeared, was a newspaper article: he had “trusted in their liberty of the press,”^[†] had stung the Directory, and, only four days after his marriage, he was seized, tried, and received sentence of death, commuted for deportation to Cayenne, whither his young wife determined on accompanying him. We will not trust ourselves to translate any of the scenes which exhibit these two: a Marryat would be required to find a style for rendering the sailor-like naiveté of the honest officer’s recital. A more exquisite picture we have never seen of innocence and ingenuousness, true warm-hearted affection, and youthful buoyancy of spirits breaking out from under the load of care and sorrow which had been laid so early and so suddenly on their young heads. They won the good-natured captain’s heart: he had no family and no ties; he offered, on arriving at Cayenne, to settle there with his little savings, and adopt them as his children. On reaching the prescribed latitude he broke the fatal seal, and shuddered at beholding the sentence of death, and an order for immediate execution. After a terrible internal struggle, military discipline prevailed: he did as was commanded him, and “that moment,” says he, “has lasted for me to the present time; as long as I live I shall drag it after me as a galley-slave drags his chain.” Laurette became an incurable idiot. “I felt something in me which said—remain with her to the end of thy days and protect her.” Her mother was dead; her relations wished to put her into a madhouse; “I turned my back upon them, and kept her with me.”^[‡] Taking a disgust to the sea, he exchanged into the army; the unhappy girl was with him in all Napoleon’s campaigns, even in the retreat from Russia, tended by him like a daughter, and when the author overtook him he was conducting her in the cart with its three hoops and its canvas cover. The author shows her to us—a picture not inferior to Sterne’s Maria,^[*] and which ^qdeserves to^q live as long: to detach it from the rest of the story would be unjust to the author. M. de Vigny parted from the old ^rofficer^r at the frontier, and learnt, long after, that he perished at Waterloo; she, left alone, and consigned to a madhouse, died in three days.

“La Veillée de Vincennes”^[†] is a less tragical story: the life and destiny of an old adjutant of artillery, with whom the author, an officer in the guards, then in garrison at Vincennes, made acquaintance in the court-yard of the fortress, the evening previous to a general review and inspection. The old adjutant, who was in charge of the powder, was anxiously casting up long columns of figures, feeling himself eternally disgraced if there should be found on the morrow the most trifling inaccuracy in his books; and regretting the impossibility, from the late hour, of giving another glance that night at the contents of the powder magazine. The soldiers of the guard, who were not merely the élite of the army, but the élite of the élite, “thought themselves,” says our author,

This hen, the delight of her master and the pet of the soldiers, could not endure any person not in uniform. At a late hour that night the author caught the sound of music from an open window: he approached; the voices were those of the old adjutant, his daughter, and a young non-commissioned officer of artillery, her intended husband; they saw him, invited him in, and we owe to this evening a charming description of the simple, innocent interior of this little family, and their simple history. The old soldier was the orphan child of a villager of Montreuil, near Versailles; brought up, and taught music and gardening, by the curé of his village. At sixteen, a word sportively dropped by Marie Antoinette when, alone with the Princess de Lamballe, she met him and his pretty playmate Pierrette in the park of Montreuil, made him enlist ^sas^s a soldier, hoping to be made a serjeant and to marry Pierrette. The latter wish was in time accomplished through the benevolence of Marie Antoinette, who, finding him resolute not to owe the attainment of his wishes to the bounty of a patron, herself taught Pierrette to sing and act in the opera of Rose et Colas,^[§] and through her protection the début of the unknown actress was so successful that in one representation she earned a suitable portion for a soldier’s wife. The merit of this little anecdote of course lies in the management of the details, which, for nature and gracefulness, would do credit to the first names in French literature. Pierrette died young, leaving her husband with two treasures, an only daughter, and a miniature of herself, painted by the Princess de Lamballe. Since then he had lived a life of obscure integrity, and had received all the military honours attainable by a private soldier, but no promotion, which, indeed, he had never much sought, thinking it a greater honour to be a serjeant in the guard than a captain in the line. “How poor,” thought M. de Vigny.

An hour or two after this time the author was awakened from sleep by something like the shock of an earthquake: part of one of the powder magazines had exploded. With difficulty and peril the garrison stopped the spread of mischief. On reaching the seat of the catastrophe, they found the fragments of the body of the old adjutant, who^t, apparently having^t risen at early dawn for one more examination of the powder, had, by some accident, set it on fire. The King presently arrived to return thanks and distribute rewards: he came, and departed. “I thought,” says M. de Vigny, “of the family of the poor adjutant: but I was alone in thinking of them. In general, when princes pass anywhere they pass too quickly.”^[†]

“La Vie et la Mort du Capitaine Renaud, ou La Canne de Jonc,”^[‡] is a picture of a more elevated description than either of these two, delineating a character of greater intellectual power and a loftier moral greatness. ^uCaptain^u Renaud is a philosopher; one like those of old, who has learnt the wisdom of life from its experiences; has weighed in the balance the greatnesses and littlenesses of the world, and has carried with him from every situation in which he has been placed, and every trial and temptation to which he has been subject, the impressions it was fitted to leave on a thoughtful and sensitive mind. There is no story, no incident, in this life; there is but a noble character, unfolding to us the process of its own formation; not ^vso much telling^v us, ^was^w making us ^xsee^x , how one circumstance disabused it of false objects of esteem and admiration, how another revealed to it the true. We feel with the young soldier his youthful enthusiasm for Napoleon, and for all of which that name is a symbol; we see this enthusiasm die within him as the truth dawns upon him that this great man is an actor, that the prestige with which he overawed the world is in much, if not in the largest portion of it, the effect of stage-trick, and that a life built upon deception, and directed to essentially selfish ends, is not the ideal he had worshipped. He learns to know a real hero in Collingwood, whose prisoner he is for five years; and never was that most beautiful of military and naval characters drawn in a more loving spirit, or with a nobler appreciation, than in this book. From Collingwood, all his life a martyr to duty—the benignant father and guardian angel of all under his command—who pining for an English home, his children growing up to womanhood without having seen him, lived and died at sea, because his country or his country’s institutions could not furnish him a successor;—from him the hero of our author’s tale learnt to exchange the paltry admiration of mere power and success, the worship of the vulgar objects of ambition and vanity, for a heartfelt recognition of the greatness of devotion and self-sacrifice. A spirit like that of Collingwood governed and pervaded the remainder of his life. One bitter remembrance he had: it was of a night attack upon a Russian outpost, in which, hardly awakened from sleep, an innocent and beautiful youth, one of the boys of fourteen who sometimes held officers’ commissions in the Russian army, fell dead in his gray-haired father’s sight, by the unconscious hand of Renaud. He never used sabre more, and was known to the soldiers by carrying ever after a canne de jonc, which dropped from the dying hand of the poor boy. Many and solemn were the thoughts on war and the destiny of a soldier, which grew^y in him from this passage in his life—nor did it ever cease to haunt his remembrance, and, at times, vex his conscience with misgivings. Unambitious, unostentatious, and therefore unnoticed, he did his duty always and everywhere without reward or distinction, until, in the Three Days of July 1830, a military point of honour retaining him with his corps on the Royalist side, he received his death-wound by a shot from a poor street-boy—who tended him in tears and remorse in his last moments, and to whom he left by will a provision for his education and maintenance, on condition that he should not become a soldier.

Such is a brief outline of this remarkable book: to which we have felt throughout, and feel still more on looking back, what scanty justice we have done. Among the writings of our day we know not one which breathes a nobler spirit, or in which every detail is conceived and wrought out in a manner more worthy of that spirit. But whoever would know what it is, must read the book itself. No résumé can convey any idea of it; the impression it makes is not the sum of the impressions of particular incidents or particular sayings, it is the effect of the tone and colouring of the whole. We do not seem to be listening to the author, to be receiving a “moral” from any of his stories, or from his characters an “example” prepense; the poem of human life is opened before us, and M. de Vigny does but chaunt from it, in a voice of subdued sadness, a few strains telling of obscure wisdom and unrewarded virtue; of those antique characters which, without self-glorification or hope of being appreciated, “carry out,” as he expresses it, “the sentiment of duty to its extremest consequences,”^[*] and whom he avers, as a matter of personal experience, that he has never met with in any walk of life but the profession of arms.

Stello^[†] is a work of similar merit to the Military Recollections, though, we think, somewhat inferior. The poet, and his condition—the function he has to perform in the world, and its treatment of him—are the subject of the book. Stello, a young poet, having, it would appear, no personal cause of complaint against the world, but subject to fits of nervous despondency, seeks relief under one of these attacks from a mysterious personage, the docteur noir; and discloses to him that in his ennui and his thirst for activity and excitement, he has almost determined to fling himself into politics, and sacrifice himself for some one of the parties or forms of government which are struggling with one another in the world. The doctor prescribes to him three stories, exhibiting the fate of the poet under every form of government, and the fruitlessness of his expecting from the world, or from men of the world, aught but negligence or contempt. The stories are of three poets, all of whom the docteur noir has seen die, as, in fact, the same person might have been present at all their deaths: under three different governments—in an absolute monarchy, a constitutional government, and a democratic revolution. Gilbert, the poet and satirist, called from his poverty Gilbert sans-culotte, who died mad in a hospital at Paris, he who wrote in the last days of his life the verses beginning

• Au banquet de la vie infortuné convive
• J’apparus un jour, et je meurs^[‡] —

Chatterton—

• the marvellous boy,
• The sleepless soul, who perished in his pride^[§] —

driven to suicide at eighteen by the anguish of disappointment and neglect; and André Chénier, the elder brother of Chénier the revolutionary poet—whose own poems, published not till many years after his death,^[¶] were at once hailed by the new school of poetry in France as having anticipated what they ^zhad^z since done, and given the real commencement to the new era: he perished by the guillotine only two days before the fall of Robespierre; on the scaffold he exclaimed, striking his forehead, “Il y avait pourtant quelque chose là!”^[*] The stories adhere strictly to the spirit of history, though not to the literal facts, and are, as usual, beautifully told, especially the last and most elaborate of them, “André Chénier.”^[†] In this tale we are shown the prison of Saint-Lazare during the reign of terror, and the courtesies and gallantries of polished life still blossoming in the foulness of the dungeon and on the brink of the tomb. Madame de St. Aignan, with her reserved and delicate passion for André Chénier, is one of the most graceful of M. de Vigny’s creations. We are brought into the presence of Robespierre and Saint-Just—who are drawn, not indeed like Catoes and Brutuses, though there have been found in our time Frenchmen not indisposed to take that view of them. But the hatred of exaggeration ^a which always characterizes M. de Vigny, does not desert him here: the terrorist chiefs do not figure in his pages as monsters thirsting for blood, nor as hypocrites and impostors with merely the low aims of selfish ambition: either of these representations would have been false to history. He shows us these men as they were, as such men could not but have been; men distinguished, morally, chiefly by two qualities, entire hardness of heart, and the most overweening and bloated self-conceit: for nothing less, assuredly, could lead any man to believe that his individual judgment respecting the public good is a warrant to him for exterminating all who are suspected of forming any other judgment, and for setting up a machine to cut off heads,^b sixty or seventy every day, till some unknown futurity be accomplished, some Utopia realized.

The lesson which the docteur noir finds in these tragical histories, for the edification of poets, is still that of abnegation: to expect nothing ^cfor themselves^c from changes in society or in political institutions; to renounce for ever the idea that the world will, or can be expected to fall at their feet and worship them; to consider themselves, once for all, as martyrs, if they are so, and instead of complaining, to take up their cross and bear it.

This counsel is so essentially wise, and^d so much required everywhere, but above all in France—where the idea that intellect ought to rule the world, an idea in itself true and just, has taken such root that every youth who fancies himself a thinker or an artist thinks ^ethat^e he has a right to everything society has to give, and ^fdeems himself^f the victim of ingratitude because he is not loaded with its riches and honours; M. de Vigny has so genuine a feeling of the true greatness of a poet, of the spirit which has dwelt in all poets deserving the name of great—that he may be pardoned for what there is in his picture of a poet’s position and destiny in the actual world, somewhat morbid and overcharged, though with a^g foundation of universal truth. It is most true that, whether in poetry or in philosophy, a person endowed in any eminent degree with genius—originality—the gift of seeing truths at a greater depth than the world can penetrate, or of feeling deeply and justly things which the world has not yet learnt to feel—that such a person ^hneeds^h not hope to be appreciated, to be otherwise than made light of and evil entreated, in virtue of what is greatest in him, his genius. For (except in things which can be reduced to mathematical demonstration, or made obvious to sense) that which all mankind ⁱwill beⁱ prepared to see ^jand understand to-morrow^j , it cannot require much genius to perceive ^kto-day^k ; and all persons of distinguished originality, whether thinkers or artists, are subject to the eternal law, that they must themselves create the tastes or the habits of thought by ^lmeans of^l which they will afterwards be appreciated.^[*] No great poet or philosopher ^msince the Christian era^m (apart from the accident of a rich patron) could have ⁿgained either rankⁿ or subsistence ^oas^o a poet or a philosopher; but things are not, and have seldom been, so badly ordered in the world, as that he could not get it in any other way. Chatterton, and probably Gilbert, could have earned an honest livelihood, if their inordinate pride would have accepted^p it in the common paths of obscure industry. And much as it is to be lamented, for the world’s sake more than that of the individual, that they who are equal to the noblest things are not reserved for such,—it is nevertheless true that persons of genius, persons whose superiority is that they can do what others cannot do, can generally also, if they choose, do better than others that which others do, and which others are willing to honour and reward. If they cannot, it is usually from something ill regulated in themselves, something to be cured of which would be for the health even of their own minds; perhaps oftenest because they will not take the pains which less gifted persons are willing to take, though less than half as much would suffice; because the habit of doing with ease things on a large scale, makes them impatient of slow and unattractive toil. It is their own choice, then. If they wish for worldly honour and profit, let them seek it in the way others do; the struggle indeed is hard, and the attainment uncertain, but not specially so to them; on the contrary, they have advantages over most of their competitors. If they prefer their nobler vocation, they have no cause of quarrel with the world because they follow that vocation under the conditions necessarily implied in it. If it were possible that they should ^qfrom the first^q have the acclamations of the world, they could not be deserving of them; all they could be doing for the world must be comparatively little: they could not be the great men they fancy themselves.

A story, or a poem, might nevertheless be conceived, which would throw tenfold more light upon the poetic character, and upon the condition of a poet in the world, than any instance, either historical or fictitious, of the world’s undervaluing of him. It would exhibit the sufferings of a poet, not from mortified vanity, but from the poetic temperament itself—under arrangements of society made by and for harder natures, and in a world which^r, for any but the unsensitive, is not a place of contentment ever, nor of peace^suntil^s after many a hard-fought battle^r. That M. de Vigny could conceive such a subject in the spirit in which it should be conceived, is clear from the signs by which his Stello recognises himself as a poet.

a presentiment which is not always imaginary, but often the instinctive insight of a sensitive nature, which from its finer texture vibrates to impressions so evanescent as to be unfelt by others, and, by that faculty as by an additional sense, is apprised, it cannot tell how, of things without, which escape the cognizance of the less delicately organized.

These are the tests, or some of the tests, of a poetic nature; and it must be evident that to such, even when supported by a positive religious faith, and that a cheerful one, this life is naturally, or at least may easily be, a vale of tears; a place in which there is no rest. The poet who would speak of such, must do it in the spirit of those beautiful lines of Shelley—himself the most perfect type of that which he described:

• High, spirit-winged heart, who dost for ever
• Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour,
• Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed
• It over-soared this low and worldly shade,
• Lie shattered, and thy panting wounded breast
• Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest!
• I weep vain tears: blood would less bitter be,
• Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee.^[†]

The remainder of M. de Vigny’s works are plays and poems. The plays are Le More de Venise, a well-executed and very close translation of Othello; La Maréchale d’Ancre, from the same period of history as Cinq-Mars; and Chatterton, the story in Stello, with the characters more developed, the outline more filled up.^[*] Without disparagement to these works, we think the narrative style more suitable than the dramatic to the quality of M. de Vigny’s genius. If we had not read these plays, we should not have known how much of the impressiveness of his other writings comes from his own ^tpresence^t in them (if the expression may be allowed), animating and harmonizing the picture, by blending with its natural tints the colouring of his own feelings and character.

Of the poems^[†] much were to be said, if a foreigner could be considered altogether a competent judge of them. For our own part we confess that, of the admirable poetry ^uto be found^u in French literature, that part is most poetry to us, which is written in prose. In regard to verse-writing, we would even exceed the severity of Horace’s precept against mediocrity;^[‡] we hold, that nothing should be written in verse which is not exquisite. In prose, anything may be said which is worth saying at all; in verse, only what is worth saying better than prose can say it. The gems alone of thought and fancy, are worth setting with so finished and elaborate a workmanship; and even of them, those only whose effect is heightened by it: which takes place under two conditions; and in one or other of these two, if we are not mistaken, must be found the origin and justification of all composition in verse. A thought or feeling requires verse for its adequate expression, when in order that it may dart into the soul with the speed of a lightning-flash, the ideas or images that are to convey it require to be pressed closer together than is compatible with the rigid grammatical construction of ^vthe prose sentence^v . One recommendation of verse, therefore, is, that it affords a language more condensed than prose. The other is derived from one of the natural laws of the human mind, in the utterance of its thoughts impregnated with its feelings. All emotion which has taken possession of the whole being—which flows unresistedly, and therefore equably—instinctively seeks a language that flows equably like itself; and must either find it, or be conscious of an unsatisfied want, which even impedes and prematurely stops the flow of the feeling. Hence, ever since man has been man, all deep and sustained feeling has tended to express itself in rhythmical language; and the deeper the feeling, the more characteristic and decided the rhythm; provided always the feeling be sustained as well as deep; for a fit of passion has no natural connexion with verse or music, a mood of passion has the strongest. No one, who does not hold this distinction in view, will comprehend the importance which the Greek lawgivers and philosophers attached to music, and which appears inexplicable till we understand how perpetual an aim of their polity it was to subdue fits of passion, and to sustain and reinforce moods of it.^* This view of the origin of rhythmic utterance in general, and verse in particular, naturally demands short poems, it being impossible that a feeling so intense as to require a more rhythmical cadence than that of eloquent prose, should sustain itself at its highest elevation for long together; and we ^xthink (heretical as the opinion may be)^x that, except in the ages when the absence of written books occasioned all things to be thrown into verse for facility of memory, or in those other ages in which writing in verse may happen to be a ^yfashion^y , a long poem will always be felt ^z(though perhaps unconsciously)^z to be something unnatural and hollow; something which it requires the genius of a Homer, a Dante, or a Milton, to induce posterity to read, or at least to read through.

Verse, then, being only allowable where prose would be inadequate; and the inadequacy of prose arising either from its not being sufficiently condensed, or from its not having cadence enough to express sustained passion, which is never long-winded—it follows, that if prolix writing is vulgarly called prosy writing, a very true feeling of the distinction between verse and prose shows itself in the vulgarism; and that the one unpardonable sin in a versified composition, next to the absence of meaning, and of true meaning, is diffuseness. From this sin it will be impossible to exculpate M. Alfred de Vigny. His poems, graceful and often fanciful though they be, are, to us, marred by their diffuseness.

Of the more considerable among them, that which most resembles what, in our conception, a poem^a ought to be, is “Moise.”^[*] The theme is still the sufferings of the man of genius, the inspired man, the intellectual ruler and seer: not however, this time, the great man persecuted by the world, but the great man honoured by it, and in his natural place at the helm of it, ^bhe^b on whom all rely, whom all

• ^*w The Dorian mood
• Of flutes and soft recorders; such as raised
• To height of noblest temper heroes old
• Arming to battle; and, instead of rage,
• Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved
• With dread of death, to flight or foul retreat,
• Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage,
• With solemn touches, troubled thoughts, and chase
• Anguish, and doubt, and fear, and sorrow and pain,
• From mortal or immortal minds.

• [Milton, Paradise Lost, in The Poetical Works (London: Tonson, 1695), p. 18 (Bk. I, ll. 550-9).]

reverence—Moses on Pisgah, Moses the appointed of God, the judge, captain and hierarch of the chosen race—crying to God in anguish of spirit for deliverance and rest; that the cares and toils, the weariness and solitariness of heart, of him who is lifted altogether above his brethren, be no longer imposed upon him—that the Almighty may withdraw his gifts, and suffer him to sleep the sleep of common humanity. His cry is heard; when the clouds disperse, which veiled the summit of the mountain from the Israelites waiting in prayer and prostration at its foot, Moses is no more seen: and now, “marching towards the promised land, Joshua advanced, pale and pensive of mien; for he was already the chosen of the Omnipotent.”^[*]

The longest of the poems is “Eloa; or, the Sister of the Angels;”^[†] a story of a bright being, created from a tear of the Redeemer, and who falls, tempted by pity for the Spirit of Darkness. The idea is fine, and the details graceful, a word we have often occasion to use in speaking of M. de Vigny: but this and most of his other poems are written in the heroic verse, that is to say, he has aggravated the imperfections, for his purpose, of the most prosaic language in Europe, by choosing to write in its most prosaic metre. The absence of prosody, of long and short or accented and unaccented syllables, renders the French language essentially unmusical; while—the unbending structure of its sentence, of which there is essentially but one type for verse and prose, almost precluding inversions and elisions—all the screws and pegs of the prose sentence are retained to encumber the verse. If it is to be raised at all above prose, variety of rhythm must be sought in variety of versification; there is no room for it in the monotonous structure of the heroic metre. Where is it that Racine, always an admirable writer, appears to us more than an admirable prose writer? In his irregular metres—in the choruses of Esther and of Athalie.^[‡] It is not wonderful then if the same may be said of M. de Vigny. We shall conclude with the following beautiful little poem, one of the few which he has produced in the style and measure of lyric verse:

• Viens sur la mer, jeune fille,
• Sois sans effroi,
• Viens sans trésor, sans famille,
• Seule avec moi.
• Mon bateau sur les eaux brille,
• Voi ses mâts, voi
• Ses pavillons et sa quille.
• Ce n’est rien qu’une coquille,
• Mais j’y suis roi.
• Pour l’esclave on fit la terre,
• O ma beauté!
• Mais pour l’homme libre, austère,
• L’immensité.
• Les flots savent un mystère
• De volupté;
• Leur soupir involontaire
• Veut dire: amour solitaire,
• Et liberté.^[*]

MILNES’S POEMS

1838

EDITORS’ NOTE

London and Westminster Review, VII & XXIX (Aug., 1838), 308-20. Headed: “Art. III.—1. Poems of Many Years. By Richard Monckton Milnes. [London: Moxon,] 1838. (For private circulation.) / 2. Memorials of a Residence on the Continent, and Historical Poems. By Richard Monckton Milnes. [London:] Moxon. 1838.” (The two volumes also appeared with title pages identifying them as Vols. I and II of The Poems of Richard Monckton Milnes [London: Moxon, 1838].) Running titles: left-hand, “Milnes’ Poems of Many Years”; right-hand, “The Lay of the Humble” (the equivalent of pp. 505.9-506.18, 507.17-508.12), “Coleridgian Toryism” (pp. 509.9-510.4, 510.41-511.35, 512.38-513.27), and “Departure of St. Patrick” (pp. 514.27-515.22). Signed: “S.” Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Milnes’ Poems in the same number of the same review”—i.e., as “Bentham” (MacMinn, p. 50). The Somerville College copy (tear sheets) has no corrections or emendations.

For comment, see the Introduction, pp. xli-xlii above.

Milnes’s Poems

these two volumes of poems, although the one was not designed for publication, and the other is not yet published, are not entirely unknown even to the general reader—some beautiful extracts from the earlier volume, and some just praises of both, having appeared in an article, from a pen not to be mistaken, in one of our monthly periodicals.^[*] This first draught from the well leaves it, however, still fresh and full, and we too having been admitted to it, need not fear to exercise the privilege of dispensing its waters. We regard Mr. Milnes’ poems as of singular merit in their kind, and the kind as one possessing strong claims upon the notice of a student of the age. They are representative of a whole order of thoughts and feelings; they are a voice from one corner of the mind and heart of this age, which had not found fitting poetical utterance till now; and there are many who will recognise in it the voice of their own soul, the language of their daily consciousness.

But we prefer beginning our selection by something not characteristic; and showing that the author is a poet, before we detain the reader with any remarks on the particular character of his poetry. We begin, therefore, unhesitatingly with

• THE LAY OF THE HUMBLE
• • I have no comeliness of frame,
  • No pleasant range of feature;
  • I’m feeble, as when first I came
  • To earth, a weeping creature;
  • My voice is low whene’er I speak
  • And singing faint my song;
  • But though thus cast among the weak,
  • I envy not the strong.
• • The trivial part in life I play
  • Can have so light a bearing
  • On other men, who, night or day,
  • For me are never caring;
  • That, though I find not much to bless,
  • Nor food for exaltation,
  • I know that I am tempted less,
  • And that is consolation.
• • The beautiful! the noble blood!
  • I shrink as they pass by,
  • Such power for evil or for good,
  • Is flashing from each eye,
  • They are indeed the stewards of Heaven,
  • High-headed and strong-handed:
  • From those, to whom so much is given,
  • How much may be demanded!
• • ’Tis true, I am hard buffeted,
  • Though few can be my foes,
  • Harsh words fall heavy on my head,
  • And unresisted blows;
  • But then I think—“Had I been born—
  • Hot spirit—sturdy frame—
  • And passion prompt to follow scorn—
  • I might have done the same.”
• • To me men are for what they are,
  • They wear no masks with me;
  • I never sicken’d at the jar
  • Of ill-tuned flattery;
  • I never mourned affections lent
  • In folly or in blindness;—
  • The kindness that on me is spent
  • Is pure, unasking kindness.
• • And, most of all, I never felt
  • The agonizing sense
  • Of seeing love from passion melt
  • Into indifference:
  • The fearful shame that, day by day,
  • Burns onward, still to burn,
  • To have thrown your precious heart away,
  • And met this black return.
• • I almost fancy that the more
  • I am cast out from men,
  • Nature has made me of her store
  • A worthier denizen:
  • As if it pleased her to caress
  • A plant grown up so wild,
  • As if the being parentless
  • Made me the more her child.
• • Athwart my face when blushes pass
  • To be so poor and weak,
  • I fall unto the dewy grass,
  • And cool my fevered cheek;
  • And hear a music strangely made,
  • That you have never heard,
  • A sprite in every rustling blade,
  • That sings like any bird.
• • My dreams are dreams of pleasantness,
  • But yet I always run,
  • As to a father’s morning kiss,
  • When rises the round sun;
  • I see the flowers on stalk and stem,
  • Light shrubs, and poplars tall,
  • Enjoy the breeze,—I rock with them,
  • We are merry brothers all.
• • I do remember well, when first
  • I saw the great blue sea,—
  • It was no stranger-face, that burst
  • In terror upon me;
  • My heart began, from the first glance,
  • His solemn pulse to follow,
  • I danced with every billow’s dance,
  • And shouted to their hollo.
• • The lamb, that at its mother’s side
  • Reclines, a tremulous thing,
  • The robin in cold winter-tide,
  • The linnet in the spring,
  • All seem to be of kin to me,
  • And love my slender hand,—
  • For we are bound, by God’s decree,
  • In one defensive band
• • And children, who the worldly mind
  • And ways have not put on,
  • Are ever glad in me to find
  • A blithe companion:
  • And when for play they leave their homes,
  • Left to their own sweet glee,
  • They hear my step, and cry—“He comes,
  • Our little friend—’tis he.”
• • Have you been out some starry night,
  • And found it joy to bend
  • Your eyes to one particular light,
  • Till it became a friend?
  • And then, so loved that glistening spot,
  • That, whether it were far,
  • Or more or less, it mattered not,—
  • It still was your own star
• • Thus, and thus only, can you know,
  • How I, even scorned I,
  • Can live in love, tho’ set so low,
  • And my ladie-love so high;
  • Thus learn, that on this varied ball,
  • Whate’er can breathe and move,
  • The meanest, lornest thing of all
  • Still owns its right to love.
• • With no fair round of household cares
  • Will my lone hearth be blest,
  • Nor can the snow of my old hairs
  • Fall on a loving breast;
  • No darling pledge of spousal faith
  • Shall I be found possessing,
  • To whom a blessing with my breath
  • Would be a double blessing;
• • But yet my love with sweets is rife,
  • With happiness it teems;
  • It beautifies my waking life,
  • And waits upon my dreams;
  • A shape that floats upon the night,
  • Like foam upon the sea,—
  • A voice of seraphim,—a light
  • Of present Deity!
• • I hide me in the dark arcade,
  • When she walks forth alone,—
  • I feast upon her hair’s rich braid,—
  • Her half-unclasped zone;
  • I watch the flittings of her dress,
  • The bending boughs between,—
  • I trace her footstep’s faery press
  • On the scarcely ruffled green.
• • Oh deep delight! the frail guitar
  • Trembles beneath her hand;
  • She sings a song she brought from far,
  • I cannot understand;
  • Her voice is always as from heaven,
  • But yet I seem to hear
  • Its music best, when thus ’tis given
  • All music to my ear
• • She has turned her tender eyes around,
  • And seen me crouching there,
  • And smiles, just as that last full sound
  • Is fainting on the air;
  • And now, I can go forth so proud,
  • And raise my head so tall,—
  • My heart within me beats so loud,
  • And musical withal—
• • And there is summer all the while,
  • Mid-winter tho’ it be,—
  • How should the universe not smile,
  • When she has smiled on me?
  • For tho’ that smile can nothing more
  • Than merest pity prove,
  • Yet pity, it was sung of yore,
  • Is not so far from love.
• • From what a crowd of lover’s woes
  • My weakness is exempt!
  • How far more fortunate than those
  • Who mark me for contempt!
  • No fear of rival happiness
  • My fervent glory smothers,
  • The zephyr fans me none the less
  • That it is bland to others
• • Thus without share in coin or land,
  • But well content to hold
  • The wealth of nature in my hand,
  • One flail of virgin gold,—
  • My love above me like a sun—
  • My own bright thoughts my wings,
  • Thro’ life I trust to flutter on,
  • As gay as aught that sings.
• • One hour I own I dread,—to die
  • Alone and unbefriended.—
  • No soothing voice, no tearful eye,
  • But that must soon be ended,
  • And then I shall receive my part
  • Of everlasting treasure,
  • In that just world where each man’s heart
  • Will be his only measure.^[*]

This poem requires no commentator; it goes straight to the common heart of humanity; and we shall be surprised if it do not become widely known, and find its way into collections. The man who can thus write, is entitled to write in verse; a privilege which we would confine to a very small proportion indeed of those who usurp it. Let such a man speak from the fulness of his own heart—give him thoughts and feelings to express which are deeply interesting to him—and it will be a little your own fault if he does not make them interesting to you. Now these poems, as a whole, if there be faith in internal evidence, do come from the heart of the writer; what they express, he feels, or has felt; they are the deepest and most earnest part of himself, thrown into melodious language; there is as much sincerity in them as there can be in words; for, properly speaking, it is only a man’s whole life which is sincere—that alone is the utterance of the whole man, contemplative and active taken together.

Of Mr. Milnes, personally, we know little or nothing, save that he is a young and active member of the House of Commons, who generally votes with the Tories; but if he be like his poems—and the man who could write them cannot be altogether unlike them—he is one of the representatives of a school which has grown up within a few years, is spreading rapidly among the refined and cultivated youth, and deserves to be much honoured, and, above all, to be understood. This school is one of the products of what may be termed the Coleridgian reaction. In politics, its aim is, to save the Church and the Aristocracy, by making them really what they pretend to be. With Conservatives of this description, however we may doubt the practicability of their objects, we feel, and have always professed, the most entire sympathy; and no one can more heartily rejoice at any accession to their numbers or influence. Mr. Milnes’ poems, however, do not show them in their character as politicians, but as men; and as such they are in some measure a class apart.

They are, in general, earnest men, with a deep sense of duty towards God and man, and of responsibility to an Eternal Judge. With this they seem not unusually to combine a degree of distrust of their own spiritual strength, very becoming in most persons, but which certainly is not usually found in those destined to accomplish great things, even in the cause of religion; for, however innocent of any vain-glorious trust in his own unassisted power or goodness, the Christian hero has generally a sure faith that upon certain simple conditions, which in his healthier moods he feels confident that he can and will fulfil, strength will be lent him from God, to perform all that God requires of him. But these men (at least in one stage of their growth) seem as though weighed down by the immensity of God’s requirements. To be a spiritual being, and to have an account to render as such, of the employment of powers and opportunities, appears to them not only an awful, but almost a fearful destiny; its dangers alarm them much more than its privileges excite; and the period of infancy, when they were alike strangers to both, is looked back to, with manly endurance no doubt, but with the fondest regret. It is astonishing how large a portion of Mr. Milnes’ poems are impregnated with this feeling; it can scarcely be more finely expressed than in the following lines:

• • Youth, that pursuest with such eager pace
  • Thy even way,
  • Thou pantest on to win a mournful race;
  • Then stay! oh, stay!
• • Pause and luxuriate in thy sunny plain;
  • Loiter,—enjoy:
  • Once past, Thou never wilt come back again
  • A second Boy.
• • The hills of Manhood wear a noble face,
  • When seen from far;
  • The mist of light from which they take their grace
  • Hides what they are.
• • The dark and weary path those cliffs between
  • Thou canst not know,
  • And how it leads to regions never green,
  • Dead fields of snow.
• • Pause, while thou may’st, nor deem that fate thy gain,
  • Which, all too fast,
  • Will drive thee forth from this delicious plain,
  • A Man at last.^[*]

And again in the following, to a child five years old:

• • Delighted soul! that in thy new abode
  • Dwellest contentedly, and knowest not
  • What men can mean who faint beneath the load
  • Of mortal life, and mourn an earthly lot
• • Who would believe thou wert so far from home?
  • Who could suppose thee exiled or astray?
  • This world of twilight whither thou art come
  • Seems just as welcome as thy native day
• • That comely form, wherein thy thoughts are pent,
  • Hiding its rebel nature, serves thee still,
  • A pliable and pleasant instrument,
  • Harmonious to thy impulses and will.
• • Thou hast not spent as yet thy little store
  • Of happy instincts:—Thou canst still beguile
  • Painful reflection and ungrateful lore
  • With many a placid dream and causeless smile
• • And when the awful stranger Evil bends
  • His eye upon thee, Thou wilt first essay
  • To turn him from his dark pursuits and ends
  • By gracious dalliance and familiar play.
• • As well might kindly words arrest the roll
  • Of billows raging o’er a wintry sea.
  • O Providence! remit to this one soul
  • Its destined years, and take it back to Thee.^[*]

Such feelings as these occur as moods, in the life probably of every person who has a conscience; but wherever they fill a large place, they point to something unhealthful either in the individual mind or in the times.

Whether as cause or consequence, these feelings are not unnaturally connected with a rather melancholy view of life. For the duty of a good man is not to these minds the simple thing it was to the religious minds of former ages. Their morality does not say only, Thou shalt abstain,—thou shalt keep thy thoughts and actions pure; it says, Thou shalt do; not to thee alone, O pastor, or to thee O missionary, but even to thee O meanest of mankind, is the boundless mass of evil which surrounds thee on every side, delivered as thy task; of which mass unless thou remove all that thou canst, the whole shall be imputed to thee.

• We have come out upon the field of Life
• To war with Evil—

says Mr. Milnes; and if the Boy, resolute and confiding in his resolve, dares hope for victory, Mr. Milnes tells him—

• Poor youthful Heart! poor noble Self-deceit!
• Weak-winged Aspirant!—Step with me aside,
• Tis for a moment,—mount this little hill,—
• Tell me, and tell thyself, what see’st Thou now.
• Look East and West, and mark how far extends
• This vainly mockt, this haughtily defied,
• This Might so easily to be laid low!
• There is no eminence on this wide space,
• So high that thou from it canst e’er behold
• A clear horizon, dark is all the space,
• Black with the masses of thine Enemy;
• There is no point where Light can penetrate
• Those densely-banded Legions,—the green plain
• Shines through no interval. Brave though thou art,
• My Boy, where is thy trust in Victory now?
• Now gaze below, gaze on that waving crowd,
• The marshalled army of Humanity,
• From which thou art come out,—Loyal thou art,
• My Boy; but what avails thy feeble Truth,
• When, as thou seest, of the huge multitude,
• The still succeeding myriads there arrayed
• For fight, how few, how miserably few,
• Not only do not fervently work out
• Their Soldier-duty, but whose craven souls
• Do not pass over to the very Foe,
• And, mingling with his numbers numberless,
• Against their brethren turn unnatural arms—
• Or else of honest wills at first, like thine,
• After the faint resistance of an hour,
• Yield themselves up half-willing prisoners,
• Soon to be won by golden-guileful tongues,
• To do blithe service in the cause of Sin!
• * * * * *
• Yet there are some to whom a strength is given,
• A will, a self-constraining energy,
• A Faith which feeds upon no earthly hope,
• Which never thinks of Victory, but content
• In its own consummation, combatting
• Because it ought to combat (even as Love
• Is its own cause, and cannot have another),
• And conscious that to find in martyrdom
• The stamp and signet of most perfect life
• Is all the science that mankind can reach,
• Rejoicing fights, and still rejoicing falls.
• It may be that to Spirits high-toned as these
• A revelation of the end of Time
• Is also granted; that they feel a sense
• Giving them firm assurance that the foe
• By which they must be crusht (in Death well-won
• Alone to find their freedom) in his turn
• Will be subdued, though not by such as They.^[*]

This is nobly expressed, and the views of life such as are natural to a clear-headed and pure-minded Conservative. Of all persons living, such a man has the fewest illusions left as to the amount of evil in the world. When times are quiet, and men’s minds settled, the unbroken respect for rules and ordinances (seldom questioned even when transgressed), and the reverence still ostensibly maintained towards those superiors, who are the representatives (however unfaithful) of all that is most venerable to man, keep the worst parts of human nature under a veil; mankind in such times seem better than they are, and are somewhat better than their genuine dispositions would prompt. In proportion as this respect wears off, and the actions of mankind become the expression of their real feelings, the veil is gone, and they appear as they are: to a Conservative, worse than they are; for to him the sham which they have discarded is still a holy truth. He has not the consolation of thinking that the old Formulas are gone because the time has come for something better; no hope and faith in a greater good beyond, tempers to him the sense of present evil.

For a good man to live healthy and happy in a world which presents to him so dreary a prospect, he requires to have a clear view at least of his own path in it; but few of the men whom we speak of seem yet to have attained this; they believe, doubtless, that they are in the right road, but we question whether most of them feel quite sure of it—as indeed in these days it is not easy that any open-minded Conservative should. In proportion as they shall arrive at full unclouded certainty respecting the course which duty marks out for themselves, a vigorous and healthful development of their active faculties will correct what may now be unduly preponderant in the merely passive part of their moral sensibility; and, whether they are destined to aid in infusing another spirit into old beliefs and institutions, or in calmly substituting others, we shall be disappointed if some of them do not play a noble part in that “combat of life”^[*] which one of them has so feelingly described. We cannot better close these remarks than by extracting a poem, in which Mr. Milnes has painted with great truth the feelings of a deeply religious mind—not lamenting to itself its own insufficiency, and the vastness of what it has to do—but, while it feels all this, still pressing on to do what it can, with that strong and living faith in its own impulses, the almost necessary condition of high and heroic deeds.

• THE DEPARTURE OF ST. PATRICK FROM SCOTLAND (From his own “Confessions”)
• • Twice to your son already has the hand of God been shown,
  • Restoring him from alien bonds to be once more your own,
  • And now it is the self-same hand, dear kinsmen, that to-day
  • Shall take me for the third time from all I love away
• • While I look into your eyes, while I hold your hands in mine,
  • What force could tear me from you, if it were not all divine!
  • Has my love ever faltered? Have I ever doubted yours?
  • And think you I could yield me now to any earthly lures?
• • I go not to some balmier land in pleasant ease to rest,—
  • I go not to content the pride that swells a mortal breast,
  • I go about a work my God has chosen me to do;
  • Surely the soul which is his child must be his servant too.
• • I seek not the great city where our sacred father dwells,—
  • I seek not the blest eremites within their sandy cells,—
  • I seek not our Redeemer’s grave in distant Palestine,—
  • Another, shorter pilgrimage, a lonelier path is mine.
• • When sunset clears and opens out the breadth of western sky,
  • To those who in yon mountain isles protect their flocks on high
  • Loom the dark outlines of a land, whose nature and whose name
  • Some have by harsh experience learnt, and all by evil fame.
• • Oh, they are wild and wanton men, such as the best will be,
  • Who know no other gifts of God but to be bold and free,
  • Who never saw how states are bound in golden bonds of law,
  • Who never knew how strongest hearts are bent by holy awe.
• • When first into their pirate hands I fell, a very boy,
  • Skirting the shore from rock to rock in unsuspecting joy,
  • I had been taught to pray, and thus those slavish days were few,
  • A wondrous hazard brought me back to liberty and you.
• • But when again they met me on the open ocean field,
  • And might of numbers prest me round and forced my arm to yield,
  • I had become a man like them, a selfish man of pride,
  • I could have curst the will of God, for shame I had not died
• • And still this torment haunted me three weary years, until
  • That summer night,—among the sheep,—upon the seaward hill,
  • When God of his miraculous grace, of his own saving thought,
  • Came down upon my lonely heart and rested unbesought!
• • That night of light! I cared not that the day-star glimmered soon,
  • For in my new-begotten soul it was already noon;
  • I knew before what Christ had done, but never felt till then
  • A shadow of the love for him that he had felt for men!
• • Strong faith was in me—on the shore there lay a stranded boat,
  • I hasted down, I thrust it out, I felt it rock afloat;
  • With nervous arm and sturdy oar I sped my watery way,
  • The wind and tide were trusty guides,—one God had I and they
• • As one from out the dead I stood among you free and whole,
  • My body Christ could well redeem, when he had saved my soul,
  • And perfect peace embraced the life that had been only pain,
  • For Love was shed upon my head from everything, like rain.
• • Then on so sweetly flowed the time, I almost thought to sail
  • Even to the shores of Paradise in that unwavering gale,
  • When something rose and nightly stood between me and my rest,
  • Most like some one, besides myself, reflecting in my breast.
• • I cannot put it into words, I only know it came,
  • A sense of self-abasing weight, intolerable shame,
  • “That I should be so vile that not one tittle could be paid
  • Of that enormous debt which Christ upon my soul had laid!”
• • This yielded to another mood, strange objects gathered near,
  • Phantoms that entered not by eye, and voices not by ear,
  • The land of my injurious thrall a gracious aspect wore,
  • I yearned the most toward the forms I hated most before
• • I seemed again upon that hill, as on that blissful night,
  • Encompast with celestial air and deep retiring light,
  • But sight and thought were fettered down, where glimmering lay below
  • A plain of gasping, struggling, men in every shape of woe
• • Faint solemn whispers gathered round, “Christ suffered to redeem,
  • Not you alone, but such as these, from this their savage dream,—
  • Lo, here are souls enough for you to bring to him, and say,
  • These are the earnest of the debt I am too poor to pay.”
• • A cloud of children freshly born, innumerable bands,
  • Past by me with imploring eyes and little lifted hands,
  • And all the Nature, I believed so blank and waste and dumb,
  • Became instinct with life and love, and echoed clearly “Come!”
• • “Amen!” said I; with eager steps a rude descent I tried,
  • And all the glory followed me like an on-coming tide,
  • With trails of light about my feet, I crost the darkling wild,
  • And as I toucht each sufferer’s hand, he rose and gently smiled.
• • Thus night on night the vision came, and left me not alone,
  • Until I swore that in that land should Christ be preacht and known,
  • And then at once strange coolness past on my long fevered brow,
  • As from the flutter of light wings; I feel, I feel it now!
• • And from that moment unto this, this last and proving one,
  • I have been calm and light at heart as if the deed were done,
  • I never thought how hard it was our earthly loves to lay
  • Upon the altar of the Lord, and watch them melt away!
• • Speak, friends! speak what you will—but change those asking looks forlorn,
  • Sustain me with reproachful words—uphold me with your scorn;
  • I know God’s heart is in me, but my human bosom fears
  • Those drops that pierce it as they fall, those full and silent tears.
• • These comrades of my earliest youth have pledged their pious care
  • To bear me to the fronting coast, and gently leave me there;
  • It may be I shall fall at once, with little toil or need,—
  • Heaven often takes the simple will for the most perfect deed.
• • Or, it may be that from that hour beneath my hand may spring
  • A line of glories unachieved by hero, sage, or king,—
  • That Christ may glorify himself in this ignoble name.
  • And shadow forth my endless life in my enduring fame.
• • All as He wills! now bless me, mother,—your cheek is almost dry —
  • Farewell, kind brothers!—only pray ye may be blest as I;
  • Smile on me, sisters,—when death comes near each of you, still smile,
  • And we shall meet again somewhere, within a little while!^[*]

MILNES’S POETRY FOR THE PEOPLE

1840

EDITORS’ NOTE

Westminster Review, XXXIV (Sept., 1840), 511-13. This notice appeared in the Poetry section of the Miscellaneous Notices part of the WR, with the heading: “Poetry for the People, and other Poems. By Richard Monckton Milnes. [London:] Moxon. 1840.” Running titles: “Miscellaneous Notices. / Poetry.” Signed: “A.” Not republished Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A short notice of Milnes’ Poetry for the people, in the same number of the same review”—i.e., as his notice of two publications on Plato (MacMinn, p. 52). No copy in the Somerville College library.

For comment, see the Introduction, p. xlii above.

Milnes’s Poetry for the People

most of these poems have already appeared in periodicals; and although they bear marks of the same hand as the two volumes already published by Mr. Milnes,^[*] there are indications of haste, and a want of finish in their composition, such as we are too apt to see in the contributions even of real poets to those fugitive pages. It is the besetting sin of the poets of our age that they write too much: even of Wordsworth, his most sincere admirers could spare nearly all which he has written in the last twenty years: and Ebenezer Elliott is wasting his great powers and noble feelings in careless, empty productions of no permanent value. It would be well for them to consider how few are the voluminous poets who have descended to posterity. Mr. Milnes has, we think, need of the same lesson; not that these poems are not good, but that he might so easily have made them better; or have written, in lieu of them, a much smaller number of far superior performances.

The “Specimens of Poetry for the People”^[†] are, for the most part, excellent in sentiment and purpose; some of them are warnings to the poor, others are rather pleadings for the poor to the rich, and therefore hardly merit their title. But neither the warnings nor the pleadings are so impressive as they would have been, had Mr. Milnes taken half the pains with them which he must have employed upon some of his earlier productions. Some of the very short poems are far more perfect; such as the following, one of several entitled “Love-Thoughts.”

• • Think not, because I walk in power,
  • While thou art by my side,
  • That I could keep the path one hour
  • Without my guard and guide.
• • The keeper left me once alone
  • Within a mad-house hall,
  • With gibber, shriek, and fixed smile
  • About me,—madmen all!
• • The horrid sense which then I felt
  • Is what my life would be,
  • If in this world of pain and guilt
  • I once lost sight of Thee.^[*]

Or this:

• • Beneath an Indian palm a girl
  • Of other blood reposes;
  • Her cheek is clear and pale as pearl,
  • Amid that wild of roses.
• • Beside a northern pine a boy
  • Is leaning, fancy-bound,
  • Nor listens where with noisy joy
  • Awaits the impatient hound.
• • Cool grows the sick and feverish calm
  • Relaxt the frosty twine,—
  • The pine-tree dreameth of the palm,
  • The palm-tree of the pine
• • As soon shall nature interlace
  • Those dimly-visioned boughs,
  • As these young lovers face to face
  • Renew their early vows!^[†]

The following is of a higher character, as suggestive to the inward imagination as it is picturesque to the outward and visual one:

• • She had left all on earth for him,
  • Her home of wealth, her name of pride,
  • And now his lamp of love was dim,
  • And, sad to tell, she had not died.
• • She watcht the crimson sun’s decline
  • From some lone rock that fronts the sea—
  • “I would, O burning heart of mine,
  • There were an ocean-rest for thee.
• • “The thoughtful moon awaits her turn,
  • The stars compose their choral crown,
  • But those soft lights can never burn
  • Till once the fiery sun is down.”^[‡]

Our last quotation shall be a legendary tale:

• • A gentle household spirit, unchallenged and unpaid,
  • Attended with his service a lonely servant-maid.
• • She seemed a weary woman, who had found life unkind,
  • Whose youth had left her early, and little left behind.
• • Most desolate and dreary her days went on until
  • Arose this unseen stranger her labours to fulfil
• • But now she walkt at leisure, secure of blame she slept,
  • The meal was always ready, the room was always swept.
• • And by the cheerful fire-light, the winter evenings long,
  • He gave her words of kindness and snatches of sweet song:—
• • With useful housewife secrets and tales of faeries fair,
  • From times when gaunt magicians and dwarfs and giants were.
• • Thus, habit closing round her, by slow degrees she nurst
  • A sense of trust and pleasure, where she had feared at first
• • When strange desire came on her, and shook her like a storm,
  • To see this faithful being distinct in outward form.
• • He was so pure a nature, of so benign a will,
  • It could be nothing fearful, it could be nothing ill.
• • At first with grave denial her prayer he laid aside,
  • Then warning and entreaty, but all in vain, he tried.
• • The wish upgrew to passion,—she urged him more and more—
  • Until, as one outwearied, but still lamenting sore,—
• • He promist in her chamber he would attend her call,
  • When from the small high window the full-moonlight should fall.
• • Most proud and glad that evening she entered to behold
  • How there her phantom-lover his presence would unfold;
• • When lo! in bloody pallor lay, on the moonlit-floor,
  • The babe she bore and murdered some thirteen years before^[*]

MACAULAY’S LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME

1843

EDITORS’ NOTE

Westminster Review, XXXIX (Feb., 1843), 105-13. Headed: “Art. V.—Lays of Ancient Rome. By Thomas Babington Macaulay. [London:] Longman. 1842.” Running title: “Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome.” Signed: “A.” Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A review of Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ in the Westminster Review for Febry. 1843 (No. 76.)” (MacMinn, p. 55). The Somerville College copy (tear sheets) is headed in Mill’s hand: “(Westminster Review, February 1843)” and two corrections are made: at 525.31 “no” is altered to “on”, and at 527n.6 “ylaeddfed” is changed to “deadly feud”; there was a second issue of this number (a tear-sheet copy of Mill’s article in this version is also in Somerville College, with no corrections or emendations), in which the first correction was made, and part of the second (the reading became “deadly fed”).

For comment, see the Introduction, p. xlii above.

Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome

the general reader, even if he be so much an exception among general readers as to have remained personally ignorant of this volume, must be sufficiently cognizant of its contents from criticisms and extracts, not to require either outline or additional specimens on the present occasion; but he must not suppose that specimens, however well selected, can give a sufficiently favourable idea of such a work. No one can judge of a tragedy, from seeing only its fifth act, or of a novel from having read its most highly-wrought scenes; and the more perfect and harmonious the composition may be as a work of art, the less can those portions of it be properly estimated by themselves, because they pre-suppose in the reader or spectator a state of excitement as well as a mental preparation which can only be the effect of the previous portions. A reviewer, fresh from reading these poems, quotes the passage by which he has been most strongly moved, expecting that it will move his own reader as strongly; but it is nothing to be in at the death when you have not followed the hounds: and we ourselves at first read in the newspapers with a certain sensation of flatness, the very incidents and descriptions which afterwards, when read in their proper place, acted upon us like the most stirring strains of Campbell or Scott.

For it is with those two great masters of modern ballad poetry that Mr. Macaulay’s performances are really to be compared, and not with the real ballads or epics of an early age. The Lays, in point of form, are not in the least like the genuine productions of a primitive age or people, and it is no blame to Mr. Macaulay that they are not. He professes imitation of Homer, but we really see no resemblance, except in the nature of some of the incidents, and the animation and vigour of the narrative; and the Iliad, after all, is not the original ballads of the Trojan war, but those ballads moulded together, and wrought into the forms of a more civilized and cultivated age. It is difficult to conjecture what the forms of the old Roman ballad may have been, and certain, that whatever they were, they could no more satisfy the æsthetic requirements of modern culture, than an ear accustomed to the great organ of Freyburg or Harlem could relish Orpheus’s hurdygurdy; although the airs which Orpheus played, if they could be recovered, might perhaps be executed with great effect on the more perfect instrument.

The forms of Mr. Macaulay’s ballad poetry are essentially modern; they are those of the romantic and chivalrous, not the classical ages, and even in those they are a reproduction, not of the originals, but of the imitations of Scott. In this we think he has done well, for Scott’s style is as near to that of the ancient ballad as we conceive to be at all compatible with real popular effect on the modern mind. The difference between the two may be seen by the most cursory comparison of any real old ballad, “Chevy Chase”^[*] for instance, with the last canto of Marmion,^[†] or with any of these Lays. Conciseness is the characteristic of the real ballad—diffuseness, of the modern adaptation. The old bard did everything by single touches; Scott and Mr. Macaulay by repetition and accumulation of particulars. They produce all their effect by what they say; he by what he suggested; by what he stimulated the imagination to paint for itself. But then the old ballads were not written for the light reading of tired readers. To do the work in their way, they required to be brooded over, or had at least the aid of tune and of impassioned recitation. Stories which are to be told to children in the age of eagerness and excitability, or sung in banquet halls to assembled warriors, whose daily ideas and feelings supply a flood of comment ready to gush forth on the slightest hint of the poet, cannot fly too swift and straight to the mark. But Mr. Macaulay wrote to be only read, and by readers for whom it was necessary to do all.

These poems, therefore, are not the worse for being un-Roman in their form; and in their substance they are Roman to a degree which deserves great admiration. Mr. Macaulay’s prose writings had not prepared us for the power which he has here manifested of identifying himself easily and completely with states of feeling and modes of life alien to modern experience. Nobody could have previously doubted that he possessed fancy, but he has here added to it the higher faculty of Imagination. We have not been able to detect, in the four poems, one idea or feeling which was not, or might not have been, Roman; while the externals of Roman life, and the feelings characteristic of Rome and of that particular age, are reproduced with great felicity, and without being made unduly predominant over the universal features of human nature and human life.

Independently, therefore, of their value as poems, these compositions are a real service rendered to historical literature: and the author has made this service greater by his prefaces, which will do more than the work of a hundred dissertations in rendering that true conception of early Roman history, the irrefragable establishment of which has made Niebuhr^[‡] illustrious, familiar to the minds of general readers. This is no trifling matter even in relation to present interests, for there is no estimating the injury which the cause of popular institutions has suffered, and still suffers, from misrepresentations of the early condition of the Roman Plebs, and its noble struggles against its taskmasters. And the study of the manner in which the heroic legends of early Rome grew up as poetry and gradually became history, has important bearings on the general laws of historical evidence, and on the many things which, as philosophy advances, are more and more seen to be therewith connected. On this subject Mr. Macaulay has not only presented, in an agreeable form, the results of previous speculation, but has, though in an entirely unpretending manner, thrown additional light upon it by his own remarks: as where he shows, by incontestable instances, that a similar transformation of poetic fiction into history has taken place on various occasions in modern and sceptical times.

And again, on the legend of the appearance of the Dioscuri actively aiding the Roman host in the battle of the Lake Regillus, and afterwards personally announcing at Rome that the republic had been victorious:

There is no greater triumph of skill and taste in these poems than the manner in which Mr. Macaulay has treated this very incident. The supernatural is always a touchstone of an author’s genius and tact, and it was here necessary that the supernatural should be pure ancient-Roman, and yet so presented as to act with overawing effect upon modern imaginations. We are almost reluctant to quote passages which have so often been quoted before, but we think that, viewed in this particular light, they deserve a more critical attention than has perhaps been paid to them.

• • And Aulus the Dictator
  • Stroked Auster’s raven mane,
  • With heed he looked unto the girths,
  • With heed unto the rein;
• • “Now bear me well, black Auster.
  • Into yon thick array:
  • And thou and I will have revenge
  • For thy good lord this day.”
• • So spake he; and was buckling
  • Tighter black Auster’s band,
  • When he was aware of a princely pair
  • That rode at his right hand
  • So like they were, no mortal
  • Might one from other know,
  • White as snow their armour was,
  • Their steeds were white as snow.
  • Never on earthly anvil
  • Did such rare armour gleam;
  • And never did such gallant steeds
  • Drink of an earthly stream.
• • And all who saw them trembled.
  • And pale grew every cheek;
  • And Aulus the Dictator
  • Scarce gathered voice to speak.
  • “Say by what name men call you?
  • What city is your home?
  • And wherefore ride you in such guise
  • Before the ranks of Rome?”^*
  • * * * * *
  • So answered those strange horsemen.
  • And each couched low his spear,
  • And forthwith all the ranks of Rome
  • Were bold and of good cheer.
  • And on the thirty armies
  • Came wonder and affright;
  • And Ardea wavered on the left
  • And Cora on the right.
  • “Rome, to the charge!” cried Aulus:
  • “The foe begins to yield!
  • Charge for the hearth of Vesta,
  • Charge for the golden shield!”
• • Then the fierce trumpet-flourish,
  • From earth to heaven arose,
  • The kites know well the long stern swell
  • That bids the Roman close
  • Then the good sword of Aulus
  • Was lifted up to slay:
  • Then, like a crag down Apennine,
  • Rushed Auster through the fray.
  • But under those strange horsemen
  • Still thicker lay the slain;
  • And after those strange horses
  • Black Auster toiled in vain.
  • Behind them Rome’s long battle
  • Came rolling on the foe,
  • Ensigns dancing wild above,
  • Blades all in line below,
  • So comes the Po in flood-time
  • Upon the Celtic plain,
  • So comes the squall, blacker than night,
  • Upon the Adrian main.
  • * * * * *
  • Sempronius Atratinus
  • State in the eastern gate;
  • Beside him were three fathers,
  • Each in his chair of state:
  • Fabius, whose nine stout grandsons
  • That day were in the field,
  • And Manlius, eldest of the twelve
  • Who keep the golden shield:
  • And Sergius, the high pontiff,
  • For wisdom far renown’d;
  • In all Etruria’s colleges
  • Was no such pontiff found.
  • And all around the portal,
  • And high above the wall,
  • Stood a great throng of people,
  • But sad and silent all;
  • Young lads and stooping elders,
  • That might not bear the mail,
  • Matrons with lips that quivered,
  • And maids with faces pale.
  • Since the first gleam of daylight
  • Sempronius had not ceased
  • To listen for the rushing
  • Of horse-hoofs from the east.
  • The mist of eve was rising,
  • The sun was hastening down,
  • When he was aware of a princely pair
  • Fast pricking towards the town.
  • So like they were, man never
  • Saw twins so like before;
  • Red with gore their armour was,
  • Their steeds were red with gore.
  • “Hail to the great asylum!
  • Hail to the hill tops seven!
  • Hail to the fire that burns for aye,
  • And the shield that fell from heaven!
  • This day, by Lake Regillus,
  • Under the Porcian height,
  • All in the lands of Tusculum
  • Was fought a glorious fight.
  • To-morrow your Dictator
  • Shall bring in triumph home
  • The spoils of thirty cities,
  • To deck the shrines of Rome!”
• • Then burst from that great concourse
  • A shout that shook the towers,
  • And some ran north, and some ran south,
  • Crying, “The day is ours!”
  • But on rode those strange horsemen,
  • With slow and lordly pace,
  • And none who saw their bearing
  • Durst ask their name or race.
  • On rode they to the Forum,
  • While laurel boughs and flowers,
  • From house-tops and from windows,
  • Fell on their crests in showers
  • When they drew nigh to Vesta
  • They vaulted down amain,
  • And washed their horses in the well
  • That springs by Vesta’s fane;
  • And straight again they mounted,
  • And rode to Vesta’s door.
  • Then, like a blast, away they passed,
  • And no man saw them more.^[*]

Mr. Macaulay shows himself so well acquainted with the best modern views of Roman history, that we presume it is purposely, and from conviction, that he adheres to Livy’s story of the five years’ anarchy which preceded the passing of the Licinian laws;^[†] although Niebuhr and Arnold have, as it seems to us, shown sufficient reason to believe that it was an inference, grounded on the absence of the names of consuls or military tribunes from the Fasti during an apparent interval of five years, produced solely by an error of chronology.^[‡]

We are more disposed to break a lance with our author on the general merits of Roman literature, which, by a heresy not new with him, he sacrifices, in what appears to us a most unfair degree, on the score of its inferior originality, to the Grecian. It is true the Romans had no Æschylus nor Sophocles, and but a second-hand Homer, though this last was not only the most finished but even the most original of imitators. But where was the Greek model of the noble poem of Lucretius?^[*] What, except the mere idea, did the Georgics^[†] borrow from Hesiod? and who ever thinks of comparing the two poems? Where, in Homer or in Euripides, will be found the original of the tender and pathetic passages in the Æneid, especially the exquisitely-told story of Dido? There is no extraordinary merit in the Carmen Sæculare as we have it, the only production of Horace which challenges comparison with Pindar;^[‡] although we are not among those who deem Pindar one of the brightest stars in the Greek heaven. But from whom are the greater part of Horace’s Carmina^[§] borrowed, (they should never be termed Odes), any more than those of Burns or Bérenger, the analogous authors in modern times? and by what Greek minor poems are they surpassed? We say nothing of Catullus, whom some competent judges prefer to Horace. Does the lyric, then, or even the epic poetry of the Romans, deserve no better title than that of “a hot-house plant, which, in return for assiduous and skilful culture, yielded only scanty and sickly fruits?”^[¶] The complete originality and eminent merit of their satiric poetry, Mr. Macaulay himself acknowledges. As for prose, we give up Cicero as compared with Demosthenes, but with no one else; and is Livy less original, or less admirable, than Herodotus? Tacitus may have imitated, even to affectation, the condensation of Thucydides, as Milton imitated the Greek and Hebrew poets; but was not the mind of the one as essentially original as that of the other? Is the Roman less an unapproachable master, in his peculiar line, that of sentimental history, than the Grecian in his? and what Greek historian has written anything similar or comparable to the sublime peroration of the Life of Agricola?^[∥] The Latin genius lay not in speculation, and the Romans did undoubtedly borrow all their philosophical principles from the Greeks. Their originality there, as is well said by a remarkable writer in the most remarkable of his works,^* consisted in taking those principles au sérieux. They did what the others talked about. Zeno, indeed, was not a Roman; but Pætus Thrasea and Marcus Antoninus were.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, ON JAMES MILL

1844

EDITORS’ NOTE

Edinburgh Review, LXXIX (Jan., 1844), 267-71. Headed: “Letter from John S. Mill, Esq., to the Editor,” with an introductory paragraph (given as a footnote to the title in the present text) by the editor, Macvey Napier Running title: “Letter to the Editor.” Signed: “J. S. Mill.” Not republished. Identified in Mill’s bibliography as “A Letter to the Editor in vindication of my father, in the same number of the same review”—i.e., as his “Michelet’s History of France” (MacMinn, p. 56). No copy in Somerville College.

For comment, see the Introduction, p. xlii above.

Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, on James Mill^[*]

sir—

In an Article on Dr. Bowring’s “Life of Bentham,” published in the last Number of the Edinburgh Review,^[†] statements are made, on the authority of that work, tending to give a most false impression of the character of one who, by his writings and personal influence, has done more for philosophy and good government than almost any man of his generation, and who has peculiar claims upon the justice of the Edinburgh Review, to which he was for many years an important contributor—I mean the late Mr. James Mill, my father.

That those whose lives are devoted to the service of mankind should meet with inadequate appreciation from their contemporaries can surprise no one; but when their motives and moral character are misrepresented, not only justice, but the public interest requires that the misrepresentation should be corrected; and I trust you will not refuse the necessary opportunity to the person on whom that duty is, in the present case, peculiarly incumbent.

The Reviewer, quoting from the “Memoirs,” says, “Bentham said of Mill, that his willingness to do good to others depended too much on his power of making the good done to them subservient to good done to himself. His creed of politics results less from love for the many than from hatred of the few. It is too much under the influence of social and dissocial affection.”^[‡]

What is here promulgated as Bentham’s deliberate judgment, was never, I will venture to affirm, believed by any human being who had the smallest knowledge of Mr. Mill.

I know not how a biographer is to be justified in giving publicity and permanence to every idle word which may have been said to the prejudice of others, under some passing impression or momentary irritation. It would, besides, be easy to show, that the reports of Bentham’s conversations contained in the Biography, abound in the inaccuracies which are to be expected when things carelessly stated by one person, are afterwards noted down from memory by another. But whatever Bentham may really have said, when a statement so injurious to another is made on his authority, justice to that other imposes the necessity of declaring what the “Memoirs” amply confirm, that among Mr. Bentham’s eminent intellectual endowments, capacity for judging of character was not one. The manner of his intercourse with others was not favourable to his acquiring a real knowledge of them; and his warmest friends and admirers often lamented that his opinion of men depended less on their merits than on accidental circumstances, and on the state of his personal relations with them at the time. On no other principle can I account for his expressing any opinion of Mr. Mill bearing the complexion of that quoted in the Article.

It imputes to Mr. Mill, as the source of his democratic opinions, the vulgarest motives of an unprincipled demagogue; namely, selfish ambition, and a malignant hatred of the ruling classes. Now, there was perhaps no one man among Mr. Mill’s contemporaries, holding similar opinions to his, who stood more manifestly clear from even the suspicion of these motives.

He could in no way hope for “good to himself” from the opinions he professed. In many respects they stood in the way of his personal interest. They deprived his writings of the countenance of either of the great parties in the state, in times when that countenance was much more important than it now is, and when he might have obtained it as easily as many others did, who had not a tithe of his talents. Even had his opinions become predominant, which he never expected would be the case during his life, he would, as he well knew, have reaped no personal benefit from them; and assuredly, the time when he embraced democratic doctrines, was a time when no person in his senses could have entertained the smallest hope of gaining any thing by their profession.

As for “hatred of the few,” the phrase seems introduced solely to round an antithesis. There never was a man more free from any feelings of hatred. His hostility was to institutions and principles, not to persons. It was his invariable doctrine that the ruling individuals were not intentionally bad, nor in any way worse than other men. Towards some of them he entertained strong feelings of personal friendship. A certain asperity, no doubt, appears occasionally in his controversial writings; but it proceeded from no private motives:—the individuals against whom it showed itself never injured him, never wounded his vanity, or interfered with his interests; his path and theirs never crossed. It has been shown in the highly honourable acknowledgment recently made by Mr. Macaulay, how far Mr. Mill was from retaining any grudge, even when he had been personally attacked, and with a severity which the assailant himself cannot now approve.^[*] Mr. Mill never wrote severe things of any one but from honest conviction, and in the exercise, as he believed, of a duty; and the fault, if fault it be, is one which we of this age may view with leniency, when we see how often the absence of it has no better source than incapacity of earnest feeling on any subject not personal.

The Reviewer, still following the “Memoirs,” enters into some points of private history, of so personal a nature, and so little interesting to the public, that it is unpleasant to feel called upon to speak of them; but since the impression conveyed is, that Mr. Mill received obligations from Bentham, such as one man rarely receives from another, and that for these obligations he made but an ungrateful return, it is necessary to show how incorrectly the facts are stated, and how false a colouring is put upon such of them as are true.

The statements in the “Memoirs” are, that Bentham “found Mill in great distress, about to emigrate to Caen; that he put him into a house, and took him and his family to live with him for the half of every year, for ten years together.”^[†]

At the time when Bentham is said to have “found Mill about to emigrate,” they had already been intimate for many years, as the dates prove; since the “emigration” spoken of could not have been projected until after the Continent was open. Like many others, Mr. Mill had thoughts of removing to a country where a small income would go further in supporting and educating a family; but a person is not usually said to be “in great distress” who never in his life was in debt, and whose income, whatever it might be, always covered his expenses.

Secondly, that Bentham “put him into a house.” If this means that he occupied any house of Bentham’s, free of rent, the assertion is contrary to fact. He paid to Mr. Bentham between £50 and £60 a-year rent, which was as high a rent as he had been accustomed to pay.

Thirdly, that Mr. Mill and his family lived with Mr. Bentham for half of ten years. They did so for half of four years, at Ford Abbey; and they passed small portions of several previous summers with him at Barrow Green. His last visit to Barrow Green, I know, was of not more than a month’s duration, and the previous ones all together, did not, as I am informed, (for my own memory does not reach so far back,) extend to more than six months, or seven at most. Bentham himself, in a letter published in the “Life,” says, the half of five years:^[‡] which is not far from the mark.

The pecuniary benefit, therefore, which Mr. Mill derived from his intimacy with Bentham consisted in this, that he and his family lived with him as his guests, while he was in the country, periods amounting in all to about two years and a half. I have no reason to think that this hospitality was either given, or accepted, as pecuniary assistance; and I will add, that the obligation was not exclusively on one side. Bentham was not then, as he was afterwards, surrounded by persons who courted his society, and were ever ready to volunteer their services; and to a man of his secluded habits, it was no little advantage to have near him such a man as Mr. Mill, to whose advice and aid he habitually had recourse in all business transactions with the outward world, of a troublesome or irksome nature. Such as the connexion was, that it was not of Mr. Mill’s seeking, is shown by a remarkable letter from him to Mr. Bentham, which is to be found in the “Life,” and which was written, as its date proves, during the first visit to Ford Abbey.^[*]

Lastly, the Reviewer, on his own authority, asserts, that Mr. Mill became estranged from Bentham, and, in after years, “so far withdrew his allegiance from the dead lion as to deny that he had ever called him master.”^[†] There was, during the last few years of Bentham’s life, less frequency and cordiality of intercourse than in former years, chiefly because Bentham had acquired newer, and to him, more agreeable intimacies; but Mr. Mill’s feeling never altered towards him, nor did he ever fail, publicly or privately, in giving due honour to Bentham’s name, and acknowledgment of the intellectual debt he owed to him. The “allegiance” which he disclaimed was only that which no man, who thinks for himself, will own to another. He was no otherwise a disciple of Bentham, than of Hobbes, Hartley, or Ricardo.

These are small matters in themselves—quite unworthy to be brought before the public; but if the things are trivial, the inferences drawn from them are not so, and nothing is small which involves injustice to the memory, and a total misconception of the character, of an eminent man. Reluctant, therefore, as I am so to occupy your space; yet as the extensive circulation of the Edinburgh Review has been given to these misstatements, I do not feel that I am unreasonable in soliciting a place, in the next Number, for this contradiction of them.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

J. S. Mill.

APPENDICES

Appendix A

Juvenilia

The “History” is written on sheets cut, folded, and sewn to make a little booklet of ten leaves: the title and name (with the information that the author was 6½ years old when he wrote—or began?—it) are on 1r; the text is recto, with the facing versos used for notes and the lists of consuls in office during the events described in the latter part of the text (a common device in Roman histories of the period). In the text below, the notes are given as footnotes and the lists as marginal notes. As the text breaks off in mid-sentence, and the list of consuls on 10v implies a facing text, it may be inferred that the “History” continued into another booklet, and probably into more than one. The paper is watermarked “G Pike” but there is no date on any of these sheets. The hand is not that of the young Mill, Alexander Bain, who saw this version of the “History” before it was given to the British Museum, says “a lady friend of the family copied and preserved it” (John Stuart Mill [London: Longmans, Green, 1882], p. 3).

In editing this fragment, the great temptation (one that some will think we should have succumbed to) was to print a diplomatic text, preserving all the idiosyncrasies of the original. But several problems militate against this single happy solution: first, since the manuscript is not in Mill’s hand, we would be preserving someone else’s version, as we are not able to determine which of the many errors of various kinds are Mill’s responsibility; second, we do not know exactly on which source he was drawing for particular bits of information, so we cannot tell when an “error” is in his source or is the result of carelessness or failure of comprehension on his part; third, there are different renderings (both Greek and Latin) of various proper names, so there is no one contemporary correct form; fourth, while with juvenilia of this kind it is important to preserve the flavour of the original, one should not leave the reader puzzled and unable to solve small mysteries.

Our attempt to balance these considerations has resulted in the following decisions.

1. The text follows the manuscript in substantives and accidentals except (a) when the reading of a proper name is uncertain, in which case an accepted version is used, (b) when different erroneous versions of a proper name occur, in which case the version that dominates in the “History” is used, even though it is mistaken, (c) in the few places where aberrant accidentals might impede the reader’s understanding, in which case normal forms are used, and (d) where there is a manifest though minor error in syntax, likely to be the copyist’s responsibility, in which case a correction is made. A list of these corrections is given at the end. Also listed are places where, though no correction has been made, the reader may be given pause (for example, “Aborian” [542.3 (of the text)], which must be wrong, is not altered, but in this list “Aborigian [Aboriginal]” is suggested as the intended word).

2. The marginal list of Consuls, like the text relating specifically to the Consuls and their succession, is left unamended, except that—as in (a) and (b) above—names are adjusted to the dominant (even if erroneous) form. There are misidentifications, misorderings, and gaps, but to have altered and corrected these would have involved a major distortion of the manuscript’s text; the reader interested in comparing this version with the modern one should consult T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, Vol. I (New York: American Philological Association, 1951).

3. The references in the manuscript’s notes are rudimentary, and so have been expanded and the accidentals altered to make comprehension easier. The individual changes are not listed, but are summarized. Some notes have been expanded and some added by the editors; square brackets signal these changes.

4. As elsewhere in this volume, we have changed “&” to “and” and have lowered superscripts to the line. In the manuscript there are inked lines drawn across the page to separate the “chapters”; these have been omitted here. Normal footnote indicators, in sequence, have replaced the superscript “(a)” that appears in each case in the manuscript.

[[*] ]William Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 2 vols. (London: Parker, 1840).

[[†] ]Whewell, Of Induction, with Especial Reference to Mr. J. Stuart Mill’s System of Logic (London: Parker, 1849).

[[‡] ]See System of Logic, Textual Introduction, CW, Vol. VII, p. lxxxiii; Preface to the 3rd ed., ibid., p. cxiv; and, in the Bibliographic Index, entries under Whewell, Of Induction, and On the Philosophy of Discovery, ibid., Vol. VIII, pp. 1239-41.

[[*] ]1st ed., 1848; 2nd ed., 1849; 3rd ed., 1852.

[[*] ]A series of forty-three leading articles, running from 5 Oct., 1846, to 7 Jan., 1847.

[[†] ]10 Victoria, c. 31 (8 June, 1847).

[[*] ]See the Introduction, p. xxi n above.

[[†] ]See Horace, Ars poetica, in Satires, Epistles, and Ars poetica (Latin and English), trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (London: Heinemann: New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1926), p. 482 (ll. 388-9).

[[‡] ]Louis Napoleon (later Napoleon III).

[[*] ]Memorandum of the Improvements in the Administration of India during the Last Thirty Years, and the Petition of the East-India Company to Parliament; Report to the General Court of Proprietors (both London: Cox and Wyman, 1858); A Constitutional View of the India Question; Practical Observations on the First Two of the Proposed Resolutions on the Government of India; A President in Council the Best Government for India; The Moral of the India Debate; Observations on the Proposed Council of India (all London: Penny, 1858); and “Letter from the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Honourable East India Company to the President of the Board of Trade,” Parliamentary Papers, 1857-58, XLIII, 41-4.

[[†] ]Chap. xviii, “Of the Government of Dependencies by a Free State”; in CW, Vol. XIX, pp. 562-77.

[[‡] ]On Liberty (London: Parker, 1859); in CW, Vol. XVIII, pp. 213-310.

[* ]The steps in my mental growth for which I was indebted to her were far from being those which a person wholly uninformed on the subject would probably suspect. It might be supposed, for instance, that my strong convictions on the complete equality in all legal, political, social and domestic relations, which ought to exist between men and women, may have been adopted or learnt from her. This was so far from being the fact, that those convictions were among the earliest results of the application of my mind to political subjects, and the strength with which I held them was, as I believe, more than anything else, the originating cause of the interest she felt in me. What is true is, that until I knew her, the opinion was, in my mind, little more than an abstract principle. I saw no more reason why women should be held in legal subjection to other people, than why men should. I was certain that their interests required fully as much protection as those of men, and were quite as little likely to obtain it without an equal voice in making the laws by which they are to be bound. But that perception of the vast practical bearings of women’s disabilities which found expression in the book on The Subjection of Women [London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1869], was acquired mainly through her teaching. But for her rare knowledge of human nature and comprehension of moral and social influences, though I should doubtless have held my present opinions I should have had a very insufficient perception of the mode in which the consequences of the inferior position of women intertwine themselves with all the evils of existing society and with all the difficulties of human improvement. I am indeed painfully conscious how much of her best thoughts on the subject I have failed to reproduce, and how greatly that little treatise falls short of what would have been given to the world if she had put on paper her entire mind on this question, or had lived to revise and improve, as she certainly would have done, my imperfect statement of the case.

[* ]The only person from whom I received any direct assistance in the preparation of the System of Logic was Mr. Bain, since so justly celebrated for his philosophical writings. He went carefully through the manuscript before it was sent to press, and enriched it with a great number of additional examples and illustrations from science; many of which, as well as some detached remarks of his own in confirmation of my logical views, I inserted nearly in his own words. [See Textual Introduction, CW, Vol. VII, pp. lxviii-lxxii, lxxxiii, and lxxxviii.]

My obligations to Comte were only to his writings—to the part which had then been published of his Cours de Philosophie Positive: and as has been seen from what I have said in the Narrative, the amount of these obligations is far less than has sometimes been asserted. The first volume, which contains all the fundamental doctrines of the book, was substantially complete before I had seen Comte’s treatise. I derived from him many valuable thoughts, conspicuously in the chapter on Hypotheses and in the view taken of the logic of algebra: but it is only in the concluding Book, on the Logic of the Moral Sciences, that I owe to him any radical improvement in my conception of the application of logical methods. This improvement I have stated and characterized in a former part of the present Memoir. [See pp. 217-19 above, and Textual Introduction, CW, Vol. VII, pp. lxiv-lxv, lxviii-lxix, lxxxii-lxxxiii, and xc-xci.]

[[*] ]Bk. IV, Chap. vii.

[* ]A few dedicatory lines, acknowledging what the book owed to her, were prefixed to some of the presentation copies of the Political Economy on its first publication. Her dislike of publicity alone prevented their insertion in the other copies of the work. [The dedication read: “To Mrs. John Taylor, as the most eminently qualified of all persons known to the author either to originate or to appreciate speculations on social improvement, this attempt to explain and diffuse ideas many of which were first learned from herself, is with the highest respect and regard, dedicated.”]

[[*] ]Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Sphere and Duties of Government, trans. Joseph Coulthard (London: Chapman, 1854).

[[†] ]William Maccall, The Elements of Individualism (London: Chapman, 1847); for other of his writings to which Mill may be referring, see the Bibliographic Index, p. 682 below.

[[‡] ]See, e.g., Josiah Warren, Equitable Commerce, ed. Stephen Pearl Andrews (New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1852), p. 26.

[[*] ]See On Liberty, in CW, Vol. XVIII, p. 215.

[[†] ]See ibid., p. 276.

[[‡] ]London: Parker, 1859; reprinted in D&D, Vol. III, pp. 1-46; in CW, Vol. XIX, pp. 311-39.

[[§] ]“A Bill Further to Amend the Laws Relating to the Representation of the People in England and Wales,” 17 Victoria (16 Feb., 1854), Parliamentary Papers, 1854, V, 375-418.

[[¶] ]See James Garth Marshall, Minorities and Majorities: Their Relative Rights (London: Ridgway, 1853).

[[∥] ]“A Bill to Amend the Laws Relating to the Representation of the People in England and Wales, and to Facilitate the Registration and Voting of Electors,” 22 Victoria (28 Feb., 1859), Parliamentary Papers, 1859 (Session 1), II, 649-715.

[[*] ]Thomas Hare, A Treatise on the Election of Representatives (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859).

[[*] ]“Recent Writers on Reform,” Fraser’s Magazine, LIX (Apr., 1859), 489-508; reprinted in D&D, Vol. III, pp. 47-96; in CW, Vol. XIX, pp. 341-70.

[[†] ]Austin, A Plea for the Constitution; James Lorimer, Political Progress Not Necessarily Democratic (London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1857).

[[‡] ]Alexander Bain, The Senses and the Intellect (London: Parker, 1855), and The Emotions and the Will (London: Parker, 1859); reviewed by Mill in “Bain’s Psychology,” Edinburgh Review, CX (Oct., 1859), 287-321 (the review is reprinted in D&D, Vol. III, pp. 97-152; in CW, Vol. XI, pp. 339-73).

[[§] ]Fraser’s Magazine, LX (Dec., 1859), 766-76; reprinted in D&D, Vol. III, pp. 153-78.

[[*] ]Brougham’s Letter to the Marquess of Lansdowne (London: Ridgway, 1848) is reviewed in Mill’s “The French Revolution of 1848, and Its Assailants,” Westminster Review, LI (Apr., 1849), 1-47 (the review is reprinted in D&D, Vol. II, pp. 335-410).

[[*] ]Fraser’s Magazine, LXIV (Oct., Nov., Dec., 1861), 391-406, 525-34, 658-73; republished as a volume (London:Parker, Son, and Bourne) in 1863 (in CW, Vol. X, pp. 203-59).

[[†] ]John Elliot Cairnes, The Slave Power: Its Character, Career and Probable Designs (1862); 2nd ed. (London and Cambridge: Macmillan, 1863).

[* ]The saying of this true hero, after his capture, that he was worth more for hanging than for any other purpose, reminds one, by its combination of wit, wisdom, and self devotion, of Sir Thomas More. [Two anecdotes seem apposite. For the story of More’s saying to his guard, on mounting the shaky scaffold, that if he were seen up safely, he would shift for himself coming down, see William Roper, The Mirrour of Vertue in Worldly Greatness; or, The Life of Syr Thomas More (Paris: [St. Omer, English College Press,] 1626), p. 166. For an account of More’s telling the headsman to spare his beard, which had not offended the King, see Francis Bacon, “Apophthegms New and Old,” Works, Vol. VII, p. 128.

[[*] ]Thomas Hughes, “Opinion on American Affairs,” Macmillan’s Magazine, IV (Sept., 1861), 414-16; John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow, “The American Crisis,” ibid., IV (June, 1861), 168-76.

[[†] ]See “On America, I” (4 Dec., 1861), and the following speeches in John Bright, Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, ed. James Edwin Thorold Rogers, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1868), Vol. I, pp. 167-95 and ff.

[[*] ]Charles Wilkes was the officer who seized the Southern envoys, James Murray Mason and John Slidell.

[[†] ]Fraser’s Magazine, LXV (Feb., 1862), 258-68; reprinted in D&D, Vol. III, pp. 179-205.

[[‡] ]“The Slave Power,” Westminster Review, LXXVIII (Oct., 1862), 489-510; reprinted in D&D, American ed., 3 vols. (Boston: Spencer, 1864), Vol. III, pp. 264-99.

[[§] ]“Austin on Jurisprudence,” Edinburgh Review, CXVIII (Oct., 1863), 439-82; reprinted in D&D, Vol. III, pp. 206-74.

[[¶] ]London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1865; CW, Vol. IX (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979).

[[∥] ]William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, ed. Henry Longueville Mansel and J. Veitch, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1859-60). Mill is mistaken as to the dates.

[[*] ]“Dissertations on Reid,” in The Works of Thomas Reid, ed. William Hamilton (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart; London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1846), pp. 742-914; further “Dissertations” were added in the 6th ed. (1863), ed. H. L. Mansel.

[[†] ]Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans; Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1852).

[[*] ]See Mansel, The Limits of Religious Thought (1858), 4th ed. (London: Murray, 1859).

[[†] ]See Examination, CW, Vol. IX, pp. 102-3.

[[*] ]See the Textual Introduction, CW, Vol. IX, pp. lxxix-xcvii.

[[†] ]Chaps. xi and xii.

[[*] ]“The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte,” and “Later Speculations of Auguste Comte,” Westminster Review, LXXXIII (Apr., 1865), 339-405, and LXXXIV (July, 1865), 1-42; republished as Auguste Comte and Positivism (London: Trübner, 1865); in CW, Vol. X, pp. 261-368.

[a][Cancelled text:] In addition to the immediate purposes the first of these papers serves as a kind of explanatory commentary on the general view of philosophy of the Moral Sciences laid down, in an extremely condensed form, in the concluding Book of my System of Logic: and the second contains occasional thoughts respecting some of the ethical and social questions of the future, which I believe that the future will ratify; but in whatever merit may belong to them I can claim but a trifling share, they being the joint product of three thoughtful minds, the least original of which is my own

[[*] ]Mill is conflating two letters, both to James Beal, of 7 Mar., 1865 (published, inter alia, in the Daily News, 23 Mar., p. 5), and of 17 Apr., 1865 (published, inter alia, in the Daily News, 21 Apr., p. 4); they are in Later Letters [LL], CW, Vols. XIV-XVII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), Vol. XVI, pp. 1005-7, and 1031-5.

[[*] ]See CW, Vol. XIX, p. 338.

[[*] ]The episode occurred during the meeting in the Pimlico Rooms, Winchester Street, on 8 July, 1865; it is reported (without mention of George Odger) on 10 July in the Daily Telegraph, p. 2, and the Morning Star, p. 2.

[[†] ]William Henry Smith, who, defeated in 1865, was elected for Westminster in 1868. See p. 289 below.

[[‡] ]30 & 31 Victoria, c. 102 (15 Aug., 1867).

[[§] ]“A Bill to Extend the Right of Voting at Elections of Members of Parliament in England and Wales,” 29 Victoria (13 Mar., 1866), Parliamentary Papers, 1866, V, 87-100. For Mill’s speech, see Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 182, cols. 1253-63 (13 Apr., 1866).

[[¶] ]Ibid., Vol. 191, cols. 1047-55 (21 Apr., 1868).

[[∥] ]Ibid., Vol. 189, cols. 876-84 (5 Aug., 1867).

[[*] ]Ibid., Vol. 187, cols. 817-29, 842-3 (20 May, 1867); published as Speech of John Stuart Mill, M.P., on the Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise (London: Trübner, 1867).

[[†] ]Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 187, cols. 1343-56, and 1362 (30 May, 1867); published as Personal Representation, Speech of John Stuart Mill, Esq., M.P. (London: Henderson, Rait, and Fenton, 1867).

[[‡] ]See Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 185, cols. 1608-10, 1616 (8 Mar., 1867); cols. 1678-9, 1680, 1685 (11 Mar., 1867); col. 1696 (12 Mar., 1867); cols. 1861-2 (14 Mar., 1867); Vol. 187, cols. 882-5, 891 (21 Apr., 1867); and Vol. 189, cols. 1040-1 (7 Aug., 1867).

[[§] ]See “First Report from the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government etc.,” Parliamentary Papers, 1866, XIII, 171-315; “Second Report,” ibid., XIII, 317-713.

[[¶] ]See Daniel O’Donaghue’s motion for an amendment, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 181, col. 273 (8 Feb., 1866).

[* ]The first was in answer to Mr. Lowe’s reply to Mr. Bright on the Cattle Plague Bill, and was thought at the time to have helped to get rid of a provision in the Government measure which would have given to landholders a second indemnity, after they had already been once indemnified for the loss of some of their cattle by the increased selling price of the remainder. [See Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 181, cols. 472-80 (John Bright’s speech); cols. 483-8 (Robert Lowe’s speech), and cols. 488-92 (Mill’s speech) (all 14 Feb., 1866) The Bill was enacted as 29 Victoria, c. 2 (20 Feb., 1866).]

[[*] ]See 29 Victoria, c. 1 (17 Feb., 1866), and, for Mill’s speech, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 181, cols. 705-6 (17 Feb., 1866).

[[†] ]Ibid., Vol. 182, cols. 1524-8 (17 Apr., 1866).

[[‡] ]Mill, who was replying directly to Sir John Pakington, said: “What I stated was, that the Conservative party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party. Now, I do not retract this assertion, but I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative.” (Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 183, col. 1592 [31 May, 1866]. For Pakington’s comment, see ibid., col. 1574.) The original remark is in Considerations on Representative Government, CW, Vol. XIX, p. 452n.

[[§] ]Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 187, cols. 280-4 (9 May, 1867).

[[*] ]Ibid., Vol. 184, cols. 1410-12 (24 July, 1866).

[[†] ]See Mill’s speech on the Proposed Reform Meeting in Hyde Park, ibid., Vol. 184, cols. 1540-1 (26 July, 1866), and the report in The Times, 27 July, 1866, p. 7.

[[‡] ]See the report of Mill’s speech in The Times, 31 July, 1866, p. 3.

[[*] ]See, e.g., leading articles in The Times, 19 Nov., 1868, p. 7, and 23 Dec., 1868, p. 9.

[[†] ]See, for Mill’s speeches, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 188, cols. 1888, 1890-3 (22 July, 1867); Vol. 189, cols. 1482-4 (13 Aug., 1867); for the abortive Bill, see “A Bill for the Better and More Effectually Securing the Use of Certain Royal Parks and Gardens for the Enjoyment and Recreation of Her Majesty’s Subjects,” 30 Victoria (3 May, 1867), Parliamentary Papers, 1867, IV, 63-6.

[[‡] ]“A Bill Further to Amend the Law Relating to the Tenure and Improvement of Land in Ireland,” 29 Victoria (30 Apr., 1866), Parliamentary Papers, 1866, V, 353-64. Referred to by Mill below as “Mr. Fortescue’s Bill.”

[[§] ]Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 183, cols. 1087-97 (17 May, 1866).

[[¶] ]“A Bill to Promote the Improvement of Land by Occupying Tenants in Ireland,” 30 Victoria (18 Feb., 1867), Parliamentary Papers, 1867, VI, 385-98.

[[*] ]London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1868.

[[†] ]33 & 34 Victoria, c. 46 (1 Aug., 1870).

[[‡] ]See John Francis Maguire’s motion for a Committee, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 190, cols. 1288-1314 (10 Mar., 1868), and Mill’s speech, cols. 1516-32 (12 Mar., 1868).

[* ]Among the most active members of the Committee were Mr. P. A. Taylor, M.P., always faithful and energetic in every assertion of the principles of liberty; Mr. Goldwin Smith, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Mr. Slack, Mr. Chamerovzow, Mr. Shaen, and Mr. Chesson, the Honorary Secretary of the Association. [See Charles Buxton’s motion on the Disturbances in Jamaica, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 184, cols. 1763-85 (31 July, 1866), and, for Mill’s speeches and questions, ibid., cols. 1064-6 (19 July, 1866); cols. 1797-1806 (31 July, 1866)—the one he would select as his best; col. 2160 (10 Aug., 1866); and Vol. 189, cols. 598-9 (1 Aug., 1867).]

[[*] ]See Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, Charge of the Lord Chief Justice of England to the Grand Jury at the Central Criminal Courts, in the Case of the Queen against Nelson and Brand, ed. Frederick Cockburn (London: Ridgway, 1867).

[[†] ]A note by Helen Taylor in the Columbia MS reads. “At one time I reckoned that threats of Assassination were received at least once a week: and I remarked that threatening letters were always especially numerous by Tuesday morning’s post. I inferred that they were meditated during the Sunday’s leisure and posted on the Mondays. It might be worth while to collect evidence as to the proportions of Crime Committed on the different days of the week. It may be observed however that in England Sunday is generally used for all kinds of letter-writing, innocent as well as guilty.”

[[*] ]“A Bill for the Amendment of the Law Relating to Extradition,” 29 & 30 Victoria (26 July, 1866), Parliamentary Papers, 1866, III, 39-42.

[[†] ]See “Report from the Select Committee on Extradition,” ibid., 1867-68, VII, 129-336.

[[‡] ]See 33 & 34 Victoria, c. 52 (9 Aug., 1870).

[[§] ]31 & 32 Victoria, c. 125 (31 July, 1868).

[[¶] ]See Henry Fawcett’s motion, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 193, cols. 1443-4 (18 July, 1868). The two amendments next referred to were made by Mill himself: see ibid., cols. 1640-1 (22 July, 1868), and cols. 1166-8 (14 July, 1868).

[[∥] ]Ibid., Vol. 191, cols. 308-11 (26 Mar., 1868).

[[*] ]See p. 276 above.

[[†] ]See Mill’s speech on the Representation of the People Bill, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 188, cols. 1102-7 (5 July, 1867).

[[‡] ]See Clause 37 of “An Act to Provide for Public Elementary Education in England and Wales,” 33 & 34 Victoria, c. 75 (9 Aug., 1870).

[[*] ]See pp. 275-6 above.

[[†] ]See Public Petition no. 8501 (7 July, 1866), “For Extension of the Elective Franchise to All Householders without Distinction of Sex,” Reports of Select Committee on Public Petitions, 1866, p. 697 and (for the text of the Petition) Appendix, p. 305. The petition had 1,521 signatures, headed by those of Barbara Bodichon, Mentia Taylor, and Emily Davies.

[* ]One which deserves particular mention is a letter respecting the Habitual Criminals Act [32 & 33 Victoria, c. 99 (11 Aug., 1869)] and the functions of a police generally, written in answer to a private application for my opinion, but which got into the newspapers and excited some notice. [See LL, CW, Vol. XVI, pp. 1523-6 (to James Beal, 14 Dec., 1868); printed in the Morning Star, 23 Dec., 1868, p. 6.] This letter which was full of original and valuable thoughts was entirely my daughter’s. The fertility and aptness which distinguishes her practical conceptions of the adaptation of means to ends is such as I can never hope to rival.

[b][Cancelled text (a passage added on the opposite verso).] I must add that whatever has been done by us for the diffusion of our opinions and of our principles of action by private intercourse and the direct influence of mind over mind, has been almost wholly her work, my own capacities of the kind being almost confined to my writings: and no one but myself knows at how great a sacrifice both of her personal tastes and inclinations and of her health that function was performed by her

[[*] ]“Grote’s Plato,” Edinburgh Review, CXXIII (Apr., 1866), 297-364; reprinted in D&D, Vol. III, pp. 275-379; in CW, Vol. XI, pp. 375-440.

[[†] ]Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St. Andrews (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1867).

[[‡] ]2nd ed., 2 vols., ed. J. S. Mill (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1869).

[[*] ]The fifth of Disraeli’s “Resolutions on the Representation of the People,” Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., Vol. 185, cols. 214-43 (11 Feb., 1867).

[[*] ]See, e.g., in CW, Vol. XIX. Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, pp. 324-5. “Recent Writers on Reform,” pp. 353-7; and Considerations on Representative Government, pp. 474-9.

[[†] ]Again, W. H. Smith; see p. 275 above.

[[*] ]In the period implied (if one interprets the text literally) Mill in fact published only two articles, both in the Fortnightly Review: “Endowments,” n.s. V (Apr., 1869), 377-90 (in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 1-24, and CW, Vol. V, pp. 613-29); and (in two instalments) “Thornton on Labour and Its Claims,” n.s. V (May and June, 1869), 505-18, and 680-700 (in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 25-85, and CW, Vol. V, pp. 631-68).

[[†] ]Again, if the text is interpreted literally (see the preceding note), in this period only one speech appears to have been delivered, at a meeting of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, in the Architectural Gallery, Conduit St., Regent St., on 17 July, 1869 (see the Daily News, 19 July, p. 2, and a leading article in The Times, 20 July, p. 9) Mill may also have had in mind his speech at a meeting of the Education League (MS, Harvard University), in St. James’s Hall, on 25 Mar., 1870 (see the reports on 26 Mar. in The Times, p. 5, the Daily News, p. 3, and the Daily Telegraph, p. 3), though it was delivered only one day before that reported in Helen Taylor’s continuation of the Autobiography (see App. H, p. 625 below).

[[‡] ]After Mill’s death (7 May, 1873), Helen Taylor prepared for publication the Autobiography (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1873); Three Essays on Religion (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1874), in CW, Vol. X, pp. 369-489; and “Chapters on Socialism,” Fortnightly Review, n.s. XXV (Feb., Mar., Apr., 1879), 217-37, 373-82, 513-30, in CW, Vol. V, pp. 703-53.

[[*] ]James Mill, “Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review,” Westminster Review, I (Jan., 1824), 206-49.

[[†] ]John Allen, “Cortes of Spain,” Edinburgh Review, XXIII (Sept., 1814), 379-80.

[[‡] ]See David Hume, “Of the First Principles of Government,” in Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, 2 vols. (London: Cadell; Edinburgh: Bell and Bradfute, et al., 1793), Vol. I, pp. 39-40.

[[*] ]Henry Peter Brougham, “Dangers of the Constitution,” Edinburgh Review, XXVII (Sept., 1816), 245-63.

[[*] ]James Mill, “Periodical Literature. Edinburgh Review on Parliamentary Reform,” Westminster Review, IV (July, 1825), 194-233.

[* ]The special jury system is one of those abuses which the Edinburgh Review has uniformly slurred over. In an article in the thirteenth volume, it professes not to believe that any evil arises from the practice of packing juries. ([Thomas Moore Musgrave (or James Musgrave), “Sir R. Phillips on the Office of Sheriff,” Edinburgh Review, XIII (Oct., 1808),] 172.) More recently it declares that the principal part of the evil has been corrected in recent practice. ([Henry Cockburn, “Nomination of Scottish Juries (Part I),” ibid.,] XXXVI [(Oct., 1821)], 174.) It remains, however, uncorrected to this day; and yet the Edinburgh Review, which professes so much regard for free discussion, and for trial by jury, has never dropped one word in reprobation of it.

[[*] ]For the statement, see Thomas Bayly Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials, 34 vols. (London: Longman, et al., 1809-28), Vol. XXIX, col. 49.

[[†] ]Cf. Peregrine Bingham (probably), “M. Cottu and Special Juries,” and “Periodical Literature: Quarterly Review,” Westminster Review, I (Jan., 1824), 158, and 258.

[[‡] ]Brougham, “Liberty of the Press and Its Abuses,” Edinburgh Review, XXVII (Sept., 1816), 102-44, reviewing Francis Ludlow Holt, The Law of Libel (London: Reed; Dublin: Phelan, 1812).

[[§] ]Ibid., p. 104.

[[¶] ]Brougham is quoting Bentham; cf. Bentham, The Elements of the Art of Packing (London: Wilson, 1821), p. 94.

[[*] ]Sydney Smith, “Travellers in America,” Edinburgh Review, XXXI (Dec., 1818), 132-50.

[[†] ]Francis Jeffrey, “Dispositions of England and America,” ibid., XXXIII (May, 1820), 395-431.

[[*] ]Louis Simond, “France,” ibid., XXXIV (Aug., 1820), 1-39.

[* ]In an article as early as the 10th volume (a review of Capmany’s Questiones Criticas); we are told distinctly that in France, under the Bourbons, the administration of justice was not only bad, but nearly as bad as in Spain. ([John Allen, “Capmany’s Questiones Criticas,” ibid.,] X [(July, 1807)], 425.)

[[†] ]Loi sur les élections, Bulletin 379, No. 8910 (29 juin, 1820), Bulletin des lois du royaume de France, 7ième sér., X, 1001-6.

[* ]This is a remarkable instance of see-saw. Five years before, when the Bourbons had not yet done half so much to re-establish despotism as they had in 1820, the Edinburgh Review itself charged them with all those iniquitous designs, from which it afterwards endeavoured to exculpate them. See a long article on France, in the twenty-fifth volume. [Jeffrey, “France,” Edinburgh Review, XXV (Dec., 1815), 501-26.]

[[*] ]Brougham, “Constitutional Association,” ibid., XXXVII (June, 1822), 110-21.

[[*] ]Jeffrey, “Southey’s Thalaba,” ibid., I (Oct., 1802), 63-83, reviewing Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer, 2 vols. (London: Longman and Rees, 1801). Brougham, “The Crisis of the Sugar Colonies,” ibid., I, 216-37.

[[*] ]Jeffrey, “Southey’s Thalaba,” pp. 71-2.

[* ][Brougham, “The Crisis of the Sugar Colonies,”] p. 227.

[[*] ]Jeffrey, “Millar’s View of the English Government,” Edinburgh Review, III (Oct., 1803), 154-81, reviewing John Millar, An Historical View of the English Government, 4 vols. (London: Mawman, 1803).

[[*] ]Jeffrey, “Millar’s View,” p. 159.

[[†] ]Anon., “Observations on the Residence of the Clergy,” Edinburgh Review, V (Jan., 1805), 301-17; James Mackintosh, “France,” ibid., XXIV (Nov., 1814), 505-37, and Sydney Smith, “Ireland,” ibid., XXXIV (Nov., 1820), 320-38.

[* ]It is the less excusable in the Edinburgh Review to flatter this aristocratic prejudice, as from the general goodness of its political economy, it cannot be the dupe of the vulgar error that landlords benefit their estates by spending their money there.

[[‡] ]Brougham, “Early Moral Education,” ibid., XXXVIII (May, 1823), 437-53.

[* ]In another place, the reviewer quotes with approbation a passage from Pole, on Infant Schools, in which an attempt is made to account for this imputed suspiciousness, by a supposition of which it is difficult to say whether the candour or the liberality be most remarkable—“The poor scarcely know how to believe others can be actuated by dispositions so superior to what they have been accustomed to cherish in themselves.” [Brougham, p. 453, quoting Thomas Pole, Observations Relative to Infant Schools (Bristol: Macdowall, 1823), p. 72.]

[[*] ]Brougham, “Dallas’s History of the Maroons,” Edinburgh Review. II (July, 1803), 376-91, reviewing Robert Charles Dallas, History of the Maroons, 2 vols. (London: Longman and Rees, 1803).

[[†] ]See Sydney Smith, “Walcheren Expedition,” Edinburgh Review, XVII (Feb., 1811), 330-9.

[[‡] ]Brougham, “Dr. Black’s Lectures,” ibid., III (Oct., 1803), 1-26, reviewing Joseph Black, Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry, 2 vols. (London: Longman and Rees; Edinburgh: Creech, 1803).

[* ]Pp. 22-3. [The reference is to Georg Ernst Stahl. Fundamenta chymiae dogmaticae et experimentalis, 3 pts. (Nuremberg: Endter, 1723-32).]

[[*] ]Walter Scott, “Amadis de Gaul, [translations] by Southey and by Rose,” Edinburgh Review, III (Oct., 1803), 109-36.

[[†] ]Jeffrey, “Correspondance littéraire et philosophique de Grimm,” ibid., XXI (July, 1813), 263-99.

[[‡] ]See, e.g., Jeffrey, “Hazlitt on Shakespeare,” ibid., XXVIII (Aug., 1817), 472-88.

[[§] ]Sydney Smith, “Madame d’Epinay,” ibid., XXXI (Dec., 1818), 53, reviewing Louise Florence d’Epinay, Mémoires et correspondance, 3 vols. (Paris: Brunet, 1818).

[[*] ]Richard Chenevix, “State of Science in England and France,” Edinburgh Review, XXXIV (Nov., 1820), 383-422; Chenevix, “English and French Literature,” ibid., XXXV (Mar., 1821), 158-90; and Chenevix and Jeffrey, “French Poetry,” ibid., XXXVII (Nov., 1822), 407-32.

[* ]It is not strictly correct to say that the Edinburgh Review depreciates all the French writers. Upon one of them—upon Montesquieu, it bestows even more than the due praise, but why? It almost confesses the reason—Montesquieu admired England. The English institutions were the standard by which Montesquieu judged of all other institutions. To eulogize Montesquieu, therefore, was one way of eulogizing England. [See Chenevix, “English and French Literature,” pp. 169-70.]

[† ][Chenevix, “English and French Literature,”] pp. 184-5.

[* ]For instance, Alison’s Sermons; Hazlitt’s Lectures on the Drama, Madame De Staël’s Work on Germany, &c. [See Jeffrey, “Alison’s Sermons,” Edinburgh Review, XXIII (Sept., 1814), 424-40, reviewing Archibald Alison, Sermons (Edinburgh: Constable, London: Longman, et al., 1814); Thomas Noon Talfourd, “Hazlitt’s Lectures on the Drama,” Edinburgh Review, XXXIV (Nov., 1820), 438-49, reviewing William Hazlitt, Lectures Chiefly on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (London: Stodart and Steuart, 1820); and James Mackintosh, “De l’Allemagne, par Madame de Staël,” Edinburgh Review, XXII (Oct., 1813), 198-238, reviewing De l’Allemagne, 3 vols. (Paris: Nicolle, 1810).]

[* ][William Hazlitt, “Schlegel on the Drama,” Edinburgh Review,] XXVI [(Feb., 1816)], 103.

[[*] ]Jeffrey, “Leckie on the British Government,” ibid., XX (Nov., 1812), 315-46, reviewing Gould Francis Leckie, Essay on the Practice of the British Government (London: Valpy, 1812).

[[*] ]Brougham, “State of Parties,” Edinburgh Review, XXX (June, 1818), 181-206.

[[†] ]Ibid., p. 187.

[[*] ]Jeffrey, “Madame de Staël—sur la littérature,” Edinburgh Review, XXI (Feb., 1813), 1-50, reviewing Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris and London: Colburn, 1812).

[* ][Samuel] Johnson’s “Preface to Shakspeare,” in his Works, Ed. 1806 [12 vols. (London: Johnson, et al.)], Vol. II, pp. 146-7.

[[*] ]See, e.g., Jeffrey, “Scott’s Marmion: A Poem,” Edinburgh Review, XII (Apr., 1808), 1-35; and Jeffrey, “Ivanhoe,” ibid., XXXIII (Jan., 1820), 1-54.

[* ][Chenevix, “English and French Literature,”] p. 171.

[[†] ]In Oeuvres complètes, 66 vols. (Paris: Renouard, 1817-25), Vol. IX.

[[*] ]See James Mill, “Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review,” pp. 230-1.

[* ][Jeffrey, “Moore’s Poems,” Edinburgh Review,] VIII [(July, 1806)], 456-63, et passim.

[† ][John Eyre, “Moore’s Translation of Anacreon,” ibid., II (July, 1803),] 463-4.

[‡ ][Anon., “Memoirs, etc. of Sir Thomas More,” ibid.,] XIV [(July, 1809)], 367, et passim. [See Plato, Republic (Greek and English), trans. Paul Shorey, 2 vols. (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946), Vol. I, pp. 448-68 (Bk. V, 456-61).]

[§ ][Jeffrey, “Edgeworth’s Memoirs,” Edinburgh Review,] XXXIV [(Aug., 1820)], 122 [reviewing Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Memoirs, 2 vols. (London: Hunter, and Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1820); the two sisters were Honora and Elizabeth Sneyd].

[* ]We quote the following passage to show the light in which the Edinburgh Review regards all unusual affectation of strong and fine feelings.

“Mr. [James] Montgomery is one of the most musical and melancholy fine gentlemen we have lately descried on the lower slopes of Parnassus. He is very weakly, very finical, and very affected. His affectations, too, are the most usual, and the most offensive, of those that are commonly met with in the species to which he belongs: they are affectations of extreme tenderness and delicacy, and of great energy and enthusiasm. Whenever he does not whine, he must rant. The scanty stream of his genius is never allowed to steal quietly along its channel, but is either poured out in melodious tears, or thrown up to heaven in all the frothy magnificence of tiny jets and artificial commotions.” ([Jeffrey, “Montgomery’s Poems,” Edinburgh Review,] IX [(Jan., 1807)], 348-9.) [The other articles referred to by Mill include Jeffrey, “Poems by W. Wordsworth,” ibid., XI (Oct., 1807), 214-31; Jeffrey, “Wordsworth’s White Doe,” ibid., XXV (Oct., 1815), 355-63; Brougham, “Karamsin’s Travels in Europe,” ibid., III (Jan., 1804), 321-8; Brougham, “Kotzebue’s Travels to Paris, etc.,” ibid., V (Oct., 1804), 78-91; Brougham, “Kotzebue’s Travels in Italy,” ibid., VII (Jan., 1806), 456-70; and Francis Palgrave, “Goethe’s Life of Himself (Part I),” ibid., XXVI (June, 1816), 304-37.]

[† ][Thomas Brown, “Belshaw’s Philosophy of the Mind, etc.,” Edinburgh Review,] I [(Jan., 1803)], 483. [The article had been quoted by James Mill in his “Periodical Literature. Edinburgh Review,” pp. 228-30, for which J. S. Mill had done the research.]

[[*] ]Jeffrey, “Bentham, Principes de législation par Dumont,” Edinburgh Review, IV (Apr., 1804), 1-26.

[[*] ]Anon., Monthly Repository, n.s. VI (Aug., 1832), 556-64, and ibid., n.s. VI (Sept., 1832), 627-34.

[[†] ]See Deuteronomy, 31:29.

[[‡] ]Mill is referring to Thomas Carlyle. See, for example, “Characteristics,” Edinburgh Review, LIV (Dec., 1831), 351-83, passim, but especially pp. 357-63, 367-8, and 372-3.

[[*] ]Carlyle, “Biography,” Fraser’s Magazine, V (Apr., 1832), 255.

[[*] ]The references are, respectively, to Aeschylus’ Prometheus vinctus, Demosthenes’ De corona, the statue of Minerva called the Palladium (or to Phidias’ Athena Parthenos), and Raphael’s Transfiguration.

[[*] ]Cf. Proverbs, 11:5, and 13:6.

[a-a]33, 59 have

[b-b]33 “poetry” does import] 59 “poetry” imports

[[*] ]Wordsworth, “To B. R. Haydon, Esq.,” in Poetical Works (1827), Vol. II, p. 296 (l. 2).

[c-c]33 those

[d]33 as

[e-e]33 To the mind, poetry is either nothing, or it is the better part of all art whatever, and of real life too, and the

[f-f]33 fundamental. [paragraph] Where

[g]33 itself

[h-h]33 cause

[i-i]33 may frame

[j-j]33 never

[k]33 it

[l-l]33 , but

[m-m]33, 59 “poetry,”

[n]33 to them

[o-o]33 before their minds

[p-p]33 principle

[q-q]33 feeling

[r]33 actual

[[*] ]“Preface to the Second Edition of Lyrical Ballads,” ibid., Vol. IV, p. 368n (note to para. 12).

[s-s]33 We have distinguished

[t-t]33 present

[u-u]33 to

[v-v]33 the faculty

[w-w]33 faculty

[x-x]33 finest

[y-y]33 novels

[z-z]33 novels

[a-a]33 novel

[b-b]33 incident

[c-c]33 feeling

[d]33 So much is the nature of poetry dissimilar to the nature of fictitious narrative, that to have a really strong passion for either of the two, seems to presuppose or to superinduce a comparative indifference to the other

[e-e]33 stories

[f-f]33 incidents

[g-g]33 by universal remark, the most

[h]33 at

[i-i]33 same persons whose time is divided between sight-seeing, gossip, and fashionable dissipation,

[j-j]33 the human heart

[k-k]33 life

[l-l]33 there

[m]33 and refined

[n]33 human

[o-o]33 . and other

[p-p]33, 59 men

[[*] ]Marie Jeanne Phlipon Roland de la Platière, Appel à l’impartiale postérité, ed. Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc, 4 pts. (Paris: Louvet, 1795), Pt. I, p. 36.

[q]33 ; and so may oil and vinegar, though opposite natures, blend together in the same composite taste

[r-r]33 glorious

[s-s]33 “Torquato Tasso” [italics added to the present text]

[[†] ]In Werke, 55 vols. (Stuttgart and Tübingen: Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1828-33), Vol. IX, pp. 99-245.

[t-t]33 exhibited

[u-u]33 found

[v-v]33 made

[w]33 the English

[x-x]33 descriptive

[y]33 , no more, we might almost say, than Greek or Latin is poetry because there are Greek and Latin poems

[z-z]33 also

[a-a]33 are

[b-b]33 arranged in the colours and seen through the medium

[c-c]33 is to describe

[d-d]33 will not set about describing

[e-e]33 will describe

[f-f]33 imagery

[g-g]33 in exaggerated colours

[h]33 the most

[[*] ]Ebenezer Elliott, Preface to 3rd ed., Corn Law Rhymes (London: Steill, 1831), p. v.

[i-i]33 We forget his exact words, but in substance he defined

[[†] ]Mill almost certainly has John Wilson in mind, but these exact words have not been located.

[j-j]33 man can announce

[k-k]33 eloquent

[l]33 [paragraph]

[m-m]33 . It

[n]33 , unless, which is highly probable, the German artists and critics have thrown some light upon it which has not yet reached us. Without a perfect knowledge of what they have written, it is something like presumption to write upon such subjects at all, and we shall be the foremost to urge that, whatever we may be about to submit, may be received, subject to correction from them

[o-o]33 uttering forth

[p]33 seeming affectation of the

[q-q]33 bodying itself forth

[r-r]33 forth

[s-s]33 But

[t-t]+59, 67

[u-u]33 publishing

[v-v]33 ; he may write it even

[w]33 any

[x]33 far

[y-y]33 feelings

[z-z]33 feels

[a-a]+59, 67

[b-b]33 have

[c]33 for their happiness

[d-d]33 least

[e-e]33 refined

[f-f]33 most

[g-g]+59, 67

[h-h]33 that

[i-i]33 character of Rossini’s music—the music, we mean, which is characteristic of that composer—is compatible with the expression of passion

[j-j]33 , the great poet of his art

[k-k]33 garrulous

[l-l]33 dramatic

[[*] ]Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro, Act III, Scene viii (first London performance, King’s Theatre, Haymarket, 18 June, 1812).

[m]33 The same is the case with many of the finest national airs. Who can hear those words, which speak so touchingly the sorrows of a mountaineer in exile:

• My heart’s in the Highlands—my heart is not here.
• My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer
• A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe—
• My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go

Who can hear those affecting words, married to as affecting an air, and fancy that he sees the singer? That song has always seemed to us like the lament of a prisoner in a solitary cell, ourselves listening, unseen, in the next. As the direct opposite of this, take “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” where the music is as oratorical as the poetry. [The two songs are by Robert Burns.]

[n-n]33 ofttimes

[[*] ]Gioacchino Antonio Rossini, Tancredi, Act II, Scene i (first London performance, King’s Theatre, Haymarket, 4 May, 1820), and La gazza ladra, Act II, Scene vi (first London performance, King’s Theatre, Haymarket, 10 Mar., 1821).

[o-o]33 prayer

[p-p]+59, 67

[q]33 , last summer,

[[†] ]Ludwig van Beethoven, Fidelio, Act I; she appeared in the first London performance, King’s Theatre, Haymarket, 18 May, 1832.

[[‡] ]Peter von Winter, Il ratto di Proserpina, Act II, Scene i (first London performance, King’s Theatre, Haymarket, 3 May, 1804).

[r-r]33 We question whether so deep an expression of mixed grandeur and melancholy was ever in any other instance produced by mere sounds

[s-s]33 description

[t-t]33 mere

[u-u]33 mere

[v-v]33 creation

[w-w]33 mere

[x-x]33 mere

[y-y]33 picture A portrait by Lawrence, or one of Turner’s views, is not a mere copy from nature: the one combines with the given features that particular expression (among all good and pleasing ones) which those features are most capable of wearing, and which, therefore, in combination with them, is capable of producing the greatest positive beauty. Turner, again, unites the objects of the given landscape with whatever sky, and whatever light and shade, enable those particular objects to impress the imagination most strongly. In both, there is creative art—not working after an actual model, but realizing an idea

[z-z]33 character

[a]33 [paragraph] The poetry of painting seems to be carried to its highest perfection in the Peasant Girl of Rembrandt, or in any Madonna or Magdalen of Guido, that of sculpture, in almost any of the Greek statues of the gods, not considering these in respect to the mere physical beauty, of which they are such perfect models, nor undertaking either to vindicate or to contest the opinion of philosophers, that even physical beauty is ultimately resolvable into expression; we may safely affirm, that in no other of man’s works did so much of soul ever shine through mere inanimate matter

[b]33 , in a manner.

[c-c]33 . As

[d-d]33 any series even

[e]33 which we know of,

[f]33 , you must know the story beforehand; then, indeed, you may see great beauty and appropriateness in the painting

[g-g]33 ; in

[h-h]33 narrate

[i-i]+59, 67

[j]33 all

[k-k]33, 59 grouping

[l-l]33 where

[m-m]33 eloquence

[n-n]33 glut

[o-o]33 historical

[p]33 to

[q-q]33 imaginations

[r]33 ; even now when David, the great corrupter of taste, has been translated from this world to the next, and from the Luxembourg, consequently, into the more elevated sphere of the Louvre

[s-s]33 in the worst style of corrupted eloquence, but in no style of poetry at all. The best are stiff and unnatural, the worst resemble figures of cataleptic patients. The French artists fancy themselves imitators of the classics, yet they seem to have no understanding and no feeling of that repose which was the peculiar and pervading character of Grecian art, until it began to decline a repose tenfold more indicative of strength than all their stretching and straining; for strength, as Thomas Carlyle says, does not manifest itself in spasms. [See “CornLaw Rhymes,” Edinburgh Review, LV (July, 1832), 351.]

There are some productions of art which it seems at first difficult to arrange in any of the classes above illustrated. The direct aim of art as such, is the production of the beautiful, and as there are other things beautiful besides states of mind, there is much of art which may seem to have nothing to do with either poetry or eloquence as we have defined them. Take for instance a composition of Claude, or Salvator Rosa. There is here creation of new beauty by the grouping of natural scenery, conformably indeed to the laws of outward nature, but not after any actual model; the result being a beauty more perfect and faultless than is perhaps to be found in any actual landscape. Yet there is a character of poetry even in these, without which they could not be so beautiful. The unity, and wholeness, and æsthetic congruity of the picture still lies in singleness of expression, but it is expression in a different sense from that in which we have hitherto employed the term. The objects in an imaginary landscape cannot be said, like the words of a poem or the notes of a melody, to be the actual utterance of a feeling, but there must be some feeling with which they harmonize, and which they have a tendency to raise up in the spectator’s mind. They must inspire a feeling of grandeur, or loveliness, or cheerfulness, or wildness, or melancholy, or terror. The painter must surround his principal objects with such imagery as would spontaneously arise in a highly imaginative mind, when contemplating those objects under the impression of the feelings which they are intended to inspire. This, if it be not poetry, is so nearly allied to it, as scarcely to require being distinguished.

In this sense we may speak of the poetry of architecture. All architecture, to be impressive, must be the expression or symbol of some interesting idea, some thought, which has power over the emotions. The reason why modern architecture is so paltry, is simply that it is not the expression of any idea, it is a mere parroting of the architectural tongue of the Greeks, or of our Teutonic ancestors, without any conception of a meaning.

To confine ourselves, for the present, to religious edifices: these partake of poetry, in proportion as they express, or harmonize with, the feelings of devotion. But those feelings are different according to the conception entertained of the beings, by whose supposed nature they are called forth. To the Greek, these beings were incarnations of the greatest conceivable physical beauty, combined with supernatural power: and the Greek temples express this, their predominant character being graceful strength, in other words, solidity, which is power, and lightness which is also power, accomplishing with small means what seemed to require great, to combine all in one word, majesty. To the Catholic, again, the Deity was something far less clear and definite, a being of still more resistless power than the heathen divinities, greatly to be loved, still more greatly to be feared; and wrapped up in vagueness, mystery, and incomprehensibility. A certain solemnity, a feeling of doubting and trembling hope, like that of one lost in a boundless forest who thinks he knows his way but is not sure, mixes itself in all the genuine expressions of Catholic devotion. This is eminentlythe expression of the pure Gothic cathedral, conspicuous equally in the mingled majesty and gloom of its vaulted roofs and stately aisles, and in the “dim religious light” which steals through its painted windows. [Milton, “Il Penseroso,” in The Poetical Works (London Tonson, 1695), p. 6 (l. 160).]

There is no generic distinction between the imagery which is the expression of feeling and the imagery which is felt to harmonize with feeling. They are identical. The imagery in which feeling utters itself forth from within, is also that in which it delights when presented to it from without. All art, therefore, in proportion as it produces its effects by an appeal to the emotions partakes of poetry, unless it partakes of oratory, or of narrative. And the distinction which these three words indicate, runs through the whole field of the fine arts.

The above hints have no pretension to the character of a theory. They are merely thrown out for the consideration of thinkers, in the hope that if they do not contain the truth, they may do somewhat to suggest it. Nor would they, crude as they are, have been deemed worthy of publication, in any country but one in which the philosophy of art is so completely neglected, that whatever may serve to put any inquiring mind upon this kind of investigation, cannot well, however imperfect in itself, fail altogether to be of use. [signed.] Antiquus.

[t-t]33 Nascitur poëta

[[*] ]Biographia Literaria, Vol. I, p. 37, and Vol. II, p. 14 (Chaps. ii and xv).

[u-u]33, 59 become

[v]33 begin to

[[†] ]See p. 343 above.

[w-w]33 perfected

[x]33 one

[y-y]33, 59 is

[z-z]33 some . . . some . . . some

[a-a]33, 59 ought

[b]33 the table of contents of

[c-c]33 man

[d-d]33 book

[e]33 quite other

[f-f]33 one of the natural consequences

[g-g]+59, 67

[h-h]33, 59 universal

[i-i]33, 59 diversities