i5^»Mi 
 
 
 I^B 
 
 K' 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 1 
 
 
 1,,,,,,,,,,, , 
 
 
 ^^S^^^S^J^* ' 
 
 
 H^^ 
 
 ^^^^^^<; 
 
 I^HmaBBBi^i: 
 
 [jDfliim}^fl^^^i}mg^fQfyii^M^^^^^^^Mw.< 
 
 
 gKK^KSKKHKRK^jS^^^^^^^^H^' 
 
 
 
 H^HI^: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^^^^^^w^;' 
 
 
 
 BSSBSS^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^Hi^^H^' 
 
 
 ^^^^H^KI 
 
 
(IJoniEll Uniucrsity library 
 
 iltljata. Neui fork 
 
 WORDSWORTH COLLECTION 
 
 CYNTHIA MORGAN ST JOHN 
 
 ITHACA. N. Y. I I 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 VICTOR EMANUEL 
 
 CLASS OF 1919 
 1925 
 
^oofe0 bp &a)in p* MtW^* 
 
 We hold that Whipple is one of the most subtle, discriminat- 
 ing, and profound of critics. Nor are we alone in this opinion. 
 Macaulay said that some of Whipple's essays were the subtlest 
 and ablest and clearest in expression that lie had ever read. Miss 
 Mitford wrote that they would bear comparison with any of their 
 class in the older country. Prescott declared that no critic had 
 " ever treated his topics with more discrimination and acuteness." 
 His essay on Wordsworth itself would have made a reputation 
 for another man ; and delicious morsels are to be found on every 
 page of his books, which those who read will find. — London 
 Spectator. 
 
 WORKS. New Edition, revised and enlarged. In six volumes, 
 
 crown 8vo, gilt top. 
 LITERATtJEE AND LIFE. $1.50. 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. In two volumes. $3.00. 
 CHARACTER AND CHARACTERISTIC MEN. $1.50. 
 SUCCESS AND ITS CONDITIONS. $1,50. 
 THE LITERATURE OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 
 
 ;8i.So. 
 
 The set, ^9.00; half calf, ^15.00. 
 
 *#* For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of 
 price by the Publishers, 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Publishers, Boston. 
 
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 VOL. n 
 
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 
 
 EDWIN P. WHIPPLE 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. II. 
 
 piFm^p^^ 
 
 i 
 
 ^B 
 
 1 
 
 ^B| 
 
 m 
 
 ^^^^^Sffl 
 
 a,iiirii'iiiViMUMiinii;yii.m,ii;u]minS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 Cte C^iberi^jtie ^xe90, Camlititi0e 
 
 1887 
 
 Do 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850^ 
 
 Bt Edwin P. Whipple, 
 
 la the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Masgachiuetll 
 
 u 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS, .... 7 
 
 MARLOWB. 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 DECKER. 
 
 WEBSTER. 
 
 HARSTON. 
 
 HBYWOOD. 
 
 CHAPMAN. 
 
 MIODLETON. 
 
 TOITRNEUR. 
 
 BEAUMONT AND FI.BTOHBR. 
 
 MASSINGER. 
 
 PORD. 
 
 ROMANCE OF RASCALITY, ... 74 
 
 THE CROAKERS OF SOCIETY AND LTTERATnitS, . . 86 
 
 BRITISH CRITICS, ..... 94 
 
 JEFFREY. 
 
 MACKINTOSH. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 
 
 CIFFORD. 
 
 HAZLITT. 
 
 HUNT. 
 
 RUFUS CHOATE, ... 130 
 
 PRESCOTT'S HISTORIES, . . . . .162 
 
 PRESCOTT'S CONQUEST OF PERU, . . 187 
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S CRITICS, . . . . .909 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 VERFLANOX. 
 SCHLEOBIu 
 ULRICI. 
 HUDSON. 
 
 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, ... 250 
 
 HENRY FIELDING, , . .303 
 
 DANA'S POEMS AND PROSE WRITINGS, . . 358 
 
 APPENDIX, . . , ■ Kt 
 
 THOMAS HOOD. 
 
 LEIGH hunt's FOBMS. 
 
 THOMAS CARLTLB AS A POLITICIiJI. 
 
 NOVBLS OV THB •149011. 
 
 I 
 
ESSAYS AND EEYIEWS,. 
 
 OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS.* 
 
 Among the English critics of the present century, none 
 was entitled to speak with more authority of the Old 
 English Dramatists than Charles Lamb. His letters and 
 essays show that his choicest hours were spent in their 
 company. Their scenes and characters did not merely 
 pass before his mind for review, but seemed to run into 
 hif blood and imagination, and blend with his life. He 
 waj the representative of the Elizabethan age to the 
 nineteenth century, and enforced the claims of his stal- 
 wart veterans to attention with a nicety of criticism 
 which had the sureness of a fine instinct. The notes to 
 his Specimens, quaint, keen, and short, are good exam- 
 ples of penetrating and interpretative criticism. The 
 fine fusion in Lamb's mind of humor and imagination 
 gives to these meagre notices a peculiar raciness and 
 
 * Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shak- 
 speare. With Notes. By Charles Lamb. New York : Wiley & Putnam 
 1845. 16mo. pp.448. 
 
 Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. By William 
 Hazlitt. New York : Wiley & Putnam. l6mo. pp. 216.— North Amenear 
 Beview, July, 1846. 
 
S ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 sweetness, unlike most retrospective criticism. Mar- 
 lowe, Decker, Webster, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher, were not to him mere names of per- 
 sons who once existed, but he had a genial sense of their 
 presence, as he bent lovingly over their time-stained 
 pages. Their hearts and imaginations spoke directly to 
 his own ; theirs were the old familiar faces, known from 
 his youth upwards. We conceive of him, at times, as 
 being present at the wit contests at the Mermaid, and as 
 feeling the " words of subtile flame " which flashed from 
 the lips of Shakspeare, Jonson, and Fletcher. From his 
 realization of them as persons, he was less likely to ex- 
 aggerate their merits as authors. He saw them as they 
 were in their lives, and judged them as a kindly contem- 
 porary spirit. Consequently, his volume of Specimens 
 is infused with the very soul of the time ; and it may be 
 set down as one of the most fascinating of compilations. 
 The Lectures of Hazlitt on the same period are a good 
 counterpart to Lamb's book. They display more than 
 his usual strength, acuteness, and animation, with less 
 than the usual acerbities of his temper. His stern, sharp 
 analysis pierces and probes the subject down through the 
 surface to the centre ; and it is exercised in a more 
 kindly spirit than is common with him. His volume is 
 enriched with delicious quotations. Hazlitt had a pro- 
 found appreciation of the elder dramatists, though a less 
 social feeling for them than Lamb ; and their character- 
 istic excellences drew from him some of his heartiest 
 bursts of eloquent panegyric. From his Lectures and 
 Lamb's Specimens, the general reader would be likely to 
 gain a more vivid notion of the intellectual era they 
 commemorate, than from any other sources, except the 
 originals themselves. 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 9 
 
 The period of time in which those whom we call the 
 Old English Dramatists flourished runs from the middle 
 of the reign of Elizabeth to the Great Rebellion, — about 
 sixty years. The most brilliant portion of this period 
 was the reign of James the First. The drama com- 
 menced with Buckhurst, and died out in Shirley. In the 
 intervening time, we have the names of Marlowe, Shak- 
 speare, Webster, Decker, Tourneur, Heywood, Middle- 
 ton, Chapman, Ben Jonson, Marston, Massinger, Ford, 
 and Beaumont and Fletcher, —a constellation of genius, 
 which, in power and variety, in imagination, passion, 
 fancy, wit, sense, philosophy, character, nature, is unex- 
 ampled in the intellectual annals of the world. Bacon, 
 Hooker, Hobbes, Browne, Cudworth, Barrow, Taylor, 
 Napier, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, and, we may add, 
 Milton, may be classed in the same generation. These 
 sixty years were most emphatically " rammed " with 
 intellectual life. Great men, men of originating minds 
 in different departments of literature and science, men 
 eminent in action and speculation, men whose names 
 ring now as sweet music in the ears of all who speak 
 the English tongue, seemed to have been crowded and 
 crammed into this era, " infinite riches in a little room." 
 Yet the age was what we would call rude and coarse in 
 its manners, the language had not been trained into a 
 facile instrument of thought, few people were " edu- 
 cated," in our sense of the term, and civilization had but 
 imperfectly done its work on the old barbarism ; and yet, 
 we doubt if external circumstances were ever more pro- 
 pitious to the development in a people of the greatest 
 energies of intellect and passion. 
 
 The age to which we refer was one of vast intellectua' 
 and moral actvity. That great movement of the Euro 
 
10 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 pean mind at the revival of letters, whose splendid re- 
 sults were seen in the invention of gunpowder and print- 
 ing, in the Reformation, the discovery of the American 
 continent, the overthrow of feudalism, the new import- 
 ance given to the middle class, the circulation of the 
 classics, the creation of national literatures, the assertion 
 of individual rights, and the general tendency to transs 
 fer the sceptre of influence from the soldier to the thinker, 
 was most deeply felt in England during this period, and, 
 as regards literature, it achieved there its mightiest 
 triumphs. When we contrast the age with that which 
 immediately preceded it, we seem almost to realize the 
 vision of Milton, of a " mighty and puissant nation rous- 
 ing itself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking his 
 invincible locks." Everything was in motion. Great 
 events stimulated great passions. An old order of life, 
 with its institutions, its manners, its superstitions, was 
 shaken to its foundations. New ideas and images were 
 rushing into the national life from a thousand sources. 
 Greece, Rome, Italy, Spain, poured into the one great 
 channel their blended streams. In the vast background 
 of the national history, in the manners and passions of 
 the feudal age, were exhaustless materials of heroic 
 romance. What was passing away in actual life was 
 transferred to the imagination, to reappear idealized in 
 poetry. The old times were sufficiently recent to be 
 ideally apprehended. They lingered in knightly feelings 
 and accomplishments, and shaped the highest minds of 
 the age in a mould of heroism. An artificial civilization 
 had neither tamed nor refined the energies of the heart. 
 There were great diversities of culture, character, man- 
 ners, ranging from extreme coarseness to high delicacy 
 and a corresponding external costume, which afforded the 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 11 
 
 poet a wide variety of subjects, from which to select 
 striking individualities and picturesque images. The 
 intellect of the country was prying, inquisitive, bold, dis- 
 posed to innovation, and yet creative. The understand 
 ing and the imagination were both alive and active. 
 There was a certain fulness, roundness, and harmony of 
 mental development, in the great men of the time, which 
 gives a character of majestic ease to their sturdiest exer- 
 tions of power. None of their faculties acquired a dis- 
 eased activity at the expense of the rest. It was not a 
 time to produce Humes or Schellings in philosophy, 
 Crabbes or Wordsworths in poetry. Taken altogether, 
 it would be difficult to find a class of minds more com- 
 prehensive, profound, practical, and available. The phi- 
 losophers were poets, and the poets philosophers. There 
 was a strong development and happy equipoise of those 
 powers which relate to actual life, and those which refer 
 to the world of imagination. The literature of the period 
 has body as well as soul. Things were grasped in the 
 concrete, and so stated that their substance and vital 
 spirit could not be separated. Great minds nursed 
 Utopias in their capacious and far-darting imaginations, 
 without being troubled with a diseased self-consciousness, 
 and without whining about their circumstances. The 
 noblest spirit of them all was an actor and manager of a 
 theatre, who excelled all his contemporaries as much in 
 prudence as in genius, and is one of the three profes- 
 sional authors of Great Britain who obtained a compe- 
 tence by literature.* The age was not troubled with 
 " gifted spirits," " earnest minds," or " poet-souls." 
 
 The intellectual and moral activity of which we have 
 gpoken, though it was felt in nearly all departments of 
 
 * Shakspeare, Pope, and Scott. 
 
'l2 essays and reviews. 
 
 philosophy, literature, and action, and pijduced in ah 
 magnificent results, left perhaps its most wonderful traces 
 on the dramatic literature of the period. The original- 
 ity and power of this as a mirror of life cannot be con- 
 tested, however much may be said against the rudeness 
 and inartistical shape of the majority of its products. 
 Were a man to exhaust the literatures of all other times 
 and nations, he could not be introduced to the English 
 drama without being startled from the complacency of 
 his settled tastes, and compelled to acknowledge the 
 existence of a new province of imagination, not implied 
 or foretold in any canons of criticism. The reading of 
 the Old Dramatists to such a person would be like gazing 
 at the earth's central fires through cracks in the ground 
 made by an earthquake. He would see the nature of 
 man revealed in its most terrible aspects of crime and 
 suffering, — all the restraints both on depravity and vir- 
 tue torn violently away, — and the heart in its naked 
 reality laid open to view. All the conventional propri- 
 eties and linen decencies of language, he would find con- 
 tinually violated. The bad and the good, the great and 
 , the mean, wisdom and folly, mirth and grief, he would see 
 jostling each other in seemingly inextricable confusion. 
 He would hear not only the natural language of passion, 
 even to the lowest tone that the heart half whispers to 
 itself, but that language as modified by the thousand 
 diversities of character. Oaths and vulgarities would 
 ring through his brain, just as some exquisite strain of 
 poetry had died away on his ear He would stand 
 imazed to find so much genius and impassioned action 
 associated with so much flutter and rant, and perhaps 
 ivould seek in the phrase " irregular genius ' a conven 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 13 
 
 lent passage out of astonishment into contented igno- 
 rance. 
 
 The fine audacity that distinguishes these writeis has, 
 we believe, no parallel in literature. It led often to 
 monstrous violations of taste and probability, but it still 
 enabled them to reach heights and sound depths, which 
 equal powers, wielded by a less daring will, could never 
 have achieved. We shall see, also, that, though plain to 
 coarseness in speech, when they undertook to represent 
 coarse characters, they rarely, with the exception perhaps 
 of Fletcher, tampered with moral laws. A good, whole- 
 some, English integrity generally underlies their vulgari- 
 ties. Their works would not be so likely to corrupt the 
 mind as some of Byron's and Moore's ; for, though they 
 represent immorality, they do not inculcate it. Their 
 robust strength of nature preserved them from sentiment- 
 ality, if not from bombast and buffoonery. Their minds 
 breathed the bracing air of their time, — a time which 
 would tolerate what would now be considered breaches 
 of decorum, but would not tolerate the smaller vices of 
 intellect and sentiment. Of course, in these remarks, as 
 far as they touch upon gross faults, we do not mean to 
 include Shakspeare among his brother dramatists. He 
 excelled them all as much in judgment as in genius. 
 
 The first playhouse built in England was erected in 
 Blackfriars, in the year 1569 or 1570, about twenty 
 years before Shakspeare commenced writing for the 
 stage. Previously to this establishment of the " regular 
 drama," there had been three different species of the- 
 atrical representations, — miracles or mysteries, written 
 by priests on religious subjects, and performed by them 
 on holydays, in which, as Campbell phrases it, " Adam 
 %nd Eve appeared naked, the devil displayed his bonis 
 
14 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 and tail, and Noah's wife boxed the patriarch's ears 
 before entering the ark;" — moralities, which sprang 
 from the mysteries, and approached nearer to regular 
 plays, their characters being composed of allegorical per- 
 sonifications of virtues and vices ; — and free translations 
 from the classics, performed at the inns of court, the 
 public seminaries, and the universities. 
 
 In 1574, the queen licensed a company of actors, 
 called the Earl of Leicester's Servants, to play through- 
 out England, " for the recreation of her loving subjects, 
 as for her own solace and pleasure when she should 
 think good to see them." Theatres rapidly increased. 
 In 1606, there were seven in London; in 1629, we 
 believe there were seventeen. They were opposed, in 
 an early stage of their career, by the Puritans and the 
 graver counsellors of the sovereign. In 1583, at the time 
 that Sir Philip Sidney published his Defence of Poesy, 
 he could find little in their performances to approve. 
 Though forbidden, after the year 1574, to be open on the 
 Sabbath, the prohibition does not appear to have been 
 effective during the reign of Elizabeth. Secretary Wal- 
 singham laments over the whole matter in this wise : — 
 " The daily abuse of stage plays is such an offence to 
 the godly, and so great a hindrance to the Gospel, as the 
 Papists do exceedingly rejoice at the blemish thereof ; for 
 every day in the week the players' bills are set up in 
 mndry places in the city, — some in the name of her 
 Majesty's men, some of the Earl of Leicester's, some 
 the Earl of Oxford's, the Lord Admiral's, and divers 
 others, so that, when thi bell tolls to the lecture, the 
 trumpet sounds to the stage. The playhouses are filled 
 when the churches are naked. It is a wofui sight to 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 15 
 
 see two hundred proud players jet in their silks, when 
 five hundred poor people starve in the streets." 
 
 As the taste for theatrical exhibitions increased, the 
 task of providing the theatres with plays became a pro- 
 fession. Most of the precursors, contemporaries, and 
 Buccessors of Shakspeare, were young men of education, 
 who came down to the city from the universities, to pro 
 vide themselves with a living by whatever cunning there 
 was in their brain and ten fingers. Some became actors 
 as well as writers. The remuneration of the dramatist 
 was small. Poverty and dissoluteness seem to have 
 characterized the pioneers of the drama. As the thea- 
 tre was popular as well as fashionable, the " ground- 
 lings," who paid their sixpences for admission, had their 
 tastes consulted. This accounts, in some degree, for the 
 rant and vulgarity which strangely disfigure so many of 
 the plays. The usual miseries and vices which charac- 
 terize men of letters in an unlettered age, when authors 
 are numerous and readers are few, distinguish the lives 
 of many of the elder dramatists. Ben Jonson, in the 
 Poetaster, makes Tucca exclaim, with a side reference to 
 the poets of his own day, that " they are a sort of poor, 
 starved rascals, that are ever wrapt up in foul linen ; and 
 can boast of nothing but a lean visage peering out of a 
 seam-rent suit, the very emblem of beggary." We sup- 
 pose this was too true a picture of many, whose minds 
 deserved a better environment of flesh and raiment. 
 
 Of those who preceded Shakspeare, the best known 
 names (leaving Buckhurst and Still out of the list) are 
 Oyly, Kyd, Nash, Greene, Lodge, and Marlowe. Much 
 cannot be said in praise of these, if we except the latter. 
 Lyiy is full of daintiness and conceit, with sweet fancy 
 and sentiment occasionally thrown in. He translate* 
 
16 ESSA S AND REVIEWS. 
 
 everything into quaint expression. Thus, his End) rtAon 
 professes that " his thoughts are stitched to the stars." 
 Another of his characters looks forward to the time 
 when "it shall please the fertility of his chin to be 
 delivered of a beard." Peele has melody of versification, 
 and a sort of Della-Cruscan fancy. His David and 
 Bethsabe contains striking passages, as when Zephyr is 
 addressed : — 
 
 " Then deck thee with thy loose, delightsome robes, 
 And on thy wings bring delicate perftimes ; " — 
 
 or the resolution of David : — 
 
 " To joy her love I '11 build a kingly bower, 
 Seated in hearing' of a hundred streams." 
 
 Kyd wrote The Spanish Tragedy, a play bad enough in 
 Itself, but celebrated from the additions made to it by 
 'eminent hands." Its bombast was probably popular. 
 Ben Jonson was one of those engaged to write addi- 
 tional scenes ; but he has ridiculed the whole play in 
 Every Man in his Humor, in "the scene between Bobadil 
 md Master Mathew, the town gull. Bobadil says, " 1 
 would fain see all the poets of these times pen such 
 another play as that was ! " Greene's death was more 
 tragic than anything he wrote or conceived. He is now 
 principally remembered for having called Shakspeare 
 ' an upstart crow." 
 
 But a more potent spirit than any of these, and 
 beyond all question the first in rank among the pre- 
 cursors of Shakspeare, was Christopher Marlowe 
 His " mighty line " has been celebrated by Ben Jon 
 Bon ; Drayton finely ascribes to him " those brave .sub. 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. l7 
 
 lunary things that the first poets had ; " and according to 
 old George Chapman, — 
 
 " He stood 
 Up to the chin ia the Pierian flood." 
 
 Marlowe, indeed, towers up among his contemporanes, 
 huge, lawless, untamable, the old Adam burning fiercely 
 within him, his frame of mind 
 
 "Betokening valor and excess of strength," 
 
 and in his strange compound of sublimity and rant, 
 giving an impression half-way between a thunder-scarred 
 Titan and an Alsatian bully. From the impress of per- 
 verse and turbulent power that his dramas bear, and the 
 evident heartiness with which he deifies self-will, we may 
 well suppose that his life diverged considerably from the 
 strait line of the commandments. The two prominent 
 features of his biography are exceedingly characteristic. 
 In his life, he labored under the imputation of infidelity, 
 and is said to have blasphemed the Holy Trinity ; and 
 he died in a tavern brawl, in 1593, or 1594, about the 
 time that Shakspeare was writing Richard the Second. 
 Campbell suggests, that, had Marlowe lived, Shakspeare 
 might have had something like a competitor. This we 
 think is too high praise ; for Marlowe, with all his fire 
 and fancy, is limited in his range of character, and 
 stamps the image of himself on all his striking deline- 
 ations. He is intense, but narrow. The central princi- 
 ple of his mind was self-will, and this is the bond which 
 binds together his strangely nuddled faculties. Of all 
 English poets, he most reminds us of Byron ; ruder, it 
 may be, but at the same time more colossal in his pro- 
 \;>ortions. He is a glorious old heathen, " large in heart 
 
 VOL. II. 2 
 
18 BlSSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 and brain," — a fiery and fickle Goth, on whose rough 
 ana savage energies a classical culture has been piled, 
 tossed among the taverns, and theatres, and swelling 
 spirits of London, to gratify the demands of his senses 
 in some other way than by acts of brilliant pillage. In 
 his .ustiness, his absence of all weak emotions, his fierce 
 delight in the mere feeling of self, in the heedlessness 
 with which he heaps together rubbish and diamonds, 
 and in the frequent " starts and strange far-flights of his 
 imagination," he is the model of irregular genius. His 
 mind, in its imperiousness, disregarded by instinct the 
 natural relations of things, forced objects into the form 
 of his individual passions, and lifted his vices into a 
 kind of Satanic dignity, by exaggerating them into 
 shapes colossal. His imagination, hot, swift, impatient 
 of control, pervaded by the fiery essence of his blood, 
 and giving wings to the most reckless desires, riots in the 
 maddest visions of strength and pride. Of all writers, 
 he seems to feel the heartiest joy in the mere exercise 
 of power, regardless of all the restraints which make 
 power beneficent. His most truculent characters, Tam- 
 burlaine, Eleazar, Barabbas, Faustus, all have blazoned 
 on their brows, " Kit Marlowe, his mark." There is no 
 mistaking his heaven-defying energy, nor his Ishmael 
 itish strut and swagger. His soul tears its way through 
 his verse, " tameless, and swift, and proud," scorning al 
 impediments, and ever ambitious to go 
 
 " Right forward, like the lightning 
 And the cannon-ball, opening, with murderous crash, 
 Its way to blast and ruin." 
 
 From this headlong haste come his bombast and extrav- 
 agance, " his lust of power, his hunger and thirst afte 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 19 
 
 anrighteousness, his glow of imaginatior, unhallowed 
 save by its own energies." Whether his muse cleave 
 the upper air, or draggle in the dirt, it ever gives unity 
 of impression. In Lust's Dominion, or the Lascivious 
 Queen, the rapid movement of the man's mind is very 
 characteristic, — rattling recklessly on through scenes of 
 murder, cruelty, and lust, — now striking off " burning 
 atoms " of thought, and now merely infusing fire into 
 fustian, — his faculties at times stretched on the rack, 
 writhing in fearful contortions, and smiting the ear with 
 the wild screams of a tortured brain, — but still marching 
 furiously forward, daring everything, and playing out 
 the game of tragedy freely and fearlessly. In this play 
 he somewhat reminds us of the actor who blacked him- 
 self all over when he performed Othello, and called that 
 " going thoroughly into the part." Marlowe scatters 
 lust and crime about in such careless profusion, that 
 they cease to excite horror. His Muse must too often 
 have appeared to him in some such form as the hideous 
 phantom in Clarence's dream, — 
 
 " A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
 Dabbled in blood." 
 
 But amidsi all his spasmodic and braggart lines in the 
 vein of King Cambyses, his mind continually gives evi- 
 dence of possessing pathos, sweetness, and true power. 
 Imaginations of the greatest beauty and majesty will 
 sometimes rush up, like rockets, from the level extrava- 
 gance of his most ranting plays, " streaking the darkness 
 radiantly;" — as in that celebrated passage in Tam- 
 ourlaine, which Shakspeare condescended to ridicule 
 through the lips of Ancient Pistol : — " 
 
?0 TSSSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 "Enter Taniburlaine, drawn in his chariot by Trebizon and Soria, 
 with bits in their mouths, reins in his left hand, in his right hand a 
 whip, with which he scourgeth them. 
 
 " TamJb. Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia! 
 What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day, 
 And have so proud a chariot at your heels, 
 And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine ? 
 But from Asphaltis, where I conquered you, 
 To Byron here, where thus I honor you 7 
 The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven. 
 And blow the morning from their nostrils, 
 Making their fiery gate above the glades, 
 Are not so honored in their governor 
 As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine." 
 
 From the same play, which has passed into a syno- 
 nyme of bombast and " midsummer madness," but which 
 contains lines that Beaumont and Milton have not hesi- 
 tated to appropriate, Leigh Hunt extracts the following 
 exquisite passage : — 
 
 " If all the pens that ever poet held 
 Had fed the feeling of their master's thoughts, 
 And every sweetness that inspired their hearts, 
 And minds, and muses, on admired themes ; 
 If all the heavenly quintessence they stUI 
 From their immortal flowers of poesy, 
 Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive 
 The highest reaches of a human wit ; 
 If these had made one poem's period. 
 And all combined in beauty's worthiness ; 
 Yet should there hover in their restless heads 
 One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the best. 
 Which into words no virtue can digest." 
 
 The description of Tamburlaine's person has a rude 
 Titanic grandeur, which still tells on the ear and braia 
 isk in the lines, — 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. Sii 
 
 " Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned ; 
 Like his desire, lift upwards and divine, 
 So large of limb, his joints so strongly knit, 
 Such breadth of shoulders as might mably bear 
 Old Atlas' burthen." 
 
 »n the whole description, Marlowe's predominating 
 desire to accumulate round his characters images of 
 strength and majesty, and to dwarf all other men in 
 comparison, is finely exemplified. Tamburlaine is 
 
 " Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion ;" 
 
 his eyes are " piercing instruments of sight," 
 
 •' Whose fiery circles bear encompassed 
 A heave J of heavenly bodies in their spheres." 
 
 The breath of heaven " delights " to play with his curls 
 of " amber hair ; " his bent brows " figure death," their 
 smoothness, " amity and life ; " his " kindled wrath can 
 only be quenched in blood ; " and he is " in every part 
 proportioned like a man " who has the right divine to 
 subdue the world. We are astonished that Carlyle has 
 not yet puffed Tamburlaine as made after Marlowe's 
 image. The Scythian shepherd deserves a proud place 
 among his heroes. 
 
 Most of Marlowe's powerful scenes are well known. 
 His best plays are The Rich Jew of Malta; Edward 
 the Second, the " reluctant pangs of whose abdicating 
 royalty," says Lamb, " furnished hints which Shakspeare 
 scarce improved in Richard the Second ; " and the Trag- 
 ical History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus, which 
 is his greatest and most characteristic performance, sadly 
 disfigured, however, by bathos and buffoonery, and in- 
 
22 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 
 
 spired in part by the very imp of mischief. Barabbas, 
 the Jew, has been mentioned as suggesting Shylock. 
 The character, however, has little resemblance to Shak- 
 speare's Jew. It is Marlowe all over. In the celebrated 
 scene where Barabbas gloats over his vast wealth, his 
 imagination glows like his own " fiery opals." The 
 death-scene in Edward the Second, according to Lamb, 
 "moves pity and terror beyond any scene, ancient or 
 modem," with which he is acquainted. We think this 
 praise altogether too extravagant, affecting as the scene 
 undoubtedly is. 
 
 We take leave of Marlowe with an extract from the 
 last scene in Faustus. The verse has the sinewy vigor 
 and sonorous chime which generally distinguish his 
 style. It is, however, intensified by the agony ftae 
 might feel on viewing his own name traced in flam ng 
 characters on the black rolls of the damned. 
 
 " Faitstus alone.— The dock strikes eleven. 
 
 " Faust. O Faustus, 
 Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, 
 And then thou must be damned perpetually. 
 Stand stiU, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, 
 That time may cease, and midnight never come. 
 Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make 
 Perpetual day: or let this hour be but 
 A year, a month, a week, a natural day, 
 That Faustus may repent and sa re his soul. 
 O lente, lente currite, nociis equi ! 
 The stars move still, time runs, the clock \»t11 strike 
 The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned. 
 O, I will leap to heaven ! Who pulls me down ? 
 See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament: 
 One drop of blood will save me ; O, my Christ, 
 Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ 1 
 Yet will I call on him. O spare me, Lucifer 1 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 23 
 
 Where is it now ? 't is gone ! 
 
 And see, a threatening arm, and angry brow ! 
 
 Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me, 
 
 And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven. 
 
 No ? then I will headlong run into the earth • 
 
 Gape, earth. O no, it will not harbor me. 
 
 You stars that reigned at my nativity. 
 
 Whose influence have allotted death and hell, 
 
 Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist 
 
 Into the entrails of yon laboring cloud ; 
 
 That when you vomit forth into the air, 
 
 My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, 
 
 But let my soul mount, and ascend to heaven. 
 
 [TTie watch strikes. "l 
 O half the hour is past ! 't will all be past ancm. 
 O if my soul must suffer for my sin. 
 Impose some end to my incessant pain ! 
 Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, 
 A hundred thousand, and at the last be saved: 
 No end is limited to damned souls. 
 Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul 7 
 Or why is this immortal that thou hast ? 
 O Pythagoras, Metempsychosis, were that true, 
 This soul should fly from me, and I be changed 
 Into some brutish beast. 
 All beasts are happy, for when they die, 
 Their souls are soon dissolved in elements ; 
 But mine must live still to be plagued in hell. 
 Curst be the parents that engendered me : 
 No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer, 
 That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven. 
 
 [The clock strikes twelve.] 
 It strikes, it strikes ; now, body, turn to air, 
 Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell. 
 O soul, be changed into small water-drops, 
 And fall into the ocean ; ne'er be found. 
 
 [Thunder, and enter the Devila.^ 
 
 mercy. Heaven, look not so fierce on me ! 
 Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while. 
 Ugly hell, gape not, come not, Lucifer: 
 
 1 'U burn my books : O Mephistophilis I " 
 
24 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 It is supposed that Marlowe wrote the principal por- 
 tion of the old plays which Shakspeare altered into the 
 Second and Third Parts of Henry the Sixth. Malone 
 on comparing the latter with their originals, found that 
 1771 lines had been taken without alteration, 2373 
 altered, and only 1899 had been added. Greene, in his 
 Groat'sworth of Wit, published in 1592, addressing, it is 
 conjectured, Marlowe, exclaims, — " Yes, trust them not 
 [the players], for there is an upstart crow, beautified with 
 «ur feathers, that, with a tiger's heart wrapped in a play- 
 er's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out 
 a, blank verse as any of you, and, being an absolute 
 Johannes factotum, is, in his conceit, the only Shake- 
 scene in a country." 
 
 Next to Shakspeare, there is no dramatist of the period 
 whose name is so familiar to English ears as that of Ben 
 JoNSON, though he is probably less read than either Mas- 
 singer or Fletcher. The associations connected with his 
 name have contributed towards keeping it alive, for he 
 is, in most points of his character, the very embodiment 
 of England, a veritable, indubitable John Bull. The 
 base of his character is sound, strong, weighty sense, 
 with that infusion of insular prejudice which keeps every 
 true Englishman from being a cosmopolite, either in 
 literature, arts, government, or manners. He has also 
 that ingrained coarseness, which, in the Anglo-Saxon 
 mind, often coexists with the sturdiest morality, and, 
 though it disconnects virtue from delicacy, prevents vice 
 from allying itself with refinement. In reading Jonson 
 we continually fall upon expressions which " no young 
 lady ought to read ; " but there is nothing which tends 
 to corrupt the morals, as well as to vulgarize the speech. 
 Virtue and vice, honesty and baseness, indulge in nc 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 25 
 
 coquetry in his representations. We are acquainted 
 with no dramatist whose characters, bad and good, are 
 better adapted to excite in us the same feelings that we 
 should experience, if we met them in actual life. 
 
 With this basis of sound English sense, Jonson has 
 fancy, humor, satire, learning, a large knowledge of men 
 and motives, and a remarkable command of language, 
 sportive, scornful, fanciful, and impassioned. One of 
 the fixed facts in English literature, he is too strongly 
 rooted ever to be upset. He stands out from all his 
 contemporaries, original, peculiar, leaning on none for 
 aid, and to be tried by his own merits alone. Had his 
 imagination been as sensitive as that of many of his 
 contemporaries, or his self-love less, he would probably 
 have fallen into their conscious or unconscious imitation 
 of Shakspeare ; but, as it was, he remained satisfied 
 with himself to the last, delving in his own mine. His 
 " mountain belly and his rocky face " are good symbols 
 of his hard, sharp, decided, substantial, and arrogant 
 mind. His life and writings both give evidence of great 
 vitality and force of character. Composition must have 
 been with him a manual labor, for he writes with all his 
 might. The weaknesses of his nature, his perversity, 
 his bluff way of bragging of his own achievements, his 
 vanity, his domineering egotism, his love of strong food, 
 his deep potations, and the heartiness, good-will, and 
 latent sense of justice, which underlie all, are thoroughly 
 English, and make him as familiar to the imagination as 
 a present existence. We speak of Shakspeare's mind, 
 but Jonson starts up always in bodily proportions. He 
 seems some boon companion, whom we have seen in a 
 preexistent state. Shakspeare's creations, from Hamlel 
 to FalstafF, are more real to us than Shaksneare him 
 
Bb ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, 
 
 Belf ; but we have a more intense conception of Joiison 
 than we have of any of his characters, not even excepting 
 Bobadil and Sir Epicure Mammon. His life was com- 
 mensurate with the whole generation of great poets to 
 which he belonged. He survived Shakspeare twenty- 
 one ye.\rs. His biography is better known than that of 
 any of his contemporaries. 
 
 Jonson's life was checkered by many vicissitudes. 
 He was born in the city of Westminster, in the year 
 1574. His father went out of the world about a month 
 after our poet came into it; and his worthy mother 
 shortly after married a master-bricklayer. By the aid 
 of some friend, whose name is unknown, he was sent to 
 Westminster school, and transferred thence to Cam- 
 bridge university. After staying there a short time, his 
 resources failed him, and he returned home to work at 
 the trade of his father-in-law. This occupation, how- 
 ever, he could not long endure, and he went as a volun- 
 teer in the army serving in Flanders. He distinguished 
 himself by his valor, and prided himself no little on hav- 
 ing conquered and killed an enemy, in the view of both 
 armies, in single combat. The trade of arms, however, 
 does not appear to have been attended in his case with 
 any lucrative results, and he returned home at the end 
 of one or two campaigns. Shortly after, at about the 
 age of nineteen, he went upon the stage, as actor and 
 journeyman writer ; but for four years seems to have 
 done little more than make additions to old plays, or 
 furnish scenes to other dramatists. In 1596, however, 
 when he was only twenty-two years old, his Every 
 Man in his Humor, the most generally popular of 
 his plays, was produced. Previously to this, he had 
 killed a brother-player in a duel, and came near being 
 
OLI ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 27 
 
 Hanged for it; had turned Roman Catholic, and been 
 suspected of a share in a Popish conspiracy ; and had 
 got marriod ; three incidents in the life of a young man 
 just at maturity, which show quite an extraordinary 
 aptitude for affairs. 
 
 The scene of Every Man in his Humor, as originally 
 written, was laid in Italy. It was popular from the first. 
 In 1598, Jonson became acquainted with Shakspeare, 
 and through his influence was enabled to bring out his 
 play, as now remodelled with English names, at the 
 Blackfriars theatre. Shakspeare is supposed to have 
 acted the part of the elder Knowell in this comedy. In 
 1599, Jonson brought out Every Man out of his Humor, 
 the first representation of which was attended by Queen 
 Elizabeth. In the epilogue to the play, hyperbole is 
 racked to find terms of adoring admiration for the queen. 
 Jonson, in his conversations with Drummond, did not 
 hesitate to give his real opinion about the haughty 
 Tudor's susceptibility to flattery. In this play the author 
 shows that contempt for public opinion which breaks out 
 in so many of his prefaces. He calls the public " that 
 inany-mouthed, vulgar dog." Cynthia's Revels was 
 acted in 1600, and excited much opposition. Decker 
 and Marston were prominent among those it offended; 
 and in consequence, Jonson's next play. The Poetaster, 
 was especially devoted to satirizing them and exalting 
 himself. To any one who desires to know Jonsco's 
 sway over the vocabulary of scorn, contempt, hatred, and 
 invective, we would commend this comedy. Decker and 
 Marston are introduced under the names of Crispinus 
 and Demetrius, and remorselessly ridiculed. The opin- 
 'ons they are made to express of Jonson himself are 
 exceedingly racy, and enable us to judge what were the 
 
SS ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 feelings experienced towards him by some of his contem- 
 poraries. Thus, Demetrius (Marston) says, — " Horace ' 
 he is a mere sponge ; nothing but humors and observa 
 tion ; he goes up and down sucking from every society, 
 and when he comes home squeezes himself dry again.' 
 Another calls him "a sharp, thorny-toothed, satirical 
 rascal ;" one that would " sooner lose his best friend than 
 his least jest;" a thing " all dog and scorpion, that carries 
 poison in his teeth, and a sting in his tail." In the 
 arraignment. Decker is called poetaster and plagiary; 
 Marston, play-dresser and plagiary ; and they are 
 accused of taxing Jonson falsely of " self-love, arrogance, 
 impudence, railing, filching by translation," &c., for a 
 base and envious purpose. In their sentence we are 
 favored with a view of the " local habitations " of the 
 poets of the day ; for they are forbidden to defame our 
 poet " at booksellers' stalls, in taverns, two-penny rooms, 
 tyring-houses, noblemens' buttresses, and puisne's cham- 
 bers." The enemies of Jonson are summed up as " fools 
 or jerking pedants," " buffoon, barking wits," tickling 
 " base, vulgar ears," with " beggarly and barren trash." 
 In the " Apologetical Dialogue," at the end of the play, 
 all phrases of scorn and contempt are exhausted to covel 
 his opponents with infamy. He speaks of his own 
 works as 
 
 "Things that were born when none but the still night 
 Aad his dumb candle saw his pinching throes ;" 
 
 a.id he closes with a lofty expression of his o\vn studious 
 habits and devotion to letters : — 
 
 • " I that spend half my nights and all my days 
 Here in a cell, to g-et a dark, pale face 
 To come forth with the ivy or the bays. 
 And in this age can hope no other grace, — 
 Liave me ! there 's something come into my thought 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 29 
 
 That must and shall be sung high md aloof, 
 
 Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass^s hoof." 
 
 There is in this play a good representation given irt 
 the different feelings with which different classes at that 
 day regarded poetry. Thus, one of the characters calls 
 Homer " a poor blind rhyming rascal that lived ob- 
 scurely up and down in booths and tap-houses, and 
 scarce ever made a good meal in his sleep, the "^^^ 
 hungry beggar;" while Jonson, speaking through the 
 lips of another, exclaims, 
 
 " Would men but learn to distinguish spirits. 
 And set true difference 'twixt those jaded wits 
 That run a broken pace for common hire, 
 And the high raptures of a happy Muse, 
 Borne on the wings of her immortal thought, 
 That kicks at earth with a disdainful heel, 
 And beats at heaven's gates with her bright hoofs, 
 They would not then, with such distorted faces 
 And desperate censures, stab at Poesy ; 
 They would admire bright knowledge, and their minds 
 Should ne'er descend on so unworthy objects 
 As gold, or titles." 
 
 The character of Virgil, in this play, has been conjeo 
 tured to refer to Shakspeare, and Horace's (Jonsoa's 
 encomium on him is characteristic and true. 
 
 " Hor. His learning savors not the school-like gloss. 
 That most consists in echoing words and terms, 
 And soonest wins a man an empty name ; 
 Nor any long, or far-fetched circumstance. 
 Wrapt in the curious general'ties of arts ; 
 But a direct and analytic sum 
 Of all the worth and first effects of arts. 
 And for his poesy, 't is so rammed with life, 
 That it shall gather strength of life, with being. 
 And shall live h5reafti=i: more admired than now." 
 
 Lamb, Vol. ii,, p. 68. 
 
30 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 The Poetaster made Jonson many enemies, as well it 
 might. Decker replied in The Satiromastrix, or the 
 Untrussir-g of a Humorous Poet. It contains some 
 beautiful poetry, and some capital hits. One of the 
 females in the play says, " That same Jonson has a most 
 ungodly face, by my fan ; it looks for all the world like 
 a rotten russet apple, when 't is bruised. It 's better than 
 a spoonful of cinnamon-water next my heart, for me to 
 hear him speak; he sounds it so i' th' nose; — and oh, 
 to see his face make faces, when he reads songs and 
 sonnets ! " Again, — " Look at his par-boiled face, look, 
 — his face puncht full of eyelet holes, like the cover of a 
 warming-pan." This is characteristic, and gives proba- 
 bly as true a representation of the personal appearance of 
 Jonson, as the " dark, pale face " he has himself cele- 
 brated. 
 
 In 1603, Jonson produced his weighty tragedy of 
 Sejanus, a noble piece of work, full of learning, ingenuity, 
 and force of mind in wielding bulky materials. It was 
 brought out at the Globe theatre, with the greatest poet 
 the world ever saw acting in one of the inferior characters. 
 It is difficult to conceive that a man who had at this time 
 produced A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like it, 
 Hamlet, and Henry Fourth, should play in one of Ben 
 Jonson's tragedies. Jonson and Shakspeare seem at this 
 period to have been at the height of their friendship. 
 The " wit-contests " at the Mermaid Tavern date from 
 the appearance of Sejanus. Fuller, speaking of these, 
 compares Shakspeare to an English man-of-war, and 
 Tonson to a Spanish great galleon. ''Master Jonson 
 was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his 
 oerfonnance : Shakspeare, lesser in bulk, but lighter is 
 mailing, oiuld turn with all tides, and take advantage of 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 31 
 
 fcll winds, by the quickness of his wit and im ention." 
 Fuller speaks further of Ben, as a man whose parts 
 "were not so ready to run of themselves as able to 
 answer the spur ; so that it may be truly said of him, 
 that he had an elaborate wit, wrought out by his own 
 industry." Those must have been great meetings where 
 Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Ealeigh, Sel- 
 den, Camden, and Donne, were among the party. Beau- 
 mont, in a letter to Ben, gives his testimony to the 
 brilliancy of the conversation, when he exclaims, — 
 
 " What things have we seen 
 Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been 
 So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
 As if that every one, from whom they came, 
 Had put his whole wit in a jest." 
 
 Jonson seems to have held anger but a short time, and 
 was far from being malignant. On the accession of 
 James, he chose his old opponent Decker to be his associ- 
 ate in designing an entertainment for the reception of the 
 king, — a metrical job given to him by the court and 
 city ; and was connected, also, shortly after, with Mars- 
 ton and Chapman, in writing Eastward Hoe, a comedy 
 which came near subjecting all three to the grossest 
 mdignities, on account of some satire it contained against 
 the Scotch. They were all imprisoned for a short time, 
 and it was rumored that their ears and noses were to be 
 slit. Jonson's mother, who appears to have been a 
 strong-minded woman, told her son, aftec he had been 
 liberated, that she intended to have mixea some " strong 
 a.id lusty poison in his drink" sooner than have him 
 thus disgraced. This little event in his life does not 
 appear to have injured him with King James, who was 
 Uis patrol, tirough life. Between the yoars 1605 and 
 
32 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 1611, he wrote his three comedies, Volpone, Epicffine, and 
 The Alchemist, and also his tragedy of Catiline, together 
 with a number of masques represented at court. These 
 last contain much of his most delicate and fanciful poetry, 
 and many of his most bewitching lyrics. About the year 
 1616, he succeeded Daniel as poet laureate, and probably 
 wrote his noble poetical tribute to Shakspeare soon after- 
 wards. In the summer of 1618, he set out on his cele- 
 brated pedestrian journey to Scotland. After some 
 hospitable delays, he arrived at the house of Drummond 
 of Hawthornden, in April, 1619. He talked rather 
 recklessly to his brother-poet, and probably swaggered 
 considerably on his reputation. The record left by his 
 host of this feee and easy conversation is honorable to 
 neither, and has irretrievably damned Drummond. His 
 name, which might have been preserved as an agree- 
 able bewailer of imaginary love miseries, has become 
 associated with treachery and inhospitality. 
 
 In 1625, King James died. From this period, Jonson's 
 life assumes its darker aspects. Poverty, sickness, and 
 palsy, came upon him. In 1629, he had sufficiently 
 recovered to produce his play of The New Inn. This 
 was unsuccessful, though it contains some of his best 
 scenes, and the character of Lovel has sweet and noble 
 traits, not common to Jonson's heroes. Lovel's definition 
 of true love in this play is Platonic in its fineness and 
 purity. The following lines, in which he speaks of the 
 power of the passion on himself, have a winning beauty 
 vi expression which is exquisite. 
 
 " Lov. There is no life on earth, but being in lore ! 
 There are no studies, no delights, no business, 
 No intercourse, or trade of sense, or soul. 
 But what is love ! I was the laziest creature, 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 33 
 
 I'he most unprofitable sign of nothing, ' ' 
 
 The veriest drone, and slept away my life 
 Beyond the dormouse, till I was in love ! 
 And now I can out-wake the nightingale, 
 Out-watch an usurer, and out-walk him too, 
 Stalk like a ghost that haunted 'bout a treasure ; 
 And all that fancied treasure, it is love ! " 
 
 Lamb, Vol. ii., pp. 78, 79. 
 
 In this comedy, also, the author's tough diction melts, 
 at one moment, into this melodious imagination • — 
 
 . " Then showered his bounties on me, like the Hours, 
 
 That open-handed sit upon the clouds, 
 And press the.liberality of heaven 
 Down to the laps oj" thankful men.'" 
 
 The last eight years of Jonson's life vacillated between 
 comfort and want. He seems to have had friends, who 
 came to his assistance in his extreme need. His habits 
 of expensive living must have kept him poor. To sup- 
 port a man of his " unbounded stomach " required more 
 than the ordinary remunerations of literature. He seems, 
 however, to have had intervals of prosperity in his later 
 years. Howell, writing in 1636 to Sir Thomas Hawk, 
 has a most vivid picture of him, as he appeared in all 
 the glory of conviviality. " I was invited yesternight to 
 a solemn supper, by B. J., where you were deeply re- 
 membered. There was good company, excellent cheer, 
 choice wines, and jovial welcome. One thing intervened 
 ip-hich spoiled the relish of the rest, — that B. began to 
 engross all the discourse, to vapor extremely of himself, 
 and by vilifying others to magnify his own Muse. . . . 
 . . But, for my own part, I am content to dispense with 
 the Roman infirmity of Ben, now that time has snowed 
 upon his pericranium." In Sir John SuckUng's Session 
 
 VOL. II. 3 
 
34 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 of the Poets, we have another most characteristic pjrtait 
 of Jonson, as he appeared in his old age. 
 
 " The first that broke silence was good old Ben, 
 Prepared before with Canary wine, 
 And he told them plainly he deserved th-^ bays, 
 For his were called works where others' were but plays 
 ***** 
 
 " Apollo stopped him there, and bade him not go on ; 
 'Twas merit, he said, and not presumplion. 
 Must carry 't ; at which Ben turned about, 
 And in great choler offered to go out." 
 
 Jonson died on the sixth day of August, 1637, at the 
 age of sixty -three. He survived both his wife and his 
 children. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. A 
 common pavement-stone, laid over his grave, bears the 
 inscription, " Rare Ben JoAnson ! " (not Jonson, as it 
 is always printed,) — a phrase which has passed into the 
 current speech of England. 
 
 Jonson drenched his large and heavy brain freely with 
 stimulants. It was said that every line of his poetry cost 
 aim a cup of sack. " He would," according to Aubrey, 
 " many times exceed in drink ; Canary was his beloved 
 liquor ; then he would tumble home to bed, and when he 
 had thoroughly perspired, he would then to study." In 
 the bacchanalian phraseology of that day, he was called 
 a Canary bird. He is said to have weighed twenty 
 stone. Barry Cornwall has the courageous gracelessness 
 to commend Ben's festivities, saying that "the Muses 
 should be fed generously, — that good meats and sound 
 wines nourish and invigorate the brain, and enable the 
 imagination to send forth spirited and sounding strains." 
 In Jonson 's case, we imagine wine was necessary to set 
 the huge substance of his brain in motion. Charles the 
 First probably understood the poet's wants, when b« 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 35 
 
 added tJie tierce of Canary wine to his yearly stipend of 
 £100, as poet laureate. Habits of hard drinking were 
 .common in those days. 
 
 With the exception of this too potent conviviality, and 
 bating some inherent faults of character, Jonson seems 
 to have been one of the best men of his time. He was 
 honest and honorable. He had a hearty hatred of mean- 
 ness and baseness, and shot his sharp invective at the 
 crimes and follies of his day with commendable courage. 
 More than most of his contemporaries, he estimated the 
 dignity of the poet's vocation. In the dedication of Vol- 
 pone he feeling,'^ alludes to the bad reputation into which 
 his order had fallen ; and in the midst of much pedantry 
 and arrogance, we discern a true love for his art. He 
 anticipates Milton in asserting "the impossibility of any 
 man's being the good poet, without first being a good 
 man." With terrible force he lashes those of his craft 
 who have betrayed the good cause by ribaldry and 
 profaneness, and also declaims against the depravity of 
 the age which supports them in their sins. But that all 
 the dramatic poets are " embarked on this bold adventure 
 to hell," he calls a malicious slander ; and to show his 
 own innocence, pounces on those " miscelline interludes," 
 where, he says, " nothing but the filth of the time is ut- 
 tered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty 
 of solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so 
 racked metaphors, with brothelry able to violate the ear 
 of a pagan, and blasphemy to turn the blood of a Chris- 
 tian to water." He laments, that, through the insolence 
 of these writers, the name of poet, once so honorable, has 
 become " the lowest scorn of the age ; " and in a sen- 
 tence worthy of MiLton, asserts, that, if tne Muses be 
 true to him, he will " raise the despised hoad of poetry 
 
36 ES&AYS AND REVIEWS, 
 
 again, and, stripping her out of those rotter, and base 
 rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, 
 restore her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty 
 and render her worthy to be embraced and kissed of al] 
 the great and master spirits of our world." These are 
 brave and bright words, and show deep feeling. His 
 works display, in a hundred places, a similar spirit. He 
 rails at the age continually for its degeneracy and wick- 
 edness; and takes the strong ground, that the " principal 
 end of poesie is to inform men in the best reason of liv 
 ing." Jonson really scorned the office of pander to de 
 praved tastes. We do not think that he ever consciously 
 surrendered principle to profit. The exaggerated notion 
 he entertained of his own powers made him more dis- 
 posed to lead than to follow ; and the worst that can be 
 said of him is, that, if he failed in an honest effort, he 
 went growling back into his den, savage but uncon- 
 quered. Fletcher's lighter brain and looser principles 
 allowed him to slide more easily into the debasing habit 
 of meeting a demand for brilliant profligacy with ample 
 supplies. 
 
 The dramas of Jonson are formed of solid materials, 
 bound and welded rather than fused together. Most of 
 his comic characters are local, and representative of par- 
 ticular traits or humors, — dramatic satires on contem- 
 porary follies and fauks. His greatest delineation we 
 Ronceive to be Sir Epicure Mammon, in The Alchemist, 
 ihough Volpone and Bobadil might contest the palm. 
 The " riches fineless " of learning and imagery lavished 
 upon this character perfectly astound the imagination 
 Nothing can be more masterly than the maimer in which 
 it is sustained ; — the towering sensuality of the man 
 the visions of luxury and wealth in which his mind roami 
 
ULU ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 37 
 
 and revels, hits intense realization of the amazing fictions 
 he himself creates, the complete despotism established 
 by his imagination over his senses, and the resolute 
 credulity with which he accommodates the most obstinate 
 facts to his desires, make up a character which, in origin- 
 ality, force, and truth of delineation, seems to us only 
 second to FalstafT, or, at least, to have, out of Shak- 
 speare, no peer among the comic creations of the English 
 drama. 
 
 Volpone, Bobadil, Sejanus, and Catiline are strong 
 delineations, which we cannot pause to consider. As a 
 specimen, however, of Jonson's ponderous style, we can- 
 not refrain quoting a few lines in the tragedy of Catiline, 
 from the scene in the first act, on the morning of the con- 
 spiracy. Lentulus says : — 
 
 " Lent. It is methinks a morning full of fate. 
 It riseth slowly, as her sullen car 
 Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it. 
 She is not rosy-fingered, but swoln black. 
 Her face is like a water turned to blood, 
 And her sick head is bound about with clouds, 
 As if she threatened night ere noon of day. 
 It does not look as it would have a hail 
 Or health wished in it, as on other morns." 
 
 Catiline, in allusion to the massacres of Sylla, gives a 
 stem and terrible image of death : — 
 
 " Slaughter bestrid the streets, and stretched himself 
 To seem more huge ; " 
 
 ftnd he exclaims afterwards : — 
 
 "Cinna and Sylla 
 Are set and gone ; and we must turn our fcyes 
 On him that is and shines. Noble Cethegus, 
 But view him with me here ! He looks already 
 As if he shook a sceptre o'er the senate, 
 
J8 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 And the awed purple dropt their rods and axes. 
 The statues melt again, and household gods 
 In groans confess the travails of the city ; 
 The very walls sweat blood before the change; 
 And stones start out to ruin, ere it comes." 
 
 It would be easy to extract largely from Jonson's plays 
 to illustrate his powers of satire, fancy, observation, and 
 wit ; and to quote numberless biting sentences, that seem 
 steeped " in the very brine of conceit, and sparkle like 
 salt in fire." His masks are replete with beautiful po- 
 etry, as delicate as it is rich. We have only space, how- 
 ever, to introduce from The Sad Shepherd one specimen 
 of his sweetness, which seems to have been overlooked 
 by others. 
 
 " Here she was wont to go ! and here ! and here ! 
 Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow: 
 The world may find the spring by following her, 
 For other print her airy steps ne'er left. 
 Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, 
 Or shake the downy blow-ball from his steJk ! 
 But like the soft west wind she shot along, 
 And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, 
 As she had sowed them with her odorous foot." 
 
 Tennyson has a similar idea in The Talking Oak, bu* 
 has added a subtle imagination, which our old bard'a 
 mind would not have been likely to grasp : — 
 
 " And light as any vi^ind that blows, 
 So fleetly did she stir. 
 The flowers, she touched on, dipt and rose, 
 And turned to look on her." 
 
 The plays of Thomas Decker, honest old Decker, are 
 the records of one of the finest and most lovable spirits 
 in English literature. His name has suffered much from 
 Jonson's cutting scorn, and, indeed, with many readers 
 be still bears about the same relation to old Ben tha* 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 39 
 
 Gibber does to Pope. But he has found strong and acute 
 friends in Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt, and his rare merits 
 as a poet have been felicitously presented. He is, in fact, 
 one of the most fascinating dramatists of his generation, 
 and, with much vulgarity and trash, has passages worthy 
 of the greatest. He is light, airy, sportive, humane, for- 
 getive, and possesses both animal and intellectual spirits 
 to perfection. He seems flushed and heated with the 
 very wine of life ; throws off the sunniest morsels of wit 
 and wisdom with a beautiful heedlessness and unstudied 
 ease ; and in his intense enjoyment of life and motion 
 appears continually to exclaim, with his own Matheo, 
 " Do we not fly high ? " Though he experienced more 
 than the common miseries and vexations of his class, 
 still, like old Fortunatus, he seems to be " all felicity up 
 to the brims ; " to have " revelled with kings, danced 
 'vith queens, dallied with ladies, worn strange attires, 
 seen fantasticoes, conversed with humorists, been rav- 
 ished with divine raptures of Doric, Lydian, and Phry- 
 gian harmonies." Everything in him is swift, keen, 
 sparkling, full of quicksilver briskness and heartiness. 
 His sentiment and his fancies run out of him in the 
 overflowing exuberance of a happy disposition. There 
 is something delightfully simple in his cheerfulness and 
 humanity. His genial imagination plays with divinities. 
 His quiver is full of those winged arrows which strike 
 the mark m the white, though seemingly sent with a care- 
 less aim. His sympathies with nature and his kind are 
 wide, deep, and instinctive. His mind speeds freely out 
 among external things, with nothing to check its wide- 
 wandering flights. His Muse caps, laughs, and sings, 
 of its own sweet will. Even when he condescends to 
 what Hunt calls an " astounding coarseness," in repre- 
 
40 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 sentino^ ihs bloods and men of wit and pleasure about 
 town, which inhabit most of the comedies of the time, 
 there is still a sharpness and quickness of movement 
 which carries the mind swiftly through the mud into «. 
 oetter region. Decker has, strictly speaking, no moral- 
 ity ; for nothing in his works seems to depend on will or 
 principle, but to spring from instinctive sentiments ; and 
 when these are delicate or noble he is among the purest 
 of writers. His sweetness and humanity are exquisitely 
 fine. Thus, one passage in his celebrated lines on 
 Patience has become almost world-renowned. 
 
 " Patience, my lord, why, 't is the soul of peace ; 
 Of all the virtues, 't is nearest kin to heaven ; 
 It makes men look like gods. The best of men 
 That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer, 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, 
 The first true gentleman that ever breathed." 
 
 In the same spirit is his dialogue between the Christian 
 lady and the angel, in The Virgin Martyr, a tragedy 
 written in connection with Massinger. The refinement 
 of the feeling is almost unmatched by any dramatist 
 under Shakspeare. Dorothea is attended by an angel, 
 disguised as a page, — a " smooth-faced, glorious thing," 
 a thousand blessings " dancing upon his eyes." 
 
 "Angelo. Dorothea. The time, midnight. 
 
 "Dor. My book and taper. 
 
 " Ang. Here, most holy mistress. 
 
 " Dor. Thy voice sends forth such music, that I never 
 Was ravished with a more celestial sound. 
 Were every servant in the world like thee, 
 So full of goodness, angels would come down 
 To dwell with us : thy name is Angela, 
 And like that name thou art. Get thee to rest ; 
 Thy yoi'th with too much watching is opprest. 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 41 
 
 ' ' Ang. No, my dear lady. I could weary stars, 
 And force the wakeful moon to 'ose her eyes, 
 By my late watching, but to wait on you. 
 When at your prayers you kneei before the altar, 
 Methinks I 'm singing with some quire in heaven, 
 So blest I hold me in your company. 
 Therefore, my most loved mistress, do not bid 
 Your boy, so serviceable, to get hence : 
 For then you break his heart. 
 
 "Dor. Be nigh me still, then. 
 In golden letters down I '11 set that day 
 Which gave thee to me. Little did I hope 
 To meet such worlds of comfort in thyself, 
 This little, pretty body, when I, coming 
 Forth of the temple, heard my beggar-boy, 
 My sweet-faced, godly beggar-boy, crave an alms, 
 Which with glad band I gave, with lucky hand ; 
 And when I took thee home, my most chaste bosom 
 Methought was filled with no hot wanton fire, 
 But with a holy flame, mounting since higher, 
 On wings of cherubims, than it did before. 
 
 " Ang. Proud am I that my lady's modest eye 
 So likes so poor a servant. 
 
 " Dor. I have offered 
 Handfuls of gold but to behold thy parents. 
 I would leave kingdoms, were I queen of some. 
 To dwell with thy good father ; for, the son 
 Bewitching me so deeply with his presence. 
 He that begot him must do 't ten times more. 
 I pray thee, my sweet boy, show me thy parents ; 
 Be not ashamed. 
 
 " Ang. I am not : I did never 
 Know who my mother was ; but, by yon palace 
 Filled with bright heavenly courtiers, I dare assure you. 
 And pawn these eyes upon it, and this hand, 
 My father is in heaven ; and, pretty mistress 
 If your illustrious hour-glass spend his sand 
 No worse than yet it doth, upon my life, 
 Yon and I both shall meet mv father there, 
 And he shall bid you welcome. 
 
 " Dor. A blessed day ' " 
 
42 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Decker's brain was fertile in fine imaginations and 
 choice bits of wisdom, expressed with great directness 
 and point. We give a few specimens. 
 
 " See, from the windows 
 Of every eye Derision thrusts out cheeks 
 Wrinkled with idiot laughter ; every finger 
 Is like a dart shot from the hand of Scorn." 
 
 " The frosty hand of age now nips your blood, 
 And strews her snowy flowers upon your head, 
 And gives you warning that within few years 
 Death needs must marry you ; those short minutes, 
 That dribble out your life, must needs be spent 
 In peace, not travail." 
 
 " Beauty is as a painting ; and long life 
 Is a long journey iu December gone, 
 Tedious, and full of tribulation." 
 
 ' Though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds, 
 2\ere 's a lean fellow beats all conquerors." 
 
 " An oath ! why 't is the trafiic of the soul, 
 The law within a man ; the seal of faith ; 
 The bond of every conscience ; unto whom 
 We set our thoughts like hands." 
 
 The Duchess of Malfy, and The White Devil, by 
 John Webstee, are among the grandest tragic produc- 
 tions of Shakspeare's contemporaries. They are full of 
 " deep groans and terrible ghastly looks." " To move a 
 horror skilfully," says Lamb, "to touch a soul to the 
 quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to ivean 
 and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in 
 with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit, — this 
 onlv a Webster can do." Few dramatists, indeed, equa 
 hun in the steadiness with which he gazes into the 
 
OLD ENULISH DRAMATISTS. 43 
 
 awful depths of passion, and the stern nerve with which 
 he portrays the dusky and terrible shapes which flit 
 vaguely in its dark abysses. Souls black with guilt, or 
 burdened with misery, or ghastly with fear, he probes to 
 their innermost recesses, and both dissects and represents. 
 His mind had the sense of the supernatural in large 
 measure, and it gives to many of his scenes a dim and 
 fearful grandeur, which affects the soul like a shadow 
 cast from another world. He forces the most conven- 
 tional of his characters into situations which lay open 
 the very constitution of their natures, and thus compels 
 them to act from the primitive springs of feeling and 
 passion. He begins with duke and duchess ; he ends 
 with man and woman. The idea of death asserts itself 
 more strongly in his writings than in those of his con- 
 temporaries. In The White Devil, the poisoned Bra- 
 chiano exclaims, — 
 
 " On pain of death, let no man name death to me ; 
 It is a word most infinitely terrible." 
 
 ^o person could have written the last line without hav 
 ing brooded deeply over the mystery of the grave. It 
 belongs to that " wild, solemn, preternatural cast of grief 
 which bewilders us " in Webster. He fully realized, in 
 relation to tragic effect, that present fears are less than 
 ♦' horrible imaginings." With this sombre and unearthly 
 hue tinging his mind, he is still not deficient in touches 
 of simple nature, wrought out with exquisite art and 
 knowledge, and producing effects the most pathetic or 
 sublime. The death-scene of the Duchess of Ma.xy is a 
 g^rand example. This proud, high-hearted woman is 
 persecuted by her two brothers with a strange accumu- 
 iation of horrors, designed, with a devilish ingenuity 
 
04 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 gradually to break hei heart and madden her brain. 
 Lamb very truly remark?, — " She speaks the dialect of 
 despair, her tongue has a snatch of Tartarus and the 
 souls in bale. What are ' Luke's iron crown,' the brazen 
 bull of Perillus, Procrustes' bed, to the waxen images 
 which counterfeit death, to the wild masque of madmen, 
 the tomb-maker, the bellman, the living person's dirge, 
 the mortification by degrees ! " 
 
 Vittoria Corombona, the White Devil, is a great bad 
 character, "fair as the leprosy dazzling as the light- 
 ning." Her conduct at her arraignment is the perfection 
 of guilt in all its defying impudence. We have no space 
 for extracts. Webster seems to have imitated the spirit 
 of Shakspeare more directly than any of his brother 
 dramatists. In the preface to this play he has a curious 
 reference to his master, alluding to the " right happy and 
 copious industry of Master Shakspeare, Master Decker, 
 and Master Heywood." 
 
 Marston, Heywood, Chapman, and Middle ton, are 
 stirring names of this era. John Marston is a bitter 
 satirist of crime and folly, and often probes the heart to 
 its core in his dark thrusts at evil. He shows a large 
 acquaintance with the baseness and depravity of men, 
 and exposes them mercilessly. His mind was strong, 
 keen, and daring, with hot and impatient impulses, con- 
 trolled by a stern will, and condensed into scorn. He 
 seems to have borne somewhat the same relation to his 
 contemporaries that Hazlitt did to the authors of oui 
 time. He quarrelled and fought with many of them, in 
 metrical battles. In one of the satires of the time, he is 
 termed a " ruffian in his style," one who 
 
 "Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoe'er he meets ; ' 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS, 45 
 
 one who in his satire is not content with " modest, c.ose- 
 couched terms," but uses 
 
 "Plain, naked words, stript from their shirts. 
 That might beseem plaiu-dealing Aretine." 
 
 We have already referred to his quarrels with Ben 
 Jonson, He was doubtless unpopular, as most satirists 
 must be. Jonsnu accuses him of envy, and other bad 
 passions. His comic scenes, though often brilliant, have 
 no hearty mirth ; but his stern, sharp, scornful mind 
 repeatedly touched the sources of pathos and terror, 
 though, in his tragedy, he was too apt to shed blood as 
 fluently as ink. We extract some short passages from 
 his plays, clipped from their connection with character 
 and incident, to show the strength of his powers, and 
 their poetical side. The first has great sweetness and 
 beauty. 
 
 " As having clasped a rose 
 Within my palm, the rose being ta'en away, 
 My hand retains a little breath of sweet ; 
 So may man's trunk, his spirit slipped away, 
 Hold still a faint perfume of his sweet guest." 
 
 The eloquent ravings of Andrugio, in Antonio and 
 Mellida, are replete with imagination, as when he 
 
 " Is not yon gleam the shuddering' Morn that flakes 
 With silver tincture the east verge of heaven ? " 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " Wouldst have me go unarmed among my foes ? 
 Being besieged by Passion, entering lists 
 To combat with Despair and mighty Grief: 
 My soul beleaguered with the crushing strength 
 Of sharp Impatience. Ha, 1,ucir> ; go unarmed '! 
 
46 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Come, soul, resume the valor of thy birth } 
 Myself, myself will dare all opposites : 
 I '11 muster forces, an unvanquished power : 
 Cornets of horse shall press the ungrateful eart 
 This hollow-wombed mass shall inly groan 
 And murmur to sustain the weight of anns: 
 Ghastly Amazement, with upstarted hair. 
 Shall hurry on before, and usher us, 
 Whilst trumpets clamor with a sound of death." 
 
 The following is very powerful and impressive, — mi* 
 ery dressed out in the very robes of despair, and dark 
 ening earth and heaven with its baleful gloom. 
 
 " The rawish dank of clumsy winter ramps 
 The fluent summer's vein ; and drizzling sleet 
 Chilleth the wan bleak cheek of the numbed earth, 
 While snarling gusts nibble the juiceless leaves 
 From the naked shuddering branch, and pills* the skin 
 From ofi" the soft and delicate aspects. 
 O, now methinks a sullen tragic scene 
 Would suit the time with pleasing congruence. 
 ***** 
 " But if a breast. 
 Nailed to the earth with grief ; if any heart. 
 Pierced through with anguish, pant within this ring; 
 If there be any blood, whose heat is choked 
 And stifled with true sense of misery : 
 If aught of these strains fill this consort up, 
 They arrive most welcome." 
 
 The following passages tell their own story, in strong 
 and sometimes terrible language : — 
 
 " Day breaking. 
 
 " See, the dapple gray coursers of the morn 
 Beat up the light with their bright silver hoo&, 
 And chase it througli the sky." 
 
 * Peels. 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 41 
 
 "One who died, slandered. 
 
 " Look on those lips, 
 Those now lawn pillows, on whose tender softness 
 Chaste, modest Speech, stealing from out his breast, 
 Had wont to rest itself, as loth to post 
 From out so fair an Inn : look, look, they seem 
 To stir. 
 And breathe defiance to black obloquy." 
 
 " Description of the Witch Erictho. 
 •* Here in this desert the great Soul of charms 
 Dreadful Erictho lives : whose dismal brow 
 Contemns all roofs, or civil coverture. 
 Forsaken graves and tombs (the ghosts forced out) 
 She joys to inhabit. 
 
 A loathsome yellow leanness spreads her face, 
 A heavy hell-like paleness loads her cheeks, 
 Unknown to a clear heaven. But if dark winds 
 Or black thick clouds drive back the blinded stars, 
 When her deep magic makes forced heaven quake 
 And thunder, spite of Jove : Erictho then 
 From naked graves stalks out, heaves proud her head 
 With long unkembed hair loaden, and strives to snatch 
 The night's quick sulphur." 
 
 Lamb calls Thomas Heywood, very finely, " a sort of 
 prose Shakspeare," and adds, " his scenes are to the full as 
 natural and affecting. But we miss tke poet, that which 
 in Shakspeare always appears out and above the surface 
 of the nature. Heywood's characters, his country gen- 
 tlemen, &c., are exactly what we see (but of the best 
 kind of what we see) in life. Shakspeare makes us 
 believe, while we are among his lovely creations, that 
 they are nothing but what we are familiar with, as in 
 dreams new things seem old ; but we awake, and sigh 
 or the difference." Heywood was a rapid writer, claim- 
 ing, in one of his prefaces, the authorship of some two 
 hundred and twenty plays, ia which he had " either ao 
 
48 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 entire hand, or at least a main finger." Of these, but 
 twenty-five have been preserved. He appears to have 
 been a modest, amiable man, not especially stirred by 
 the fiercer passions, and writing with singular facility a 
 eweet and harmonious, though not poetical, style. Haz- 
 litt calls it " beautiful prose put into heroic metre." It 
 is not dotted over with those sharp and fiery points of 
 passion and fancy, nor brightened by those quick flashes 
 of imagination, which characterized the general style of 
 the period. A Woman Killed with Kindness is his most 
 affecting play. The character of Mrs. Frankford in this 
 drama has been advantageously compared with that of 
 Mrs. Haller, in The Stranger. The Englishman of the 
 seventeenth century is a better moralist than the German 
 of the nineteenth. Lamb's extracts from four of Hey- 
 wood's plays will give the reader a good idea of his 
 manner and his powers. The most celebrated passage 
 in his works is the shipwreck by drink, related in The 
 English Traveller, in his peculiar frank, light-footed 
 style. 
 
 George Chapman, the translator of Homer, was the 
 author of several tragedies and comedies. Lamb places 
 him next to Shakspeare in didactic and descriptive pas- 
 sages, but " he could not go out of himself, as Shakspeare 
 could shift at pleasure, to inform and animate other 
 existences." His genius was reflective rather than dra- 
 matic. His plays are full of striking imaginations, and 
 stern, deep comments on life, with here and there starts 
 of tragic passion. Hazlitt says that he " aims at the 
 highest things in poetry, but tries in vain, wanting imag- 
 ination and passion, to fill up the epic moulds of tragedy 
 with sense and reason alone, so that he often runs into 
 Dombast and turgidity, — is extravagant and pedantic a 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 49 
 
 one and the same time." This does not do just ice to 
 what Webster called " the full and heightened style of 
 Master Chapman." Though not a man of harmoniously- 
 developed genius, there are few writers of the period, 
 whof>e personal character, as stamped on their serious 
 poetry, makes a graver and deeper impression than that 
 of Chapman. He is the impersonation of a lofty, dar- 
 ing, self-centred soul, feeling within itself a right to 
 achieve the mightiest objects of human pursuit, and 
 reposing with a proud confidence on the sense of its own 
 power and dignity. His feeling is Titanic, but his 
 capacity is not up to his feeling. He resolutely plants 
 himself on the soul, and subordinates all things to it, 
 like some of our modern Transcendentalists ; but he 
 holds a braver, fiercer, and more defying attitude towards 
 external things than they. In some respects he reminds 
 us of Marlowe, but slower, more weighty, more intensely 
 reflective and self-sustained. Perhaps he may be called 
 the Fuseli of our old dramatists. We can imagine him, 
 as he sat patiently and painfully fashioning, in " the 
 quick forge and working-house of thought," his colossal 
 and irregular shapes of power, making some such remark 
 as Fuseli made to the pleasant gentleman who asked him 
 if he believed in the existence of the soul : — "I don't 
 
 know, sir, as you have any soul ; but by I knoio I 
 
 have." There is about Chapman a rough grandeur, 
 firmly based, and as sufficient for itself as an old, knotty 
 and gnarled tree, rooted in rocks, and lifting itself up in 
 defiance of tempests, — not without fine foliage, but 
 principally attractive from its hard vitality, its capacity 
 of resistance, and the sullen content with which it ex- 
 poses to the eye its tough, ragged, and impenetrable 
 nodosities. He has no need of bluster or bombast to 
 VOL. II. 4 
 
50 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 confirm his good opinion of himself, as is often the case 
 with Marlowe and Byron ; but his mind is calm, fixed, 
 and invincible in its self-esteem. The citadel of self 
 cannot be conquered, can hardly be attacked, though the 
 universe marshals all its pomp and circumstance to 
 shame him from his complacency. 
 
 " I am a nobler substance than the stars : 
 And shall the baser overrule the better ? 
 Or are they better since they are the bigger? 
 I have a will, and faculties of choice, 
 To do or not to do ; and reason why 
 I do or not do this : the stars have none. 
 They know not why they shine, more than this taper, 
 Nor how they work, nor what. I '11 change my course : 
 I '11 piecemeal pull the frame of all my thoughts : 
 And where are all your Caput Algols then ? 
 Vour planets all being underneath the earth 
 At my nativity : what can they do ? " 
 
 And again, hear the brave old heathen discourse Ox 
 the invulnerability of a true master spirit who has trust 
 in himself : — 
 
 " 7%e Master ^irit. 
 
 " Give me a spirit that on life's rough sea 
 Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind, 
 Even till his sail-yards tremble, his toasts crack. 
 And his rapt ship run on her side so low. 
 That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air. 
 There is no danger to a man that knows 
 What life and death is : there 's not any law 
 Exceeds his knowledge ; neither is it lawful 
 That he should stoop to any other law ; 
 He goes before them and commands them all. 
 That to himself is a law rational." 
 
 The lines in Italics furnished Shelley a fit motto fo 
 his Revolt of Islam. 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 51 
 
 ChajLiian is supposed by Dr. Drake to be the author 
 of those lines On Worthy Master Shakspeare and his 
 Poems, signed J. M. S., and commencing, — 
 
 " A mind reflecting ages past," — 
 
 the noblest and justest of the Jtoetical tributes to Shaks- 
 peare's supreme genius, W^e think the conjecture a 
 shrewd one, and borne out by the internal testimony 
 which the lines themselves offer. They are in Chap- 
 man's labored and " enormous " manner, — the images 
 huge and intellectual, and shown through the dusky light 
 of his peculiar imagination. Here is a specimen : — 
 
 " To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates, 
 Roll hack the heavens, hlowr ope the iron gates 
 Of death and Lethe, where confused lie 
 Great heaps of ruinous mortality." 
 
 The reputation of Thomas Middle ton, with modem 
 readers, is chiefly based on his Witch, several often 
 quoted scenes of which have been supposed to have sug- 
 gested to Shakspeare the supernatural machinery of 
 Macbeth. If this be true, it only proves Coleridge's 
 remark, that a great genius pays usurious interest on 
 what he borrows. The play itself is tedious, and not 
 particularly poetical, and the witches are introduced to 
 effect an object very far from sublime. Lamb, after 
 extracting copiously from the play, adds the following 
 eloquent and discriminative remarks : — 
 
 " Though some resemblance may be traced between the charms 
 in Macbeth and the incantations in this play, which 's supposed 
 to nave preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from 
 the originalitv of Shakspeare. His witches are distinguishe4 
 
52 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 from the witches of Middleton by essential differences. Tlies 
 are creatures to iphom man or woman plotting some dire mis- 
 chief might resort for occasional consultation. Those originate 
 deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men. From the mo- 
 ment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth's, he is spell-bound. 
 That meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fas- 
 cination. These witches can hurt the body : those have power 
 over the soul. — Hecate, in Middleton, has a son, a low buffoon : 
 the hags of Shakspeare have neither child of their own, nor 
 seem to be descended from any parent. They are foul Anoma- 
 lies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether 
 they have beginning or ending. As they are without human 
 passions, so they seem to be without human relations. They 
 come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music. 
 This is all we know of them. — Except Hecate, they have no 
 names ; which heightens their mysteriousness. Their names, 
 and some of the properties which Middleton has given to his 
 hags, excite smiles. The weird sisters are serious things. 
 Their presence cannot coexist with mirth. But, in a lesser 
 degree, the witches of Middleton are fine creations. Their 
 power, too, is, in some measure, over the mind. They raise 
 jars, jealousies, strifes, like a thick scurf o'er lifeP — Lamb, 
 Vol. I., p. 163. 
 
 The plays of Middleton are not, in general, up to the 
 level of the time. He rambles loosely through his work, 
 and taxes the patience of his readers without adequately 
 rewarding it. Numerous passages in his dramas, how- 
 ever, show that he had that sway over the passions, and 
 that fertility of fancy, which seemed native to all the 
 dramatists of the period. Hazlitt concedes to his Women 
 beware Women "a rich, marrowy vein of internal senti 
 ment, with fine occasional insight into human nature 
 and cool, cutting irony of expression." In this play 
 occurs the noted rhapsody on marriage, spoken by one 
 who was returning, as he supposed, to a faithful wife 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 53 
 
 ^ut w^ho finds her a vixen and adulteress. It reminds ua 
 i»f an early chapter in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. 
 
 ■' The treasures of the deep are not so precious 
 As are the concealed comforts of a man 
 Locked up in woman's love. I scent the air 
 Of blessings when I come but near the house: 
 What a delicious breath marriage sends forth ! 
 The violet bed 's not sweeter. Honest wedlock 
 Is like a banqueting-house built in a garden, 
 On which the spring's chaste flowers take delight 
 To cast theif modest odors. 
 
 4: * :<: 4s 41 
 
 55 " Now for a welcome 
 
 Able to draw men's envies upon man : 
 A kiss now, that will hang upon my lip. 
 As sweet as morning dew upon a rose, 
 And full as long." 
 
 Cyril Tourneur is a prominent name among the 
 dramatists of the period. His two plays, The Atheist's 
 Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy, are copiously 
 quoted by Lamb. He has touclies of the finest and 
 highest genius. There runs through him a vein of the 
 deepest philosophy. His tragedies evince a mind that 
 has brooded long over its own thoughts, and sent search- 
 ing glances into the unsounded depths of the soul. In 
 his delineation of the stronger passions, he often startles 
 and thrills the mind by terrible and unexpected flashes 
 of truth. His diction is free, fearless, familiar, and 
 t irect, pervaded by fancy and imagination, and rarely 
 bald and prosaic. There is one passage in The Reveng- 
 er's Tragedy which is almost unequalled for tragic 
 grandeur. Castiza is urged by her mother and her dis- 
 gTiised brother to accept the dishonorable proposals of a 
 iuke. Vindici, the brother, whose object is simply to 
 test the virtue of his sister, eloquently set3 forth the 
 
54 ESSAYS AN! REVIEWS. 
 
 advantages she will gain by sacrificing her honor. The 
 mother adds : -r- " Troth, he says true :" and then Cas* 
 tiza vehemently exclaims ; — 
 
 " False ! I defy you both ! 
 I have endured you with an ear of fire ; 
 Your tongues have struck hot irons on my face. 
 Mother, come from that poisonous woman there ! 
 
 "Moth. Where? 
 
 " Cast. Do you not see her ? she 's too inward, then." 
 
 At the close of this scene, there is one of those beau- 
 tiful touches of nature, conveyed by allusion, in which 
 the old dramatists excel. Vindici says : - 
 
 " Forgive me, Heaven, to call my mother wicked ! 
 O, lessen not my days upon the earth ! 
 I cannot honor her." 
 
 Lamb says, that the scene in which the brothers 
 threaten their mother with death for consenting to the 
 dishonor of their sister surpasses, in reality and life, any 
 scenical illusion he ever felt. " I never read it," he 
 says, " but my ears tingle, and I feel a hot blush spread 
 my cheeks, as if I were presently about to ' proclaim ' 
 some such ' malefactions ' of myself, as the brothers here 
 rebuke in their unnatural parent, in words more keen 
 and dagger-like than those which Hamlet speaks to hia 
 mother." 
 
 We extract one passage from this tragedy. Vindic 
 »ddresses the skull of his dead lady : — 
 
 " Here's an eye, 
 Able to tempt % great man, — to serve God ; 
 A pretty hanging lip, that has forgot now to dissemble. 
 Methinks this mouth should make a swearer tremble 
 A drunkard clasp his teeth, and not undo 'em, 
 To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em. 
 Here 's a cheek keeps her color, let tlie wir' go whist'*; 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 55 
 
 Spout tiiiQ, we fear thee not : be hot or cold, 
 All 's one with us : and is not he absurd, 
 Whose fortunes are upon their faces set? 
 That fear no otaer God but wind and wet ? 
 
 Does every proud and self-affecting dame 
 
 Camphire her face for this ? and grieve her Maker 
 
 In sinful baths of milk, when many an infant starves 
 
 For her superfluous outside, for all this ? 
 
 Who now bids twenty pound a night ? prepares 
 
 Music, perfumes, and sweet-meats 7 all are hushed. 
 
 Thou mayst lie chaste now ! it were fine, methinks, 
 
 To have thee seen at revels, forgetful feasts, 
 
 And unclean brothels : sure, 't would fright the sinnei, 
 
 And make him a good coward : put a reveller 
 
 Out of his antick amble. 
 
 And cloy an epicure with empty dishes. 
 
 Here might a scornful and ambitious woman 
 
 Look through and through herself. — See, ladies, with false fonns, 
 
 You deceive men, but cannot deceive worms." 
 
 Lamb, Vol. i., pp. 171, 172. 
 
 Those renowmed twins of poetry, Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, long held a rank among English dramatic 
 writers second only to Shakspeare ; as, in a more profli- 
 gate period, they were deemed his superiors. Though 
 as poets, lyrical and descriptive, they are entitled to a 
 high place for fancy and sentiment, yet they appear to 
 us thin men, when compared with Marlowe, Jonson, 
 Webster, Chapman, and some others. In the delineation 
 of character, and in the exhibition of great passions, they 
 lack solidity, depth, condensation of style, rapidity of 
 action ; and we cannot mention two prominent English 
 writers more destitute of moral principle. Fletcher, it 
 must be allowed, is the more volatile and fertile sinner 
 of the two. During their lives, thej' enjoyed a vast rep- 
 atatioB , for they were preemLtientl/ the panders of their 
 generation. The commendatory verses on their (vorka 
 
56 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 would fill a small volume. Shirley, in a preface to /he 
 folio edition of their plays, published in 1647, signs him- 
 self their "humble admirer," and pours out his admira- 
 tion for their genius in the highest strain of panegyric 
 To mention them, he says, " is but to throw a cloud 
 upon all other names, and benight posterity ; this book 
 being, without flattery, the greatest monument of the 
 scene that time and humanity have produced, and must 
 live, not only the crown and sole reputation of our own, 
 but the stain of all other nations and languages." It 
 would be easy to quote other eulogies almost as insanely 
 extravagant. 
 
 Both these dramatists were men of family and educa- 
 tion. Beaumont was born in 1586, ten years after 
 Fletcher, and died in 1615, ten years before him. His 
 faculties ripened early. At the age of ten, he became a 
 gentleman commoner at college. When only sixteen, 
 he published a translation of one of Ovid's fables ; and 
 was a close friend of Ben Jonson, and one of the lights 
 of the Mermaid, at the age of nineteen. His "judg- 
 ment " seems to have been as universally admitted as 
 Fletcher's "fancy." Jonson, it is said, consulted him 
 often about the plots of his plays. His partnership with 
 Fletcher seems to have commenced when he was about 
 twenty-two, and to have run to his death. 
 
 Fletcher was born in 1576, and was less precocious 
 than Beaumont. There is no evidence that he wrote 
 for the stage before 1606, when he was thirty years old. 
 He seems to have had expensive habits, and some prop- 
 erty; the latter probably left him in advance of the 
 former. The fact, that during the last four years of his 
 life he wrote eleven plays, seems to indicate a depend 
 ence on his pen for support. He died in 16^5, of the 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 57 
 
 okg-ue. Of the fifty-two plays published under his and 
 Beaumont's name, it has been contended that th.5 latter 
 had a part in only seventeen. Among these, however, 
 are The Maid's Tragedy, Philaster, and King and No 
 King, — three of the most celebrated in the collection. 
 There is also some reason to believe that Beaumont had 
 a share, more or less, in Valentinian, and Thierry and 
 Theodoret; but none in The Faithful Shepherdess or 
 The Two Noble Kinsmen, Many critics have thought 
 they traced indubitable marks of Shakspeare's mind and 
 manner in some scenes of the latter. Lamb counte- 
 nances this conjecture from the internal evidence afford- 
 ed by some of the striking Shakspearian sceneis. He 
 says that the manner of the two dramatists is essentially 
 different. Fletcher's " ideas move slow; his versification, 
 though sweet, is tedious; it stops every moment; he 
 lays line upon line, making up one after the other, add- 
 ing image to image so deliberately, that we see where 
 they join. Shakspeare mingles everything ; he runs 
 line into line, embarrasses sentences, and metaphors; 
 before one idea has burst its shell, another is hatched, 
 and clamorous for disclosure." Fletcher wrote twenty- 
 seven plays after Beaumont's death, and, it is supposed, 
 four before ; and there are eight written in connection 
 with other authors, which swells the whole list from 
 fifty-two to sixty. 
 
 This speaks volumes for Fletcher's fruitfulness of 
 fancy ; and if the dramas evinced a range and depth of 
 character corresponding to their number, it might well 
 excite wonder. But this is not the case. The frame- 
 work of Fletcher's dramatis persoms is generally light 
 ind thin, and he continually repeats a few types of char- 
 vter. What he lacks in depth and intensity of mind. 
 
58 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 he seeks to make up in point, bustle, incident, intrigue 
 and comic or tragic situation. If we subtract from hia 
 plays all their wit, fancy, imagination, and passion, leav- 
 ing whatever is mere buffoonery, ribaldry, or exaggerated 
 commonplace, we shall have a larger and more detest- 
 able mass of ignoble depravity and slang than could be 
 scooped out of the works of any other man of genius. 
 When he began to write, the morality of the fashionable 
 and educated classes had become relaxed. The court 
 of James the First was dissolute and intrinsically vul- 
 gar. The ears of high-born ladies did not tingle at the 
 coarsest jests, nor their cheeks burn in viewing the most 
 licentious situations. A change had come over the 
 " public " taste, since the time of Sidney and Spenser. 
 Debauchery and the maxims of libertinism were more 
 in vogue. The line separating the gentleman from the 
 rake had imperceptibly narrowed, not to be altogether 
 obliterated until the reign of Charles the Second. False- 
 hood, folly, sin, and decay, seemed natural attendants on 
 the Stuarts. Fletcher must be set down as a poet who 
 wilfully or heedlessly prostituted his genius to varnish 
 this " genteel rottenness," His mind freely obeyed 
 external direction. Like his own Mistress Bacha, in 
 Cupid's Revenge, he seems to say to the age : — 
 
 " I do feel a weakness in myselt 
 That can deny you nothing; if you tempt me, 
 I shall embrace sin as it were a friend, 
 And run to meet it." 
 
 His quiek animal spirits, and his absence of depth, pre- 
 serve his immorality from that malignity and brutality 
 which shock us in some of his successors at the Restor 
 fttion; and as the sweetness of the poet ne^er absolutelj 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 59 
 
 eaves him, he rarely exhibits their hardness of heart. 
 Uut where he is better than they, it seems more the 
 result of instinctive sentiment than any moral principle. 
 His volatility makes his libertinism shallow, brisk, and 
 careless, rather than hard and determined. It is Belial 
 with the friskiness of Puck. He was as bad as his 
 nature Avould admit, — as bad as a mind so buoyant, 
 appreheiisive, and susceptible of romantic ideas and feel- 
 ings, would allow him to be. Shakspeare did not yield 
 to these corrupting tendencies of his day. 
 
 It is generally conceded that Beaumont and Fletcher 
 are more effeminate and dissolute than the band of dra- 
 matic authors to which they must be still considered to 
 belong. Their minds had not the grasp, tension, insight, 
 and collected energy, which characterized others who 
 possessed less fertility. Their tragic Muse carouses in 
 crime, and reels out upon us with bloodshot eyes and 
 dishevelled tresses. From this relaxation of intellect 
 and looseness of principle comes, in a great degree, their 
 habit of disturbing the natural relations of things in their 
 representations of the sterner passions. The atmosphere 
 01 their tragedy is too often hot, thick, and filled with 
 pestilential vapors. They pushed everything to excess. 
 Their weakness is most evident when they strain the 
 fiercest after power. Their strength is flushed, bloated, 
 spasmodic, and furious. They pit;h everything in a 
 high key, approaching to a scream. In what has been 
 considered the most imaginative passage in their whole 
 works, — the speech of Suetonius to his soldiers belore 
 battle, in Bonduca, — the lines seem torn from tie thinat 
 4f the speaker : — 
 
 " The gods of Rome fight for ye ; loud Fame ralJs ye. 
 Pitched on the topless Apennine, and blows 
 
60 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 To all the under world, all nations, 
 
 The seas, and unfrequented deserts where the snow dwells 
 
 Wakens the ruined monuments, and there. 
 
 Where nothing but eternal death and sleep is, 
 
 Informs again the dead bones with your virtues." 
 
 Even their hernism has generally the lightness a 
 romance, — something framed from fancy, not from 
 nature. Their heads grow giddy among the true horrors 
 of tragedy, and their action becomes hurry and bustle 
 instead of progress. The style of their dramas, where 
 the text is not butchered by misprinting, is sweet, col- 
 loquial, voluble, and voluptuous, but rarely condensed 
 and powerful. It has been finely said, in respect to 
 their agency in weakening the diction of the drama, that 
 " Shakspeare had bred up the English courser of the air 
 to the highest wild condition, till his blood became fire, 
 and his sinews Nemean ; Ben Jonson put a curb into 
 his mouth, subjected him to strict manege, and fed him 
 on astringent food, that hardened his nerves to rigidity ; 
 but our two authors took the reins off, and let him run 
 loose over a rank soil, relaxing all his fibres again." 
 The flush and hectic heat of this unbitted racing is evei 
 observable ; but the bright hoofs of the courser strike off 
 "ew lightning sparks, and he is a long time arriving at 
 his goal. 
 
 The Maid's Tragedy — which Hallam gravely says is 
 no tragedy for maids, and one which, with all its beau- 
 ties, no respectable woman can read — contains much 
 exquisite poetry among its portentous obscenities, The 
 jharacter of Aspatia is the model of a love-lorn, patien 
 uaiden, 
 
 " Whose weak brain is overladen 
 With the sorrow of her love : " 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 61 
 
 Buch as we meet, in a degraded state, among the Ara- 
 bella Dieways of old novels. Shirley probably refers 
 to the vein of sentiment touched in this arama, when he 
 says, " Thou shalt meet, almost in every leaf, a soft, 
 purling passion, or spring of sorrow, so powerfully Mrrought 
 high by the tears of innocence and wronged lovers, it 
 shall persuade thy eyes to weep into the stream, and yet 
 smile when they contribute to their own ruins." Lysip- 
 pus thus describes Aspatia : — 
 
 "This lady 
 Walks discontented, with her watery eyes 
 Bent on the earth : the unfrequented woods 
 Are her delight ; and when she sees a bank 
 Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell 
 Her servants what a pretty place it were 
 To bury lovers in ; and make her maids 
 Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse. 
 She carries with her an infectious grief 
 That strikes all her beholders : she will sing 
 The mournfulV st things that ever ear hath heard, 
 And sigh, and sing again ; and when the rest 
 Of our young ladies, in their wanton blood, 
 Tell mirthful tales in course that fill the room 
 With laughter, she will with so sad a look 
 Bring forth a story of the silent death 
 Of some forsaken virgin, which her grief 
 Will put in such a phrase, that, ere she end. 
 She 'II send them weeping one by one away." 
 
 Amintor, in this play, forsakes Aspatia and marries 
 Evadne, at the command of the king. The scene in 
 which his wife avows herself the mistress of the monarch, 
 and tells Amintor that her marriage with him is merely 
 one of convenience, is wrought out in Fletcher's most 
 characteristic manner. That, also, in which the brother 
 of Evadne compels her to promise to murder the king, is 
 Hoirited and powerfu The following scene between 
 
62 SSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Aspatia and her maidens has much softness and richneae 
 of diction and sentiment : — 
 
 " ASPATIA. ANTIPHILA. OLYMPIAS. 
 
 "Asp. Come, let's be sad, my girls. 
 That down-cast of thine eye, Olympias, 
 Shows a fine sorrow ; mark Antiphila, 
 Just such another v/as the nympth CEnone, 
 When Paris brought home Helen : now a tear, 
 And then thou art a piece expressing fully 
 The Carthage queen, when from a cold sea rock, 
 Full with her sorrow, she tied fast her eyes 
 To the fair Trojan ships, and having lost them, 
 Just as thine eyes do, down stole a tear, Antiphila. 
 What would this wench do, if she were Aspatia ? 
 Here she would stand, till some more pitying god 
 Turned her to marble : 't is enough, my wench ; 
 Show me the piece of needle-work you wrought. 
 
 "Ant. Of Ariadne, Madam ? 
 
 "Asp. Yes, that piece. 
 This should be Theseus, h' as a cozening face; 
 You meant him for a man ? 
 
 "Ant. He was so, Madam. 
 
 "Asp. Why, then 't is well enough. Never look back, 
 You have a full wind, and a false heart, Theseus. 
 Does not the story say, his keel was split, 
 Or his masts spent, or some kind rock or other 
 Met with his vessel ? 
 
 "Ant. Not as I remember. 
 
 "Asp. It should ha' been so : could the gods know this, 
 And not of all their number raise a storm ? 
 But they are all as ill. This false smile was well exprest ; 
 Just such another caught me ; you shall not go so, Antiphila j 
 In this place work a quicksand. 
 And over it a shallow smiling water, 
 And his ship ploughing it, and then a fear. 
 Do that fear to the life, wench. 
 
 "Ant. 'T will wrong the story. 
 
 "Asp. 'T will make the story, wronged by wanton poets 
 Lire long and be believed ; but where 's the lady ? 
 
 "Ant. There, Madam. 
 
 "Asp. Fie, you have missed it here, AntipMla, 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 6? 
 
 You are much mistaken, wench ; 
 
 These colors are not dull and pale enough, 
 
 To show a soul so full of misery 
 
 As this sad lady's was ; do it by me, 
 
 Do it again by me, the lost Aspatia, 
 
 And you shall find all true but the wild island. 
 
 I stand upon the sea-beach now, and think 
 
 Mine arms thus, and mine hair blown with the wind. 
 
 Wild as that desert, and let all about me 
 
 Tell that I am forsaken ; do my face 
 
 (If thou hadst ever feeling of a sorrow) 
 
 Thus, thus, Antiphila ; strive to make me loon. 
 
 Like Sorrow's monument ; and the trees about me^ 
 
 Let them be dry and leaveless ; let the rocks 
 
 Groan with continual surges, and behind me 
 
 Make all a desolation ; look, look, wenches, 
 
 A miserable life of this poor picture. 
 
 "Olym. Dear Madam ! 
 
 "Asp. I have done ; sit down, and let us 
 Upon that point fix all our eyes, that point there ; 
 Make a dull silence, till you feel a sudden sadness 
 Give us new souls." 
 
 iPhil.aster has much romantic sweetness, and deserv- 
 idly takes a high rank among the joint creations of our 
 tuthors. Bellario is especially beautiful. Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's fair and fine women have been considered 
 models of womanhood by many critics, and by some 
 placed above those of Shakspeare, — as if their best 
 delineations of passion or constancy approached Juliet 
 or Cordelia ! Shakspeare's women are ideal ; theirs, 
 romantic. The following passage, in which Bellario 
 discovered to be a woman, tells the story of her .'jove foi 
 Philaster, is exceedingly sweet and touching : — 
 
 " My father would oft speak 
 Your worth and virtue, and as I did grow 
 More and more apprehensive, I did thirst 
 To see the man so praised : but yet all this 
 Was but a maiden longing ; to be Ir st 
 
64 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 As soon as found ; till, sitting in my window, 
 
 Printing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god 
 
 1 thought, (but it was you,) enter our gates ; 
 
 My blood flew out, and back again as fast 
 
 As I had puft it forth and sucked it in 
 
 Like breath ; then was I called away in haste 
 
 To entertain you. Never was a man 
 
 Heaved from a sheep-cot to a sceptre, raised 
 
 So high in thoughts as I ; you left a kiss 
 
 Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep 
 
 From you forever ; I did hear you talk 
 
 Far above singing ; after you were gone, 
 
 I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched 
 
 What stirred it so. Alas ! I found it love, 
 
 Yet far from lust, for could I but have lived 
 
 In presence of you, I had had my end. 
 
 For this I did delude my noble father 
 
 With a feigned pilgrimage, and drest myseli 
 
 In habit of a boy, and, for I knew 
 
 My birth no match for you, I was past hope 
 
 Of having you. And understanding well, 
 
 That when I made discovery of my sex, 
 
 I could not stay with you, I made a vow 
 
 By all the most religious things a maid 
 
 Could call together, never to be known. 
 
 Whilst there was hope to hide me from men's eyes, 
 
 For other than I seemed ; that I might ever 
 
 Abide with you: then sate I by the fount 
 
 Where first you took me up." 
 
 A. King and No King is another play in which Beau 
 .Tiont and Fletcher's characteristic faults and beauties 
 rire displayed. Arbaces is well delineated, and so is 
 Bessus, — both braggarts in different stations. Hallam 
 and Hazlitt concur in admiring this drama. Thierry 
 and Theodoret contains two female characters, Brunhalt 
 and Ordella, representing the two phases under which 
 Fletcher commonly delineated women. The latter, Lamb 
 pronounces, we think incorrectly, to be " the most perfect 
 idea of the female heroic character, next to Calanlha, in 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 65 
 
 The Broten Heart, of Ford, that has been embodied in 
 fiction." The former is a monstrosity, compounded of 
 fiend and beast. Valentinian is one of the best tragedies 
 in the collection, though the plot is absurdly managed. 
 There are three songs in it of peculiar merit, one relating 
 to love, another to wine, and a third, full of solemn 
 beauty, addressed to sleep, which we extract. Valen- 
 tinian is brought in sick, in a chair, and the song is intro- 
 duced as an expression of the deep and silent love of 
 Eudoxia, the empress, who leans over him. 
 
 " Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, — 
 Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose 
 On this afflicted prince : fall like a cloud 
 In gentle showers ; give nothing that is loud 
 Or painful to his slumbers ; — easy, sweet, 
 And as a purling stream, thou son of night, 
 Pass by his troubled senses : — sing his pain, 
 Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain : 
 Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide, 
 And kiss him into slumbers like a bride ! " 
 
 The scene which succeeds this reminds us of the last 
 in King John. The ravings of the poisoned emperor, 
 however, though clothed in a drapery of similar imagery, 
 have not the intense grandeur of the death'Scerie of 
 Shakspeare's monarch. 
 
 Fletcher's comedies are light, airy, fluttering, viva 
 cious, full of diverting situations, and often sparkling 
 with fancy and wit ; but still superficial and farcical, com- 
 pared with Shakspeare's and Jonson's. They have none 
 of that intensity of humor, little of that substantial life, 
 which we demand in English comedy. The gentleman, 
 as understood by Fletcher, is of a different type from 
 that indicated by old Decker, Beaumont and Fletcher 
 9,ccordirig to Dryden, understood and imitated much bet 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
dt5 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 
 
 ter than Shakspeare "the conversation of gerttlemm. 
 whose wild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in repar 
 tees, no poet can ever paint as they have done." We 
 trust that they never will be equalled in this department 
 of character. Their " studiously protracted " indecency, 
 and their command of all the gibberish and slang of lust 
 and vulgarity, make their comedies curious libels on the 
 t^ste and morals of their audiences. Fletcher could not 
 escape from the foul imp that had taken possession of 
 his imagination, even in The Faithful Shepherdess, 
 which, with all its poetic beauty and pastoral sweetness, 
 is still so defiled in parts as to merit Schlegel's ironical 
 comment, of its being an immodest defence of modesty. 
 The tone and pitch of Fletcher's mind, as compared with 
 Milton's, may be seen in the contrast between The 
 Faithful Shepherdess and Comus. Milton is indebted 
 to Fletcher for the suggestion of his subject, but this 
 debt is paid a thousand-fold in the treatment of it. 
 
 Of Massinger and Ford we have space to say but 
 little. Hazlitt remarks, that " Massinger is harsh and 
 crabbed. Ford, finical and fastidious ; " and that he can- 
 not find much in their works, but " a display of great 
 strength or subtlety of understanding, inveteracy of pur- 
 pose, and perversity of will." Hunt accuses them of 
 beginning that corruption of the dramatic style into 
 prose, " which came to its head in Shirley." Hallam, 
 on the contrary, ranks Massinger as a tragic writer sec- 
 ond only to Shakspeare ; but Hallam is often strangely 
 infelicitous in his judgments on the old poets. The 
 truth seems to be, that Massinger's spirit was unimpas- 
 sioned, compared with his great contemporaries ; his 
 imagination was not pervaded by that fiery essence whicil 
 gives to their style its figurative condensation, its abrup 
 
OLB ENGLISH DRAMATISTS 67 
 
 nrns, dnd its quick, startling flights. His mind was 
 more gentle, equable, and reflective. There is a majestic 
 sadness in Massinger, — an indication of great energies 
 preyed upon and weakened by inward sorrow, — a stifled 
 anguish of spirit, — which seem to point to unfortunate 
 circumstances in his life. There is every reason to 
 believe that he was a disappointed man, though littln 
 of his biography is known. He was born in 1584. His 
 father was a gentleman in the service of the Earl of 
 Pembroke. At the age of eighteen he was sent to 
 Oxfard, and after residing there four years, left without 
 taking a degree, and went to London, where he gained 
 a precarious subsistence as a dramatic writer. Anthony 
 Wood says, that while at Oxford he " gave his mind 
 more to poetry and romance, for about four years or 
 more, than to logic and philosophy, which he ought to 
 have done, being patronized to that end." This shows 
 that he offended a patron. Massinger's spirit was inde- 
 pendent, though not fiery, and probably would not brook 
 any exercise of power which controlled his disposition. 
 There runs through his plays an almost republican 
 hatred of arbitrary rule. As a man, Massinger seems to 
 have been much esteemed for his virtues. The panegyi 
 ists of his plays address to him terms almost of endear 
 ment ; he is their " beloved," " dear," " deserving," 
 " long known," and " long loved friend." As a dram- 
 atist, however, though his plays appear to have been suc- 
 cessful, and written at the rate of iwo or three a year, he 
 never raised himself above the poor gentleman. Rey- 
 noLds and Morton, at the close of the last century, gen- 
 erally obtained five hundred pounds for their five act 
 farces and sentimental dramas , Massinger, in his day, 
 eould not hope to average more than fifteen for his com 
 
68 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 edies and tragedies. He is known to have written, in 
 all, thirty-seven plays, of which sixteen and the fragment 
 of another are extant. Eleven of them, in manuscript, 
 were in the possession of a Mr. Warburton, whose cook 
 found them very serviceable as waste paper, in the pros- 
 ecution of culinary operations, 
 
 Massinger died on the 17th of March, 1640, at the 
 age of fifty-six. According to Langbaine, he went to 
 bed in good health, and was found dead in the morning. 
 He was buried in the church-yard of St. Saviour's. No 
 stone marks the place of his interment ; and " the only 
 memorial of his mortality," says Gifford, " is given with 
 a pathetic brevity, which accords but too well with the 
 obscure and humble passages of his life : ' March 20, 
 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a stranger.^ " 
 
 Massinger did not write so closely to the heart of 
 things as some of his contemporaries. His sweet and 
 serious mind was better fitted for description and con- 
 templation than for representation. Possessing neither 
 wit nor humor in any eminent degree, he had not that 
 quick, joyous sympathy with external things, which sent 
 the souls of many of his brethren running genially out 
 to animate other forms of being. His characters are 
 framed rather in the region of the understanding and 
 the moral sentiments, than conceived by the imagina- 
 tion ; and though often morally beautiful, have not the 
 free, flowing, substantial life, which we require in dra 
 matic representation. The resistance of virtue to all 
 temptations is his favorite theme ; but the temptations 
 are often contrived out of the natural course of things, 
 and exist rather as possibilities to the intellect than 
 realities to the imagination. Had he possessed a littlt' 
 more of spontaneous creative energy, he would h'lve 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 69 
 
 been a great dramatist. Pis reflective habi\ of mind 
 tended at once to restrain his passionateness within the 
 bounds of a preconceived order, and to dim that keen 
 vision by which the poet penetrates into the inmost 
 recesses of the soul, and lays open the finest veins of 
 thought and sentiment. Still, Massinger is one of the 
 most original of the old dramatists, and his plays, though 
 they do not reach the heights nor strike the depths of 
 some others, are sustained throughout with more skill 
 and level power. His style has been long celebrated 
 for its sweetness and majesty of march, and its free- 
 dom from " violent metaphors and harsh constructions." 
 " He is read," says Lamb, " with composure and placid 
 delight." His plays exhibit a more pervading religious 
 feeling than those of his contemporaries ; and, strange to 
 add, a coarseness of expression, in some parts, more 
 vulgar and disgusting than the same quality in others, 
 because utterly wanting in wit and fancy. His inde- 
 cencies seem coldly and atrociously contrived in the 
 understanding, without the concurrence of his other 
 powers, and only introduced in obedience to " the spirit 
 of the age." They are most essentially of the mud, 
 muddy. They affect us like lewdness muttered from 
 the lips of age ; and his jests must be considered, on the 
 whole, more tragical than his pathos. We never gaze 
 on his fine serious face, as it looks out so mournfully 
 from the canvas, without feeling how sad and degrad- 
 ing, how replete with that self-contempt " bitterer to 
 irink than blood," must have been to him the task of 
 coining vile indecencies, and bespattering his creations 
 with the phraseology o^ tne fish-market. L is due to 
 Massinger to say, that his coarseness is introduced, 
 rather than woven, into his drama, and that the string 
 
70 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 which binds the seraph to the corpse can be easily 
 severed. 
 
 Massinger's most powerful male characters are Sforza, 
 in The Duke of Milan, Sir Giles Overreach, in the 
 New Way to pay Old Debts, and Luke, in The City 
 Madam. The second of these still keeps the stage, and 
 the third sometimes appears in a modern version, called 
 Riches. Luke is a fine villain, forcibly conceived and 
 strongly sustained. 
 
 John Ford, a scholar and gentleman, occupies a prom- 
 inent place in English dramatic literature, as a poet of 
 pathos and sentiment. His most splendid successes are 
 in the handling of subjects which are, in themselves, 
 unwritten tragedies, — the deepest distresses of the heart 
 and the terrible aberrations of the passions. His works 
 make a sad, deep, and abiding impression on the mind, 
 though hardly one that is pleasing or healthy. He had 
 little of that stalwart strength of mind, and heedless 
 daring, which characterize the earlier dramatists. Like 
 Massinger, he is deficient in wit and humor, and like 
 Massinger resorts to dull indecencies as substitutes. His 
 sentiment is soft, rich, and sensuous, informed by a 
 mild, melancholy heroism, often inexpressibly touching, 
 and expressed in a fine, fluent diction, which melts into 
 the mind like music. The celebrated contention of a 
 bird and a musician, described in The Lover's Melan- 
 choly, is a specimen of his grace and sweetness of 
 mind. In Lamb's opinion, it almost equals the strife it 
 celebrates. 
 
 Lamb, in a note to the last scene of The Broken 
 Heart, ranks Ford in the first order of poets. " He 
 sought for sublimity," he says, " not by parcels, in met« 
 aphors and visible images, but directly, where sho haa 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 71 
 
 her full residence in the heart of man ; in the actions 
 and sufferings of the greatest minds." We do not think 
 this is the impression that his works make as a whole ; 
 it is true only of the high-wrought grandeur of detached 
 scenes. Ford, in manners and character, seems to have 
 been, like Jacques, melancholy and gentleman-like. 
 Little is known regarding his life. He is supposed to 
 have been a lawyer, and seems to have had a dislike to 
 the reputation of a dramatist, in so far as it confounded 
 him with those who were authors by profession ; for, as 
 Dr. Farmer says in reference to Shakspeare, with ex- 
 quisite meanness of expression, " play-writing, in this 
 poet's time, was hardly considered a creditable employ." 
 Ford probably had something of the vanity which Con- 
 greve manifested to Voltaire, in desiring to be considered 
 rather as a gentleman than as a dramatist. There was 
 much of the "nice man" in his disposition. He evi- 
 dently belonged not to -the school of " irregular" genius, 
 so far as regarded worldly reputation ; and we can 
 imagine what disdain would have shot from the burning 
 eyes of Marlowe, had that sublime vagabond lived to see 
 a dramatist studious of conventional decorum, and fas- 
 tidious in small things. A contemporary satire. The 
 Lines, quoted by Gifford, has a thrust at Ford, which 
 illustrates as well as caricatures his peculiarity : — 
 
 " Deep in a dump, John Ford by himself gat, 
 With folded arms and melancholy hat." 
 
 He wrote sixteen plays, four of which, in manuscript, 
 shared, with eleven of Massinger's, the distinguished 
 honor of being consumed by Mr. Warburton's remorse- 
 less cook, for waste-paper. He seems to have retired to 
 the country or the grave, it is uncertain which, shortly 
 
72 ESSA'Xis AMD REVIEWS. 
 
 before the breaking out of the civil wars. The date of 
 his last published play, The Lady's Trial, is 1639. 
 
 In this hurried survey of some of the Old English 
 Dramatists, we have not been able to do more thar, 
 faintly indicate their genius and individual peculiarities. 
 It would be impossible in our limited space to do full 
 justice to the merits of each. Indeed, though separated 
 by individual differences, and influenced by the changes 
 which came over the spirit of their age, they have all a 
 general resemblance. Fletcher and Ford, perhaps, best 
 indicate the gradual relaxation of the old sturdy strength, 
 — that passage of comedy from humorous character into 
 diverting incident, of tragedy from the sterner into the 
 softer passions, — that gradual weakening of poetic dic- 
 tion by too strong an infusion of sweetness, — which 
 distinguish an age slowly sinking from the region of 
 heroic ideas into those merely romantic. But stiU, all 
 these writers have, more or less, that depth, daring, 
 vitality, comprehension, objectiveness, — that quick ob- 
 servation of external life and nature, and that ready 
 interpretation of both by inward light, — that varied 
 power and melody of versification, at times so soft and 
 lingering, bending beneath its rich freight of delicious 
 fancies, at others so fierce and headlong, glowing in 
 every part with the fire of passion, — that wide sway 
 over the heart's deepest and most delicate emotions, — 
 and that thoroughly English cast of nature, — which 
 associate them all in the mind, as belonging to one era 
 of literature, and partaking of the general character 
 stamped upon it. It would be impossible to point out a 
 class of authors, who have appeared in any of the Augus- 
 tan ages of letters, more essentially brave and strong, — 
 »ny who have spoken the language of thought and pas 
 
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 73 
 
 sion more directly from the heart and brain, — any who 
 more despised obtaining fame and producing effects by 
 elaborate refinements -nd petty brilliancies, — any who 
 have stouter muscle ana bone. Whenever English liter- 
 ature has been timid and creeping, whenever the natural 
 expression of emotion has been debased by a feeble or 
 feverish " poetic diction," it has been to the old drama- 
 tists that men have recurred for exainples of a more 
 courageous spirit and a nobler style 
 
ROMANCE OF RASCALm. 
 
 That thia is a great world is a maxim forced upon 
 the attention by the moral aspect of every-day events. 
 It is especially apparent, when we consider the room i( 
 affords for the operations of knaves. The great brother- 
 hood of rogues, who live by cheating and corrupting the 
 species, now occupy some of the most important posts in 
 society, science, and letters, and, as missionaries of the 
 devil, are threading every avenue to the heart and brain 
 of the community. Sin, every day, takes out a patent 
 for some new invention. One of its latest and most 
 influential is the Romance of Rascality. To a man 
 who knows what it is to have his pocket picked, or a 
 knife insinuated into his ribs, there may appear little 
 that is romantic in the operation; but to a large and 
 increasing portion of society it is otherwise. Thieves 
 and cut-throats have come to be considered the most 
 important and interesting of men, and virtuous medi- 
 ocrity to be valuable only as affording them subjects for 
 experiment. There is a certain piquant shamelessness 
 a peculiarly ingenious dishonesty, in some of the forms 
 of literary chicane, which nothing can equal in impu- 
 dence J for it is practically assumed that the final cause 
 of human society is the provision of a brilliant theatre 
 for the exploits of its outcasts. 
 
 At one time, it was considered settled that the domain 
 rf ideality wa^" closed to vulgar criminals, and tha 
 
ROMANCE OF fiASCALITY. 75 
 
 footpads and windpipe-slitters had no pretensions to the 
 nonors of romance. For persons to act as heroes of 
 stirring adventures and lovers of beautiful women, (he 
 I ovelist was compelled to rely on gentlemen, who did 
 nothing in the way of theft and murder which the 
 "moral sense" of the world did not approve. If he 
 introduced characters who carried matters with a high 
 hand, he availed himself of respectable generals and 
 statesmen, men who might ruin an empire, but who 
 would not condescend to relieve a traveller of his purse 
 or his brains. In all cases he never selected his heroes 
 and heroines from the common herd of profligates and 
 criminals, or sought eminence by perching himself on 
 the gallows. But now it appears that the old class of 
 romancers were deficient in comprehension. It has been 
 discovered that everything in nature and life has its 
 poetic side; that it is foreign to the spirit of the age for 
 the Republic of Letters to tolerate any of that aristo- 
 cratic exclusiveness which refuses the name of hero to 
 the inmate of the jail and the occupant of the gibbet. 
 Rascality is now the rage, and asserts its existence with 
 nn emphasis. It has forced the passages leading to the 
 temple of fame, and breaks into literature as it was wont 
 to break into houses. Things heretofore considered 
 incapable of apology or adornment, the fixed facts of 
 guilt and crime, which charity itself doomed to infamy 
 cr oblivion, are now thrust into our faces, candied over 
 ;vith panegyric, and challenging our respect. The thief 
 and the cut-purse, the murderer and the incendiary, 
 strut and swagger in the sunny land of romance. It is 
 a saturnalia of complacent blackguardism and vulgar 
 villany, tricked out in the cast-off frippery of Sir Charles 
 Jrandison and Thaddeus of Warsaw. It is Satan grown 
 
16 ESSAYS ANB REVIEWS. 
 
 sentimental, and covering his cloven foot in a satin shp 
 per. And from the whole comes a complex fragrance, 
 made up of sulphur and lavender, hot pitch and eau de 
 Cologne. 
 
 According to the philosophy obtaining among the 
 romancers of rascality, the fact that an object creates 
 physical disgust is the reason why we should take it to 
 our arms ; the fact that a man excites moral reprobation 
 is his claim upon our sympathy. That the world is 
 sadly out of order, is proved from the fact that all the 
 wise men are shut up in insane asylums, and all the 
 heroes are clanking fetters or pounding stone in prisons. 
 The real virtue of society is to be found in the victims 
 of " social arrangements ;" and the true objects of love 
 are those whom the law hates and persecutes. What 
 we call law and order, are other names for injustice and 
 oppression. Sin is a word by which bigots express their 
 dislike of great souls and free opinions. 
 
 Again, th^se gentlemen are champions for what they 
 are pleased to call nature, both in thought and conduct. 
 They desire to have this nature presented in its proper 
 nudity, arrayed in no conventional robes, shining with 
 no rhetorical varnish. The taste which would dictate 
 discrimination in the selection of objects for romantic 
 treatment, and respect the natural relations of things, 
 they spurn at as effeminate. It must be conceded that 
 they have brought round a large number of readers to 
 their views. Let an author's brain teem with monsters, 
 *nd his progeny are soon cradled in the bosom, ol 
 dandled in the arms, of an " enlightened ' public. Let 
 nira pile horror upon horror, revel in the description of 
 stale enormities, draw aside the " decent drapery " whiclj 
 covers the nakedness of depravity, and have a pool of 
 
ROMANCE OF RASCALITY. 'il 
 
 Dlood running and glistening through his compositions, 
 and there are people who will throw up their caps in 
 admiration of his " power," and be voluble in praise of 
 his " insight." A literary reputation may thus be 
 acquired by a judicious mixture of horror and stupid- 
 ity, and afford, likewise, a fine medium through which 
 all the rogues of the nation may communicate with all 
 the gulls. That the simple and the foolish should be 
 victimized by the knowing, is the notion which a 
 romancer of rascality entertains of preestablished har- 
 mony and the fitness of things. 
 
 The great compensation for all the evil which this 
 kind of literature produces is found in the fact that it is 
 cheap. The cheapness must be acknowledged. By the 
 progress of science and improvement, the most economi- 
 cal or miserly of beings is enabled to gratify his taste for 
 mental degradation, and his penchant for moral ruin, at 
 the extremely low price of ninepence. Who will not 
 commit suicide, w^hen poison is cheap ? What keeps 
 people from blowing out their brains, but the high price 
 of pistols ? Formerly, it seems, self-destruction was a 
 luxury to be enjoyed only by the rich, but now it is 
 placed within the means of the humblest. Formerly, 
 blasphemy was held at high rates, and few could indulge 
 m scoffing but the purchaser of Voltaire and D'Holbach ; 
 now this elegant recreation of pride can be bought for a 
 j?enny. That great doctrine of equality, for which cer- 
 tain old gentlemen in '76 perilled their honor, lives, and 
 fortunes, has, it se^ms, been imperfectly understood until 
 the present favored age. They fought for an equality in 
 evil as well as good. They poureo out their blood, thai 
 the people might have perdition and death at low prices. 
 They fought against monopores in stupidity, blasphemy, 
 
78 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 immorality, and damnation. Their most resounding 
 declamation thundered against the enormity of allow« 
 ing the rich precedence in catching at the delectable 
 t^its of sin, and not giving the poor man an opportunity 
 of having Satan's hook fast fixed in his own bleeding 
 gills. They wished to elevate the laboring classes, but 
 it was by allowing them a fair competition with the lazy 
 classes, in the great object of getting hanged. The force 
 of this argument for cheap wretchedness and ruin will 
 depend much on the natural disposiiion of those to 
 whom it is addressed. Some men, doubtless, have a 
 theory of human life, in which happiness is synonymous 
 with lowness, and a journey on the road to ruin is con- 
 sidered a performance of the whole duty of man. On 
 such a road it is important to have cheap fares, in order 
 to increase the travel. 
 
 It may be objected, by the patrons of this cheap 
 Komance of Rascality, that criminals appear in legiti- 
 mate romance as much as they do in rascally romance, 
 and that it is unfair to stigmatize their department of 
 hction as preeminently wicked. It must be confessed 
 that a line of distinction should here be drawn between 
 romances which have villanous characters, and romances 
 of which villany is the characteristic. A dramatist, poet, 
 or romancer, is doubtless to accommodate his creations 
 to the truth of things. His fictions should have a basis 
 of reality, and present a true exhibition of life, actual or 
 possible. Now, it is unfortunately true, that no exhibi- 
 tion of life can be accurate, unless -it exhibits a large 
 portion of rascality ; for rascality is an important element 
 of life. The romancer, perhaps, might be justified in 
 making most of his characters more or less wicked, with 
 out running the risk of having his production condemned 
 
ROMANCE OF RASCALITY. 79 
 
 as unnatural. But there is a great difference between 
 exhibiting criminals as they are in themselves, and 
 exliibiting criminals as proper objects of esteem ano 
 moral approbavion. In the first case, a true exhibition 
 of life is given, and tru h has no adulterous connection 
 with immorality; in the other case, a false exhibition of 
 life is given, and falsehood is but another name for 
 immorality. Provided a writer respects the natural 
 relations of things, there is no danger in his delineations 
 of criminality. Shakspeare's lago, Scott's Rashleigh 
 Osbaidistone, Goethe's Mephistopheles, convey no pleas- 
 ant impressions of sin and the devil. They rather 
 increase our natural abhorrence of evil, by increasing our 
 knowledge of its essence. But if lago were so exhibited 
 that malignity and murder fastened on our heroic sym- 
 pathies, and we sided with him against his victims, the 
 poet of nature would have been a bungler in character- 
 ization, as well as a knave in ethics. It is the same 
 with the others. Their renown comes from their truth : 
 and morality of effect always results from truth of repre- 
 sentation. It is needless to demand that a poet or nov 
 elist should have a moral purpose in his delineations. 
 A.11 we can require is, that he should have a healthy 
 imagination, capable of perceiving or creating objects in 
 accordance with their natural relations ; that he should 
 avoid making monstrosities, by refusing to connect qual- 
 ities in romance which have no connection, actual or 
 possible, in life ; and that he should r-espect the laws of 
 the things he describes. Such a writer may let the 
 morality of his work take care of itself. It cannot be 
 immoral, unless it is false or one-sided. Guilt and mis« 
 ery are twins, and should not be separated in romance 
 any more than in life. 
 
BO ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 In English literature, the poet who has done most in 
 his writings to disturb the natural relations of things, 
 and give to sympathy an unnatural direction, is Lord 
 Byron. The strength of his genius is shown in his suc- 
 cess in making rascality fashionable. He awakened the 
 sensibility of the Anglo-Saxon race for misayihropic 
 rakes, genteel robbers, and sentimental pirates. He 
 preached that the height of wisdom was hatred of man- 
 kind, and that all the heroism of society was among its 
 outcasts. This he did with such force of passion and 
 splendor of imagination, that common sense was baffled 
 in every attempt to reach him by invective or ridicufe. 
 Ascending higher, he at last taught that heroism con- 
 sisted in opposition to law, — particularly to that which 
 originated in the skies, — and that man's greatness con- 
 sisted in resolutely bearing the tortures of the damned. 
 This was lifting rascality to the sublime ; and many 
 ambitious gentlemen began seriously to think of turning 
 rascals. Fortunately, however, for their morals, if not 
 for their necks, a host of imitators commenced writing in 
 this vein, and an opportunity was offered to see the phi- 
 losophy divested of its sensibility and imagination. This 
 worked a magical change in public sentiment. The 
 imitators were hooted and hissed into oblivion or into 
 their senses, and the Newgate Calendar was no longer 
 versified. It is to the honor of Byron, that he did not 
 cant about the rascality he preached. Instead of teach- 
 ing that adultery, licentiousness and blasphemy, were 
 right, he steadily inculcated that the flavor of sin came 
 from disobedience to law, and that without the t^ense of 
 a violated conscience, wickedness was a very tat and 
 tasteless affair. He was incapable of justifying libertin- 
 ism by a philosophy of immorality, and making reason 
 
ROMANCE OF RASCALITY. fe I 
 
 pander will. He would ha\»e men descend into the pit 
 with the fierce plunge of the cataract, not creep to it on 
 all-fours. He never stooped to that cowardly perfection 
 of intellectual meanness which represents falsehood to 
 marriage oaths as one phase of philanthropy, and covers 
 up sin in some moral babble about nature and conven- 
 tionality. 
 
 The next man of mark who illustrated rascality for 
 the edification of nobility and gentry was Bulwer. A 
 man of great talents and master of a style of singular 
 fascination, he still was deficient in health and robust- 
 ness of mind. His nature was morbid ; and like all mor- 
 bid writers who are devoured by an ambition for fame, 
 he sought to produce effects, not by skilful combinations 
 of realities, but by striking exhibitions of rascalities. 
 His romances are accordingly filled with characters, 
 almost every one of whom deserves to be hanged or 
 whipped, but who, in the opinion of the writer, are evi- 
 dently very clever people. He endeavors hard to make 
 rascality genteel, by converting rascals into coxcombs. 
 He compounds a hero from Beau Brummell and Dick 
 Turpin. He must have him flat enough to please Bond- 
 street, and brf ve enough for Hounslow-Heath. At one 
 time his hern reminds us of that exquisite who had 
 brought his cb-irms to such a pitch of perfection that he 
 was compelled t^^ carry a club in the streets " to keep 
 off the women;" at another, he seems just the man 
 to make a picturesque appearance on the gallows. 
 Through incident, description, character, there runs one 
 perceptible vein of rascality. Let a reader of healthy 
 mind judge of BvVver's books by particular portions oi 
 by the impressi'-/' / the whole, and he will see a radi- 
 zal defect in & > /riter's mode of looking at life. Ha 
 
 VOL. II. 'o 
 
82 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 distorts objects instead of representing them, and at best 
 achieves but eloquent falsehoods. 
 
 Bulwer introduced romantic rascality into drawing, 
 rooms, and aimed to make it the companion of people of 
 rank and fashion. He cared little for the poor mob of 
 readers. It remained for Ainsworth, and other novelists 
 of a low order of talent, to debauch the popular mind, 
 and manufacture romance for the vulgar. Jonathan 
 Wild, Jack Slieppard and Dick Turpin, were the results 
 of an attempt to give the people a romance of rascality 
 for themselves. Their success stimulated a study of the 
 records of the hanged to obtain heroes for " intense " 
 novels ; and the romancer emerged from his researches 
 rich in the spoils of the prison and gallows. The result 
 was a general jail delivery into literature of the convicts 
 of centuries. The popular imagination was laden with 
 the exploits of robbers and murderers. This was stimu- 
 lating the intellect of the people with rum and gm, and 
 it succeeded. The romances were eagerly reprinted 
 here, and eagerly purchased. There was but one thing 
 wanting to complete the evil, and that was a morality 
 which justified rascality, and made it philosophical at 
 well as romantic. This was supplied by France. 
 
 The vice of the French mind is its tendency to rui 
 into extremes. It abhors a just medium between oppo 
 site faults. With regard to religion, it rests in supersti 
 tion or atheism ; in government, it flies from servility t* 
 license ; in literature, it passes from cold correctness tm 
 convulsive deformity. France is almost the only countrj 
 which could have produced the Massacre of St. Barthoi. 
 omew and the writings of the Encyclopaedists. It i 
 either in the repose of despotism or the frenzy of revok 
 tion. It adored Louis XIV., and butchered Louis XV,! 
 
ROMANCE OF RASCALITY. 83 
 
 t iS the politest nation in the world, and the nation hi 
 which the greatest Drutalities have been practised. In 
 literature it once worshipped Corneille and Racine, and 
 called Shakspeare a barbarian. With a revolution in 
 government came a revolution in literature, and it rushed 
 intn every extreme of license. The old idols were 
 dashed to pieces, to be replaced with monsters. For the 
 cold sculptural figures reproduced from classic models, 
 were substituted furies from the mad-house, or wretches 
 from the prison. The French romance of rascality has 
 a peculiar recklessness of its own, which the Anglo- 
 Saxon mind is not capable of reaching. In its subjects, 
 the worst excesses of the English school are exaggerated 
 to hideous caricature, and its representations provoke a 
 kind of shuddering laughter. 
 
 The improvement, however, which the French romanc- 
 ers have added to the English school, is in connecting 
 immorality with an ethical system. The leading idoa of 
 French romance is opposition to law and obedienct to 
 desire ; and its mode of proceeding is to exaggerate the 
 defects of social institutions, in order to obtain plausible 
 arguments for the violation of social duties. Thus it 
 practically sides with every form of criminality, and 
 holds up crime, not to hatred, but sympathy. Sometimes 
 it apologizes and extenuates, sometimes defends, but in 
 all cases it attempts to confuse our moral perceptions. 
 As it is very inconvenient for some minds to violate con- 
 science, conscience must be smothered in sophistries, 
 compounded ol the Satanic and the sentimental. As 
 these sophistries give a degree of respectability to wick- 
 edness, and allay the irritation of moral wounds and 
 bruises, they at last convince the mind which framed 
 them, and what originated in hypocrisy ends in faith. 
 
S4 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 
 
 The French romancers pretend to see deeper than othe:9 
 into the sources of sin and error; and have discovered - 
 the cause of the misery they produce, in legal and moral 
 restraint. They accordingly argue that it is the duty 
 of philanthropists to remove these restraints ; and invite 
 all men and women to commence the enterprise, and not 
 be disheartened by the martyrdom it calls for at first. 
 To assail prejudice naturally dravi^s down obloquy upon 
 the assailant. Great souls must not mind such annoy- 
 ances. We perceive in this the French tendency to 
 extremes. From the defects or imperfection of social 
 institutions, such writers argue for their total overthrow. 
 Marriage, for instance, is often a fertile source of misery 
 to husband and wife. If either party chooses to break 
 the connection, let the act, they would say, not be stigma- 
 tized as adultery, but hailed as indicating a mind superior 
 to common prejudices. It is the same with other institu- 
 tions. Because they are abused, they would dispense 
 with their use. But robbery, adultery, blasphemy, and 
 the like, are disrespectable ; being under the social ban, 
 they occasion other vices ; make them respectable, and 
 you make them beneficent. The object of these French 
 romances is to exhibit characters who practise all that 
 society calls sin, and yet are better than the society by 
 whom they are denounced. This is the perfection ol 
 sentimental rascality. 
 
 Now, this literary compound of English ruffianism and 
 French ethics has invaded the United States in large 
 force ; and it comprises at present a considerable portion 
 of the literature which the people read. This literature 
 would not be read unless it were attractive ; and what is 
 attractive is influential. Its effect upon character can 
 hardly be estimated. Doubtless such matters iS chea'' 
 
KOMANCE OF RASCALITY. So 
 
 literary rascalities may bo of small moment to the smooth 
 scholar ; but they fhould be of more importance than 
 any other form of literature to the patriot and statesman. 
 Good books are the most precious of blessings to a 
 people ; bad books are among the worst of curses. The 
 romance of rascality in the imagination will be followed 
 by the reality of rascality in the conduct. It contains in 
 itself principles of demoralization which will inevitably 
 be felt in action. This country is the only country 
 where everybody reads. It is of much importance to 
 know what everybody is reading. How much of this 
 reading is ninepenny immorality, ninepenny irreligion, 
 ninepenny stupidity, ninepenny deviltry ? It might not 
 be gratifying to the national pride of " the most enlight 
 ened people on earth" to answer this question. 
 
THE CROAKERS OF SOCIETY AND LIT 
 ERATURE. 
 
 In modem society there are innumerable obstacles in 
 the way of obtaining or preserving a healthy conditior 
 of the heart and brain. The ten thousand prejudices, 
 resulting from peculiarities of individual constitution, or 
 those which are insensibly imbibed in social life, are apt 
 to distort the mind, and vitiate the judgment and feel- 
 ings. Society is cursed with so much deep-seated mental 
 disease, and such a number of psychological epidemics, 
 that it has been petulantly fleered at by some as a huge 
 " Hospital of Incurables." There is no nonsense so 
 transparent, no crotchet so ridiculous, no system so 
 unreasonable, that it cannot find advocates and disciples. 
 The maladies of the body, produced by artificial modes 
 of living, react upon the mind, and infect the reason 
 and sentiments ; and many a spurious philosophical sys- 
 tem is the product, not of induction, but dyspepsia ; and 
 many a plan of reform, assuming to come from the bmm, 
 has its true origin in the bile. A sickening feebleness 
 covers its imbecile elegance, under the name of refine- 
 ment, and the energy of disease and madness struts and 
 fumes in the habiliments of power. Nothing is rarel 
 than to see, among the vast mass of men, a healthy 
 strong-minded, simple man. From amiable weaknesses 
 down to unamiable insanities, there are unnumbered dis- 
 
THE CROAKEKS OF SOCIETY AJJP LITERATURE. 87 
 
 orders and infirmities which stunt the fcee growth and 
 development of our natures. 
 
 Oue of the most melancholy productions of this con- 
 dition of life is the sniveller, — a biped that infests all 
 classes of society, and prattles from the catechism of 
 despair on all subjects of human concern. The spring 
 of his mind is broken. A babyish, nerveless fear has 
 driven the sentiment of hope from his soul. He cringes 
 to every phantom of apprehension, and obeys the im- 
 pulses of cowardice as though they were the laws of 
 existence. He is the very Jeremiah of conventionalism, 
 and his life one long and lazy lamentation. In connec- 
 tion with his maudlin brotherhood, his humble aim in 
 life is to superadd the snivelization of society to its civ- 
 ilization. He snivels in the cradle, at the school, at the 
 altar, in the market, on the death-bed. His existence is 
 the embodiment of a whine. Passion in him is merely 
 a whimper. He clings to what is established as a snail 
 to a rock. He sees nothing in the future but evil, noth- 
 ing in the past but good. His speech is the dialect of 
 sorrow; he revels in the rhetoric of lamentation. His 
 mind, or the thing he calls his mind, is full of fore- 
 bodings, premonitions, and all the fooleries of pusilla- 
 nimity. He mistakes the tremblings of his nerves for 
 the intuitions of his reason. Of all bores he is the most 
 intolerable and merciless. He drawls misery to you 
 through his nose, on all occasions. He is master of all 
 the varieties of the art of petty tormenting. He tells 
 you his fears, his anxieties, his opinions of men and 
 things, his misfortunes and his dreams, as though they 
 Were the most edifying and delightful of topics for 
 discourse. Over every hope of your own he throws the 
 gloom of his despondency. He is a limping treatise nn 
 
^ ESSAYS AND KEVIEWS. 
 
 ennui, who invades sanctuaries to which nc mere book 
 could possibly gain admittance. 
 
 It must be confessed that all snivellers do not attain 
 this height of their ideal, and that there are many de- 
 grees of foolery among the class. It requires a peculiar 
 mental and bodily constitution, and an uncommonly bad 
 experience of life, so to pervert the object of our being 
 and the laws of our nature as to produce a finished whim 
 perer. But still there is no community free from a 
 multitude of croakers and alarmists, who display with 
 greater or less completeness the qualities we have point- 
 ed out, and who afflict the patience and conscience of 
 all good Christians within the reach of their influence. 
 They are of various kinds, and exercise their misery- 
 making propensities in manifold ways. We find them 
 among lawyers, physicians, politicians, merchants, farm- 
 ers, and clergymen, as well as among poets and old 
 women. Wherever man, sin, and the gallows are, there 
 is the sniveller. As a citizen and politician, he has, for 
 the last three hundred years, opposed every useful re- 
 form, and wailed over every rotten institution as it fell. 
 He has been and is the foe of all progress, and always 
 cries over the memory of the " good old days." He is 
 ever fearful of the present. His slough of despond of 
 to-day is his paradise of to-morrow. As a clergyman, he 
 has no force of reasoning or unction, but whines dubi- 
 ous y about the sin of the world, and the impossibility 
 1 checking it ; he tells his congregation that the earth 
 is a vale of tears, that they should do nothing but lament 
 over their degeneracy, and hints the probability that few 
 of them can be saved from the fire that is not quenched 
 He makes the house of mourning more mournful, anff 
 
THE CROAKERS OF SOCIETY AND LITERATURE. 89 
 
 tolls the funeral bell of his voice as he joins loving hands 
 in marriage. 
 
 But it is in literature that the sniveller is most unen- 
 durable, for in composition he can give full expression 
 to much which human nature would prevent him from 
 displaying in conduct. Reader, have you not seen or 
 read many a snivelling poet? — those weak manikins 
 and dapper authorlings who mistake indigestion for 
 inspiration ? Heaven save us all from such an inflic 
 tion ! There is nothing so bad as the slave of despond- 
 ency when he attempts to dance in the chains of rhyme. 
 He sets his groans and grumblings to a kind of squeak 
 jng tune, and forces innocent types to be the pander of 
 his passion for melancholy. He goes about the streets 
 of the intellectual republic, wearing " his heart upon hia 
 sleeve," and praying all charitable persons to drop into 
 his hat some coppers of commiseration and crumbs of 
 consolation. He wishes to make the whole world his 
 confidant, — to paste up the placards of his misery in 
 the public markets, — to inform all men and women thai 
 his heart is dust, that his hopes are blighted, and that 
 unhappiness is his portion, — to exhibit the most recon- 
 dite secrets of his bosom to the gaze of tattlers and 
 sneerers, with the expectation of sympathy ; and, with 
 effeminate plaints of fictitious woes, to snivel away his 
 life in a vain attempt to turn his metrical drivelling into 
 the current coin of the land. He trusts that if hard, 
 cold, inhuman man refuses a hearing to r.s maudlin 
 miseries, the tender heart of angelic woman wi^. pity and 
 purchase his misfortunes. All the " little feeblenesses " 
 generated in the atmosphere of " conventionalism's air- 
 tight stove," which make his mind the seat of more 
 infirmities than the pharmacopoeia dreams of, he expects 
 
90 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 will find an answering response in a aex which has 
 always enough old women of its own. 
 
 The poets who thus snivel in rhyme generally labor 
 under the hallucination that their mawkish foolery finds 
 sympathizing hearers. Bound up and circumscribed by 
 their own petty world of consciousness, and brooding 
 over their own little sorrows and cares, they are incapa- 
 ble of giving any free and fresh expression to natural 
 thought and emotion. They hug the phantom of their 
 conceit close to their breasts, and deem it of universal 
 interest and love. Everything which occurs to them- 
 selves, from a pain in the heart to a pain in the head, 
 they deem worthy of commemoration in metre. Their 
 idiosyncrasies, follies, maladies, moonshine, and misery, 
 are never satisfied until they have been tortured into 
 rhyme. The public take interest in the psychological 
 history of great poets, because those poets have earned 
 their title to such distinction by works of great genius, 
 in which all can sympathize. Shakspeare's sonnets are 
 invaluable, because we desire to know everything which 
 can be learned of the author of Hamlet and Macbeth. 
 But the class of metrical snivellers would reverse this, 
 and have the world's curiosity excited for the mental 
 diseases of complaining mediocrity. All the " decent 
 drapery " that decorum casts over those private medita- 
 tions which every healthy intellect dislikes to divulge, 
 they throw oflf with the utmost carelessness, and glory 
 in an indelicate exposure of mind. Every little event of 
 their mental or bodily life they deem worthy of being 
 celebrated in a poem. If a thought happens accidentally 
 to stray into their craniums, they rush instantly into 
 rhyme. A sonnet to them is a soothing-syrup, ana 
 vrics flow from their lamentations. They would turn 
 
THE CROAKEflS OF SOCIETY AND LrrERATTJRE. 91 
 
 their whine into a warble. They mistake their menta* 
 diseases for general laws. They would re-construct life 
 after the image of their own sick imaginations, and 
 make a nation of snivellers. An inelegant imbecility, 
 like the mingling of moonbeams with fog, drearily illum- 
 ines the intense inane of their rhetoric. 
 
 When we consider the importance of energy and hope 
 Ui the affairs of the world, and contemplate the enfee- 
 bling if not immoral result of indulging in a dainty and 
 debilitating egotism, we cannot but look upon the snivel- 
 lers of social life as great evils. Even when the habit 
 of selfish lamentation is accompanied by talent, it should 
 be treated with contempt and scorn. There are so many 
 inducements in our time to pamper it, that there is no 
 danger that the opposition will be too severe. Whither- 
 soever we go, we meet with the sniveller. He stops us 
 at the corner of the street to intrust us with his opinion 
 on the probability that the last measure of Congress will 
 dissolve the Union. He fears, also, that the morals and 
 intelligence of the people are destroyed by the election 
 of some rogue to office. He tells us, just before church, 
 that the last sermon of some transcendental preacher 
 has given the death-blow to religion, and that the waves 
 of atheism and the clouds of pantheism are to deluge 
 and darken all the land. Next he infornls us of the 
 starvation of some poor hack, engaged as assistant ed'tor 
 to a country journal, and infers from it that, in the 
 United States, literature cannot flourish. In a time of 
 general health, he speaks of *he pestilence that is to be. 
 The mail cannot be an hour late but he prattles of rail- 
 road accidents and steamboat disasters. He fears that 
 his friend who was married yesterday will he a bank- 
 rupt in a year, and whimpers over the triab which he 
 
9*2 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 will then endure. He is ridden with an eternal night* 
 mare, and emits an eternal wail. 
 
 Recklessness is a bad quality, and so is blind and 
 extravagant hope ; but neither is so degrading as inglori- 
 ous and inactive despair. We object to the sniveller, 
 because he presents the anomaly of a being who has the 
 power of motion without possessing life. His insipid 
 languor is worse than tumid strength. Better that a 
 man should rant than whine. The person who has no 
 bounding and buoyant feelings in him, whose cheek never 
 flushes at anticipated good, whose blood never tingles and 
 fires at the contemplation of a noble aim, who has no 
 aspiration and no great object in life, is only fit for the 
 hospital or the band-box. Enterprise, confidence, a dis- 
 position to believe that good can be done, an indisposition 
 to believe that all good has been done — these constitute 
 important elements in the character of every man who is 
 of use to the world. We want no wailing and whimper- 
 ing about the absence of happiness, but a sturdy deter- 
 mination to abate misery. The world should have too 
 much work on its hands to lend its ear to the plaints of 
 its individual members. The laborers should have no 
 mercy for the do-nothings. The man of serious purpose 
 has no time to be miserable. Into the very blood and 
 brain of our youth there should be infused energy and 
 power. The literature of the country should breathe the 
 bracing air of a healthy inspiration, not the hot atmos- 
 phere of a spurious spiritualism and silly sentimentality. 
 Instead of brooding over his own diseased consciousness, 
 and aggravating the malady which enfeebles his mind, 
 the jaded Mase should cure his unhappiness by minister- 
 ing to the comfort of others. And we would say to the 
 Door sniveller, whether he dawdles in a drawing-room o 
 
THE CROAKERS OF SOCIETY ANB LITERATURE. 93 
 
 tottles in a tavern, in the words of the sagacious Herr 
 Teufelsdrockh, — " Produce ! produce ! were it but the 
 pitifuUest infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it 
 m God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee; 
 out with it, then. Up, up ! whatsoever thy hand findeth 
 to do, do it with thy whole might. Work, while it is 
 called to-day, for the night cometh wherein no man can 
 work." 
 
BRITISH CRITICS.* 
 
 The British reviews and reviewers of the early pan 
 of the present century are closely connected with the 
 history of English literature, not only on account of tho 
 influence they exerted on public opinion, but for the 
 valuable contributions which a few of them made to 
 literature itself. Some of the most masterly disquisi- 
 tions in the whole range of English letters have appeared 
 in the three leading periodicals of the time, — the 
 Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly Review, and Black- 
 wood's Magazine. Almost all systems of philosophy, 
 theology, politics and criticism, have been vehemently 
 discussed in their pages. They have been the organs 
 through which many of the subtlest and strongest intel- 
 lects have communicated with their age. In classifying 
 historical events under ideas and principles, in tracing 
 out the laws which give pertinence to seemingly confused 
 facts, in presenting intellectual and historical epochs in 
 vivid pictures, they have been especially successful. But 
 
 * 1. Contributions to the Edinburgh Review. By Francis Jeffrey, now on 
 of the Judges of the Court of Sessions in Scotland. London : Longman & Co 
 4 vols. 8yo. 
 
 2. Wiley & Putnam's Library of Choice Reading: Characters of Shak 
 Bpeare. By William Hazlitt. New York. 16mo. 
 
 3. Imagination and Fancy. By Leigh Hunt. New Yors; Wiley A 
 Putnam. 16mo. — North American Review, October, 1845. 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 95 
 
 although containing papers of the greatest merit, their 
 general tone has been too much that of the partisan. 
 Being political as well as literary journals, their judg- 
 ments of authors have often been determined by consid- 
 erations independent of literary merit. In criticism, they 
 havR repeatedly violated the plainest principles of taste, 
 morality, and benevolence. Their dictatorial " we " haa 
 been assumed by some of the most unprincipled haclfa 
 that ever lifted their hoofs against genius and virtue. 
 Though they did good in assisting to purge literature of 
 much mediocrity and stupidity, it is questionable whether 
 their criticism on contemporaries was not, on the whole, 
 productive of evil. The rage for strong writing, which 
 the success of their example brought into fashion, at one 
 time threatened to destroy all discriminating criticism. 
 An article was more effective by being spiced with sar- 
 casm and personalities, and the supply was equal to the 
 demand. The greatest poets of the day found themselves 
 at the mercy of anonymous writers, whose arrogance was 
 generally equalled only by their malice or ignorance, and 
 by whom a brilliant libel was considered superior to the 
 fairest critique. 
 
 It is impossible to look over the current criticism of 
 that day, and observe the meanness and injustice which 
 so often characterize it, without a movement of indigna- 
 tion. This is mingled with surprise, when we discover 
 in it traces of the hand of some distinguished man of 
 talent, who has lent himself to do the dirty work of fac- 
 tion or prejudice. The great poets of the period were 
 compelled to suffer, not merely from attacks on their 
 writings, but from all that malice could bring against 
 their personal character, and all that party hostility could 
 bring agiiinst their notions of government It was unfor- 
 
96 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 tunate, that the same century in which an important 
 revolution occurred in the spirit and character of poetry 
 was likewise that in which political rancor raged and 
 foamed almost to madness. The exasperated passions 
 growing out of the political dissensions of the time, which 
 continually brought opposite opinions in a rude shock 
 against each other, and turned almost every impressible 
 spirit into a heated partisan, gave a peculiar character of 
 vindictiveness to literary judgments. The critics, being 
 politicians, were prone to decide upon the excellence of 
 a poet's images, or a rhetorician's style, by the opinion he 
 entertained of Mr. Pitt and the French Eevolution. The 
 same journal which could see nothing but blasphemy and 
 licentiousness in the poetry of Shelley, could find matter 
 for inexpressible delight in the poetry of John Wilson 
 Croker. Criticism, in many instances, was the mere 
 vehicle of malignity and impudence. Whigs libelled 
 tory writers, tories anathematized whigs. Eminence 
 in letters was to be obtained only by men gifted with 
 strong powers of endurance or resistance. The moment 
 a person became prominent in the public eye, he was 
 considered a proper object of public contempt or derision. 
 As soon as his head appeared above the mass, he was 
 certain that some journal would deem nim worthy of 
 being made the butt of merciless satire or scandalous 
 personalities. Every party and clique had its organ of 
 " public " opinion ; and, in disseminating its peculiar 
 prejudices or notions, exhibited a plentiful lack of justice 
 and decorum. The coarseness and brutality which party 
 spirit thus engendered brought down the moral qualifica 
 (ions of the critic to a low standard. Every literary 
 bully, who was expert in the trade of intellectual assassi 
 nation, could easily find employment both for his cow 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 97 
 
 ardice and his cruelty. The public looked admiringly 
 on, month after month, as these redoubtable torturers in 
 the mquisition of letters stretched some bard on the rack, 
 and insulted his agonies with their impish glee. If the 
 author denied, in meek or indignant tones, the justice of 
 the punishment, the reply which they sometimes conde- 
 scended to make was in the spirit of the taunt with which 
 the judges in " The Cenci " mocked the faltering false- 
 hoods of their tortured victim : — 
 
 " Dare you, with lips yet white from the rack's kiss, 
 Speak false ? Is it so soft a questioner, 
 That you can bandy lovers' talk with it, 
 Till it wind out your life and soul ? " 
 
 From this insolence and vindictiveness few British 
 periodicals have been free, though there are wide differ- 
 ences in the ability and learning of the contributors, and 
 in the artistical form which their bad qualities have 
 taken. No eminent man, of any party, has escaped 
 criticism of the kind we have noticed, — criticism hav- 
 ing its origin in the desire to pamper a depraved taste, 
 in envy, and hatred, and political bigotry, — a criticism 
 which considered the publication of a book merely as an 
 occasion to slander its author. Insignificance was the 
 only shield from defamation. 
 
 But perhaps the authors of the time suffered less 
 vexation from those critical structures directly traceable 
 to malevolence and political fanaticism, than from those 
 which were dictated from a lack of sympathy with the 
 spirit of their works. There can hardly be a more 
 exquisite torture devised for a sensitive man of genius, 
 than to have the merit of his compositions tested by 
 canons of taste which he expressly repudiates, and dog- 
 
 VOL. II. 7 
 
»0 ESSAYS ANV KEVIEWS. 
 
 matically judged by one who cannot comprehend the 
 qualities which constitute their originality and peculiar 
 excellence. If the critic has the larger audience of the 
 two, and his decisions are echoed as oracular by the mob 
 of readers, the thing becomes doubly provoking. The 
 personal feelings of the poet are outraged, and his writ- 
 ings are, for the time, prevented from exerting that 
 influence which legitimately belongs to them. As an 
 earnest man, conceiving that he has a message of some 
 import to deliver to the world, he must consider his critic 
 as doing injury to society, as well as to himself. This 
 impression is apt to engender a morbid egotism, which 
 makes him impatient even of just censure, and to render 
 the gulf between him and the public wider and more 
 impassable. Much of the narrowness and captiousness, 
 which we observe in ludicrous connection with some of 
 the noblest thoughts and most exalted imaginations of 
 the poets of the present century, had their source in the 
 stings which vindictive or flippant reviewers had planted 
 in their minds. Thus unjust or ignorant criticism sub- 
 verts the purpose it proposes to accomplish, and makes 
 the author suspicious of its capacity to detect faults, 
 where it is so plainly incompetent to apprehend beauties. 
 Besides, though it seems to annihilate its object, its 
 effect is but transitory. That silent gathering of thought 
 and sentiment in the minds of large bodies of people, 
 which, when it has assumed distinct shape, we call pub- 
 lic opinion, reverses the dicta of self-constituted literary 
 tribunals; indeed, it changes the tone of the tribunals 
 themselves. In 1816, the Edinburgh Review assumes 
 an attitude of petulant dictatorship to Wordsworth, 
 and begins a critique on "The Excursion" with, — 
 " This will never do ; " in 1831, it prefaces an objection 
 
iJKITISH CRITICS. 99 
 
 kO one characteristic trait of his descriptions of nature 
 with, the words, — " In spite of the reverence we feel for 
 the genius of Mr. Wordsworth ! " 
 
 Among the essayists and reviewers of the time, Francis 
 Jeffrey occupies a prominent position. He was one of 
 the projectors of the Edinburgh Review, — the earliest, 
 ablest, and most influential of the periodicals of the nine- 
 teenth century, — and from 1803 to 1829 its editor. A 
 selection from his contributions, occupying four octavo 
 volumes, has been lately published under his own super- 
 intendence. These evince a mind of versatile talents 
 and acquirements, confident in its own capacity, and 
 delivering unhesitating judgments on all matters relating 
 to politics, literature and life, without the slightest self- 
 distrust. It would be useless to deny that mai:y of the 
 opinions in these volumes are unsound and presumptu- 
 ous, that they are far in the rear of the critical judg- 
 ments of the present day, and that some of their most 
 dogmatic decisions have been reversed in the journal 
 where they originally appeared, — some by himself, but 
 more by Macaulay, Carlyle, Hazlitt, and others. The 
 influence of very few of his articles has been permanent. 
 Written for the most part to serve a transitory purpose, 
 and deficient in fixed and central principles, their influ- 
 ence has ceased with the controversies they excited. 
 With a few exceptions, they will be read rather for the 
 1 jierits of their style and the peculiar individuality they 
 cnbody, than for any additions they have made to 
 thought or knowledge. When we consider that their 
 author assumed to show the poets and thinkers of a 
 whole generation how to write and to think, and that he 
 has not left behind him a single critical principle con- 
 
-00 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 neoted with his name, his pretensions are placed ill a 
 
 disadvantageous contrast with his powers. 
 
 A prominent defect of Jeffrey's literary criticism arose 
 from his lack of earnestness, — that earnestness which 
 comes, not merely from the assent of the understanding 
 to a proposition, but from the deep convictions of a man's 
 whole nature. He is consequently ingenious and plausi- 
 ble, rather than profound, — a man of expedients, rather 
 than of ideas and principles. In too many of his articles, 
 he appears like an advocate, careless of the truth, or 
 sceptical as to its existence or possibility of being reached, 
 and only desirous to make out as good a case for his own 
 assumed position as will puzzle or unsettle the under- 
 standings of his hearers. His logical capacity is shown 
 in acute special pleading, in sophistical glosses, more 
 than in fair argument. He is almost always a reasoner 
 on the surface ; and the moment he begins to argue, the 
 reader instinctively puts his understanding on guard, 
 with the expectation of the ingenious fallacies that are 
 to come. He cannot handle universal principles, founded 
 in the nature of things, and he would not, if he could ; 
 for his object is victory rather than truth. When a 
 proposition is presented to his mind, his inquiry is not 
 tvhether it be true or false, but what can be said in its 
 favor or against it. Tl e sceptical and refining character 
 of his understanding, leading him to look at things 
 merely as subjects for argument, and the mockery and 
 persiflage of manner which such a habit of mind induces, 
 made him a most provoking adversary to a man who 
 viewed things in a more profound and earnest manner. 
 
 As an effect of this absence of earnestness, and of the 
 sonsequent devotion of his faculties to the mere attain 
 ment of immediate objects, we may mention this subor 
 
BaiTISH CRITICS. 101 
 
 iination of principle to tact, both in liis own writings 
 and in his management of the Eeview. There is no 
 critic more slippery, none who can shift his position so 
 nimbly, or who avoids the consequences of a blunder 
 with such brilliant dexterity. He understood to perfec- 
 tion the art of so mingling praise and blame, that, while 
 the spirit and effect of the critique was to represent its 
 object as little better than a dunce, its mere letter was 
 consistent with a more favorable view. Thus, while it 
 was the fashion to underrate and ridicule any class of 
 poets, there was none who could do it with more con- 
 summate skill than Jeffrey, — none who could gain 
 more reputation for sense and acumen in the position he 
 assumed ; but whenever public feeling changed, he could 
 still refer confidently to his course, and prove that he had 
 always acknowledged the extraordinary gifts of his vic- 
 tims, and only ridiculed or mourned their misdirection. 
 He thus made his writings oracular among all talkera 
 about taste and letters, among all who felt and thought 
 superficially. He was popular with them, not because 
 he gave them deeper principles by which to judge of 
 merit, but because he reconciled them to their ov^m shah 
 lowness. The lazy and the superficial, who considei 
 everything as nonsense which they have not the sense to 
 perceive, are especially gratified with the writer who 
 confirms their own impressions by plausible arguments, 
 and expresses them in brilliant language. Profound and 
 earnest feeling, sentiments of awe, wonder, and rever- 
 ence, a mind trained to habits of contemplation on man 
 and the universe, were needed in the critic who should 
 do justice to Wordsworth and Coleridge. These Jeffrey 
 did not possess ; but instead, he had a subtle under- 
 standing, considerable quickness of appreh ''nsion, sen 
 
.02 ESSAYS AND KEVIEWS, 
 
 Bibility, and fancy, a great deal of wit, a most remark- 
 able fluency of expression, and, with little insight beyond 
 the surface of things, an acute perception of their prac- 
 tical and conventional relations. In the exercise of these 
 powers on their appropriate subjects, he appears to great 
 advantage. No one could demolish a dunce more effect- 
 ively, or represent in clearer light the follies and crimes 
 of knavish politicians. But when he came to discuss 
 the merits of works of high and refined imagination, or 
 to criticize sentiments lying deeper than those which 
 usually appear in actual life, he did little more than 
 express brilliant absurdities. It is here that we discover 
 his lack of power to perceive the thing he ridicules ; and 
 accordingly his wit only beats the air. 
 
 In saying this, we are by no means insensible to the 
 charm of Jeffrey's wit, nor to the facile grace of his dic- 
 tion. The reviews of Wordsworth's different works are 
 masterpieces of impertinence. The airiness and vivacity 
 of expression, the easy arrogance of manner, the cool and 
 provoking dogmatism, the insulting tone of fairness, the 
 admirable adaptation of the sarcasm to tease and irritate 
 its object, the subordination of the praise of particular 
 passages to the sweeping condemnation passed on the 
 whole poem, and the singular skiU with which the lof- 
 tiest imaginations are represented as commonplace or 
 nonsensical, are good examples of Jeffrey's acuteness and 
 wit. Of " The Excursion " he remarks : — " It is longer, 
 veaker, and tamer, than any of Mr. Wordsworth's other 
 productions ; with less boldness of originality, and less 
 even of that extreme simplicity and lowliness of tone 
 which wavered so prettily, in the Lyrical Ballads 
 between silliness and pathos. We have imitations of 
 Cowper, and even of Milton, here, engrafted on the 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 103 
 
 natural drawl of the Lakers, — and all diluted into har- 
 mony by that profuso and irrepressible wordiness which 
 deluges all the blank verse of this school of poetry, and 
 lubricates and weakens the whole structure of their 
 style." 
 
 Then the critic informs us, that, if he were to describe 
 the volume very shortly, he should characterize it " as a 
 tissue of moral and devotional ravings, in which innu- 
 merable changes are rung upon a very few simple and 
 familiar ideas ; but with such an accompaniment of long 
 words, long sentences and unwieldy phrases, and such 
 a hubbub of strained raptures and fantastic sublimities, 
 that it is often difficult for the most skilful and attentive 
 student to obtain a glimpse of the author's meaning — and 
 altogether impossible for an ordinary reader to conjecture 
 
 what he is about The fact accordingly is, 
 
 that in this production he is more obscure than a Pinda- 
 ric poet of the seventeenth century ; and more verbose 
 ' than even himself of yore ; ' while the wilfulness with 
 which he persists in choosing his examples of intellectual 
 dignity and tenderness exclusively from the lowest ranks 
 of society, will be sufficiently apparent from the circum- 
 stance of his having thought fit to make his chief prolo- 
 cutor in this poetical dialogue, the chief advocate of 
 Providence and Virtue, an old Scotch pedler — retired 
 indeed from business, bat still rambling about in his 
 former haunts, ana gossiping among his old custorrers, 
 vithout his pack on his shoulders. The other per?ons 
 L the drama are, a retired military chaplain, who has 
 grown half an atheist and half a misanthrope — the wife 
 of an unprosperous weaver — a servant-girl with her nat 
 ural child — a parish pauper, and one or twf> other per' 
 «onages of equal rank and dignity." 
 
104 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 After condemning some of the most splendid and 
 "some feeble passages in the poem, and extracting a few 
 which are thought really beautiful or pathetic, this hon. 
 est critic concludes thus : — 
 
 " The absurdity in this case, we think, is palpable and glar- 
 ing ; but it is exactly of the same nature with that which infects 
 the whole substance of the work — a puerile ambition of singu 
 larity engrafted on an unlucky predilection for truisms ; and an 
 affected passion for simplicity and humble life, most awkwardly 
 combined with a taste for mystical refinements, and all the 
 gorgeousness of obscure phraseology. His taste for simplicity 
 is evinced by sprinkling up and down his interminable declama- 
 tions a few descriptions of baby-houses, and of old hats with 
 wet brims ; and his amiable partiality for humble life, by assur- 
 ing us that a wordy rhetorician, who talks about Thebes, and 
 allegorizes all the heathen mythology, was once a pedler — and 
 making him break in upon his magnificent orations with two 
 or three awkward notices of something that he had seen when 
 selling winter raiment about the country — or of the changes in 
 the state of society, which had almost annihilated his former 
 calling." 
 
 In the review of " The White Doe of Eylstone," Jeffrey 
 is even more emphatic in his censures. He had given 
 up Wordsworth, on the appearance of " The Excursion," 
 as beyond the reach of his teachings ; and accordingly, in 
 this article, he merely libels and parodies the poem. 
 We are told that, " In the Lyrical Ballads, he was exhib- 
 ited, on the whole, in a vein of very pretty deliration ; 
 but in the poem before us he appears in a state of low 
 Sind maudlin imbecility, which would not have mis- 
 j)ecome Master Silence himself, in the close of a socia^ 
 
 day The seventh and last canto con 
 
 tains the history of the desolated Emily and her faithfu 
 doe ; but so very discreetly and cautiously written, tha 
 
BRITISH CEITICS. 105 
 
 Are will sngagc that the most tender-hearted reader shall 
 peruse -t without the least risk of any excessive emotion. 
 The poor lady runs about indeed for some years in a 
 very disconsolate way, in a worsted gown and flannel 
 night-cap : but at last the old white doe finds her out, 
 and takes again to following her — whereupon Mr. 
 Wordsworth breaks out into this fine and natural cap- 
 ture," &c., &c. 
 
 The importance which should attach to criticism like 
 this may be estimated by a short contrast of the char- 
 acter and pursuits of the poet and critic : Words wo:qth, 
 living amid the most magnificent scenery, impressed 
 with a mysterious sense of the spiritualities of things, 
 pure, high-minded, imaginative, contemplative, earnest ; 
 — Jeffrey, passing his life in the bustle of politics and 
 courts of law, brisk, vivacious, plausible, sarcastic, prac- 
 tical, available. Was ever poet matched with critic so 
 well calculated to discern excellences, so capable of cor- 
 recting faults ? 
 
 In his articles on the poetry of Crabbe, Campbell, 
 Byron, Scott, Moore, Keats, Rogers, and Mrs. Hemans, 
 although we think he has not always perceived their 
 highest merits, or accurately estimated their relative 
 position, Jeffrey still appears to considerable advantage. 
 The happy facility of his expression, the neatness and 
 precision of his thinking, his occasional glow of feeling 
 and fancy, and his sly, stinging wit, make them very 
 fascinating compositions. But we see nothing in them 
 that indicates the highest taste, — nothing that gives 
 evidence of profound feeling or thought. They are kept 
 studiously within the tone of "good society." Though 
 vigorous and brilliant, they rather sparkle than burn, 
 vnd have little of the living energy of earnest feeling. 
 
106 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Though Jeffrey evidently felt contempt for the taste of 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge, none of his articles on poetry 
 can be compared, in point of true insight into critical 
 principles, with their prefaces and essays on the same 
 theme. But these articles still have a charm, apart from 
 their critical value ; and we have no doubt tha'' they will 
 long be read for their shrewdness and point, :.nd their 
 pieculiar sweetness and grace of diction. The practical 
 remarks are always acute, and evince uncommon power 
 of distinct expression. The review of Moore's " Lalla 
 RQokh " — a work just calculated to display his quahties 
 of mind and manner in their best light — is fuU of fancy 
 and observation, conveyed in a style of exuberant rich- 
 ness. There is one sentence which well illustrates the 
 affluence and ease of expression which he had so readily 
 at command. " There are passages," he says, " and 
 those neither few nor brief, over which the very Genius 
 of Poetry seems to have breathed his richest enchant- 
 ment, — where the melody of the verse and the beauty 
 of the images conspire so harmoniously with the force 
 and tenderness of the emotion, that the whole is blended 
 into one deep and bright stream of sweetness and feel- 
 ing, along which the spirit of the reader is borne pas- 
 sively away, through long reaches of delight.^'' 
 
 The passage on Shakspeare, in the review of Hazlitt, 
 is another instance of his sweetness and luxuriance of 
 diction. Though it is well known, we cannot resist the 
 inclination to quote it. 
 
 " In the exposition of these is room enough for originality, — 
 and more room than Mr. Hazlitt has yet filled. In many points, 
 however, he has acquitted himself excellently; — partly in th< 
 development of the principal chara'iters with which Shakspear 
 lias peopled the fancies of all English readers — but principally 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. iO? 
 
 ve think, in the delicate sensibility with which he has traced, 
 ind the natural eloquence with which he has pointed out, that 
 amiliarity with beautiful forms and images — that eternal re 
 -.urrence to what is sweet or majestic in the simple aspects of 
 nature — that indestructible love of flowers and odors, and dews 
 and clear waters, and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies, and 
 woodland solitudes, and moonlight bowers, which are the mate- 
 rial elements of poetry — and that fine sense of their undefinable 
 relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying 
 soul, and which ii the midst of Shakspeare's most busy anc. 
 atrocious scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and 
 ruins, contrasting with all that is rugged and repulsive, and 
 reminding us of the existence of purer and brighter elements, 
 which he alone has poured out from the richness of his own 
 mind, without effort or restraint, and contrived to intermingle 
 with the play of all the passions and the vulgar course of this 
 world's affairs, without deserting for an instant the proper busi- 
 ness of the scene, or appearing to pause or digress from love of 
 ornament or need of repose ; — he alone, who, when the object 
 requires it, is always keen, and worldly, and practical — and 
 who yet, without changing his hand, or stopping his course, 
 scatters around him, as he goes, all sounds and shapes of sweet- 
 ness, and conjures up landscapes of immortal fragrance and 
 freshness, and peoples them with spirits of glorious aspect and 
 attractive grace — and is a thousand times more full of fancy, 
 and imagery, and splendor, than those who, for the sake of such 
 qualities, have shrunk back from the delineation of character or 
 passion, and declined the discussion of human duties and cares. 
 More full of wisdom, and ridicule, and sagacity, than all the 
 moralists and satirists in existence, — he is more wild, airy, and 
 inventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the poets 
 of ?L. regions and ages of the world — and has all those ele- 
 ments so happily mixed up in him, and bears his high faculties 
 so temperately, that the most severe reader cannot complain of 
 him for want of strength or of reason, nor the most £ensitii.'i> 
 for defect of ornament or ingenuity. Everything in him is 
 in unmeasured abundance, and uueqvalled perfection — but 
 rverything so balanced and kept in suDordination, as not to 
 
lOS 
 
 ESSAVS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ostle, or disturb, or take the place of another. The most exqu) 
 site poetical conceptions, images and descriptions, are given 
 with such brevity, and introduced with such skill, as merely tc 
 adorn, without loading, the sense they accompany. Although 
 his sails are purple and perfumed, and his prow of beaten gold, 
 they waft him on his voyage, not less but more rapidly and 
 directly than if they had been composed of baser materials. 
 All his excellences, like those of Nature herself, are throwii 
 out together ; and instead of interfering with, support ajd 
 recommend each other. His flowers are not tied up in garlands, 
 nor his fruits crushed into baskets — but spring living from the 
 soil, in all the dew and freshness of youth ; while the graceful 
 foliage in which they lurk, and the ample branches, the rough 
 and vigorous stem, and the wide-spreading roots on which they 
 depend, are present along with them, and share, in their places, 
 the equal care of their Creator." 
 
 Every reader will appreciate the voluble beauty of this 
 loving- description ; and passages almost equal to it, in 
 richness and melody, are not infrequently found in the 
 multifarious critiques of the author. The elaborate dis- 
 quisition on Beauty, though founded on a mistaken 
 theory, is written with a grace and unstudied ease 
 which cannot fail to interest and charm. We could not, 
 without trespassing beyond our limits, enter into a dis- 
 cussion to test the force of its reasoning or the pertinence 
 of its illustrations ; but we think that no poet, who ever 
 created new beauty, could subscribe to Jeffrey's theory 
 without doing violence to his nature. By making beauty 
 dependent on the association of external things with 
 the ordinary emotions and affections of our nature, by 
 denying its existence, both as an inward sense and as an 
 Dutward reality, he substantially annihilates it. His 
 theory of " agreeable sensations " would find but little 
 toleration from any whose souls had ever been awed be- 
 bre the presence of the highest Beauty which the miaA 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 109 
 
 can recognize. Jeffrey has not made out his case even 
 from his own point of view ; and a reader, who carefully 
 follows the ingenious twists and turns of his argument, 
 finds that the the-pry is radically superficial, or continu- 
 ally supposes the /ery principles it aims to reason away. 
 He misconceives the nature and processes of the imag- 
 ination, or, rather, in the dazzling fence of his rhetoric, 
 imagination is used more as a meaningless word than as 
 that power which, 
 
 "Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 
 Binding all things with beauty," 
 
 IS not only the bond which unites the soul with external 
 objects, and gives the feeling and sense of beauty, but 
 likewise suggests a loveliness grander than both, com- 
 pared with which all finite beauty is insignificant. The 
 contempt with which he refers to a " rapturous Platonic 
 doctrine as to the existence of a Supreme Good and 
 Beauty, and of a certain internal sense, by which both 
 beauty and moral merit are distinguished," shows that 
 his consciousness had never been disturbed by a class of 
 phenomena vitally important to a settlement of the ques- 
 tion he discusses. Carlyle, in an article in the Edin- 
 burgh Review, published in 1S29, entitled " Signs of the 
 Times," quietly sneers at the editor's whole theory, we 
 believe, without condescending to expend any argument 
 upon it. The same writer has contradicted, in the Edin- 
 burgh Review, Jeffrey's estimate of Goethe, of German 
 ,'iterature in general, and of Burns, with the most pro- 
 voking coolness. 
 
 Perhaps the ablest and most interesting contributions 
 of Jeffrey to the review were those in which he por- 
 trayed the characters of eminent authors and politicians, 
 
10 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 such as his articles on Swift, Warburton, Burns, Frank- 
 lin, Alfieri, Mackintosh, Curran, Richardson, and Cowper. 
 The impeachment of Swift of high crimes and misde- 
 meanors, before the bar of history, is a masterpiece of 
 its kind, and has obtained deserved celebrity. The vice? 
 of his character are exposed with tremendous force, and, 
 considered as an argument drawn simply from the actions 
 of the man, the article is conclusive. But even in this 
 able and powerful paper the deficiencies of Jeffrey are 
 still apparent. In delineating character, he did it from 
 the " skin inwards, and not from the heart outwards." 
 His own character was the test he ever apphed. He had 
 not imagination enough to identify himself with another, 
 and look at things from his point of view. Thus, all the 
 palliations which bad or questionable actions might re- 
 ceive from original temperament or mental disease were 
 not taken into consideration; but the individual was 
 judged from an antagonist position, according to the very 
 letter which killeth. This is the mode of the advocate, 
 rather than of the critic. In the case of Swift, the 
 feeling that the article excites against the man is one of 
 unmitigated detestation. A more profound knowledge 
 of his internal character might have modified the harsh- 
 ness of this feeling with one of commiseration. A simi- 
 lar remark is applicable to the judgment expressed of 
 Burns. As regards Warburton, however, we think Jef- 
 frey was essentially right. Nothing can be finer than 
 the castigation he gives the insolent and vindictive 
 bishop, at the same time that he acknowledges his tal- 
 ents and erudition, 
 
 Jeffrey's political articles are very spirited composi 
 tions, full of information and abihty, displaying an 
 admirable practical intellect and talent for a flairs, anii 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 11 1 
 
 ^reat command over the weapons both of logic and 
 sarcasiin. The course of the Edinburgh Eeview, in 
 opposing with courage and skill the numeious political 
 crimes and corruptions of the day, and the vigor with 
 w"hich it scourged tyranny and its apologists, though too 
 often alloyed by wilful injustice to authors who happened 
 to be classed with the tory party, will always be remem 
 bered in its favor. The part which the editor took in 
 the political warfare of the time was honorable to his 
 talents and his integrity. Though the extreme practical 
 view he takes of government and freedom is not always 
 to our taste, and though we could have wished that he 
 possessed a deeper faith in human nature, and principles 
 deeper grounded in right and less modified by expedien- 
 cy, it would be unjust to deny his claim to be considered 
 among the most prominent of those who, in small minor- 
 ities and with the whole influence of the government 
 against them, warred for years, with inflexible zeal, to 
 overthrow great abuses, and remove pestilent prejudices. 
 The critical and historical essays contributed to the 
 Edinburgh Review by Thomas Babington Macaulay 
 have obtained a wide celebrity. Compared with Jeffrey, 
 he may be said to have more earnestness, industry, learn- 
 ing, energy of feeling, more intellectual and moral hardi- 
 hood, and a wider range of argumentation, but less grace, 
 ease, subtilty, and sweetness. There are few contempo- 
 rary writers more purely masculine, more free from all 
 feminine fastidiousness of taste and sentiment, more 
 richly endowed with the qualities of a hard and robust 
 manhood, than Macaulay. His diction and style of 
 thinking indicate physical as well as mental strength, 
 and a contemptuous impatience cf all weak emotions. 
 He never commits himself on an;- suoject until he )vas 
 
112 ESSAYS AND REVIE TS. 
 
 fully mastered it, and then he writes like a person who 
 neither expects nor gives quarter, — who shows no mercy 
 for the errors of others, because he cares not to have any 
 shown to his own. Though a good analyst, his chief 
 strength lies in generalization. He would hardly conde- 
 scend, like Jeffrey, to pause and play with the details of a 
 subject, or fritter away his acuteness in petty refinements ; 
 but he always aims to grasp general principles. He has 
 one power that Jeffrey lacks, — the capacity to learn from 
 other minds. Accustomed to look before and after, to 
 view a literary or a political revolution in its connection 
 with general history, his taste and judgment are compre- 
 hensive in the sense of not being fettered by conventional 
 rules. He has considerable rectitude of intellect, and a 
 desire to ascertain the truth of things. His literary crit- 
 icism refers to the great elements or the prominent char- 
 acteristic of an author's mind, not to the minutiae of his 
 rhetoric or his superficial beauties and faults. With Jef- 
 frey, the reverse is often true. His wit and acuteness 
 are so continually exercised in detecting and caricaturing 
 small defects, that the result of his representation is to 
 magnify the faults of his author into characteristics, and 
 to consider his excellences as exceptions to the general 
 rule. Macaulay, by taking a higher point of view, by 
 his willingness to receive instruction as well as to admin- 
 ister advice, contrives to give more effect to his censures 
 of faults, by keeping them in strict subordination to his 
 warm acknowledgment of merits. The skill with which 
 he does this entitles him to high praise as an artist. He 
 has attempted to delineate a large number of eminent 
 men o^ action and speculation, many of whose charac- 
 ters present a seemingly tangled web of virtues and vices 
 and he has been almost always successful in preserving 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 113 
 
 khe keeping of character, and the relation which different 
 C[ualities bear to each other. He places himself in the 
 position of the man whose character and actions he 
 judges, seizes upon his leading traits of mind and dispo- 
 sition, and ascertains the relation borne to them by his 
 other powers and feelings. As his object is to represent 
 his subject pictorially to the imagination, as well as ana- 
 lytically to the understanding, and at all events to stamp 
 a correct portrait on the mind of the reader, he sometimes 
 epigrammatically exaggerates leading traits, in order that 
 the complexity of the character may not prevent the per- 
 ception of its individuality. This epigrammatic manner 
 has often been censured as a fault, — in some instances 
 justly censured ; but we think that his use of it often 
 evinces as much wisdom as wit ; for his object is to con- 
 fey the truth more vividly, by suggesting it through the 
 medium of a brilliant exaggeration. No person is so 
 simple as to give the epigram a literal interpretation ; 
 and sM. must acknowledge, that at times it is an arrow of 
 light, sent directly into the heart of the matter under 
 discussion. 
 
 There is probably no writer living who can hold up a 
 great criminal to infamy with such terrible force of invec- 
 tive and sarcasm as Macaulay. Scattered over his 
 essays, we find references to men and events that have 
 become immortal through their criminality ; and he has 
 allowed few such occasions to pass without a flash of 
 scorn or an outbreak of fiery indignation. All instances 
 of bigotry, meanness, selfishness, and cruelty, especially 
 if they are overlaid with sophistical defences, he opposes 
 with a force of reason and energy of passion which ren- 
 der them as ridiculous as they are infamous. He is 
 especially severe agains ; those panders to tyranny who 
 
 VOL. II. 8 
 
114 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 attempt to reason base actions into respectability, and to 
 give guilt the character of wisdom. He crushes all such 
 opponents with a kind of merciless strength. Even 
 when his view of a person is on the whole favorable, he 
 never defends any crime he commits. This is the case 
 in the most difficult and delicate task he ever undertook, 
 — the character and actions of Warren Hastings. No 
 one can be more severe than he on Mr. Gleig, the biog- 
 rapher and apologist of Hastings. Every instance of 
 oppression and cruelty which comes under his notice he 
 condemns with the utmost indignation ; but in summing 
 up the character, he balances great crimes against great 
 difficulties and strong temptations. The reader is at lib- 
 erty to take an opposite view, and, indeed, is supplied 
 with the materials of an impartial moral judgment. 
 Macaulay's admiration for great intellectual powers and 
 talent for administration is preserved amid all the detest- 
 ation he feels for the crimes by which they may be 
 accompanied. This is the amount of his toleralSbn for 
 Warren Hastings. In the case of Barere, however, he 
 had to do with a man as mean in intellect as he was 
 fiendlike in disposition ; and his delineation of him is 
 masterly. The skill with which the essential littleness 
 of the man is kept in view amid all the greatness of his 
 crimes, the mingled contempt and horror which his 
 actions inspire, and the felicity with which his cruelty is 
 always associated with his cowardice and baseness, are 
 in Macaulay's finest manner. 
 
 We have introduced this notice of Macaulay rather to 
 'ilustrate the objection to JeflTrt^y, than from any hope oi 
 mtention to give his various \ citings a strict review 
 (ind we accordingly pass to another eminent essayist and 
 critic, Sir James Mackintosh. His miscellaneous com* 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 115 
 
 positions are now in the course of publication in London. 
 He is known as the author of various political, literary, 
 and philosophical articles, in the Edinburgh Review. It 
 would be difficult to mention any writer, whose name 
 has been connected with the literary journals of the nine- 
 teenth century, who has carried into the task of criticism 
 so much fairness and moderation as Mackintosh. His 
 nature was singularly free from asperity and dogmatism. 
 To a large understanding, and boundless stores of know] ■ 
 edge, he united candor, and even humility, in their 
 employment. His mind was eminently judicial. From 
 the character of his intellectual powers, and the moral 
 qualities from which they received their direction, it was 
 natural for him to look at things with an impartial desire 
 to arrive at truth, and to view both sides of every ques- 
 tion. He had no intellectual pride, no love for principles 
 simply because they were his by discovery or adoption. 
 His mind was always open to new truth. As far as his 
 perceptions extended, he ever did full and complete jus- 
 tice to all systems of philosophy or legislation which 
 came under his notice. He was incapable of misrepre- 
 senting a personal enemy or a political opponent. We 
 have sometimes thought that an argument for the whig 
 party of Great Britain might be built on the simple fact 
 that their general principles and conduct were warmly 
 approved by a man of so much comprehensiveness of 
 heart and understanding, and so much freedom from 
 partisanship, as Sir James Mackintosh. 
 
 The intellectual and moral character of this eminent 
 man are so closely connected that it is difficult to view 
 the»ii separately. We do not think his works a-e fair 
 and full exponents of his nature ; and his reputation was 
 tlways justly greater for what he was than for wl at he 
 
1 16 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 performed, valuable as were most of his performances 
 His friends and associates were among the greatest intel* 
 lects of his time, and he was respected and venerated 
 by them all. His name always carried with it a moral 
 influence ; and wherever heard, it was always associated 
 with sound and weighty views of philosophy, with lib- 
 oral principles of government, with learning, humanity, 
 justice, and freedom. His influence was great, although 
 it was not so palpable as that of many among his con- 
 temporaries ; and it will be permanent. A man of so 
 much uprightness and virtue, placed in such a promi- 
 nent position, and mingling daily with his contemporaries 
 as a practical statesman and philosopher, could not fail 
 to wield unconsciously great power over the opinions and 
 actions of his generation; and the beauty of his charac- 
 ter v/ill long continue to exert an influence, in insensibly 
 moulding the minds of scholars and statesmen, and giv- 
 ing a humane and moral direction to their powers. 
 
 Among the critical essays contributed by Mackintosh 
 to the Edinburgh Review, the most distinguished are his 
 two articles on Dugald Stewart's review of the " Pro- 
 gress of Ethical, Metaphysical, and Political Science." 
 These are eminently characteristic of his mind and char- 
 acter, being remarkable rather for largeness of view than 
 strength of grasp, and free altogether from the fanaticism 
 of system. The sketches of Aquinas, Bacon, Descartes, 
 Hobbes, Locke, Boyle, Leibnitz, Machiavel, Montaigne 
 Grotius, PufTendorf, Barrow, and Jeremy Taylor, abound 
 in profound remark, and often in delicate criticism. The 
 difTerent thinkers who pass before him for review he 
 treats with admirable fairness, and sets forth their lead- 
 ing principles in a clear light. Though the style is 
 elegant and condensed, it is at times languid, as if il 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 117 
 
 paused in its movement with the pauses of the writer's 
 judgment, or its pace was retarded by the mass of 
 thought and erudition it conveyed. Occasionally it 
 becomes a little verbose, from the introduction of words 
 to restrain the full force of general epithets, or to indicate 
 minute distinctions. A large number of striking thoughts 
 might be quoted from these articles. They can be read 
 again and again, with pleasure and instruction. The 
 weight, solidity, and coolness of understanding, of which 
 Mackintosh's disquisitions give so marked an example, 
 remind the reader more of the judicial minds of the old 
 English prose writers, than of the pugnacious and parti- 
 san intellects of the moderns. They lack the fire both 
 of passion and prejudice ; but their mingled gravity and 
 sweetness of feeling, and amplitude of comprehension, 
 will always preserve their interest. His naiscellaneous 
 essays and reviews, when collected, will occupy, we 
 think, a permanent place in the higher literature of the 
 generation of thinkers to which he belongs. 
 
 The various disquisitions of Sir William Hamilton 
 seem to have attracted but little attention on this side of 
 the Atlantic, from the fact that they deal with subjects 
 somewhat removed from popular taste and popular appre- 
 hension; yet it would be difficult to name any contribu- 
 tions to a review which display such a despotic com- 
 mand of all the resources of logic and metaphysics as 
 his articles in the Edinburgh Review on Cousin, Dr. 
 Brown, and Bishop Whately. Apart from their scien- 
 tific value, they should be read as specimens of intellect- 
 ual power. They evince more intense strength of un- 
 derstanding than any other writings of the age; and in 
 the blended merits of their logic, rhetoric, and learning, 
 they may challenge comparison with the best works of 
 
il8 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 liny British metaphysicians. He seems to have read 
 every writer, ancient and modem, on logic and metaphy- 
 sics, and is conversant with every philosophical theory, 
 from the lowest form of materialism to the most abstract 
 development of idealism ; and yet his learning is not so 
 remarkable as the thorough manner in which he has 
 digested it, and the perfect command he has of all it& 
 stores. Everything that he comprehends, no matter 
 how abstruse, he comprehends with the utmost clear- 
 ness, and employs with consummate skill. He is alto- 
 gether the best trained reasoner on abstract subjects of 
 his time. He is a most terrible adversary, because his 
 logic is unalloyed by an atom of passion or prejudice; 
 and nothing is more merciless than the intellect. No 
 fallacy, or sophism, or half-proof, can escape his analysis, 
 and he is pitiless in its exposure. His method is to 
 strike directly at his object, and he accomplishes it in a 
 few stern, brief sentences. His path is over the wreck 
 of opinions, which he demolishes as he goes. After he 
 has decided a question, it seems to be at rest forever, for 
 his rigorous logic leaves no room for controversy. He 
 will not allow his adversary a single loop-hole for escape. 
 He forces him back from one position to another, he trips 
 up his most ingenious reasonings, and leaves him at the 
 end naked and defenceless, mournfully gathering up the 
 scattered fragments of his once syinmetrical system. 
 The article on " Cousin's Course of Philosophy," and 
 that on " Reid and Brown," are grand examples of this 
 gladiatorial exercise of intellectual power. 
 
 Hamilton is not only a great logician, but a great rhet- 
 orician. His matter is arranged with the utmost art 
 his ?tyle is a model of philosophical clearness, concise 
 nes3, and energy. Every word is in its right place, ha 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 119 
 
 a precise scientific meaning, can stand the severest tests 
 of analj^sis, and bears but one interpretation. He is as 
 impregnable in his terms as in his argument; and with 
 all the hard accuracy of his language, the movement of 
 his style is as rapid, and sometimes as brilliant, as that 
 of Macaulay. It seems to drag on the mind of the 
 student by pure force. The key to a whole philosophical 
 system is often given in a single emphatic sentence, 
 vhose stern compression has sometimes the effect of 
 3pigram, — as when he condenses the results of the 
 Scotch philosophy into these few words : — "It proved 
 that intelligence svpposed principles, which, as the co7i' 
 ditioTis of its activity, could not be the results of its oper- 
 ation ; and that the mind contained notions, which, as 
 primitive, necessary, and universal, were not to be ex- 
 plained as generalizations from the contingent and par- 
 ticular, about which alone our external experience was 
 conversant. The phenomena of mind were thus distin- 
 guished from the phenomena of matter, and if the impos- 
 sibility of materialism were not demonstrated, there was, 
 at least, demonstrated the impossibility of its proof." 
 The mastery of his subject, which Hamilton possesses, 
 the perfect order with which his thoughts are arranged, 
 and his exact knowledge of terms, free him altogether 
 from that comparative vassalage to words which so often 
 confuses the understandings of metaphysicians. His 
 style has the hard brilliancy of polished steel ; its lustr< 
 comes from its strength and compactness. 
 
 Among his contributions to the Edinburgh Review, 
 besides tho.^e already enumerated, are the articles on the 
 " Uni-versities of England," on " Recent Publications on 
 Logical Science," and on "Johnson's Translation of 
 Tenneman's History of Philosophy." The most pleas* 
 
120 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ing to the general reader would be the article on Cousin 
 although that on the Philosophy of Perception displayf 
 to greater advantage his immense stores of metaphysica, 
 learning and his intensity of thought. None of his 
 articles have ever been answered. Indeed, on logical 
 principles, they are probably unanswerable. The disqui. 
 sition on Cousin, which comprehends not only a review 
 of his philosophy, but a consideration of the whole 
 ground of Rationalism, and a course of argument directed 
 against all philosophical theories of the Infinite, is admi- 
 rably calculated for the present state of speculation in 
 this country, however unpalatable may be its doctrines. 
 He takes the position, that our knowledge is restricted 
 within the domain of the finite, — that we have no im- 
 mediate knowledge of things, but only of their phenom- 
 ena, — and that, in every attempt to fix the absolute as 
 a positive in knowledge, " the absolute, like the water in 
 the sieves of the Danaides, has always hitherto run 
 through as a negative into the abyss of nothing." As a 
 specimen of the style, we extract his statement of the 
 opinions " which may be entertained regarding the un- 
 conditioned as an immediate object of knowledge and 
 thought." 
 
 " These opinions may be reduced to four : — 1. The uncon- 
 ditioned is incognizable and inconceivable ; its notion being 
 only negative of the conditioned, which last can alone be posi- 
 tively known or conceived. 2. It is not an object of knowledge ; 
 but its notion, as a regulative principle of the mind itself, is 
 more than a mere negation of the conditioned. 3. It is cogniz- 
 able, but not conceivable ; it can be known by sinking back 
 into identity with the absolute, but is incomprehensible by con- 
 sciousness and reflection, which are only of the relative and the 
 different. 4. It is cognizable and conceivable by consciousnes» 
 and reflection, under relation, difference, and plurality. 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 121 
 
 " The first of these opinions we regard as true ; the second 
 is held by Kant ; the third by Schelling ; and the last by our 
 author. 
 
 " 1. In our opinion, the mind can conceive, and consequently 
 can know, only the limited and the conditionally limited. The 
 unconditionally unlimited, or the infinite, the unconditionally 
 limited, or the absolute, cannot positively be construed to the 
 mind ; they can be conceived at all only by a thinking away, 
 or abstraction, of those very conditions under which thought 
 itself is realized ; consequently the notion of the unconditioned 
 is only negative, — negative of the conceivable itself. For ex- 
 ample, on the one hand, we can positively conceive neither an 
 absolute whole, that is, a whole so great that we cannot also 
 conceive it as a relative part of a still greater whole ; nor an 
 absolute part, that is, a part so small that we cannot also con- 
 ceive it as a relative whole, divisible into smaller parts. On 
 the other hand, we cannot positively represent to the mind an 
 infinite whole, for this could only be done by the* infinite syn- 
 thesis in thought of finite wholes, which would itself require an 
 infinite time for its accomplishment ; nor, for the same reason, 
 can we follow out in thought an infinite divisibility of parts. 
 The result is the same, whether we apply the process to limita- 
 tion in space, in time, or in degree. The unconditional affirm- 
 ation of limitation — in other words, the infinite and the absolute, 
 properly so called* — are thus equally inconceivable to us. 
 
 " As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly call the 
 conditioned) is thus the only object of knowledge and of positive 
 thought, thought necessarily supposes conditions ; to think is 
 therefore to condition, and conditional limitation is the funda- 
 mental law of the possibility of thought. How, indeed, it could 
 erer be doubted that thought is only of the conditioned, may 
 well be deemed a matter of the profoundest admiration. 
 
 * " It is proper to observe, that though we are of opinion that the terms 
 Infinite and Absolute, and Unconditioned, ought not to be confounded, and 
 accurately distinguish them in the statement of our own view ; yet, in 
 spealcing of the doctrines of thoae by whom thej" are indifTerently employed, 
 we have not thought it necessary, or rather we have found it impossible, to 
 adhere to the distinction." 
 
132 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Thought cannot transcend consciousness ; consciousness is ouly 
 possible under the antithesis of a subject and object of thought, 
 known only in correlation and mutually limiting each other- 
 while, independently of this, all we know either of subject oi 
 object, either mind or matter, is only a knowledge in each of 
 the particular, of the different, of the modified, of the phenome- 
 nal. We admit that the consequence of this doctrine is, thai 
 philosophy, if viewed as more than a science of the conditioned, 
 is impossible. Departing from the particular, we admit that we 
 can never, in our highest generalization, rise above the finite ; 
 that our knowledge, whether of mind or matter, can be nothing 
 more than a knowledge of the relative manifestations of an ex- 
 istence which, in itself, it is our highest wisdom to recognize as 
 beyond the reach of philosophy : — Cognoscendo ignorari, et igm- 
 rando cognosci.^' 
 
 A collection of Sir William Hamilton's articles, as far 
 as they are generally known, might easily be contained 
 in a moderately sized volume, and we trust it will soon 
 be made. Such a book could, not fail to be successful, 
 even in the publisher's notion of that word ; and it would 
 familiarize the minds of our students with far more 
 rigorous habits of thinking and investigation than are 
 now in vogue. Three or four of the ablest of these 
 papers have already been translated into French, and 
 published in a single volume at Paris. 
 
 William Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, 
 seems to have united in himself all the bad qualities 
 of the criticism of his time. He was fierce, dogmatic, 
 bigoted, libellous, and unsympathizing. Whatever may 
 have been his talents, they were exquisitely unfitted for 
 his position — his literary judgments being contemptible 
 where any sense of beauty was required, and principallj 
 distinguished for malice and word-picking. The bittei 
 and snarling s-pirit with which he commented on the 
 
BRITISH CRITICS. 123 
 
 BXceLence he could not appreciate ; the extreme narrow- 
 ness and shallowness of his taste ; the labored black- 
 guardism in which he was wont to indulge, under the 
 impression that it was satire; his detestable habit of 
 carrying his political hatreds into literary criticism ; his 
 gross personal attacks on Hunt, Hazlitt, and others who 
 raight happen to profess less illiberal principles than his 
 cwn ; made him a dangerous and disagreeable adversary, 
 and one of the worst critics of modern times. Through 
 his position as the editor of an influential journal, his 
 enmity acquired an importance due neither to his talents 
 nor his character. His notoriety was coextensive with his 
 malignity ; his fame consisted in having the power to 
 wound better men than himself; and consequently, from 
 being a terror and a scourge, he has now passed into 
 oblivion, or is only occasionally rescued from it to be an 
 object of wondering contempt. As far as his influence 
 in the management of the review extended, it was em- 
 ployed to serve the meanest and dirtiest ends of his 
 party, and the exploded principles of a past literary taste ; 
 and it was owing to no fault of his, that the journal did 
 not become a synonyme of malignant dulness and fero- 
 cious illiberality, and feed to the full the vulgar appetite 
 for defamation. Nothing but the occasional contribu- 
 tions of eminent writers and scholars prevented it from 
 sinking to the dead level of his intellect and prejudices. 
 The blindness which partisan warfare produces, even in 
 men of education and courtesy, could alone have per- 
 mitted the organ of a great party to be under the 
 management of this critical Ketch, this political Quilp. 
 His acumen was shown in his profound appreciation of 
 works which died as soon as puffed, and in his insensi- 
 bility to those whose fame was destined to begin with 
 
lSi4 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 his oblivion ; and his statesmanship, in the low abuse of 
 individuals, in a resolute defence of the rotten parts of 
 toryism, and in assiduous libels on foreign countries. It 
 is to him, we presume, that we are indebted for the lies 
 and blunders about the United States for which tnt 
 Quarterly was once distinguished. 
 
 To Gilford for a time belonged the equivocal fame of 
 killing John Keats ; but we are glad that a disclosure of 
 tlie facts has lately robbed him of this laurel of slander. 
 It is quite a satisfaction to know, that even the tenderest 
 and most sensitive of poets was beyond the reach of his 
 envenomed arrows. Shelley, in a monody on the death 
 of Keats, — then supposed to have been accelerated by 
 the brutal article in the Quarterly, — has, in a strain of 
 invective hot from his heart, fixed a brand on GiSbrd's 
 brow, which may keep it above the waters of oblivion for 
 Eorae years to come. 
 
 " Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
 Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
 Thou noteless blot on a remembered name I 
 But be thyself, and know thyself to be! 
 And ever at thy season be thou free 
 To spill the venom, when thy fangs o'erflow : 
 Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ; 
 Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
 And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. 
 
 " Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
 Far from these carrion-kites that scream below : 
 He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
 Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now, - 
 Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 
 Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
 A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 
 Through time and change, unquenchably the same, 
 Whilst thy cold ?mbers choke the sordid hearth of shame.' 
 
■ BRITISH CRITICS. 125 
 
 The various critical writings of William Hazlitt are 
 aden with original and striking thoughts, and indicate 
 an intellect strong and intense, but narrowed by prejudice 
 and personal feeling. He was an acute but somewhat 
 bitter observer of life and manners, and satirized rather 
 than described them. Though bold and arrogant in the 
 expression of his opinions, and continually provoking 
 opposition by the hardihood of his paradoxes, he does not 
 appear to have been influenced so much by self-esteem 
 •IS sensibility. He was naturally shy and despairing of 
 his own powers, and his dogmatism was of that turbulent 
 kind which comes from passion and self-distrust. He 
 had little repose of mind or manner, and in his works 
 almost always appears as if his faculties had been stung 
 and spurred into action. His life was vexed by many 
 troubles, which rendered him impatient and irritable, 
 prone to opposition, and inclined to take delight in the 
 mere exercise of power, rather than to produce the effects 
 for which alone power is valuable. Contempt and bitter- 
 ness too often vitiate his notions of men and measures ; 
 and his political writings, especially, often exhibit him as 
 one who courts and defies opposition, and who is more 
 iesirous of making enemies than converts. He would 
 vrften give the results of patient reasonings in headlong 
 Lssertions, or paradoxical impertinences. In attacking 
 ignorance and prejudice, he did not distinguish them 
 from positive vices. If any one of his opinions was more 
 heretical than another, he sought to enunciate it with a 
 startling abruptness of expression, in order that it might 
 give the more offence. There was bad temper in this, 
 and it made him violent enemies, and subjected his char- 
 acter and writings to the most unscrupulous attacks. 
 The clement in which Hazlitt's mind was most geni- 
 
126 ESSAYS ANr REVIEWS. 
 
 ally developed was literature. If lie was lacking in love 
 for actual human nature, or viewed men in too intolerant 
 a spirit, his affections clustered none the less intensely 
 around the " beings of the mind." His best friends and 
 companions he found in poetry and romance, and in the 
 world of inidgination he lived his most delightful days. 
 As a critic, in spite of the acrimony and prejudice which 
 occasionally dim his insight, he is admirable for acute- 
 ness, clearness, and force. His mind pierces and delves 
 into his subject, rather than gracefully comprehends it ; 
 but his labors in the mine almost always bring out its 
 riches. Where his sympathies were not perverted by 
 personal feeling or individual association, where his 
 mind could act uninfluenced by party spirit, his percep- 
 tions of truth and beauty were exquisite in their force 
 and refinement. When he dogmatizes, his paradoxes 
 evince a clear insight into one element of the truth, and 
 serve as admirable stimulants to thought. His com- 
 ments on passages of poetry or traits of character which 
 have struck his own imagination forcibly, are unrivalled 
 for warmth of feeling and coloring. His criticism inspires 
 the reader with a desire to peruse the works to which it 
 refers. It is not often coldly analytical, but glows with 
 enthusiasm and " noble rage." His style is generally 
 sharp and pointed, sparkling with ornament and illus- 
 tration, but almost altogether deficient in movement 
 Though many of his opinions are unsound, their un 
 soundness is hardly calculated to mislead the taste of 
 the reader; from the ease with which it is perceived, and 
 referred to its source, in caprice, or a momentary fit ol 
 spleen. He is a critic who can give delight and instruc 
 tion, and infuse into his readers some of his own veh* 
 
BRITISH CRITiOS. 12'' 
 
 ment enthusiasm for letters, without makiug them par- 
 ticipants of his errors and passions. 
 
 Some of the most distinguished of Hazlitt's critical 
 writings are, — " Lectures on the Comic Writers," 
 " Spirit of the Age," " Characters of Shakspeare's Plays," 
 " Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth," " Lectures on the 
 English Poets," and " Criticisms on Art." These cover 
 a wide ground, and are all more or less distinguished by 
 his characteristic merits and faults. They all startle the 
 reader from the self-complacency of his opinions, and 
 provoke him into thought. 
 
 Leigh Hunt is well known as the author of a large 
 number of agreeable essays, and for his friendly connec- 
 tions with many of his eminent contemporaries. He 
 has been more a victim of criticism than a critic. It 
 has been truly said of him by Macaulay, " that there is 
 no man living whose merits have been more grudgingly 
 allowed, and whose faults have been so cruelly expiated." 
 In his character there is such a union of pertness and 
 kindliness, that he is always open to attack. He made 
 the public his confidant, poured into its ear his little 
 frailties and fopperies, expressed his opinions on all sub- 
 jects with the most artless self-conceit, and at times 
 exhibited a kind of Richard Swiveller order of good feel- 
 ing, in speaking of such men as Shelley and Byron. 
 These follies, though most of them venial, made him a 
 continual butt for magazine scribblers ; and the fine qual- 
 ities of heart and intellect, which underlie his affect- 
 ations, have not, until lately, been generally acknowl- 
 edged. He is, in truth, one of the pleasantest writers 
 of his time, — easy, colloquial, genial, humane, full of 
 fine fancies and verbal niceties, possessing a loving if 
 «ot a " learned spirit," with hardly a spice of bitterne^!' 
 
i28 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 in his composition. He is an excellent commentator on 
 the minute beauties of poetry. He has little grasp or 
 acuteness of understanding, and his opinions are value- 
 less where those qualities should be called into play; 
 but he has a natural taste, which detects with nice 
 accuracy what is beautiful, and a power of jaunty expres« 
 sion, which conveys its intuitive decisions directly to 
 other minds. He surveys poetry almost always from a 
 luxurious point of view, and his criticism therefore is 
 merely a transcript of the fine and warm sensations it 
 has awakened in himself. He is a sympathizing critic 
 of words, sentences, and images, but has little success in 
 explaining the grounds of his instinctive judgments, and 
 io feeble and jejune in generalization. He broods over 
 a dainty bit of fancy or feeling, until he overflows with 
 affection for it. He dandles a poetic image on his knee 
 as though it were a child, pats it lovingly on the back, 
 and addresses to it all manner of dainty phrases ; and, 
 consequently, he has much of the baby-talk, as well as 
 the warm appreciation, which comes from afiection. This 
 billing and cooing is often distasteful, especially if it be 
 employed on some passages which the reader desires to 
 keep sacred from such handling ; and we cannot see him 
 approaching a poet like Shelley without a gesture of 
 impatience ; but generally it is far from unpleasant. 
 His " Imagination and Fancy " is a delightful book. 
 " The Indicator " and " Seer " are filled with essays of 
 peculiar excellence. Hunt's faults of style and thinking 
 are ingrained, and cannot be weeded out by criticism ; 
 and to get at what is really valuable in his writings 
 'considerable toleration must be exercised towards his 
 efleminacy of manner and daintiness of sentiment. That 
 vith all his faults, he has a mind of great delicacy anj 
 
KHITISH CRITICS. 129 
 
 fulness, a fluent fancy, unrivalled good-will to the whole 
 world, a pervading sweetness of feeling, and that he 
 occasionally displays remarkable clearness of perception, 
 must be cheerfully acknowledged by every reader of his 
 essays. 
 
 In these hurried remarks on some of the essayists and 
 criiics of the time, we have not noticed two, who are 
 well entitled to an extended consideration. We refer to 
 Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill. The influence 
 of Carlyle on tlie whole tone of criticism at the present 
 day has been pojverfuUy felt. Mill is principally known 
 on this side of the Atlantic by his work on Logic ; but 
 he has been for a number of years a writer for the West- 
 minster Review, over the signature of A, and his articles, 
 especially his masterly disquisition on Jeremy Bentham, 
 evince uncommon solidity, fairness, penetration, and 
 reach of thought. These are worthy of a more elabo- 
 rate review than our limits will now permit ; but we 
 trust at some early period to repair the deficiency. 
 
 VOL. n. 9 
 
RUFUS CHOATE.* 
 
 To give a strict analysis of a mind so complex, van 
 aus, and richly gifted, as that of Mr. Choate, we feel tc 
 be a difficult and delicate task. What is peculiar in his 
 genids and character is provokingly elusive ; and though 
 an unmistakable individuality characterizes all his pro- 
 ductions as a lavpyer, orator, and statesman, it is an 
 individuality so modified by the singular flexibility of 
 his intellect, that it can be more easily felt than analyzed. 
 We propose to give a few dates illustrating his biogra- 
 phy; to allude to some of his masterly expositions of 
 national policy as a statesman ; and to touch slightly 
 that rare combination in his character of the poet and 
 the man of wfTairs, by which the graces of fancy and the 
 energies of impassioned imagination lend beauty and 
 power to the operations of his large and practical under- 
 standing. 
 
 Mr. Choate was born in Ipswich, Mass., on the 1st 
 day of October, 1799. He entered Dartmouth College 
 in 1815, and was distinguished there for that stern devo- 
 tion to study, and that love of classical literature, which 
 have accompanied him through all the distractions of 
 political and professional life. Shortly after graduating 
 he was chosen a tutor in college ; but, selecting the lav» 
 
 * American Review, January, 1847. 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 131 
 
 for his profession, he entered the Law School at Cam- 
 bridge, and afterwards completed his studies in the office 
 of Judge Cummins, of Salem. He also studied a year 
 in the office of Mr. Wirt, Attorney-General of the 
 United States. He commenced the practice of his pro- 
 fession in the town of Danvers, in 1824. But a consid- 
 erable portion of the period between his first entry into 
 his profession and his final removal to Boston, in 1834, 
 was passed in Salem. He early distinguished himself 
 as an advocate. His legal arguments, replete with 
 knowledge, conducted with admirable skill, evincing 
 uncommon felicity and power in the analysis and appli- 
 cation of evidence, blazing with the blended fires of 
 imagination and sensibility, and delivered with a rapid- 
 ity and animation of manner which swept along the 
 minds of his hearers on the torrent of his eloquence, 
 made him one of the most successful advocates at the 
 Essex bar. In 1825, he was elected a representative to 
 the Massachusetts Legislature ; and in 1827 he was in 
 the Senate. He took a prominent part in the debates, 
 and the energy and sagacity which he displayed gave 
 him a wide reputation. In 1832 he was elected mem- 
 ber of Congress from the Essex district. He declined a 
 reelection, and in 1834 removed to Boston, to devote 
 himself to his profession. He soon took a position 
 among the most eminent lawyers at the Suffolk bar, 
 and for seven years his legal services were in continual 
 request. In 1841, on the retirement Cf Mr. Webster 
 from the Senate, he was elected to fill his place by a 
 large majority of the Massachusetts Legislature, — an 
 honor which Massachusetts bestows on none but men of 
 signal ability and integrity. Since Mr. Choate resigned 
 Ws seat in the Senate, he has been more exclusively 
 
132 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, 
 
 levoted to his profession than at any previous period of 
 nis life. The only public office he now holds is that of 
 Regent of the Smithsonian Institute. The country is 
 principally indebted to his efforts for the promising form 
 which that institution has now assumed. 
 
 Mr. Choate's powers as a statesman are to be esti- 
 mated chiefly by his course while a member of the 
 United States Senate, especially by his speeches on the 
 Tariff, the Oregon question, and the Annexation of 
 Texas. These appear to us among the ablest which 
 were delivered during the agitation of those inflammable 
 questions. Beneath an occasional wildness of style, 
 there can easily be discerned a sagacious and penetrating 
 intellect, well trained in dialectical science ; capable of 
 handling the most intricate questions arising under the 
 law of nations and constitutional law ; keen to perceive 
 the practical workings of systems of national policy; 
 possessed- of all the knowledge relating to the topics 
 under discussion ; fertile in arguments and illustrations, 
 and directing large stores of information and eloquence 
 to practical objects. In his speech, March 14, 1842, on 
 the right and duty of Congress to continue the policy of 
 protecting American labor, he presents a lucid and 
 admirable argument to prove that Congress has the con- 
 stitutional power "so to provide for the collection of 
 the necessary revenues of Government as to afford 
 reasonable and adequate protection to the whole labor of 
 the country, agricultural, navigating, mechanical, and 
 manufacturing, and ought to afTord that protection;" and 
 in the course of the argument he gives a review of the 
 opinions current on the subject about the period of the 
 adoption of the Constitution. This displays an exten 
 «ive acquaintance with the political history of the time 
 
KXTFUS CHOaTE. 133 
 
 the result of oi^ginal research. In this speech he declares 
 the origin of the objection to the protective policy, based 
 on the assumption of its unconstitutionality, to have 
 arisen in "a subtle and sectional metaphysics;" and 
 adds, in a short paragraph, well worthy to be pondered 
 by all who are exposed to the fallacies springing up in 
 the hot contests of party, that " it is one of the bad hab- 
 its of politics, which grow up under written systems and 
 limited systems of government, to denounce what we 
 think impolitic and oppressive legislation as unconstitu- 
 tional legislation. The language is at first rhetorically 
 and metaphorically used ; excited feeling, producing inac- 
 curate thought, contributes to give it currency ; classes of 
 states and parties inweave it into their vocabulary, and 
 it grows into an article of faith." 
 
 The best and most characteristic of his speeches on 
 the tariff^ however, is that delivered in the Senate on the 
 12th and 15th of April, 1844. It shows a most intimate 
 acquaintance with the history of our legislation on the 
 question ; the subject is taken up in its principles and 
 details, and exhibited in new lights ; it glows with enthu- 
 siasm for the honor, glory, and advancement, of the 
 nation; and its illustrations, allusions, and arguments, 
 have the raciness of individual peculiarity. The philos- 
 ophy of the manufacturing system is given with great 
 clearness in respect to principles, and at the same time 
 is presented to the eye and heart in a series of vivid 
 pictiures. The problem, he says, which the lawgiver 
 should propose to himself is this, — " How can I procure 
 that amount of revenue which an economical administra- 
 tion of government demands, in such manner as most 
 impartially and most completely to develop and foste/ 
 the universal industrial capacities of the country, of 
 
134 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 whose vast material interests I am honored with the 
 charge ? " We should like to quote the whole of that 
 passage in which he enforces the importance of manu- 
 factures, on the ground that they give the laborer the 
 choice between many occupations, and do not absolutely 
 confine him to one or two. " In a country," he says, 
 " of few occupations, employments go down by an arbi- 
 trary, hereditary, coercive designation, without regard to 
 peculiarities of individual character. But a diversified, 
 advanced, and refined mechanical and manufacturing 
 industry, cooperating with those other numerous em- 
 ployments of civilization which always surround it, 
 offers the widest choice, detects the slightest shade of 
 individuality ; quickens into existence and trains to per- 
 fection the largest conceivable amount and utmost possi- 
 ble variety of national mind." He proceeds to illustrate 
 this idea by supposing a family of five sons, who, in 
 some communities, would all be compelled to follow one 
 occupation, as fishermen, or farmers, or servants. He 
 then sketches the history of four of these sons, in a com- 
 munity where the diversified employments of civilization 
 give scope to the ruling passion of each. The allusion 
 to the fifth boy is as honorable to the statesman as the 
 poet. " In the flashing eye, beneath the pale and beam- 
 ing brow, of that other one, you detect the solitary first 
 thoughts of genius. There are the sea-shore of storm or 
 calm, the waning moon, the stripes of summer evening 
 clo -id, traditions, and all the food of the soul, for him. 
 And so all the boys are provided for. Every fragment 
 of mind is gathered up. The hazel-rod, with unfailing 
 potency, points out, separates, and gives to sight every 
 graiu of gold in the water and in the sand. Everr 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 135 
 
 taste, every faculty, every pt culiarity of mental powei, 
 finds its task, does it, and is made the better for it." 
 
 We should like to refer, at some length, to Mr. 
 Choate's speech on the bill to provide further remedial 
 justice in the court? of the United States, delivered in 
 the Senate, May, 1842. It is one of the most ingenious, 
 learned, and vehement of his speeches. Replete with 
 logical passion, rapid, animated, high-toned, it at one 
 moment transfixes an objection with those radiant shafts 
 which speed from the mind only in periods of excited 
 reasoning, and at another overthrows an antagonist 
 proposition by a series of those quick, trampling inter- 
 rogations by which argument is gifted almost with mus- 
 cular power. There is one passage, illustrating the idea 
 that the condition of national existence is to be under the 
 obligations of the law of nations, from which we quote a 
 characteristic sentence or two : " You may cease to be a 
 nation ; you may break the golden unseen band of the 
 constellation in which we move along, and shoot apart, 
 separate, wandering stars, into the infinite abyss; you may 
 throw down the radiant ensign, and descend from the 
 everlasting and glittering summits of your freedom and 
 your power ; but while you exist as now you do, the only 
 nation of our system known to the other nations, you are 
 under, you must obey, and you may claim upon the com- 
 mon code of all civilized and Christian commonwealths." 
 
 The closing passage of the speech is even more pas- 
 sionately imaginative : " The aspect," he says, " which 
 our United America turns upon foreign nations, the 
 aspect which our constitution designs she shall turn 
 upon them, the guardian of our honor, the guardian of 
 our peace, is, after all, her grandest and her fairest 
 «spect. We have a right to be proud w \en we look od 
 
136 ESSAYS AND RE^TIEWS. 
 
 that. Happy and free empress-mother of states them- 
 selves free ! unagitated by the passions, unmoved by the 
 dissensions, of any one of them, she watches the rights 
 and fame of all ; and reposing, secure and serene, among 
 the mountain summits of her freedom, she holds in one 
 hand the fair olive-branch of peace, and in the other the 
 thunderbolt of reluctant and rightful war. There may 
 she sit forever ; the stars of union upon her brow, the 
 rock of independence beneath her feet ! " This image 
 has the splendor and energy of one of Burke's, with a 
 slight touch, perhaps, of Mr. Jefferson Brick. The 
 shock it may give to the finer filaments of taste is 
 owing to the ridicule which has been cast on the senti- 
 ment of national exaggeration, through the nonsense and. 
 bombast of fifth-rate declaimers. In this connection we 
 may as well allude to Mr. Choate's sympathy with those 
 general feelings of patriotism, as they are felt, not by 
 tasteful students, but by great bodies of people. Though 
 one of the first classical scholars in New England, and 
 a diligent student of the great productions of English 
 genius and taste, he is still exceedingly open to impres- 
 sions from the common mind and heart, and has none of 
 that daintiness, which, in the man of letters, contemptu- 
 ously tosses aside all sentiment, expression, and imagery, 
 which the pharisees of scholarship may choose to con- 
 sider vulgar and ungenteel. The greatest English 
 statesmen have always addressed these common senti- 
 ments of large classes of the people — have often 
 spoken in their speeches as DibJui wrote in his songs 
 — and have been indebted for a great deal of their 
 influence to passages which wrinkle with scorn the lip? 
 of elegant scholars and liontributors tc the reviews. 
 The speech delivered by Mr. Choate on March 21 
 
RUTVS CHOATE. 137 
 
 1844, on the Oregon question, in reply to Mr. Buchanan, 
 
 is dotted all over with splendid sentences : the general 
 course of the argument is well sustained and happily- 
 enforced ; and there is a joyous spring in the style, even 
 in its occasional inflation, which seems to indicate that 
 most of it was delivered without any more preparation 
 than the facts and arguments demanded. It is an ex- 
 ceedingly spirited and brilliant speech, but has the 
 inequalities of merit common to purely extemporaneous 
 productions, in which argument is diversified by personal 
 matters of reply and retort. The tone of most of the 
 speech is that of excited conversation, with the exaggera- 
 tion, both of passion and wit, common in colloquial dis- 
 putes. The invective, provoked by a remark that the 
 American peopk cherish a feeling of deep-rooted hatred 
 to Great Britain, is perhaps its intensest passage. " No, 
 sir," he indignantly observes, " we are above all this ! 
 Let the Highland clansman, half naked, half civilized, 
 half blinded by the peat-smoke of his cavern, have his 
 hereditary enemy and his hereditary enmity, and keep 
 the keen, deep, and precious hatred, set on fire of hell, 
 alive if he can ; let the North American Indian have his, 
 and hand it down from father to son, by Heaven knows 
 what symbols of alligators, and rattlesnakes, and war- 
 clubs smeared with vermilion and entwined with scarlet ; 
 let such a country as Poland, — cloven to the earth, the 
 armed heel' on the radiant forehead, her body dead, her 
 soul incapable to die, — let her remember the virrongs of 
 days long past; let the lost and wandering tribes of 
 Israel remember theirs — the manliness and the sympa- 
 thy of the world may allow oi pardon this to them : but 
 BhaJl America, young, free, and prosperous, just setting 
 out on the highway of heaven, ' def orating and cheering 
 
138 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 the elevated sphere she just begins to move in, glittering 
 like the morning star, full of life and joy,' — shall she 
 be supposed to be polluting and corroding her noble and 
 happy heart, by moping over old stories of stamp-act 
 and tea-tax, and the firing of the Leopard on the Chesa- 
 peake, in time of peace ? No, sir ; no, sir ; a thou- 
 sand times no ! ^ =^ * ^ We are bom to happier 
 feelings. We look on England as we look on France. 
 We look on them from our new world, — not unrenowned, 
 yet a new world still, — and the blood mounts to our 
 cheeks, our eyes swim, our voices are stifled with the 
 consciousness of so much glory ; their trophies will not 
 let us sleep : but there is no hatred at all — no hatred j 
 all for honor, nothing for hate ! We have, we can have, 
 no barbarian memory of wrongs, for which brave men 
 have made the last expiation to the brave." 
 
 We have not by us the great speech of Mr. Choate on 
 the Annexation of Texas, but we remember being im- 
 pressed at the time with its strength and felicity ; and 
 the position taken in it regarding the consequences of 
 the measure have been realized almost to the letter. 
 He was one of the most ardent opponents of annexa- 
 tion, and both in the Senate and in addresses to the 
 people, made his resistance felt. 
 
 In what we have said regarding his other speeches, we 
 have not, of course, done justice to their merit as argu- 
 ments, or stated the wide variety of topics and principles 
 they discuss. We have merely, in our quotations, given 
 prominence to a few sentences which illustrate the essen 
 *ial solidity and correctness of his views of national pel 
 icy, amid all the exaggeration and ornament of thei. 
 expression. It is one of his peculiarities, and a very 
 striking one, that he combines a conservative inteilecl 
 
RUFUS UHOATE. 139 
 
 'vith a radical sensibility; and those irregular impulses 
 )f fancy and passion, which usually push men into the 
 adoption of reckless, desperate, and destructive princi- 
 ples of legislation, he employs in the service of the calm- 
 est, most comprehensive, and most practical political 
 -'visdom, rooted deep in reason and experience. His 
 ire seeTHS to be of that kind which sweeps, in a devour- 
 ing flame, to blast and desolate what is established and 
 accredited ; but it really is that heat, which infuses 
 energy and breathing life into maxims and principles, 
 which are in danger of becoming ineffective, from their 
 usual disconnection with the sensibility and imagination. 
 He is a kind of Mirabeau-Peel. 
 
 In what we have now to say in regard to Mr. Choate's 
 mind and character, we shall have to consider him chiefly 
 as a lawyer and advocate, and only incidentally as a 
 statesman. His greatest triumphs have been at the bar ; 
 and to unfold from any central principle the character of 
 that genius by which he often works such wonders — 1<^ 
 give anything like the philosophy of his influence — 
 is a task full of difficulty. We desire to present a por- 
 trait which shall suggest to the reader the character and 
 qualities of the man, but we feel able to do it but imper- 
 fectly. 
 
 Mr. Choate's mind is eminently large, acute, flexible, 
 vigorous, versatile, enriched with the most various ac- 
 quirements, and displaying in its exercise a rare union 
 of understanding and imagination, shrewdness and sen- 
 sibility, tact and fire. He is one of the most sagacious 
 as well as one of the most brillidnt and impassioned, of 
 srators. An unwearied fire seems to burn in the very 
 centre of his nature, penetrating every faculty, flaming 
 out in almost every expression , yet his intelle:t nrp 
 
140 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 serves its clearness of view, amid his most fervent dec- 
 lamation, and he is never himself whirled along in that 
 rush of passion which hurries away the minds of all 
 who come within its influence. With the keenest sen- 
 sitiveness to impressions, he is distinguished as much for 
 his power of self-control as his power of self-excitation , 
 and his emotions, like well-trained troops, " are impet- 
 uous by rule." In this singular combination of qualities 
 the puzzle of his character seems to lie ; and it brings us 
 at once to the prominent characteristic of his mind — his 
 swift sympathy with any given events and persons, by 
 force of imagination. Facts and principles are not with 
 him abstract data for an abstract conclusion; but he 
 instinctively grasps them in the concrete, and realizes 
 them to his own mind as living things. The most care- 
 less glance at his productions will reveal this tendency 
 of his intellect to the most superficial reader. Whatever 
 may be the subject or object of his speech, he endows it 
 with personal life. Thus he speaks of the system of 
 American manufactures as a " refined, complicated, sen- 
 sitive industry." He ever impersonates the country, and 
 sections of the country, whenever he alludes to them. 
 They appear always to rise up to his mind as personal 
 existences. Thus, New York, with him, is not simply a 
 city distinguished for commercial energy, but a city 
 which " with one hand grasps the golden harvests of the 
 W^est, and with the other, like Venice, espouses the ever- 
 lasting sea." Again he observes, that after we came out 
 of the war of 1812, " the baptism of fire and blood was 
 on our brow, and its influence on our spirit and legisla 
 tion." 
 
 The most inanimate things start into life beneath his 
 touch. We recollect that he once objected to the recep 
 
RUFtfS CHOATE. 141 
 
 Jiori of an illiterate constable's return of service, bristling 
 all over with the word having, on the ground that it was 
 bad. The judge remarked that though inelegant and 
 ungrainmatical in its structure, the paper still seemed to 
 be good in a legal sense. " It may be so, your honor," 
 replied Mr. Choate, " but it must be confessed he has 
 greatly overworked the participle," — a humorous imag- 
 ination worthy of old Dr. Fuller. Again, in referring to 
 the misgovernment and weakness of the Confederation, 
 he remarked that, " when at last the Constitution was 
 given to the longing sight of the people, they threw them- 
 selves upon it like a famished host on miraculous bread." 
 But, perhaps, the finest specimens of his imaginative 
 power are those little minor touches, which are occasion- 
 ally inserted in the throng and impatient pressure of his 
 fanciful illustrations, and to a critical eye are more pleas- 
 ing than his most splendid and flaring images. They 
 evince that an acuteness and intense clearness of mind 
 ever accompanies, if it be not the result of, his most vehe- 
 ment excitement. This is an important point of separa- 
 tion between the orator and the mere declaimer. 
 
 From this power of intense conception comes the 
 force of Mr. Choate's eloquence, and also its seeming 
 exaggeration. A vivid insight into one particular fact o' 
 truth, and a statement of it in corresponding warmth o 
 language, practically draws it out of its natural relations, 
 and converts the less into the greater reason. This is 
 the advantage which the great advocate holds over the 
 merely learned and logical lawyer. He can make the 
 little have the effect of the great by his power of im- 
 pressing it upon the mind ; and it requires a correspond- 
 ing intensity of conception on the part of his opponent. 
 to restore the intrinsically more important f?.ct to its 
 
142 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 rightful precedence. Force in the orator often comp6j 
 sates for deficiencies in the evidence. When this forc.«3, 
 this power of giving prominence to facts and principle's 
 which are really of secondary importance, is wielded by 
 one who controls the restless faculties of imagination 
 and sensibility by which it is performed, the effect is 
 proportionably increased. The dramatic poet is all the 
 more powerful in delineating character, when he intensely 
 sympathizes with the passions he creates, without beiug 
 blinded and borne away on their impetuous flood. A 
 prominent characteristic of genius, says John Foster, 
 " is the power of lighting its own fire." 
 
 The object of Mr. Choate, in the discussion of a ques- 
 tion, and the object of every great orator, is not primd- 
 rily to convince the intellect or please the fancy, but to 
 influence the will. He attempts to storm the citadpl of 
 the mind. His arguments, consequently, do not address 
 the understanding alone, nor his passion the sensibiUty 
 alone, but fact, argument, fancy, and passion, are fused 
 together in one glowing mass, and boldly directed at the 
 very springs of action and volition. Though, for the 
 purposes of classification, we speak of the mind as a col- 
 lection of sentiments and faculties, we should never for- 
 get that it is still not an aggregation but a unit, and 
 that its unity is its leading and vital characteristic, amidst 
 all the variety of its manifestation. Though this fact is 
 commonly overlooked by the logician, the great reasoner, 
 no less than the great orator, keeps it constantly in view, 
 when his object is to produce a practical effect upon ths 
 will of his audience. There is little force in abstract 
 principles, but immense power in living ideas. It is the 
 commonest of truisms that men do not necessarily act 
 from the barren commonplaces to which their understand- 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 143 
 
 mgs may yield assent. Many of Queen Elizabeth's most 
 peaceable subjects were Roman Catholics, who believed 
 they would be justified in being her assassins. Many 
 of the bishops who assisted in driving James the Second 
 from his throne were champions of the divine right ot 
 kings, and believers in the doctrine of non-resistance to 
 their authority. The orator, therefore, instinctively 
 appreciating the difference between notions which are 
 civilly assented to by the intellect, and operative ideas 
 which produce corresponding action, addresses the whole 
 nature of his audience, and moves as well as convinces. 
 Mr. Choate possesses this power in a large measure ; and 
 it is especially seen in his legal arguments. 
 
 This fiery and fusing imagination lies at the centre of 
 his flexible nature, and constitutes, in fact, the real char- 
 acteristic of his eloquence, and is the chief source of his 
 power. But the most obvious characteristic of his mind 
 is fancy; and certainly it is one of exhaustless opulence 
 and almost unbounded range. For every idea, event, or 
 action, which comes into his mind, he has a fancy to sug- 
 gest something which bears to it a seeming likeness. His 
 analogical power, indeed, both of understanding and fan- 
 cy, is immense, and it is difficult in the rush of his elo- 
 quence always to distinguish real from apparent analogies, 
 — analogies in the nature of things, from analogies in 
 the appearances of things. The latter class are profusely 
 scattered over his various speeches, and lend to his style 
 a character of gorgeous, but often ungraceful ornament. 
 His productions should be viewed with reference to the 
 fact that they were intended to be spoken, and spoken 
 by the orator himself. To a 30ol taste, the printed ora- 
 tions, disconnected from the excitement under which 
 Ihey were delivered, and the purpose they were intended 
 
144 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 to serve, would seem occasionally turgid in style and 
 meretricious in metaphor. Even in this respect, how- 
 ever, his ornament is not of that kind which makes the 
 speeches of Counsellor Phillips a continual shock to 
 taste, nor that style of elaborated frenzy and careful taw- 
 driness which stiffens the diction of Sheridan's speeches ; 
 but there is behind all a force and fire hurrying the mind 
 onwards, and never allowing it to stop for criticism. His 
 most exaggerated images seem forced from him in mo- 
 ments of excitement, and are all infused with the life of 
 the occasion. His eloquence, fierce, rapid, and bold, con- 
 scious of power, and feeling a kind of wild delight in its 
 exercise, dares everything, forces the minds of the hear- 
 ers into appropriate moods, and at times accomplishes its 
 object by main strength. He fires the whole mass of his 
 facts, arguments and images, until they blaze, and the 
 grotesque flashes of flame which sometimes impatiently 
 dart from the main body are hardly noticed as incon- 
 gruous. It would be easy to adduce specimens of his 
 fierce and exaggerated fancies — comparisons clutched in 
 moments of raised passion, and made to harmonize with 
 the thought or feeling of the moment. In an argument 
 before a Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, on 
 the petition for a new railroad from Salem to Boston, he 
 drew a very vivid picture of the different towns the pres- 
 ent road did not pass through, and referred especially to 
 Danvers, which is only two or three miles from Salem. 
 " Her people," he said, "were just near enough to hear 
 the whistle of the locomotive, and gaze at the sparks of 
 that flying giant ; yet, for all practical purposes, they 
 might as well stand under the sky at midnight, gazing 
 It a firmament of falling meteors ^ 
 Mr. Choate's fancy usually accompanies, and some* 
 
RUFUS CHOATfi. 145 
 
 times almost blends with, the exercise of his imagina- 
 tion ; bat it is still to be distinguished from its nobler 
 companion. By imagination he apparently exaggerates 
 a thing through the intensity which he conceives it ; by 
 fancy, iie really magnifies it by comparison with larger 
 objects. From the manner in which these two powers 
 of his mind play into each other's processes, and also 
 from his frequent practice of overtopping an imagination 
 ^xth a fanciful decoration, the charge of exaggeration 
 against his eloquence has its foundation. The phrase 
 " clothed upon," which is often applied to the operations 
 of imagination, is more properly applicable to those of 
 fancy; and in Mr. Choate's productions, the shining 
 garment of comparison, which he has placed upon his 
 vital thought, may easily be disconnected from it, and 
 leave the original idea, grasped and modified by imag- 
 ination, in its own intense and living beauty. Even if 
 the fancy, as is sometimes the case with him, grows out 
 of the imagination, it can be severed from it without 
 striking at the life of its parent, — as we can lop the lux- 
 uriant foliage from a tree without injuring its root and 
 trunk. The truth is, that, in respect to ornament, fancy 
 is more effective than imagination, because it is more 
 readily apprehended ; and Mr. Choate's real poetic 
 power has generally suffered most from the praises of 
 such as have been captivated by his swollen comparisons 
 BT.i Haring illustrations. 
 
 Mr. Choate has a peculiar kind of mirth in his com- 
 position, and also that readiness which commonly accom- 
 panies ludicrous perception ; bat his wit is rather witty 
 fancy, and his humor, humorous imagination. He has 
 1 kind of playful sympathy with the ludicrous side of 
 things, and is often exceedingly felicitous in its expres- 
 
 VOL. II. 10 
 
14^ 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 sion. Such is his grotesque image, in his speech on tLs 
 Oregon question, of the Legislature putting its head out 
 of the window, and, in a voice audible all over the world, 
 speaking to the negotiators of the impending treaty, bid 
 ding them God-speed, but insinuating that if they did 
 not give up the whole subject in dispute, it would be 
 settled by main strength. But perhaps his best passage 
 in this way is his picture of a New England summer, 
 introduced in bis second speech on the tariff, to illus- 
 trate the idea that irregularity is not ruin. 
 
 " Take the New England climate in summer ; you would 
 think the world was coming to an end. Certain recent heresies 
 on that subject may have had a natural origin there. Cold to- 
 day ; hot to-morrow ; mercury at 80° in the morning, with 
 wind at south-west ; and in three hours more a sea-turn, wind 
 at east, a thick fog from the very bottom of the ocean, and a 
 fall of forty degrees of Fahrenheit ; now so dry as to kill all the 
 beans in New Hampshire ; then floods carrying off the bridges 
 of the Penobscot and Connecticut; snow in Portsmouth, in 
 .%ly ; and the next day a man and a yoke of oxen killed by 
 ightning in Rhode Island. You would think the world was 
 twenty times coming to an end ! But I don't know how it is: 
 we go along ; the early and the latter rain falls, each in its 
 Lcason ; seed-time and har^^est do not fail ; the sixty days of 
 hot corn weather are prett / sure to be measured out to us. 
 The Indian Summer, with its bland south-west, and mitigated 
 sunshine, brings all up ; and on the twenty-fifth of November, 
 or thereabouts, being Thursday, three millions of grateful peo- 
 ple, in meeting-houses, or around the family board, give thanks 
 for a year of health, plenty, and happiness." 
 
 The reader of Mr. Choate's speeches will readily call 
 to mind many sentences in which the serious and the 
 ludicrous shake hands as cordially, and with as littl« 
 detrifinent to each other, as in the preceding extract. 
 
RUFUS CHOATE. 147 
 
 This peculiar sportiveness, which Mr. Choate can 
 coramaud at pleasure, is an element in the general im- 
 pression conveyed by his genius, and it makes the 
 character complete. Will, understanding, imagination, 
 passion, fancy, humor, subtlety in the perception of 
 distinctions, subtlety in the perception of resemblances, 
 sympathy witlx the ideal, and sympathy with the famil- 
 iar ; these, both in their separate exercise, and their 
 subtle interpenetration, are resources which he com- 
 mands and blends at will. In this play and interchange 
 of imagination and humor, in this union of the high 
 with the common, there is established in his mind a 
 kind of fellowship with the things he describes and 
 the persons he addresses. Through this he contrives, in 
 his legal arguments, to lift the familiar into the ideal, 
 by the strength of his conception of both ; and when his 
 materials are at all tractable, he can achieve the task 
 without suggesting the ludicrous. When they are not, 
 he does it by pure force and determination. He dis- 
 cerns, instinctively, the unconscious poetry in characters 
 and actions which are prosaic to the common eye ; and 
 he does not, perhaps, so often superadd as evolve. His 
 arguments have often the artistical effect of a romantic 
 poem, even when they are most firmly based on law and 
 evidence. His client is the hero of the narrative ; and 
 spectators, if not juries, always desire that the hero of 
 Mr. Choate's epic argument may not come to an end 
 " by edge of penny cord and vile reproach." The im 
 mense fertility of his mind, in possibilities and plausibil- 
 ities, enables him to account for every action on other 
 principles than those which are obvious ; and the warm 
 blood never glows and rushes through his sentences with 
 oore intensity than when he is giving to the secondary 
 
14S 
 
 ejsays and reviews. 
 
 the prommence and life of the primitive. There is a 
 constant appeal, in his arguments, tc generous senti* 
 ment, — an implied assumption that men will always 
 act honestly and without prejudice, — that a jury wil\ 
 as heartily pronounce in favor of his client, as the reader 
 of a romance in favor of persecuted virtue. And, for the 
 time, the orator himself is earnest and sincere. By force 
 of sympathy, he has identified himself with his client, 
 and realized everything to his own mind. He pleads as 
 if his own character or life was at stake. Ideas, suppo- 
 sitions, possibilities, drawn into his own imagination, are 
 vitalized into realities, and he sees them as living things, 
 — sees them as Dante saw Farinata rise from his glow- 
 ing tomb, — as Shakspeare saw Cordelia bending over 
 Lear. And while thus giving breathing life to charac- 
 ters and events, he does not overlook a single particle of 
 evidence, or neglect to urge a single point of law, which 
 bears upon the case. Indeed, a legal argument, as con- 
 ■ceived and delivered by Mr. Choate, has the merit of 
 combining an influence upon the will and understanding, 
 with an artistical effect upon the imagination. He 
 makes no parade of logic ; the skeleton is not always 
 forcing itself through the flesh, as in the arguments of 
 men of dryer brains and less skill; yet he ranges his 
 case with consummate art around its great leading 
 points, to which he binds, in the strictest sequence, and 
 with a masterly power of concentration, every fact and 
 every argument. His fancy leads him into no illogicdl 
 discursicms, but plays like heat-lightning along the lines 
 of his argument, while his imagination, interpenetrating 
 and working with his logic, at once condenses and 
 sreates. 
 It is needless to say that his arguments cannot bft 
 
RUFUS CHOAlii. 149 
 
 reported. In a newspaper, they have the effect of 
 ' champagne in decanters, or Herodotus ir Beloe's 
 version." 
 
 It would be impossible to convey an idea of this power 
 of Mr. Choate by single passages, as it is something 
 which animates, unites, and vivifies the whole argument. 
 It is imagination, not a series of imaginations, which 
 produces the result. Sentences cut apart from the main 
 body of one of his productions can only suggest his 
 manner through the process of caricature. Thus, we 
 lecoUect that an honest master-mason, in one of his 
 arguments, rose to the dignity of " a builder and beauti- 
 fier of cities." In another, he represented the skipper of 
 a merchant vessel, who had been prosecuted by his crew 
 for not giving them enough to eat, as being busily 
 ftudying some law-book, while passing the island of St. 
 Helena, to find out his duty in case the vessel was short 
 of provisions. "Such," said Mr. Choate, "were his 
 meditations, as the invisible currents of the ocean bore 
 him by the grave of Napoleon." A witness once testi- 
 fied, in reference to one of his clients, that he had called 
 upon him on Friday evening, found him crying, and, on 
 asking him what was the matter, received in answer, — 
 " I 'm afraid I 've run against a snag." This was ren- 
 dered by Mr. Choate somewhat in this way : — " Such 
 were his feelings, and such his actions, down to that 
 fatal Friday night, when at ten o'clock, in that flood of 
 tears, his hope went out like a candle." 
 
 These instances convey an idea of the process by 
 which Mr, Choate makes " strange combinations out of 
 common things," but a little more accurate than an in- 
 tentional parody of his manner. 
 
 The style of Mr. Choate is the style of an orator, not 
 
150 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWi 
 
 Df an author. It will hardly bear a nuiiute criticism 
 founded on general principles of taste, but must be 
 judged with reference to the character of the speaker and 
 the object of his speech. The tone of his diction is 
 pitched on too high a key for written composition. The 
 same splendid oration which thrilled a popular assembly, 
 or influenced the verdict of a jury, would lose a very 
 important portion of its charm when subjected to the 
 calm, cold judgment of the reader. Besides, it must be 
 admitted that Mr. Choate's immense wealth of language, 
 and opulence of fancy, urge him into redundance of ex- 
 pression, and sometimes overload his style with shining 
 words. This is principally seen in his use of adjectives. 
 He will pour out in one breath five or six of them, some- 
 times because he has not time to choose the most express- 
 ive one, sometimes from the desire to point out all the 
 qualities of the thing defined. It has been said of him, 
 that he " drives a substantive and six." He is often ex- 
 ceedingly felicitous in this accumulation of epithets, and 
 really condenses where he seems to expand. Thus he 
 once spoke of the Greek mind, as " subtle, mysterious, 
 plastic, apprehensive, comprehensive, available " — a 
 page of disquisition in one short sentence. But com- 
 monly, we think, it tends to weaken his diction, espec- 
 ially when it is disconnected from his peculiar manner 
 of speaking. It is the vice of a fertile intellect, always 
 in haste, and rusting to its own wealth to supply at the 
 moment the words which are wanted. Perhaps this 
 peculiarity has been uncontc iously caught from a study 
 of the later writings of Burke, especially those on the 
 French Revolution. Burke often " drives a substantive 
 and six," but he has his reins upon them all, and each 
 performs a service to which all the others would be ir 
 
UFXJi CHOATE. 151 
 
 adequate. His epithets do not clog his style, however 
 they may modify the rapidity of its movement. They 
 are selected by his mind; Mr. Choate's seem to occur ty 
 his mind. 
 
 We cannot conclude these hurried observations on 
 some of the characteristics of Mr. Choate, without ex- 
 pressing the hope that his large, fertile, and available 
 intellect, so rich in experience and scholarship, may be 
 directed, at some period, to the production of a work, in 
 which his genius and acquirements may be fairly ex- 
 pressed. Everything which he has performed, heretofore, 
 has been done on the spur of the occasion, and to serve 
 some particular object connected with his party or his 
 profession. He is capable of producing a work which 
 will give his name that literary prominence to which his 
 great powers seem to point. In the prime of life, and in 
 the vigor of his genius, having achieved early the high- 
 est political and professional objects of a manly ambition, 
 we trust that his splendid intellect will not pass away 
 without leaving behind something which shall embody 
 its energies, and reflect honor upon the literature of his 
 couatry. 
 
PRESCOTT'S HISTORIES.* 
 
 The publication of Mr. Prescott's " Peru " affords us 
 Ml opportunity for which we have long waited, to attempt 
 an estimate of his powers as a historian, and to give 
 some account of his works. To him belongs the rare 
 distinction of uniting solid merit with extensive popular- 
 ity. He has been exalted to the first class of historians, 
 both by the popular voice and the suffrages of the learned. 
 By avoiding all tricks of flippancy or profundity to court 
 any class of readers, he has pleased all. His last history 
 is devoured with as much avidity as the last novel ; 
 while, at the same time, it occupies the first place in the 
 pages of the reviews. His fame, also, is not merely 
 local, or even national. It is as great at London, Paris, 
 and Berlin, as at Boston or New York. His works have 
 been translated into Spanish, German, French, and 
 Italian ; and into whatever region they have penetratod 
 they have met a cordial welcome, and done much to 
 raise the character of American letters and scholarship, 
 in England his success has probably been beyond that 
 of any other American author. The tone cf the English 
 press towards our publications has too often been either 
 patronizing or insolent. But Mr. Prescott's histories 
 have been spared both the impertinence of condescension 
 ind the impertinence of abuse, and judged according t« 
 their intrinsic merits. The best evidence, perJiaps, o 
 
 * Methodist (Quarterly Review, Januarti 1848 
 
prescott's histokies. 153 
 
 lis transatlantic reputation is to be found in his member- 
 ship of numerous literary associations abroad. We per- 
 ceive that since the publication of The Conquest of 
 Peru, he has been chosen a member of the Royal Soci- 
 ety of Literature, and also of the Society of Antiquaries. 
 The last honor he shares with but one other American. 
 
 It is needless to say that a reputation so extensive 
 could only result from sterling excellences. Some of 
 Mr. Prescott's popularity may, doubtless, be attributed 
 to the peculiar disadvantages under which he has pros- 
 ecuted his historical researches. That a man nearly 
 blind should collect a large mass of rare chronicles and 
 MSS., and attempt the composition of histories requiring 
 the utmost industry, sagacity, and toil, is of itself suffi- 
 cient to awaken attention, and almost to confer fame. 
 But Mr. Prescott's works require no apology founded on 
 the obstacles he has surmounted. They can stand the 
 tests we apply to similar compositions without any call 
 upon the charity of reader or reviewer. Indeed, though 
 the historian cannot dispense with the use of his eyes 
 without being subjected to numberless annoyances which 
 might well discourage the most patient and energetic of 
 men, the value of his history must come, after all, from his 
 own mind and character. It is not the channel through 
 which facts and authorities pass into the head, tiut the 
 shape in which they come out of the head, which is of 
 the most importance. The real difficulties which Mr, 
 Prescott has surmounted are intellectual, and inherent 
 in his subjects and materials. These difficulties can 
 hardly be appreciated by a superficial reader of his his- 
 tories. They are not perceived until we consider out of 
 ♦fhat obstinate materials he has drawn his consistent 
 wiimated and picturesque narrative, and reflect upon 
 
.64 ESSA\S AND REVIEWS 
 
 that peculiar combination of qualities by which he has 
 been enabled to perform it with such splendid success. 
 
 The distingnishing merit of Mr. Prescott is his powei 
 of vividly representing characters and events in their just 
 relations, and applying to them their proper principles. He 
 thus presents a true exhibition of the period of time he 
 has chosen for his subject, enabling the reader to com- 
 prehend its peculiar character, to realize its passions and 
 prejudices, and at once to observe it with the eye of a 
 contemporary, and judge it with the calmness of a philos- 
 opher. To succeed in this difficult object of historical 
 art, requires not only mental powers of a high order, but 
 a general healthiness of moral and intellectual consti- 
 tution, which is uncommon, even among historians who 
 evince no lack of forcible thought and intense conception. 
 History is false, not only when the historian wilfully lies, 
 but also when facts, true in themselves, are forced out 
 of their proper relations through the unconscious opera- 
 tion of the historian's feelings, prejudices, or modes of 
 thought. He thus represents, not his subject, but his 
 subject as modified by his own character. Certain facts 
 and persons are exaggerated into undue importance, 
 while others are unduly depressed, in order that they 
 may more readily fall within the range of his general- 
 izations, or harmonize with his preconceived opinions. 
 He may have a system so fixed in his mind, or a passion 
 so lodged in his heart, as to see facts in relation to it, 
 mstead of seeing them in relation to each other. An 
 honest sectarian or partisan, an admirable moralist or 
 philanthropist, might make his history a tissue of fallacies 
 and falsehoods, without being justly chargeable with 
 intentional untruth. This is done by confounding indi- 
 vidual impressions with objective facts and principles. 
 
PRESCOTT'S HISTORIES. 155 
 
 Now, Mr. Prescott's narrative of events and delineations 
 of character are characterized by singular objectiveness. 
 By a fine felicity of his nature, he is content to consider 
 his subject as everything, and himself as nothing. Ob- 
 jects stand out on his page in clear light, undiscolored 
 by the hues of his own passions, unmixed with any pecu- 
 liarities of his own character. This disposition and 
 power to see things as they are in themselves, when 
 joined to a corresponding capacity to convey them to 
 other minds in their true proportions, indicates a finely 
 balanced as well as largely endowed nature, and implies 
 moral as well as intellectual strength. The moral qual- 
 ities evinced in Mr. Prescott's histories, though they are 
 seen in no ostentation of conscience and parade of noble 
 sentiments, are still of a fine and rare order, and consti- 
 tute no inconsiderable portion of his excellence as a his- 
 torian. These are modesty, conscientiousness, candor, 
 toleration, — a hatred of wrong, modified by charity for 
 the wrong-doer, — a love of truth, expressed not in re- 
 sounding commonplaces, but in diligence in seeking it 
 out, — and a comprehension of heart which noiselessly 
 embraces all degrees of the human family, just and mer- 
 ciful to all, looking at motives as well as actions, and 
 finding its fit expression in a certain inde^jribable sweet- 
 ness of tone pervading his style like an invisible essence. 
 It is one of the greatest charms of his compositions, that 
 these qualities are so unostentatiously displayed that 
 thej ca n be best described in negatives. Thus we speak 
 of his absence of egotism, of intolerance, of narrowness, 
 of rancor, of exaggeration, rather than of the positive 
 qualities through which such faults are avoided. 
 
 The intellectual power displayed in Mr. Prescott's 
 works has a similar character of unobtrusiveness and 
 
156 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 reserve. It would, doubtless, appear to many readers 
 much greater were it asserted With more emphasis, and 
 occasionally allowed to disport itself in the snapping 
 contrasts of antithesis, or the cunning contortions of dis- 
 putation. A writer may easily gain the reputation of a 
 strong and striking thinker, by sacrificing artistical effect 
 to momentary surprises, or by exhibiting his thoughts in 
 their making, before they have attained precision and 
 viefiniteness, and taken their place in the general plan of 
 his work. To the generality of readers, depth of thought 
 is confounded with confusion of thoughts. Events and 
 ideas, heaped and huddled together, and lit up here and 
 there with flashes of wit and imagination, are often 
 received in their chaotic state as indications of greater 
 mental power than they would be if reduced to order 
 and connection by the stringent exercise of a patient, 
 penetrating, and comprehensive intellect. Now, pure 
 force of understanding is principally shown in so grap- 
 pling with the subject as to educe simplicity from com- 
 plexity, and order from confusion. According to the 
 perfection with which this is done will be the apparent 
 ease of the achievement ; and a thinker who follows this 
 method rarely parades its processes. His mind, like that 
 of Mr. Prescott, operates to the reader softly and without 
 noise. Any strain or contortion in thought or expression 
 would indicate imperfect comprehension of his subject, 
 and exhibit the pains of labor instead of its results. Far 
 from desiring to tickle attention by giving undue prom- 
 inence to single thoughts or incidents, such a thinker 
 would be chiefly solicitous to keep them in subjection tc 
 his general purpose ; for it is violating the first principle 
 ot art to break up the unity of a subject into a series o. 
 exaggerated individual parts. 
 
prescott's histories. 157 
 
 The moment we consider the materials \ehich form 
 the foundation of Mr. Prescott's elaborate histories, we 
 perceive the high degree of intellect they imply in the 
 writer, and are able to estimate that healthiness of mind 
 by which he shunned the numerous temptations to bril- 
 liant faults which beset his path. In the collection of 
 these materials he has displayed all the industry and 
 diligence of an antiquary. With the utmost indifference 
 to labor and expense, he has gathered from every quarter 
 all books and MSS. which could elucidate or illustrate 
 his subjects, and nothing which could cast the minutest 
 thread of light into any unexplored corner of history 
 seems to have escaped his terrible vigilance. With all 
 his taste for large views, which comprehend years in 
 sentences, the most mole-eyed analyst has not a keener 
 sight for the small curiosities of history. No chronicle 
 or personal history, happy in the consciousness of its 
 insignificance, can hide itself from his quick eye, if it 
 chance to contain a single fact which he needs. He 
 has shown more industry and acuteness than almost any 
 other contemporary resurrectionist in the grave-yards of 
 deceased books. Yet he has not one of the faults which 
 cling so obstinately to most antiquaries. He does not 
 estimate the importance of a fact or date by the trouble 
 lae experienced in hunting it out. He does not plume 
 liimse-f on the acquisition of what has baffled others. 
 None of the dust of antiquity creeps into his soul. His 
 style glides along with the same unassuming ease in 
 tl e narration of discoveries as of common facts. 
 
 Indeed, it is not so much in the collection as in the us'e 
 of his materials that Mr. Prescott claims our regard as a 
 historical artist. These materials are, it is true, originaj 
 md valuable beyond any which have fallen into the hands 
 
158 ESSAYS AND REVIE-Ws. 
 
 of any contemporary historian; but to analyze them, and 
 to compose accurate histories from their conflicting state- 
 ments, required judgment in its most comprehensive 
 sense. They are the productions of men who looked at 
 persons and events from different points of view. They 
 are vitiated with the worst faults of bad historians. They 
 all reflect their age in its common passions and preju- 
 dices, and each is disfigured by some unconscious or wil- 
 ful misrepresentations, springing from personal bias or 
 imperfect comprehension. They are full of credulity and 
 b'gotry, of individual and national prejudices, — some- 
 times the mere vehicles of private malice, almost always 
 characterized by a bad arrangement of facts and contu- 
 sion of principles. Together they present so strange a 
 medley of shrewdness and fanaticism, of fact and fiction, 
 and throw over the subject they are intended to illus- 
 trate such a variety of cross lights, and entangle it m 
 such perplexing contradictions, that to sift out the truth 
 requires the most cautious consideration and comparison 
 of authorities. The testimony of kings, statesmen, schol- 
 ars, priests, soldiers, philanthropists, each inaccurate after 
 a fashion of his own, Mr. Prescott was compelled to 
 estimate at its exact worth, disregarding all the exag- 
 gerations of pride, interest, and sensibility. To do this, 
 he was necessarily obliged to study the personal history 
 of his authorities, to examine the construction of their 
 minds, and to consider all inducements to false coloring 
 which would result from their position and character. 
 Those who have carefully read the critical notes of his 
 authorities, subjoined to each division of his histories 
 must admit that Mr. Prescott has shown himself abun 
 dantly capable of performing this difiicult and delicate 
 task. He analyzes the mental and moral constitution of 
 
PRESCOTT'S HISTORIES. 159 
 
 ab veterans with singular acuteness, laying open to the 
 eye their subtlest excellences and defects, and £flov\ing in 
 every sentence that in receiving their statements of facts, 
 he has allowed much for the medium through which they 
 have passed. This portion of his duty, as a historian, 
 demanded a judgment as nice in its tact as it was broad 
 in its grasp. The scales must have been large enough 
 to take in the weightiest masses of details, and perfect 
 enough to show the slightest variation of the balance. 
 
 Mr. Prescott's understanding is thus judicial in its 
 character, uniting to a love for truth diligence in its 
 search and judgment in its detection. But this does not 
 comprehend all his merits as a historian c/ the past ; 
 and, indeed, might be compatible with an absence of life 
 in his narrative, and vitality in his conceptions. Among 
 those historians who combine rectitude of purpose with 
 strength of understanding, Mr. Hallam stands preeminent. 
 All his histories have a judicial character. He is almost 
 unexcelled in sifting testimony, in detecting inaccuracies, 
 in reducing swollen reputations to their proper dimen- 
 sions, in placing facts and principles in their natural 
 order. He has no prepossessions, no preferences, no 
 prejudices, no theories. He passes over a tract of his- 
 tory sacred to partisan fraud and theological rancor, 
 where every event and character is considered in relation 
 to some system still acrimoniously debated, without 
 adopting any of the passions with which he comes in 
 contact. No sophistical apology for convenient crome, 
 no hypocrite or oppressor pranked rut in the cciors of 
 religion or loyalty, can deceive his cold, calm, austere, 
 remorseless intellect. He sums up each case which comes 
 before him for judgment with a surly impartiality, apply- 
 ing to external events or acts two or three rig-id rules, 
 
160 ESSAYS AN. REVIEWS. 
 
 and then fixing on them the brai:d of his condeir. nation. 
 The shrieks of their partisans he de.ems the most flatter- 
 ing tribute to the justice of his judgment. This method 
 of writing history has, doubtless, its advantages ; and, 
 in regard to Mr. Hallam,it must be admitted that he has 
 corrected many pernicious errors of fact, and overthrown 
 many absurd estimates of character. But, valuable as 
 his histories are in many important respects, they gener 
 ally want grace, lightness, sympathy, picturesqueness, 
 glow. From his deficiency of sensibility and imagina- 
 tion, and from his habit of bringing everything to the 
 tribunal of the understanding, he rarely grasps character 
 or incidents in the concrete. Both are interesting to him 
 only as they illustrate certain practical or abstract prin- 
 ciples. He looks at external acts without being able to 
 discern inward motives. He cannot see things with the 
 same eyes, and from the same position, as did the persons 
 whom he judges; and, consequently, all those extenua- 
 tions and explanations of conduct which are revealed m 
 an insight into character are of little account with hin). 
 He does not realize a past age to his imagination, and 
 will not come down from his pinnacle of judgment to 
 mingle with its living realities. As he coldly dissects 
 some statesman, warrior, or patriot, who at least had a 
 living heart and brain, we are inclined to exclaim with 
 Hamlet, " Has this fellow no feeling of his business ? " 
 It is the same in his literary criticisms. He gives the 
 truth as it is about the author, not as it is in the author. 
 He describes his genius in general terms, not in charac- 
 teristic epithets. Everything that is peculiar to a partic- 
 ular writer slips through his analysis. That mysterious 
 "nterpenetration of personality with f(;elings and poweia 
 wrhich distinguishes one man's genius from another's 
 
peescott's histories. 161 
 
 escapes the puDcesses of his understanding. Persons, in 
 Mr. Hallam's hands, commonly subside into general ideas, 
 events into generalizations. He does not appear to think 
 tl.at persons and events have any value in themselves, 
 apart from the principles they illustrate ; and, conse- 
 quently, he conceives neither with sufficient intensity to 
 bring out always the principles they really contain. 
 
 We have already ^aid that this mode of writing his- 
 tory has its advantages, but it is still so over-informed 
 with understanding as to sink representation in reflection. 
 Now, the historian should address the eye and heart, as 
 well as the understanding, to enable the reader really to 
 understand his work. Mr. Prescott possesses the quali- 
 ties by which this object is attained, and he possesses 
 them in fine harmony with the qualities of his under- 
 standing. He has a quick sensibility, and a high degree 
 of historical imagination — an imagination which, though 
 it cannot create character and events which never existed. 
 can still conceive facts in the concrete, and represent 
 them instinct with their peculiar life. In studying a past 
 age, he is not conte.Uwith appending to a rigid digest of 
 fects certain appropriate reflections, but he brings the age 
 Vvp to his mind in its characteristic form, costume, and social 
 condition. He, in a manner, sees and feels its peculiar 
 life, and comprehends, with his heart, as well as his 
 head, the influences which shaped character, and sup- 
 plied motives and palliations of conduct. He distin- 
 guishes between crimes which result from wickedness of 
 heart and crimes which result from accredited error, and 
 discerns those intricate operations of the mind by which 
 superstition hallows vices into virtues, and prejudice 
 obliquely justifies inhumanity and persecution. By con 
 ceiv.'.ng character, also, as a whole, his page is filled wi th 
 
 VOL. II. 11 
 
.63 
 
 ESSAYS AND KEVIEWS. 
 
 men instead of monstrosities. He sees that the progress 
 of opinion has stamped with reprobation many practices 
 which were once commanded by conventional morahty 
 and perverted religion; and he discriminates between 
 evil performed from a false idea of duty, and evil per- 
 formed from selfish passion. At the same time, he 
 understands all those unconscious hypocrisies of selfish- 
 ness by Avhich vice and error are gradually sanctified to 
 the conscience and ennobled to the imagination. He 
 comprehends, likewise, that apparent anomaly in human 
 nature, the commission of great crimes by persons who 
 are not destitute of elevated sentiment and disinterested 
 action ; and in the delineation of men whose lives pre- 
 sent a strange medley of folly and wisdom, virtue and 
 wickedness, he presents complete and consistent portraits, 
 recognized at once as harmonizing with the principles of 
 our common nature. History, as often written, is false 
 in the impressions it conveys, from an absence of this 
 vitality, vividness, and picturesqueness. We do not per- 
 ceive the connection between past and present events ; 
 and do not meet the actors in them on the common 
 ground of humanity. Mr. Prescott always recognizes 
 one nature in the different personages of history, however 
 strange may be the combination of its elements, however 
 novel the circumstances among which it is placed. 
 
 Connected with this power of pictorial representation 
 and imaginative insight, he possesses a large share of 
 sensibility ; and from the combination of these arises, in 
 a great degree, the peculiar charm and interest of his 
 histories. By the readiness with which he himself sym- 
 pathizes with his incidents and characters, he awakens 
 the sympathies of the reader, and bears him willingly 
 along the stream of narrative. Take, for ustance the 
 
prescott's histories. 16iJ 
 
 histories of the conquest of Mexico and Peru. Almost 
 everything seems presented directly to the imagination 
 — the physical characteristics of the countries, the char- 
 acter and varying fortunes of the conquerors and their 
 motley followers, the manners, customs, government, 
 religion, of the conquered race. With exquisite artistical 
 effect, our sympathies are made to gather round each in 
 its turn, and to realize each in its peculiar form of life 
 Scenery, persons, and events, are thus fixed in the imag- 
 ination in their proper relations, and together make up a 
 comprehensive whole, the contemplation of which exer- 
 cises almost every faculty and feeling of the mind. The 
 same thing presented simply to the understanding, 
 divested of its coloring and characterization, would cer- 
 tainly lose as much in instruction as attractiveness. Mr. 
 Prescott understands what has made historical novels so 
 much more readable than histories, and he has succeeded 
 in making history as fascinating as romance. In accom- 
 plishing this, it was not necessary that he should intro- 
 duce anything fictitious. The nearer his narrative 
 approached the truth of the matter, the more complete 
 would be the interest it would awaken. But he had the 
 sagacity to perceive that a mere detail of events however 
 remarkable, and a mere estimate of persons however 
 eminent, did not constitute history until they had been 
 informed again with their original life. 
 
 In performing this difficult task, Mr. Prescott has 
 avoided another fault, scarcely less injurious than its 
 opposite extreme ; we mean the fault of producing con- 
 fusion of objects by the intensity with which each is 
 conceived and expressed. Michelet, a man of splendid 
 talents and accomplishments, is an illustration of this 
 brilliant defect. His histories are as intense as Childe 
 
164 ESSA'/S AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Harold or Manfred. He writes, as old John Dennis 
 would say, in a perfect " fury and pride of soul," He 
 conceives chamcter and events with such vividness as to 
 adopt the passions of the age he describes, blending them 
 with his own life, and making their expression a matter 
 of personal concern. He is whirled away by the spirits 
 he has evoked. " Thierry," he once remarked, " called 
 history narration; and M. Guizot, analysis. I have 
 named it resurrection, and it will retain the name." 
 This remark conveys a fair impression of his historical 
 method. He wakes from the sleep of ages kings, states- 
 men, warriors, and priests, and they start up into con- 
 vulsive life. Each individual object glares upon the 
 reader with eyes of fire, distracting his attention from 
 relations. The historian is not upon an eminence sur- 
 veying the whole field, but amid the noise and dust of 
 the melee. There are in his histories detached sentences 
 of extraordinary depth, single impersonations of wonder- 
 ful grandeur, but the calm and comprehensive judgment, 
 unfolding events and characters in their true connection, 
 is generally wanting. Much of his finest narrative is 
 disfigured by bursts of declamation which would be 
 deemed extravagant in a political meeting, with driz- 
 zles of mysticism which would puzzle a transcendental- 
 ist. He has whole chapters which display a strange 
 combination of qualities, made up of Lord Byron, Jacob 
 Behmen, and Mr. Jefferson Brick. Mr. Prescott, per- 
 haps, has nothing in his histories equal to Michelet's 
 delineations of Joan of Arc, Charles of Burgundy, Han- 
 nibal, or Caesar. But if he is not so vivid and powerful 
 in detached parts, he excels him in the unity and propor- 
 tion of his whole matter, and the sustained life and 
 nterest of his narrative. The healthy combination anc 
 
prescott's histories. 165 
 
 balance of powers in Mr. Prescott's mind are more 
 valuable to him, as an accurate historian, than would 
 be the impassioned imagination of Michelet, or the 
 judicial understanding of Mr. Hallam. 
 
 The style of Mr. Prescott's works, as might be ex- 
 pected from his character, is manly, perspicuous, pictur- 
 esque, lucid, equally removed from stateliness and levity, 
 disdaining all tawdry ornaments and simulated energy, 
 and combining clearness and simplicity with glow. In 
 the composition of a long work, it is a delicate matter to 
 fix upon a proper form. The style which would delight 
 in an essay might grow intolerably tedious in a volume. 
 When brilliancy or dignity, intensity or melody, become 
 monotonous, they tire nearly as much as dulness or dis- 
 cord. The only safe style for a long history is one with- 
 out peculiarities which call attention to itself, apart from 
 what it conveys. It must be sufficiently elevated to be 
 on a level with the matter, or its meagre simplicity and 
 plainness would distract attention as much as luxuriant 
 ornament, while it must vigorously resist all temptations 
 to display for the mere sake of display. Mr. Prescott 
 has been compared with Robertson in respect to style. 
 The comparison holds as far as regards luminous arrange- 
 ment of matter and clearness of narration ; but, with the 
 exception, perhaps, of passages in "America," not in the 
 graces of expression. The manner of Robertson is a fair 
 representation of his patient, passionless, elegant mind. 
 Its simplicity is often too prim, its elegance too nice. The 
 smooth-rubbed mind of the Scotchman risks nothing ; is 
 fearful of natural graces, fearful of English verbal crit- 
 icism, fearful of violating the dignity of history. His 
 diction loses sweetness and raciiess in its effort after cor- 
 rectness, and, as a general thing, is colorless, character 
 
]6t> 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 less, without glow or pictorial effect. The water is clear 
 and mirrors facts in beautiful distinctness, but it neithei 
 sparkles nor flows. His diction, however, has the rare 
 quality of never being tedious, and fixes the pleased 
 attention of the reader when the labored splendor of 
 Gibbon would fatigue from its monotony. Mr. Prescott 
 has the characteristic merits of Robertson, with other 
 merits superadded. His style is flowing, plastic, all 
 alive with the life of his mind. It varies with the 
 objects it describes, and is cautious or vehement, concise 
 or luxuriant, plain or pictorial, as the occasion demands. 
 It glides from object to object with unforced ease, passing 
 from discussion to description, from the council-chamber 
 to the battle-field, without any preliminary flourishes, 
 without any break in that unity which declares it the 
 natural action of one mind readily accommodating itself 
 to events as they rise. Such a style is to be judged not 
 from the sparkle or splendor of separate sentences or 
 paragraphs, but from its effect as a whole. A person can 
 only appreciate it by following its windings through a 
 long work. Of course, we speak of Mr. Prescott's style, 
 in this connection, in its general character, after his 
 powers of composition had been well trained by exercise. 
 The diction of the earlier chapters of " Ferdinand and 
 Isabella " displays an effort after elegance, and an occa- 
 sional timidity of movement, natural to a man who had 
 not learned to dare, and mistook elegant composition for 
 a living style. He soon worked himself free from such 
 shackles, and left off writing sentences. With the ex- 
 ceptions we have mentioned, there is no fine writing — 
 no writing for the sake of words instead of things — in 
 Mr. Prescott's works. His mind is too large and healthy 
 or such vanities. Perhaps the perfection of his style, in 
 
peescott's histories 167 
 
 ts flowing movement, is seon in The Conquest of Peru. 
 There are passages in that which seem to have run out 
 of his mind, clear as rills of rock water. They are like 
 beautiful improvisations, where passions and objects so 
 fill the mind that the words in which they are expressed 
 are at once perfect and unpremeditated. 
 
 We have thus attempted to pass beneath the surface 
 of Mr. Prescott's works, to show out of what combina- 
 tion of elements, moral and intellectual, they have taken 
 their present form. It is only in this way that we can 
 estimate the amount of industry, candor, intellect, and 
 command of expression, he brought to bear upon his 
 difficult labors. The analysis would have been easier 
 had his mind presented more positive points, or his works 
 displayed more stubborn individual traits. The diflferent 
 powers of his mind so interpenetrate each other, that the 
 critic is puzzled to hit the right point which exhibits their 
 relative size and strength. It is needless to say that 
 intellects like that of Mr. Prescott are often underrated, 
 from the very harmony of their proportions. It is only 
 by going carefully over their processes that we appre- 
 ciate their results. 
 
 Mr. Prescott's fiirst work was the History of the Reign 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was the labor of ten years, 
 and of ten years well spent. He was as fortunate in the 
 selection of his subject as in its treatment. It was in 
 this reign that the Spanish monarchy may be said to 
 have heen organized, and the Span:'sh character perma- 
 nently formed. Yet, either from the paucity of mate- 
 'ials, or from an under-estimate of its importance, Euro- 
 pean writers left to an American the honor of firs-t 
 writmg a classic history of the period. Two inconsider- 
 able compilations, one in French oy IMignot, the other 
 
t(Jb ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 n German by Becker, were the only records of aa 
 attempt to grapple with the subject as a whole. At the 
 lime Mr. Prescott selected it, the materials for its proper 
 treatment were more numerous and available than at 
 any preceding period. The researches of Llorente 
 Marina, Sempere, Capmany, Conde, Navarette, and 
 Clemencin, had cleared up the darkness which previ- 
 ously enveloped some of the most important and inter- 
 esting features of the subject. Through friends abroad 
 and at home, he was able to collect almost everything, 
 both in a printed and MS. form, which could illustrate 
 the period, comprehending chronicles, memoirs, private 
 correspondence, legal codes, and official documents. 
 Then occurred an untoward circumstance, which cannot 
 be better related than in his own words : — 
 
 " Soon after my arrangements were made, early in 1826, for 
 obtaining the necessary materials from Madrid, I was deprived 
 of the use of my eyes for all purposes of reading and writing, 
 and had no prospect of again recovering it. This was a serious 
 obstacle to the prosecution of a work, requiring the perusal of a 
 large mass of authorities in various languages, the contents of 
 which were to be carefully collated and transferred to my own 
 pages, veritied by minute reference. Thus shut out from one 
 sense, I was driven to rely exclusively on another, and to make 
 the ear do the work of the eye. With the assistance of a reader, 
 uninitiated, it may be added, in any modern language but his 
 own, I worked my way through several venerable Castilian quar- 
 tos, until I was satisfied of the practicability of the undertak- 
 iig. I next procured the services of one more competent to aid 
 me in pursuing my historical inquiries. The process was slow 
 and irksome enough, doubtless, to both parties, at least till my 
 ear was accommodated to foreign sounds, and an antiquated, 
 oltentimes barbarous phraseology, when my progress was more 
 sensible, and I was cheered with the prospect of success. Il 
 eertamlv would have been a far more serious misfortune to be 
 
pres-Cott's histories 169 
 
 led thus blindfold through the pleasant paths of literature ; but 
 my track stretched for the most part across dreary ■wastes, 
 where no beauty lurked to arrest the traveller's eye and charm 
 his senses. After persevering in this course for some years, 
 my eyes, by the blessing of Providence, recovered sufficient 
 strength to allow me to use them with tolerable freedom in the 
 prosecution of my labors, and in the revision of all previously 
 written." 
 
 The range of Mr. Prescott's subject was extensive, and 
 its different portions had to be taken up in their order, 
 and their relative importance and influence rigidly pre- 
 served. In a long and labored Introduction, embodying 
 a large amount of thought and research, he gives a view 
 of the Castilian monarchy before the fifteenth century, 
 and a review of the constitution of Aragon to the middle 
 of the same period. This comprehends a luminous sur- 
 vey of all those manners, ''ustoras, and institutions, 
 which represent national life and character ; and it 
 places the readers at once among the people of Spain as 
 they were in the fifteenth century. His history, then, 
 naturally divides itself into two parts ; the period when 
 the different kingdoms of Spain were first united under 
 one monarchy, and a thorough reform introduced into 
 their internal administration, and the period when, the 
 interior organization of the monarchy having been com- 
 pleted, the nation entered on its schemes of discovery 
 and conquest. The first part illustrates the domestic 
 policy of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the second their 
 foreign policy. Both are filled with great events and 
 striking personages. In the first we have a detail of 
 those measures by which two kingdoms, distracted bji 
 civil feuds or foreign wars, and seemingly without even 
 the elements of national greatness and power, were 
 
170 ESSAY? AND REVIEWS. 
 
 united, reformed, and en'abled to act with such effecl 
 abroad as fventually to threaten the liberties of Europe, 
 This part covers all those events in Castile and Aragon 
 v/hich preceded the marriage of Isabella with Ferdinand : 
 the war with Portugal which followed ; the measures by 
 which the overgrown privileges and possessions of the 
 noMes were reduced, the laws rigidly enforced, and the 
 powers and revenues of the crown increased; the estab- 
 lishment of the modern Inquisition ; the war of Granada, 
 and the addition of that kingdom to the Castilian pos- 
 sessions, after a desperate struggle of ten years; the 
 application of Columbus to the Spanish court, and his 
 first and second voyages ; the expulsion of the Jews ; 
 and a general view of Castilian literature. 
 
 The second part, which is about half of the whole 
 work, opens with a masterly view of the affairs of 
 Europe at the close of the fifteenth century, and the first 
 invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France. This we 
 think unexcelled for that clearness of statement by which 
 the most complex relations of states are rendered intelli- 
 gible to the least informed reader. The narrative of the 
 Italian wars then follows, and the steps are minutely 
 traced by which the policy of Ferdinand, and the valor 
 and ability of Gonsalvo de Cordova, eventually suc- 
 :ev.'ded in expelling the French from Naples, and adding 
 that kingdom to Spain. The rise of Cardinal Ximenes, 
 his ecclesiastical reforms, the terrible zeal with which he 
 persecuted the conquered Moors of Granada into insur- 
 rection, and the wonderful conversions he effected by the 
 logic of fire and sword ; the third and fourth voyages of 
 Colunbus, and the general character of the colonial 
 policj of Spain ; the death of Isabella ; tho dissension* 
 of Ferdinand with Philip, his son-in-law, ^""ith regard tfl 
 
PRESCOTT iS HISTORIES. IT] 
 
 he regency of Castile ; the reign and death of Philip^ 
 and regency of Ferdinand ; the conquests of Ximenes in 
 Africa, and his foundation of the University of Alcala ; 
 the wars and politics of Italy, arising from the League 
 ot Cambray; the conquest of Navarre, by which the 
 only remaining independent kingdom in Spain was. 
 blended with the Spanish monarchy ; the death of Fer- 
 dinand and the administration of Ximenes ; and a gen- 
 eral review of the administration of Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella, — are the leading subjects of the second portion of 
 Mr. Prescott's history. 
 
 Great events generally arise from the conjunction of 
 powerful natures and fitting opportunities. We call a 
 man great when he has the sagacity to perceive these 
 opportunities, and the will to execute what they teach. 
 Individual character never appears in such strength as 
 when it works in harmony with the spirit of the age. It 
 is strong not only in its own strength, but in the accu- 
 mulated energies of vast masses of men. There is a 
 mysterious power urging it on, which, for want of a more 
 accurate name, we call the general tendency of the time. 
 No human mind can possibly grasp all the elements 
 which enter into the spirit of an age ; for this spirit is 
 but one expression of the general life of humanity, one 
 step in its progress or retrogression, and holds inscruta- 
 ble relations to everything which has preceded it. To 
 ^ive a perfect philosophy of an age, would be to under- 
 atand the philosophy of God's providence, and to know 
 the history of the future as well as the past. The near- 
 est approximation to correctness in history is where cir- 
 cumstances and men are properly connected in respect 
 to the production of events. It will not do to refer 
 »vents wholly to individual character, or to the spirit of 
 
172 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 n 
 
 the age In the one case, the man is isolated from 
 humanity; in the other, a tendency is confounded with 
 an act> Thousands of men have opportunities and 
 inspirations to perform great things, but men of genius 
 iire none the less rare. The Almighty seems to endow 
 some persons with the power to anticipate the progress 
 of events, and to produce at once what the operation of a 
 general tendency upon a generation of men would post- 
 pone for years. A historian, therefore, fairly to describe 
 an age, must have the powers of characterization and 
 generalization so related as to operate harmoniously. 
 
 The general tendency of the age which forms the sub- 
 ject of Mr. Prescott's history was, in the domestic affairs 
 of European nations, to a concentration of power; and, 
 in their external relations, to combinations for conquest 
 or defence, and contests for preeminence. The sov- 
 ereigns under which this revolution in the domestic and 
 foreign system of the European states was accomplished 
 were admirably suited to their task. By the union of 
 lllastile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella tb: 
 subsequent conquests of Granada, Navarre, and Napleb, 
 the acquisition of a new world in America, and the 
 marriage of the heiress of the Spanish dominions with 
 the son of the Emperor Maximilian, Spain, under the 
 house of Austria, became the most important power in 
 Europe, and long threatened its liberties. Robertson, in 
 his History of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, has taken 
 up the history at about the period where Mr. Prescott's 
 ends, and exhibited the Spanish-Austrian power in its 
 most colossal form. Our countrymaii has traced it from 
 its commencement, and developed the causes of its 
 g-rowth. To understand Robertson, such a history was 
 ivanted ; and certainly its subject would not yield ia 
 
prescott's histories 173 
 
 aterest (;o that of the reign of Charles the Fifth. As 
 fee period which Mr. Prescott selected was that in which 
 the modern system of Europe may be said to have taken 
 its rise, and was in an especial degree encumbered with 
 falsehood and sophistry, it was a subject which seemed 
 at once to tempt the historian by its importance and 
 repel him by its difficulties. 
 
 The History of Ferdinand and Isabella shows that Mr. 
 Prescott thoroughly comprehended the revolution to 
 which we have referred ; and his exposition of it is 
 admirable. His work accurately reflects the spirit of 
 the age and the character of its prominent actors ; and 
 we have been especially struck with his felicity in 
 developing character, not in an isolated analysis of 
 qualities, but in the narration of the events which called 
 them forth. He so blends character with events that 
 their mutual relation is distinctly seen. The reader 
 instinctively connects persons with actions, — what they 
 are with what they perform ; and, in doing this, he has 
 not merely an idea of their external conduct, but a clear 
 insight into their inward aims and motives. Thus to 
 diffuse the results cf analysis through the very veins of 
 narration, an,j. picture forth character to the imagination, 
 is a fine triumph of art. That mechanical delineation of 
 character, which consists in summing up a man's various 
 qualities at the end of a narration of his objects and actions, 
 Mr. Prescott also possesses ; but in him it seems like a 
 repetition of what he has continually suggested through- 
 out his whole narrative. In his accounts of events we 
 ire able to estimate better the degree of power in the 
 actors, by his exhibiting the actors as following or resist^ 
 \ng current tendencies. 
 
 Among the wide variety of persous and events to which 
 
''t4 ESSATS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Mr. Prescott's first history relates, five characteis. stand 
 prominently forth : — Isabella, Ferdinand, Columbus, Gon- 
 salvo de Cordova, and Ximenes. The character of Isa- 
 bella Mr. Prescott has skilfully developed, through all 
 her various relations, as queen, wife, and mother. It 
 seems to us that her moral qualities were fully equalled 
 by her intellectual, and that she excelled Ferdinand in 
 both. Indeed, the important events of the reign are all 
 traceable, in a greater or less degree, to her. She ob- 
 tained the crown of Castile as much by her virtue, 
 prudence, and sagacity, as her right. Her intellect, as 
 well as her affection, was shown in her selection of 
 Ferdinand as her husband. It was she who made force 
 yield to law in Castile, and the reforms in its administra- 
 tion refer to her as their source. The conquest of Gra- 
 nada might not have been achieved, had it not been for 
 her providence, forecast, and determination. At the 
 time almost every one despaired, it was her indomitable 
 resolution that infused new life into the army. It was 
 she who appreciated and aided Columbus, when the 
 sharp, wily intellect of Ferdinand was blind to the 
 grandeur and practicability of his plan; and to her it 
 was owing that the new world was added to the domin- 
 ions- of Spain. Against the advice and entreaty of Fer- 
 dinand, she raised Ximenes to the see of Toledo, and 
 provided a fitting station for the development of his vast 
 energies. Her sagacity detected the military genius of 
 Gonsalvo de Cordova, when he was acting in a subordi- 
 nate capacity in the war of Granada, and to her it was 
 owing that he had the command of the army in the 
 Italian wars. It is conceded that her influence was 
 paramount in the domestic policy of the kingdom, in al 
 those measures which gave it power to act with vigo 
 
pbescott's histories. l75 
 
 ftbroad ; but it appears to is that, in her selections of 
 Columbus and Gonsalvo, sii3 was also the spring of the 
 foreign iicquisitions of Spain. Ferdinand, with all his 
 capacity as a warrior and statesman, and with all that 
 unscrupulousness which gave him a command of the 
 whole resources of perfidy and craft, was too selfish 
 ever to be ^visely and greatly politic. He did the dirty 
 work of government and conquest with inimitable ability 
 and appearance of cleanliness. His dark and cunning 
 mind fairly circumvented every crowned and triple- 
 crowned contemporary plotter. But he had not sufficient 
 elevation of character to comprehend a great nature. 
 The great navigator, the great captain, the great priest, 
 whose genius the genius of Isabella instinctively recog- 
 nized, were all treated by him with suspicion and ingrati- 
 tude. The faults of Isabella were faults engrafted on her 
 nature by superstition ; and the persecutions she allowed 
 or countenanced arose from a mistaken sense of religious 
 duty, stimulated by a bigoted confessor. Ferdinand had 
 no more religion than Machiavelli, and was a persecutor 
 from policy or interest. The greatest satire on the 
 Catholicism of the period is contained in his title of 
 Ferdinand the Catholic. We are aware of no female 
 sovereign with whom Isabella can be compared in the 
 union of energy and intelligence with grace, sweetness, 
 and humane feeling. Mr. Prescott has instituted an 
 ingenious parallel between her and Elizabeth of England, 
 in which he happily traces their points of resemblance 
 and contrast. The Castilian queen differed from the 
 great English virago in being a woman in reality as well 
 as name. 
 
 In all of Mr. Prescott's histories he has to do with 
 Spanish character, and this he has profoundly studied 
 
►76 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 both in itself and as it was gradually moulded by relig 
 ious and political institutions. He has considered the 
 Spaniard in his character as crusader and oppressor, and 
 skilfully developed tne connection of his religion with 
 his rapacity. Spain was especially calculated to be the 
 Catholic country of Europe ; for there Catholicism was 
 associated with the national existence and glory, and 
 with the gratification of every selfish passion. For seven 
 or eight hundred years previous to the reign of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, Spain had been the theatre of a fierce 
 " holy " war between Christian and Mussulman, for the 
 possession of the country. Under the banner of the 
 cross the infidel had been gradually beaten back from 
 position to position, until his power was confined within 
 the kingdom of Granada. All the passions which Chris- 
 tianity rebukes, all the passions which war stimulates, 
 Catholicism sanctifiied. There was a fatal divorce be- 
 tween religion and morality. Lust, avarice, cruelty, 
 murder, all raged under a religious garb. Every devout 
 Christian might practise any enormity upon the heretic 
 or infidel ; and devout Christians might plunder each 
 other, if the church sanctioned the robbery. The mis- 
 chievousness of the system was, that the imagination and 
 religious sentiments of the people were affected, as well 
 as their bad passions, and strong faith sided with devilish 
 lusts. It is doubtful whether the Spaniard could have 
 endured the privations which accompanied his conquests 
 in America, unless he had been sustained by some relig- 
 ious fanaticism : yet his zeal did rsot stay his hand from 
 pillage and massacre. His bigotry was strong enough tc 
 deceive his humanity, and endowed the wolf with the 
 heroism of the missionary. 
 
 In the History of Ferdinand and Isabella we pe:tt ve 
 
prescott's histories. 177 
 
 the religion of Spain, France, and Italy, in connectioa 
 with public affairs, and are able to estimate the degree 
 of moral control it exercised over the action of states. 
 In the Histories of the Conquest of Mexico and Peru we 
 see it more directly in its influence upon individuals, 
 taken from various classes of society, and pretty well 
 representing their age. No reader who profoundly 
 studies both aspects of this phenomenon can fail to 
 acknowledge the wonderful flexibility and power of adapt- 
 ation of Catholicism. He will see clearly reflected, in 
 Mr. Prescott's page, the ductility with which it adapted 
 itself to the natural disposition of its believers, binding 
 equally saints and sinners to its communion, and strong 
 with the strength of the worst and best men of the time. 
 The policy of Spain, during the reign of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, was to have all its enterprises stamped with a 
 religious character. Its relations with the Pope are 
 among the most curious points in its history. It is hardly 
 a paradox to say that Spain would have seceded from the 
 church, had its interests or passions been crossed instead 
 of aided by the Papacy. Ferdinand's dealings with the 
 Pope are exceedingly characteristic. When the latter 
 interfered with the internal affairs of his kingdom, or 
 opposed him abroad, he had no scruples in covering him 
 with public disgrace, or in making war upon him. He 
 found the Pope a very convenient person to use, but he 
 took care not to be used by him. 
 
 The second work of Mr. Prescott, the History of the 
 Conquest of Mexico, appeared in six years after the pub- 
 lication of his first. The materials for this were such 
 as no other historian had ever enjoyed. From Madrid 
 alone he obtained unpublished documents, consisting of 
 military and private journals, contemporary chionicles, 
 
 VOL. II. 12 
 
178 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 legal instruments, correspondence of the actors in the 
 conquest, etc., amounting to eight thousand folio pages 
 From Mexico he gleaned numerous valuable MSS. 
 which had escaped the diligence of Spanish collectors. 
 These, with M^hat he derived from a variety of other 
 sources, including the archives of the family of Cortes, 
 placed in his possession a mass of materials sufficient to 
 give a basis of undoubted facts to his wonderful narra- 
 tive, and subdue the scepticism of the modern reader by 
 the very accumulation of testimony. It is needless to 
 add that he also obtained everything in a printed form 
 which had reference to his subject. The result of all 
 his labors, of research, thought and composition, was 
 a history possessing the unity, variety, and interest, 
 of a magnificent poem. It deals with a series of facts, 
 and exhibits a gallery of characters, which, to have 
 invented, would place its creator by the side of Homer; 
 and which to realize and represent, in the mode Mr. 
 Prescott has done, required a rare degree of historical 
 imagination. It may be that the imperfection of the 
 historian's eyes was one cause of his success. He was 
 compelled to develop his memory to the full extent of 
 its capacity; but memory depends, to a considerable 
 degree, upon understanding, sensibility, and imagination. 
 To recollect facts, they must be digested, methodized and 
 realized. The judgment must place them in their nat- 
 ural order; the heart must fasten its sympathies to them; 
 the imagination must see them as pictures. They are 
 then a possession forever. To the inward vision of the 
 mind they are as much living realities as though they 
 were present to the outward eye. 
 
 In our limited space we cannot give anything which 
 would approach to an account of this work. In its gen- 
 
peescott's histories. 179 
 
 tral plan and composition, it illustrates what we have 
 previously said of Mr. Prescott's processes as a historian. 
 We had marked our copy on every page, ir tending to 
 notice numerous passages for comment or quotation ; and 
 certainly the work is full enough of strange facts and 
 wonderful adventures to awaken new views of the pow- 
 ers and perversions of human nature. Mr. Prescolt 
 first introduces the reader to the people and country of 
 Mexico, and gives a luminous view of the ancient Mex- 
 ican civilization. In the space of two hundred pages 
 he comprehends a survey of the races inhabiting the 
 country, and brings before us their character, history, 
 government, religion, science, arts, domestic manners, 
 everythnig, in short, necessary to a comprehension of 
 their intellectual, moral, and political condition, at the 
 period Cortes commenced his enterprise. This introduc- 
 tion is mostly confined to the Aztecs, as they were the 
 fiercest, most sanguinary, most intelligent, and most 
 powerful, of the Mexican races ; and as it was against 
 their empire that the efforts of the conquerors were prin 
 cipally directed. Then follows the story of the conquest 
 with all its remarkable features of heroism and cruelty. 
 Cortes is, of course, the central figure of the group, — the 
 soul, and almost the body, of the enterprise ; and around 
 him are gathered some of the bravest warriors that 
 romance ever imagined, encountering dangers and sur 
 viving miseries which, in a romance, would be pronounced 
 impossible. The picture presents the meeting of twc 
 civilizations, brought in a rude shock against each other, 
 and the triumph of the race which was superior in craft 
 and science. In the followers of Cortes we have what 
 we would now call a gang of thieves, pirates, ravishers, 
 ftnd assassins, yet displaying in their worst excesses the 
 
180 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 courage and endurance of heroes, and sustained in ihe'u 
 vvorst calamities by what they were pleased to call their 
 religion. The pagan Aztec gave the first place iii his 
 bloody pantheon to his terrible war-god, and with a can- 
 nibal appetite devoured the body of his captive. We 
 have some consolation for this in knowing the Aztec was 
 a heathen, and his god a chimera. But the deity the 
 Spanish Catholic worshipped, and to whom he prayed for 
 aid in his schemes of avarice, lust, and murder, was also 
 of Mexican origin, however much he may have deceived 
 himself into the belief he was addressing the Christian's 
 God. Moloch, Mammon, and Belial, were the inspiration 
 of his schemes of conquest and deeds of massacre. 
 
 The great checks upon rapacity are conscience and 
 natural humanity. It is one of the objects of true reli- 
 gion to strengthen and increase these natural obstacles 
 to crime. When, however, bigotry sides with rapacity 
 against human feeling, and breaks, instead of tightening, 
 the bond of brotherhood, it produces those monstrosities 
 of action so difficult to reconcile with the common prin- 
 ciples of human nature. We can conceive of men as 
 becoming demons, but the difficulty is to conceive of 
 them as performing demoniacal acts from motives partly 
 religious, and preserving any humanities in their char- 
 acter after the performance. Yet this we are compelled 
 continually to do, in following the Spaniards in then 
 American conquests. It is one of the charms of Mr. 
 Prescott's history, that his worst characters are so fully 
 developed that we perceive their humanity as well as 
 their rascality. They never appear as bundles of evil 
 qualities, but as men. 
 
 Mr. Prescott places his readers in a posit 'on to ur.cer 
 «tand the moral condition of his personages, a? that con 
 
prescott's histoeies. 181 
 
 dition was influenced by the current practices of their 
 ^fe, and by their individual lives. Crimes, in their 
 effect upon character, change their nature as the con- 
 ventional standard of morals varies. To commit any 
 delinquency whatever exercises a pernicious effect upon 
 character ; but its effect is not so pernicious, when it is 
 hailed as the sign of the hero, as when it is hooted at 
 as the brand of the felon. In the one case a man may 
 discharge many of the social and public duties of life, 
 and preserve that degree of morality and religion con- 
 veyed in the phrase of " a respectable citizen ; " in the 
 other case, he sinks into the common herd of profligates 
 ■^nd criminals, and makes war upon respectable citizens. 
 *n one sense, shedding blood in battle is murder ; yet 
 there is still a great difference in the moral character of 
 General Scott and Jonathan Wild. No well-minded 
 person can now follow the career of Cortes without an 
 expression of horror and indignation ; yet the country- 
 men of Cortes applauded his exploits, as our countrymen 
 applaud those of the victor of Monterey and Buena 
 Vista. 
 
 There is another very important fact to be considered 
 in our estimate of the Spaniards. The Pope, in whom 
 was lodged the power to dispose of the kingdoms of the 
 heathen, had given the new world to Spain, to be con- 
 quered and converted. Cortes, as a devout Catholic, 
 had uz scruples about the right of conquest. Mexico 
 was clearly his, or his sovereign's, provided he could get 
 it. Now, assuming the right of conquest, all the crimes 
 in which he was directly implicated might be extenuated 
 by the right of self-defence. The truth is, he had no 
 right to Mexico at all ; and tie chief crime he committed 
 was in its invasion: but the head of Christendom had 
 
82 ESSAYS AJID REVIEWS. 
 
 decided for him that this was not a crime, but a rig-ht 
 Many good Catholics might have been, and doubtless 
 were, shocked at the barbarities which accompanied the 
 conquest : but Cortes might have replied that what he 
 did was necessary to obtain his rightful objects ; that the 
 question simply was, whether he and his followers should 
 be sacrificed to the Mexican gods, or a certain number 
 of Aztecs should be massacred. We know that his 
 cruelties sprang from no disregard of his religion, such 
 as it was. For that religion he was ready to die at any 
 moment ; for that religion he repeatedly risked the suc- 
 cess of his enterprise ; and it required all the address of 
 Father Almedo to prevent his zeal for the conversion of 
 the natives and the overthrow of their gods from involv- 
 ing himself and his cause in a conunon ruin. 
 
 Cortts was in all respects a remarkable man, whether 
 we consider the strength or the versatility of his genius. 
 He attempted an enterprise as daring as ever entered the 
 head of a maniac, and brought it to a successful result by 
 the resources of his own mind. He was at once the 
 most enthusiastic and most prudent of men, — a heart 
 all fire, and a head all ice. His intellect was large, 
 flexible, capacious of great plans, inexhaustible in expe- 
 dients, and preserving, in the fiercest inward excitement 
 of his passions, a wonderful coolness, clearness, and 
 readiness. He seems to have been naturally a man of 
 quick sensibility, rather than of deep feeling, — a cava- 
 lier elegant in person, lax in morals, with much versa- 
 tility but little concentration of power, and chiefly 
 distinguished for qualities which captivate, rather than 
 command. It was not until his mind had been possessed 
 hj one dominant idea that the latent powers of his nature 
 wrere displayed. This idea he held with the grasp of 
 
prescott's histories. 183 
 
 ymnt, and it tamed his volatile passions, and concentrated 
 his flashing powers, and put iron into his will. Every- 
 thing, including life itselC was to him of little import- 
 ance, compared with the conquest of Mexico. In his 
 darkest hours of defeat and despondency, when hope 
 appeared to all others but the insanity of folly, he never 
 gave up his project, but renewed his attempts to perform 
 the " impossible " with the coolness of one setting about 
 a commonplace enterprise. It is needless to say that 
 this idea made him unscrupulous, and silenced all objec- 
 tions to the commission of convenient crime. He was 
 not cruel by nature ; that is, he took no pleasure in 
 viewing or inflicting pain : but his mind was remorseless. 
 Like other conquerors, he never allowed his feelings to 
 interfere with his plans, and carelessly sacrificed friends 
 and foes to the success of a project. His hand executed 
 at once what his mind conceived, not so much because 
 he excelled other men in vigor, but because he was not 
 eterred from action by any scruples. Remorselessness 
 .s almost ever the key to that vigor which is so much 
 praised in great warriors and statesmen. If human 
 nature consisted simply of intellect and will, the world 
 would be full of vigorous characters ; but the vigor 
 would be demoniacal. To a cruel man the bloodshed 
 which attended the conquest of Mexico would have been 
 pleasant of itself ; to Cortes, who was its cause, it was a 
 mere means to an end. The desolation of a province 
 and the butchery of its inhabitants were merely pro- 
 cesses of working out a practical problem. The remorse- 
 lessness of thought produces more suffering than thp 
 cruelty of passion. The latter may be glutted with a 
 tew victims at a time ; the former may scatter firebiands 
 wrows, and death, over an empire. Cortes, in tliia 
 
184 
 
 eSSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 respect, was n..^ worse than a hundred others whose 
 ' vigor" is the admiration of the world, and the inspira- 
 tion of the devil. 
 
 No general ever excelled Cortes in the command he 
 exercised over the minds and hearts of his followers 
 He knew them better than they knew themselves, and 
 his ready eloquence reached the very sources of their 
 volitions. He was at once their commander and com- 
 panion. He could bring them round to his plans against 
 the evidence of their five senses, and make them dance 
 in the very chains of famine and fatigue. The enter- 
 prise would have been repeatedly abandoned, had it not 
 been for his coolness, intrepidity, and honeyed eloquence. 
 His whole lawless and licentious crew he held by a fas- 
 cination for which they could not themselves account. 
 They suspected him of making their lives and fortunes 
 subsidiary to his ambition ; they taxed him with deceit 
 and treachery ; they determined again and again to 
 leave him ; and yet they followed him — followed him, 
 against their desires and reason, to encounter the most 
 appalling dangers, for an object which receded as they 
 advanced, and which they constantly pronounced a 
 chimera. The speeches of Cortes, given by Mr. Prescott, 
 are master-pieces of practical eloquence. Indeed, wher- 
 ever Cortes was, there could be but one will ; and whai 
 authority was unable to do, he did by finesse and persua- 
 sion. 
 
 Cortes was brave in almost every sense of the term. 
 He combined the courage of the knight-errant and the 
 martyr. His daring in battle, perhaps, was not greater 
 than that exhibited by some of his officers, — Alvarado, fo 
 example ; but he excelled all in the power of endurance 
 His constancy of purpose had the obstinacy of sheet 
 
prescott's histories. 
 
 stupidity, and seems almost incompatible with 
 valor. Famine, fatigue, pestilence, defeat, every < 
 of mental and physical wretchedness, could prese 
 arguments sufficiently strong to shake his purpose of Cui- 
 fuest. What depressed his followers only called forth 
 iiis courage in its most splendid light. When he him- 
 self had most cause for despondency, his serene valor 
 aot only mounted above his own miseries, but enabled 
 him to use all the resources of his fertile mind in cheer- 
 ing his followers. Wounded, bleeding, wasted by fam- 
 ine, broken down by disease and despair, there was 
 always one voice whose magical tones could make their 
 hearts leap with their old daring, and send them again 
 on their old enterprise of peril and death. 
 
 We cannot follow the genius of Cortes as it was 
 developed in the events of the conquest, and attempt an 
 abstract of what Mr. Prescott has performed with such 
 fulness, richness, and power. Rarely has so splendid a 
 theme been treated by a historian so fortunate at once in 
 the possession of requisite materials and requisite capac- 
 ity. Among the many characteristics of the work, that 
 which will be most likely to strike and charm the gen- 
 eral reader is its picturesqueness of description, both as 
 regards incidents and scenery. The freshness and vivid- 
 ness with which everything is presented is a continua 
 stimulant to attention ; and there is a nerve in the move 
 ment of the style which gives to the narrative a con 
 tinual vitality. Among these descriptions we wouIp 
 particularize the account of the retreat from Mexico, i? 
 the second volume, and the battles which preceded ita 
 final conquest and destruction, in the third, as being 
 especially pervaded by intense life The critical reader, 
 Silso v^ill not fail to perceive that the interest of particu- 
 
\ 
 
 186 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 / 
 
 lar passages is subservient to the general effect of the 
 whole, and that the author has produced a work of art 
 as w^ell as a history. That quality of objectiveness, 
 viTiich we have mentioned as characterizing the mind of 
 Mr. Prescott, and favorably distinguishing him from 
 many eminent historians, is especially obvious when we 
 contrast the representations in "Ferdinand and Isabella" 
 with those in the " Conquest of Mexico." The objects 
 are different, and in each case they are presented in their 
 own form, life, and character. We can conceive of the 
 two histories as the production of separate minds. But 
 few historians are thus capable of representing objects in 
 white light. To see anything through the medium of 
 another mind, is too often to see it caricatured. Objects, 
 to the egotist, whether he be called thinker or coxcomb, 
 are commonly mirrors which more or less reflect himself. 
 Nature, events, and persons, are considered as deriving 
 their chief importance from their relation to him. This 
 relation, and not their relation to each other, he is prone 
 to call the philosophy of history. 
 
PRESCOTT'S CONQUEST OF PERU.* 
 
 This work has probably been the most extensively 
 popular of Mr. Prescott's histories, though the subject 
 would not seem to admit so many elements of interest 
 as the others. In " Ferdinand and Isabella " he had a 
 period of time crowded with important events and strik- 
 ing characters, a period which witnessed the organiza- 
 tion of a powerful nation out of seemingly discordant 
 elements, and which opened to the historian the whole 
 field of European politics during one of the most import- 
 ant epochs of modern civilization. In the " Conquest of 
 Mexico " he had an epic story, capable of the strictest 
 artistic treatment, with that strangeness in incidents and 
 scenery which fastens most readily on the attention. If 
 he has made the present work more interesting than the 
 others, it must be owing to greater felicity in its treat- 
 ment. This felicity does not arise from a departure from 
 his historical method, or from the adoption of a new form 
 of composition, but is the result of a more complete 
 ^levelopment of his method and his style. In the " Con- 
 ijuest of Peru " his characteristic merits are displayed in 
 iheir best aspect, exhibiting the effects of time and ex- 
 perience in giving more intensity to his conceptions, and 
 
 * History of the Conquest of Peru, with a Preliminary View of the Civil- 
 'cation of the Incas. By William H. Prescott. 8vo. 2 vols. New Vork 
 flarper & Brothers. — Methodist Quarterly Review, April, 184S. 
 
188 
 
 fiSSSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 more certainty to his language. Accordingly, we have 
 not here to chronicle a decay of power, but its freer and 
 more vigorous expression. 
 
 Mr. Prescott's leading excellence is that healthy ob- 
 jectiveness of mind which enables him to represent per- 
 sons and events in their just relations. Of all his his- 
 tories, we think that the present, while it illustrates this 
 characteristic merit, approaches nearest to the truth of 
 things, and presents them with the most clearness and 
 vividness. The scenery, characters, incidents, with 
 which his history deals, are all conceived with singular 
 intensity, and appear on his page instinct with their 
 peculiar life. The book, on this very account, has been 
 charged in some quarters with exaggeration, with giving 
 more importance to the subject than its relative position 
 in history will warrant. This objection we consider as 
 implying its greatest praise. We admit that the Con- 
 quest of Peru does not take that place in the history of 
 the world, as commonly written, which it assumes in Mr. 
 Prescott's narrative ; but we think that history, as com- 
 monly written, conveys but a feeble notion of persons 
 and events. Undoubtedly the wars between Charles V. 
 and Francis I. were more important than the skirmishes 
 of the Spaniards with the Peruvians : but we by no 
 means acknowledge that this is indicated in Robertson ; 
 and we think it a strange blunder of criticism to demand 
 that the historian shall place his work in relation to other 
 histories, instead of making it a mirror of his subject ; 
 and, because the usual description of the battle of Pavia 
 conveys no idea of an engagement, require that the 
 account of the capture of Atahualpa shall convey nc 
 'dea of a massacre. The truth is, Mr. Prescott has 
 lone, in this matter, all that criticism can sensibly de- 
 
PREisCOTT S CONQTJE&r OF PERU. 189 
 
 Bire in observing the natural relations of th.e characters 
 and events with which he deals, and in varying the 
 intensity of his representation with the varying import- 
 ance of the different parts of his History. If he had 
 capriciously gi^en prominence to some things which 
 would naturally fall in the background, or exaggerated 
 others out of their proper connections, his work would 
 have been inconsistent with the truth, and justly amena- 
 ble to criticism ; but, instead of this, he has reproduced, 
 with vivid accuracy, the whole course of the conquest, 
 solicitous only to convey clear impressions of actual 
 things, and to print them on the mind in their true char- 
 acter and vital relations. If in doing this he has shown 
 more force of conception and felicity of narration than 
 the class of dignified historians ; if he has avoided all 
 verbal forms and barren generalities in the surrender of 
 his mind to the objects which impressed it ; if, in short, 
 he has been more desirous to exhibit his subject than to 
 make a show of himself, we protest against his being 
 judged by rules which he does not pretend to follow, and 
 having his excellence tested by principles drawn from 
 the defects of other historians. 
 
 Indeed, the great merit of the work consists in its 
 representing a portion of universal history as a living, 
 appreciable reality. The comparative narrowness of the 
 subject, and fewness of the characters, enabled him to 
 perform this with the greater completeness. There waa 
 less room for generalization, and more for individualiza- 
 tion ; more space for pictures, and less for propositions. 
 Accordingly, everything is realized; everything stands 
 out in its distinct shape and dimensions, and moves on 
 with the general movement of the narration. We become 
 acquainted, not only with the leaders, but with 'heii 
 
190 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 individual followers ; discerning their motives, the com- 
 plex action of their passions, the strange jumble of 
 ferocity, valor, superstition, and diabolism, which went 
 to make up their characters. It must be confessed, we 
 are placed in the company of a herd of graceless rascals, 
 who, with all their valorous vice and heroic baseness, 
 richly deserve the gallows ; but we are still not among 
 demons or monstrosities, but among bad men. It is 
 human nature, we perceive, though human nature in a 
 form so perverted as to make us almost ashamed of it. 
 An insight so vivid into the character of the soldiers of 
 Pizarro and Almagro, and of the conventional moraUty 
 of the age, gives us a knowledge of the period which we 
 can easily apply to persons of more historical import- 
 ance, and events of greater magnitude. In Peru we have, 
 as it were, a microcosm, wherein we can see Catholic 
 Europe as it was at the commencement of the sixteenth 
 century ; the little world is a fair diminutive of the great 
 world, and more comprehensible from its compression. 
 Its study enables us to understand somewhat the nature 
 of that moral confusion which springs from a violation 
 of eternal laws ; from the skirmishes of Pizarro we can 
 infer the character of those awful wars which we read 
 of in history with so even a pulse ; and from the cruelty 
 and rapacity of the Spaniards we see how thin is often 
 the partition which separates the regxdar soldier from the 
 proficient in rapine, massacre, and lust. We believe, if 
 iiistory were written throughout with this truth to things, 
 that, in increasing our knowledge, it would improve oul 
 moral judgments. The reason that the gigantic vices of 
 the powerful do not commonly draw down upon theil 
 heads a corresponding load of infamy, is ovsring to the 
 feebleness with which those vices are commonly con 
 
PREbcorx's CONQUEST OF PERU. 19* 
 
 eeived. We are sensible of the energies such men dis- 
 play, and glow in the recital of their exploits ; but we 
 overlook the guilt and baseness of the means they often 
 employ In order that a historian should rightly affect 
 us in this matter, it is not necessary that he should set 
 certain commonplaces at stated distances in his narrative, 
 declaring how naughty it is for men to cut each other's 
 throats and blowout each other's brains; but it is import- 
 ant that, in representing a battle, he should make us 
 realize the sufferings it occasions, and the demoniacal 
 passions it unleashes. This cannot be done by express- 
 ing the dead and wounded in a row of figures. We 
 have read accounts of Austerlitz and Leipsic which 
 inspired us with less sympathy than the account given 
 by Mr. Prescott of some contest where hardly a hundred 
 were killed. In the " Conquest of Peru" we gain some 
 notion of the fathomless baseness of brazen selfishness 
 and rapacity, and no great energies developed by the con- 
 querors can possibly lift it into respect. If the contem- 
 plation urges us to fix a darker and more indelible brand 
 of reprobation on the impudent enormities of all public 
 criminals, of all robbers and murderers on a great scale, 
 there will be some check given to that absurd apotheosis 
 of colossal depravity, that idolatry of great men who 
 have warred against the interest of the race, which now 
 fills the temple of fame with Titans from the shambles, 
 and inspires emulation instead of horror among the 
 energetic spirits of every age. 
 
 It seems to us that Mr. Prescott thus produces morality 
 of effect by truth of representation. This is as much 
 better than moralizing, as the perfume which escapes 
 from a rose is better than rose-water. If the historian 
 has the heart and bram to grasn the truth, he may safely 
 
192 ESSAYS AND KEVIE-W^. 
 
 ^eave the rest to the reader's moral instincts. But this 
 power of truthful representation is not a common quality 
 It implies the possession of a healthy mind, with large 
 powers harmoniously balanced ; it demands capacity as 
 well as conscience, freedom from prejudice as well as 
 freedom from fraud. It is not ever the prize of good 
 intentions. It balks even the honest and intelligent, 
 when force of conception is not accompanied by a cor- 
 responding felicity of style. In the case of Mr. Prescott 
 that combination of powers, analytical, reflective, and 
 representative, which constitutes his truthfulness, is ex- 
 pressed altogether in the unobfrusive form of narration 
 and description. The distinguishing peculiarity of the 
 present work is, that all the processes of the historian's 
 mind are suppressed, and the results alone given. By 
 this method he has added to the interest of the history, 
 bi^t deprived himself of all that reputation which half- 
 bred minds confer upon the show of judgment and argu- 
 mentation. His narrative reads as simply and clearly as 
 if it had cost no labor of thought and investigation. 
 Many of its delighted readers wiU be but little impressed 
 with the force of the mind whence it proceeded, and 
 pronounce it almost as easy to write as to peruse. It 
 may not, therefore, be out of place to attempt here an 
 analysis of the narrative process, and indicate the various 
 powers it calls into action. Such a course may have 
 some effect in checking the presumptuous underestimate 
 which undeveloped geniuses ever put upon finished 
 works, which have been so artistically organized as to 
 seem artless. 
 
 If we form an idea of the materials from which Mr. 
 Prescott's history was constructed, and place them in 
 opposition to the work itself, we cannot fail to see a greaJ 
 
PEESCOTT's conquest of PERU. 193 
 
 space between the two, through which the historian's 
 mind must have passed in successive steps. In con- 
 temporary histories, biographies, chronicles, state papers, 
 etc., principally in a MS. form, he was compelled to 
 search for his facts. In the examination of these, con- 
 tradictory statements were to be reconciled — falsehood, 
 prror, prejudice, credulity, and all the many forms of 
 misrepresentation, were to be detected — and order and 
 connection were to be educed from the midst of confusion. 
 The industry, the research, the analysis of character, the 
 long trains of minute reasoning, the sagacity which 
 instinctively rejects the smoothest and most plausible 
 lie, — in short, all those intellectual powers which are 
 exercised in a judicial scrutiny of evidence, and which, 
 when exhibited to the reader, convey so high an opinion 
 of a historian's mental capacity, — Mr. Prescott is content 
 to banish from his page. After subjecting his authorities 
 to this alembic process, and sifting out the truth they 
 contained, the facts thus mastered were to be vividly 
 realized in their original life, and placed in their right 
 relations, so 4hat the principles they embodied or illus- 
 trated could be distinctly apprehended by the reader, 
 without being expressed to him in propositions. Here, 
 also, was a long and delicate process, which Mr. Prescott 
 suppresses, in which the historian, at once surveying the 
 whole field of events, and understanding their individual 
 import, sees both the intentions of the actors and the 
 operations of general laws, brings effects into distinct 
 connection with causes, and from the loose links of 
 occurrences rivets the chain of events. After his facts 
 had thus been connected so as to form an organic whole, 
 after the history had taken its shape in his own mind, he 
 had still the additional task of embodying it in a form 
 
 VOL. II. 13 
 
194 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 of expression which would convey it to other minds 
 exactly as it animated his own. 
 
 We do not suppose there can be any controversy as to 
 his success in this last and most important process. It 
 would be difficult to name a history which excels that of 
 the Conquest of Peru in the art of making the forms and 
 colors of things shine through the expression. The style 
 is a running stream, which mirrors objects so fully and 
 distinctly that we are hardly conscious of the medium 
 through AA hich they are seen. Such a diction impresses 
 us only by what it conveys. On reading the book for 
 the first time, we could easily recollect its events, and 
 retained clear conceptions of its characters; but we should 
 have been puzzled to answer a question regarding the 
 structure of its style. We hardly noticed a paragraph 
 in which words took the place of things, or in which 
 anything was said merely for the sake of saying it well. 
 Yet we found, on an after examination, sentences bend- 
 ing beneath the weight of matter, instances of terse, 
 keen, tingling expression, of verbal felicities, of animated 
 and picturesque description, and an absence of that bald- 
 ness and poverty of language which usually characterizes 
 what is called a simple style. The diction is neither 
 stilted nor mean; it neither courts nor discards orna- 
 ment; but moves on with a beautiful and dignified ease, 
 yielding gracefully to the demands of different objects as 
 they rise, and with all its genuine simplicity and fine 
 abandonment to the things it describes, is still always 
 the style of a historian, not of a story-teller. To pre 
 serve thus a certain inherent dignity of manner.j withou 
 a sacrifice of sweetness, melody, raciness, and " polished 
 want of polish," — to maintain constantly a distinction 
 Detween the historian and the chronicler, the iiarratof 
 
incESCOTT's CONQUEST OF PERU. 195 
 
 »nd the gossip, — to glide so fearlessly along the dizzy 
 edges of familiar narration without ever slipping into 
 bathos or flippancy, — is a triumph which few nave suc- 
 ceeded in achieving, and which Mr. Prescott himself has 
 only fully reached in the " Conquest of Peru." In con 
 sidering his remarkable felicity in narration, it is not 
 singular that he has reduced to this shape a great deal 
 of matter which might have been expressed in a different 
 and more ambitious form. 
 
 In this incomplete analysis, we think we have indi- 
 cated that good narration is not a single power, but a 
 combination of many powers ; that it not only implies 
 sensibility, imagination, and command of language, but 
 also often includes the results of the most toilsome 
 drudgery of investigation, and the most stringent exer- 
 cise of the understanding. In passing from the form to 
 the subject of the present work, the first feeling of the 
 reader is that of regret that so much power should be 
 lavished on such a theme ; and surely, if Mr. Prescott's 
 narrative had ceased with the mere conquest of Peru, we 
 should think the matter unworthy of his pen. We 
 hardly can bring to mind another instance of such an 
 audacious violation of all principle, moral and political, 
 as the invasion and theft of Peru by the Spaniards. 
 The enterprise was dignified by none of those high 
 thoughts and great passions which often lend a kind of 
 moral interest to actions which justice and humanity 
 must still condemn. It was essentially a buccaneering 
 expedition, whose naked object was plunder and murder, 
 without any pretence of bigotry or superstition to modify 
 its depravity ; and it was conducted by a herd of y^ga- 
 bonds and profligates, who broke into a country as a 
 oand of burglars wou.d break into a dwelling. Th« 
 
►96 
 
 j;SSAYS A.ND REVIEWS. 
 
 olack flag of the pirate waves over the whole immortal 
 gang whose courageous avarice subverted the empire ol 
 the Incas. Their fame is the fame of infamy. They 
 would occyipy no place in the memories of men, if their 
 rascality had not sounded depths of wickedness beyond 
 the common experience of men. But, considered as 
 a piratical expedition, their enterprise was successful. 
 They glutted their cruelty and rapacity to the full, 
 committing more murders, producing more misery, and 
 obtaining more ir^oney, than any other band of robbers 
 that ever organized for plunder. They proved them- 
 selves master workmen in the ignoble art of ruining 
 nations, and were eminently successful in sowing the 
 seeds of ineradicable hatred against the whole Spanish 
 race in the hearts of the people they oppressed. They 
 were the enemies, not merely of the Peruvians, but of 
 human society itself, — violators of order, of justice, of 
 humanity, of every principle which binds communities 
 together. If the historian had left the subject with the 
 triumph of these valorous outcasts and reprobates, he 
 might have had much to interest and instruct the reader, 
 in exhibiting the meeting of two dissimilar races; in 
 detailing wild and stirring deeds of adventure performed 
 amid scenery the most striking and sublime ; and in 
 representing the worst passions of the human heart in 
 unbridled exercise, restrained neither by humanity as a 
 sentiment, nor by humanity as a policy, as they swept 
 in a storm of fire and blood over the doomed empire of 
 Peru. But such a limitation of the subject, rich though 
 it would be in description and characterization, would 
 leave a painful sense of moral Tonfusion on the mind 
 and woula lack historical and artistical completeness 
 Mr. Prescotl has therefore done well in devoting bii 
 
prescott's conquest of pertt. 197 
 
 Wilf of his work to the conquest, and in proceeding on 
 to narrate the bloody feuds of the conquerors, and the 
 final settlement of the country under Gasca. This 
 extension of the subject, by which we see the fearfid 
 retribution which followed guilt, and the natural opera- 
 tion of those eternal laws which it violated, though it 
 occasions a greater diversity of persons and events, 
 really furnishes the requisite unity of the work. In this 
 respect we do not know but the subject, as treated by 
 Mr. Prescott, has more true historical unity than the 
 Conquest of Mexico ; for, though it has less unity of 
 story, it has a wider variety of incidents and characters 
 included under a stricter unity of law. 
 
 The History of the Conquest of Peru is introduced by 
 a long and luminous disseitation on Peruvian civiliza- 
 tion, which contains all the facts which are known 
 regarding the institutions and modes of existence of the 
 people. This presencs a clear view of the national life 
 of the Peruvians, comprehending their religion, govern- 
 ment, science, letteis, mechanical arts, and industriaj 
 energy. There is much in this dissertation to startk 
 our imaginations and unsettle our theories. We ar^ 
 accustomed to consider governments as taking their 
 character from the character of their people, — as being 
 growths, not manufactures. Even in most despotisms 
 the tyrant seems but the nation indivridiialized. In thi? 
 respect there is little difference betwt^en Austria and the 
 United States, Turkey and France. In Peru, however, 
 we have the spectacle of the most humane and perfect 
 of despotisms, havmg ito source in the government, and 
 working down into tLe masses, moulding their character 
 mto new foruis, and effecting a radical change in theii 
 oature. "W . ■^,^rceive savages reduced to obedienv and 
 
.98 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 unquestioning subjects, under a theocracy which had as 
 complete possession of their souls as of their persons 
 But the strangest mystery of all is, that the Inca despots 
 appear to have regulated their acts by fundamental prin- 
 ciples, and to have shown none of those insane caprices 
 which are characteristic of absolute sovereigns. Adored 
 as gods, and implicitly obeyed as governors, they still 
 seem to have made the physical well-being of their peo- 
 ple and the development of the resources of their empire 
 the objects of their government, mstead of gratifyintr 
 their self-will at the expense of both. Property and 
 money, beggary and idleness, were alike unknown in 
 Peru. The state looked out that every person labored, 
 and that every person was comfortable. It treated its 
 subjects as a kind master treats his domestic animals. 
 Their wills and understandings were not recognized as 
 having an existence, in regard to matters of government; 
 but they were not oppressed. The Incas seem to have 
 been the wisest despots the world has seen, in forbearing 
 to exercise capricious power, and in making the happi- 
 ness of their people the policy of their administration. 
 Into this land, thus governed, the Spaniards brought 
 war, poverty, misery, pestilence, famine, and the thing 
 ihey called their religion. Their object from the begin- 
 ning was to wring from the wretched inhabitants all 
 they possessed, and to doom them to a slavery which 
 differed from a massacre only in its prolonged suffering. 
 They had not even the wisdom of the pagan m£.sters 
 they supplanted; and, in the folly of their tyranny, dried 
 •ip the very sources of wealth. Their policy was one 
 ff blunders as well as crimes. They might have consid 
 e'ed the natives as oxen and horses, but their stupiditj 
 c •ns.\sted in exterminating them by over labor. It il 
 
PRESCOTT's conquest of PERU. 199 
 
 iunous that in all the arts cf government, ^v]lich it is 
 equally tne interest of despots and democrats to practise, 
 and in i,^rKich the greatest power is reconciled with the 
 greatest beneficence, the Incas were immeasurably supe- 
 rior to the Spaniards. It might be said that the con- 
 quest was the victory of a superior over an inferior race, 
 and that the natural consequences were tyranny and 
 rapacity. But we have not this poor excuse for Spanish 
 Christianity and Spanish civilization ; for, in the case of 
 Peru, the conquerors ruined a country which had been 
 subdued previously by the Incas, and in which the supe- 
 rior race had used their power to civilize the savages 
 they conquered, and to improve their condition. In 
 every light in which we can view the subject, we must 
 be compelled to award the Incas wisdom and beneficence 
 superior to the Spaniards, and to acknowledge they 
 approached nearer to the idea of Christian civilization. 
 
 Foremost among the forcible characters with whom 
 Mr. Prescott's history deals are Pizzaro and Gasca, the 
 representative of rapine and the representative of law. 
 Pizarro is one of those marked individuals, branded with 
 the hot iron of universal reprobation, about whom there 
 can be but little diflference of opinion. He seems to 
 have been sent into the world, or, at least, to have been 
 sent into Peru, in order to render -'epravity despicable ; 
 and it is but justice to say that he appeared to feel the 
 dignity of his great mission, and doggedly bent himself to 
 its performance. He had in large measure all those qual 
 ities which awaken admiration for the world's butchers, 
 — a clear head, a hard heart, forc3 of will, constancy of 
 purpose, daring, dauntless courage, complete surrender 
 of his mind to one object, — but they were all developed 
 in connection with such unutterable baseness, fraud 
 
200 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Hypocrisy, and cruelty, that he seeiis the rery genius of 
 infamy impersonated. The mind instijictively spurns 
 him as a cold, calculating, vulgar villain, without any 
 generous enthusiasm, without any lofty purposes, per- 
 forming the most enormoiis crimes from no mixed 
 motives, and in his combination of great capacity with 
 cruelty, treachery, and meanness, never appearing in a 
 more noble shape than as a sort of monstrous compound, 
 made up of Alva, Arnold, and Scapin. There is no 
 danger that such a character will be attractive to the 
 imagination, or that his ignoble depravity will win for 
 him, out of the jail and the pirate-ship, any other senti- 
 ment than contempt or abhorrence. He had not even 
 that honor which is said to obtain among thieves, and as 
 a trickster and liar occupies a peculiar pinnacle of infa- 
 my among his comrades as well as adversaries. He felt 
 within himself a superiority to all scruples of shame or 
 conscience, and knew that he could outwit the worst and 
 wickedest of his gang at their own weapons. Some 
 portion of his courage and daring may have sprung from 
 the inward conviction that he could be placed in no exi- 
 gency from which he could not extricate himself by 
 crime. He obtained an empire by being capable of an 
 act of treachery beyond the conceptions of any of its 
 inhabitants, and then attempted to cheat his accomplice 
 out of his portion of the spoils by a refinement of perfidy 
 of which that old ruffian had never dreamed. He war 
 e-'-er sounding new depths of baseness, and originating 
 unheard-of schemes of rapine; and his companions and 
 followers must have continually felt, with deep humihty 
 how insignificant were their most strenuous efforts down 
 ward, compared with the giant leaps of the trickster Her 
 culos at their head. During the whole narrative of b 
 
PRESCOTT'S conquest of PERU. 201 
 
 BXiiloits and adventures, we anxiously look for some event 
 in which his great energies wiL appear connected with 
 sime moderation in wickedness ; but we are continually 
 disappointed. When he marches with less than two 
 hundred men right into the heart of an empire, we 
 expect some new development of the science of war or 
 diplomacy, some brilliant achievement of arms or policy. 
 But it all ends in the old story of massacre and pilkge, 
 supported by the old plea of necessity and prudence. 
 We continually feel that ail he does would be infinitely 
 clever in a buccaneer, a highwayman, or an incendiary, 
 but it awakens none of the associations connected with a 
 conqueror. Essentially a vulgar villain, he has incurred 
 not merely the condemnation of the good for his deprav- 
 ities, but is visited with the secret hate of energetic 
 wickedness everywhere, for so rudely tearing aside the 
 decent drapery of sin, and depriving vice of all its dig- 
 nity. He has made murder and robbery on a great scale 
 an everlasting jeer to levity, and an everlasting stigma 
 to benevolence. 
 
 With all this, it is doubtful if, in the quality of cour- 
 age, a braver man than Pizarro ever lived. He did not 
 know fear. Famine, fatigue, pestilence, had no convinc- 
 ing arguments for him. He feared neither nature, man, 
 nor God, but pushed doggedly on in his course of practi- 
 cal atheism, breasting the elements, slaying his fellow- 
 men, unconcerned about the future. His courage, there- 
 fore, great as it was, has its disgraceful side; through 
 thisj his highest quality, the insensibility and lowness 
 of hvs character glare like an imp from the pit. Could 
 we occasionally refer his crimes to weakness, impulse, or 
 Oigotry ; could we sometimes see his force of will strug- 
 gling with the phantoms of conscience, or the dread 
 
802 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 monitions of religion ; if from that mass of bad passioos 
 festering at his heart any signs of a soul had ever 
 flashed , if, in short, he had sometimes, for variety sake, 
 performed a noble or refrained from a wicked action ; 
 we might modify a little the contemptuous horror with 
 which we view his courageous baseness. But, as it is, 
 he stands out there in history, naked and shivering un- 
 der the pitiless pelting of a storm of execration, not as a 
 warrior and conqueror, but as a trickster, traitor, liar, 
 thief, incendiary, murderer; — an embo.diment of the 
 Newgate Calendar, sneaking under the titles of mar- 
 quess and conquistador. There is, however, one inci- 
 dent connected with his death which evidences some 
 sensibility. It cannot be said of him that he died and 
 made no sign. After defending himself, with his accus- 
 tomed valor, against his assassins, he was overpowered 
 by numbers, and received several terrible wounds. 
 ' Jesu ! " he exclaimed, in that dying moment ; and, 
 •' tracing a cross with his finger on the bloody floor, he 
 bent down his head to kiss it, when a stroke, more 
 friendly than the rest, put an end to his existence." 
 There is something sublime in this flashing forth of the 
 religious sentiment, in the moment of death, from a 
 nature which seemed destitute even of religious bigotry 
 and superstition ; and something horrible in the contem- 
 plation of the only religious act of a long life of turbu- 
 lence and sin being balked by the very hand which slew 
 his body. That dark spirit passed to its last account 
 with its hoarded lusts thick upon it. 
 
 In strong contrast with Pizarro and the other Span- 
 '•ards, and the only honest man in Mr. Prescott's vol- 
 umes, is Pedro de la Gasca; and the most attractive 
 portion of the work is devoted to him. He was a peao 
 
prescott's conquest of PERU. y03 
 
 Id ecclesiastic, sent out by the Spanish government to 
 recover Peru, after the previous viceroy, Blasco Nunez, 
 had bf'en deposed and slain, in an insurrection against 
 the ro) al authority, headed by Gonzalo Pizarro. The 
 country was entirely in the latter's hands, and the people 
 vpere with him. Gasca entered the country without any 
 niiitary force ; proclaimed pardon for all past offences ; 
 announced the revocation of the ordinances which had 
 provoked the rebellion ; by inimitable coolness, sagacity, 
 and energy, succeeded in winning over some of the most 
 important of Gonzalo's captains ; and, in a comparatively 
 short time, entirely ruined the insurgents, and reinstated 
 the royal authority in every part of Peru. The whole 
 work, both in its conception and direction, was exclu- 
 sively his own. The only thing that Spain gave him 
 was absolute authority, and he conquered Peru by the 
 simple force and wisdom of his single mind. Such a 
 conquest was a grander exercise of genius than ever 
 Cortes or Pizarro displayed ; and we think that, next to 
 Columbus, Gasca takes the first rank among the great 
 Spaniards connected with the discovery and colonization 
 of America. His genius would be contested by some, 
 because he was one of those rare men who possess great 
 powers in such perfect harmony with great virtues, that 
 the might of their nature is only seen in the effects they 
 produce. To the vulgar eye, their unobtrusive excellence 
 oft'3n passes for commonplace. All repose unbounded 
 reJance in their integrity and intelligence, and they 
 generally succeed in everything they undertake, but 
 their sagacious virtue is rarely honored with the name 
 of genius. They are called men of moderation, of com- 
 mon sense, — men who originate nothing, but can apply 
 everything; and in general estimaiion they bear about 
 
204 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 the same relation to narrower and intenser natures which 
 light bears to lightning. Now, it seems to us that force 
 and insight are the characteristics, and influence the 
 measure, of genius ; and where we see great results pro- 
 duced by a sagacious proportioning of means to ends, we 
 infer the genius of their author. Gasca's course, indeed 
 strikes us more by its intelligence than its moral eleva 
 tion. A man of the most stainless integrity, he had still 
 to crush a rebellion, and restore a country to its alle- 
 giance to the Spanish crown, by means which would be 
 operative among a collection of depraved soldiers and 
 petty tyrants. Superior himself to vanity, ambition, 
 avarice, fear, and treachery, he saw perfectly into the 
 characters of those with whom he was to deal, under- 
 stood the nature of the complaints which had led to the 
 rebellion, and understood also the feeling of lingering 
 loyalty which still dwelt in the fears or the sentiments of 
 the rebels. He first gave them no excuse for continuing 
 adverse to the crown, by abolishing the ordinances which 
 had caused their resistance ; and then proffered to the 
 followers of Gonzalo those inducements which he knew 
 would be operative in the minds of knaves. If anything 
 were wanting to complete our contempt of the Spaniards 
 in Peru, we have it in the detestable treachery of the 
 men who deserted and betrayed Gonzalo, after having 
 been sworn to his interests and enriched by h's bounty. 
 
 Gasca knew more than all the captains and intriguers 
 in Peru put together ; and by virtue of this knowledge 
 he gained the mastery of all. The only man who could 
 have prevented by his intelligence the destruction of the 
 rebels was Gonzalo's Mephistophelian lieutenant, Car- 
 bajal ; and his advice, which was submission, Gonzalg 
 would not follow. It is curious to contemplate Gasca 
 
PEESUOTT'S CONQUEST OF PERU. 205 
 
 »mohj the profligate soldiers of Peru, if it were only to 
 observe the instinctive homage which vice pays t j virtue. 
 His qualities, liiie diamonds, derived their value from 
 their rarity. There were enough courageous stabbers 
 and reckless intriguers in the country ; there was no lack 
 of gold, and silver, and merchandise; but truth and 
 honesty were scarce and inestimable. The usual laws 
 which regulate supply and demand began to operate. 
 Among a set of liars, and perjurers, and traitors, and 
 murderers, a true, faithful, loyal, and just man, was at 
 once a phenomenon and a priceless treasure. At the 
 same time, he comprehended all Peru in his capacious 
 mind, and he ruled it because he knew all its inhabitants 
 better than they knew themselves. Virtuous himself, all 
 the resources and tricks of vice were more visible to nia 
 oye than if he had mastered them by experience. No 
 plotter, who had passed all his life in intrigue, was so 
 sure in his judgment of rascality, so certain in the means 
 he took to circumvent it. He was one of those wise 
 men who read things in their principles, and he therefore 
 never made mistakes. He saw, as in prophetic vision, 
 the remotest results of all his acts ; and accordingly, 
 when he had commenced a course of policy, he never 
 wavered, never experienced a doubt of his success, 
 because he knew what must happen from the nature of 
 things. This insight into the principles of events, this 
 settled faith based on the clearest intelligence, is the 
 crowning glory of the genius of action. Gasca, in Peru, 
 evinced a capacity for government which the complex 
 affairs of a European empire would not have exhausted. 
 In order to do full justice to Mr. Prescott's work, we 
 should present to our readers some extracts illustrating 
 ts excellences of u irration and description ; but this our 
 
206 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 limits will not permit. The mind of the author yields 
 itself with a beautiful readiness to the inspiration of his 
 subject, and he leads the reader along with him through 
 every scene of beauty and grandeur in which the stirring 
 adventures he narrates are placed. We would refer par- 
 ticularly to the description of the passage of the Andes, 
 as an evidence of the accuracy with which pictures of 
 scenery maybe impressed on the historian's imagination, 
 and, through him, upon the reader's, vpithout the original 
 objects ever having been present to the eye of either. 
 The account of the massacre at Caxamalca is also 
 exceedingly vivid and true, and is probably one of the 
 most splendid passages in Mr. Prescott's works. After 
 this bloody, treacherous, and cowardly murder, Pizarro 
 addressed his troops before they retired for the night. 
 When he had ascertained that not a man was wounded, 
 " he bade them offer up thanksgivings to Providence for 
 so great a miracle — without its care they could never 
 have prevailed so easily over the host of their enemies ; 
 and he trusted their lives had been reserved for still 
 greater things." No invective, though steeped in fire 
 and gall, is calculated to excite so much detestation as 
 this simple statement of the murderer's blasphemous 
 hypocrisy. It is one of those monstrosities of canting 
 guilt, " on which a fiend might make an epigram." 
 
 It is curious to observe, in the tangled web of intrigue 
 treachery, and murder, which meets us in the history of 
 the conquest, how the moral laws which were violated 
 by the conquerors avenged themselves. Murder gener 
 ated murder, and misery brought forth misery. First 
 Atahualpa was murdered by a legal farce got up by 
 ^.Imagro and Pizarro; then Almagro was murde:ed ir 
 the same way by Pizarro ; Pizal^ro, in his turii, was assas- 
 
PRESCOTT's conquest Oi- ic.RU. 207 
 
 fcmated by the followers of Almagro's son, Diegt and 
 the latter fell in battle with the Spanish authorities, under 
 Vaca de Castro. Hernando Pizarro passed the largest 
 portion of his life in a Spanish prison ; Juan, the best of 
 the brothers, was lulled by the Peruvians ; and Gonzalo, 
 a man of some generosity and openness of mind, and of 
 a chivalrous temper, after having arrived by rebellion to 
 the supreme command in Peru, was betrayed by his fol» 
 lowers, and executed as a traitor. In these various feuds, 
 most of the original gang of pirates who conquered the 
 country either fell in battle or were executed on the scaf- 
 fold ; their stolen property passed into the possession of 
 others ; and even the few who did n^t die a violent death 
 were under the control of two masters — gambling and 
 licentiousness — which gave them poverty and disease 
 for wages. As their crimes brought no good to them- 
 selves, so, also, they laid Peru under a curse from which 
 she has not yet recovered. The seeds of a new empire 
 can never be sown by the outcasts of an old one ; and 
 those who look upon a country with the eyes of a pick- 
 pocket will soon ruin everything in it which nature will 
 allow human folly and wickedness to destroy. The his- 
 tory of the conquest of Peru, as presented in the vivid 
 pages of Mr. Prescott, is capable of conveying many les- 
 sons on the retribution which follows conquest and rapine, 
 which late events in our own history show that we have 
 incompletely learned. It would seem that every man of 
 eommon intelligence and common patriotism would rather 
 see the power of his country palsied, than made the 
 .nstrument of crime. Such a misuse of strength never 
 aas been and never can be successful. The poisoned 
 chalice will inevitably be returned to our own lips, for the 
 vorld is ruled by divine, not demoniacal agencies. Look 
 
208 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 at the subject in what light we may, frorr the view of 
 religion or the view of common sense, we must still admit 
 that we cannot balk or elude those eternal laws of the 
 universe, which deny lasting power to the energies of 
 robbery and the schemes of rapine. The laws of God, 
 in their slow, silent, and terrible operation, will still 
 move tranquilly on, turning all our glory to shame, all 
 our strength to weakness ; though we, in the mad exult- 
 ation of our guilt, turn night into day with our bonfires, 
 and lend the skies with our huzzas. 
 
 I 
 
SHAKSPEARE'S CRITICS.* 
 
 Those who consider the science of criticism as nothing 
 more than a collection of arbitrary rules, and the art of 
 criticism but their dextrous or declamatory application., 
 rejoice in a system of admirable simplicity and barren 
 results. It has the advantage of judging everything and 
 accounting for nothing, thus gratifying the pride of intel- 
 lect without enjoining any intellectual exertion. By a 
 steady adherence to its doctrines, a dunce may exalt 
 himself to a pinnacle of judgment, from which the first 
 authors of the world appear as splendid madmen, whose 
 enormous writhings and contortions, as they occasionally 
 blunder into grace and grandeur of motion, show an 
 undisciplined strength, which would, if subjected to rule, 
 produce great effects. A Bond-street exquisite compla- 
 cently surveying a thunder-scarred Titan through an 
 opera-glass, is but a type of a Grub-street critic meas- 
 uring a Milton or a Shakspeare with his three-foot rule. 
 
 But the golden period of this kind of criticism, when 
 mediocrity sat cross-legged on the body of genius, and 
 
 * Shakspeare's Plays, with his Life. Illustrated with many hundred 
 Wood-cuts, executed by H. W. Hewet, after designs by Kenny Meadows, 
 Harvey, and others. Edited by Gulian C. Verplanck, LL.D., with Critical 
 [ntroductions. Notes, etc., Orig'nal and Selected. New York: Harper & 
 Brothers. 3 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Lectures on Shakspeare. By H. N. Hudson. New York : Baker & Scrih 
 uer. ' 2 vols. 12mo. — North American Review, July, 1848. 
 
 VOL. 11. 14 
 
210 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 sagely dexivered its oracular nonentities, has happily 
 passed away. The fat bishop of the elder time who 
 discovered that the Paradise Lost vvas a licentious and 
 blasphemous poem, and the lean authorling who first 
 informed the world that Shakspeare was an inspired 
 idiot, have both departed into the void inane. The 
 period has gone by when France could dismiss Shak- 
 speare from the company of Corneille and Racine as a 
 clever barbarian, or England herself rate him as a sort 
 of miraculous monstrosity, — neither so elegant as Wal- 
 ler, nor so correct as Mr. Pope. The old antithesis 
 between genius and judgment, taste and creative power, 
 which has sparkled and rung in so many knowing sen- 
 tences, has now lost most of its point, and is enjoyed only 
 as a gem from the antique. It is no longer the fashion 
 for beauty to be tested by elegance, or truth by mechani- 
 cal correctness, or nature by convention, or art by arti- 
 fice. Mr. Prettyman, with his conceited lisp, and Sir 
 Artegal's Talus, with his iron flail, have both been 
 banished from the gardens of the Hesperides. 
 
 This substitution of a philosophy of criticism for an 
 anarchy of dogmas is especially seen in the recent edi- 
 tions of Shakspeare. Fifty years ago, he was compared, 
 in reference to his commentators, to Actaeon hunted to 
 death by his own dogs. But the present generation has 
 witnessed a marked change in the spirit and principles 
 of the criticism by which he has been tried. Could all 
 those Sir Francis Wrongheads of the last century, who 
 undertook to patronize Shakspeare as a wild, unregulated 
 genius, and kindly volunteered their praise on the score 
 of his great faults being balanced by great beauties, sud 
 denly start up in the present age, we may well imagine 
 with what a stare of blank amazement they would observe 
 
smjlkspeaee's critics. 211 
 
 his elevation to the throne of art. It might reas( nably 
 be supposed that old John Dennis and Mr. Rymer would 
 retire in disgust to their tombs, rather than accept the 
 boon of life in a generation devoted to so Egyptian an 
 adoration of deformities. The difference between an 
 old critic picking flaws in Shakspeare's expression of 
 passion, and a modern critic raving about the artistic 
 significance of Shakspeare's puns, indicates the extremes 
 of criticism through which the " myriad-minded " has 
 passed. At present there appears to be no danger that 
 his intellectual supremacy will be questioned. The 
 antiquary who ventures to stammer a little in the old 
 jargon is quietly dropped by good society ; the sciolist 
 who blurts out a blunt objection is vehemently hissed 
 into non-existence. Schlegel's prediction, that Shak- 
 speare's fame for centuries to come would " continue to 
 gather strength, like an Alpine avalanche, at every 
 moment of its progress," seems to be in the process of 
 verification ; for with every new edition and criticism the 
 giant dilates into larger and larger dimensions. He has 
 invaded France ; he has conquered Germany. The 
 principalities and powers of literature find no safety but 
 in the acknowledgment of his supremacy. To the old 
 republic of letters he comes as the intellectual Caesar, 
 who is to establish a universal dominion. The different 
 orders of the literary state, far from opposing his preten- 
 sions, are engaged in hymning his divinity. Here and 
 there some lean Cassius mutters treason against the god, 
 complains that he bestrides the world like a Colossus, 
 and leaves other poets little to do but peep about for 
 dishonorable graves; but all peevish exceptions are 
 drowned in the universal shout which lifts hiis name to 
 the skies. 
 
212 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 "Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven ; 
 No pyramids set off his memories 
 But the eternal substance of his greatness." 
 
 This idolatry of Shakspeare is partly the cause and 
 partly the effect of a new school of criticism, which 
 assumes to judge works of art after a new code of princi- 
 ples. The mistake which the old order of critics made 
 consisted in overlooking the doctrine of vital powers. 
 They judged the form of Shakspeare's works by certain 
 external rules, before they had interpreted the inward 
 life which shaped the form. Shakspeare's genius was 
 always felt as supreme above others, because its reality 
 and force could not be resisted ; but the criticism which 
 should have made it understood as well as felt, which 
 should have accounted for its effects, pursued exactly the 
 opposite course. Instead of attempting to translate it to 
 the understanding by evolving its principles, it placed h 
 in antagonism to certain notions in the undeYstanding, 
 which were unfounded in the nature of things. Because 
 genius has its own laws, it is not therefore to be con- 
 sidered lawless ; yet such was the judgment passed upon 
 Shakspeare's genius by men who, substituting dogmatism 
 for analysis, did not possess the first requisite of a critic, 
 that of understanding the thing criticized. The conse- 
 quence was, an absurd opposition between judgment and 
 feeling, taste and genius. Men were compelled to admire 
 what they were taught to condemn. We perceive the 
 effect of this even in a man of such comprehensive sym- 
 pathies as Dryden. Nothing can be more contemptible 
 than Dryden's criticism on Shakspeare's art; yet when 
 he abandoned his rules, and trusted to his own conceptions 
 of excellence, — when he ceased to judge as a critic and 
 spoke as a poet, — nothing can excel the warmth OJ the 
 
shakspeare's critics. 213 
 
 accuracy of his rhapsodies. Eliminate from his cele- 
 brated passage on Shakspeare every term which may he 
 called critical, and there is nothing in English literature, 
 from Ben Jonson to Coleridge, which contains so true a 
 representation of Shakspeare's mind. 
 
 Now, the critical revolution which has taken place in 
 the present century does not pretend so much to increase 
 our sympathy with Shakspeare as to increase our knowl- 
 edge of him; and accordingly we perceive its influence 
 not merely in the opinions of men of imagination and 
 sensibility, but in those of critics chiefly distinguished 
 for sense and understanding. The revolution, being one 
 of principles, has affected the judgments of writers who 
 bear, in mind and character, the same relative position 
 to the present period which the old critics bore to their 
 time. It would be unjust to compare Schlegel and Cole- 
 ridge with Johnson and Malone, as indicating a change in 
 the general scope and spirit of literary judgments ; but if 
 we compare Johnson with Hallam, we are still conscious 
 of a great and essential diflference, — a difference not so 
 much in the faculties employed as in the principles by 
 which they are guided. This is so true, that the mean- 
 ing of judgment and taste, so far as the results obtained 
 by their exercise are concerned, has completely altered. 
 When Dr. Johnson said of Cymbeline, that to notice its 
 defects and improbabilities in detail were " to waste criti- 
 cism on unresisting imbecility," he proved himself a per- 
 son of great judgment, according to the principles of the 
 eighteenth century ; but a man who hazarded such an 
 opinion now would be set down, we will not say as an 
 ignoramus, but as one whose taste was under the domin- 
 ion of individual caprice, and whose judgment was 
 w.Holly deficient in correctness. 
 
?14 ESSAYS ATvD REVIEWS. 
 
 The two works named at the head of the present 
 article, Mr. Verplanck's edition of Shakspeare, and Mr. 
 Hudson's Lectures, are a fair indication of the progress 
 which criticism has made within a century. Neither 
 could have been produced fifty years ago, for the materi- 
 als were wanting. Mr. Verplanck had the wide field of 
 English antiquarian, verbal, and sesthetical criticism 
 open to him, and he has sw^ept over the whole domain. 
 He has especially availed himself of the researches of 
 various commentators, without, however, adopting then 
 insufferable prolixity of statement. His edition, though 
 it has the character of a rifacimento, still combines a 
 greater number of positive merits, and is calculated for u 
 wider variety of readers, than any with which we are 
 acquainted ; but it is so in virtue of the judgment the 
 editor has evinced in selecting the peculiar excellences 
 of many editions, and in avoiding the peculiar faults of 
 each. He had at his command a singularly rich collec- 
 tion of materials, embodying the results of a century of 
 research, and containing the separate items of a good 
 edition floating about in an ocean of words. There wat>, 
 therefore, a constant strain upon his judgment and taste 
 in the mere task of selection and compression. Antiqua- 
 rians and commentators are apt unconsciously to rate 
 their discoveries and illustrations as of more value than 
 the things to which they refer ; and Shakspeare espec- 
 ially has been victimized by a class of lynx-eyed dog- 
 matists, always quarrelling among themselves, and each 
 i-iaiming for the morsels of useful knowledge he has con- 
 tributed a ludicrous importance. 
 
 Mr. Verplanck has shown much strength and catho 
 licity of mind, in not being embarrassed by the varying 
 ipmions of this army of acute triflers, at the same tim? 
 
shakspeare's critics. 215 
 
 1/iat he has largely availed himself of their labors. In 
 the notes to each play; in tracing out the sources, his- 
 torical and romantic, of the plots ; m the bibliographical 
 discussion as to the order in which the plays were 
 printed, he blends his own learning very gracefully with 
 what he has condensed from others. The text appears 
 to be the portion of the work on which he has expended 
 the greatest care, and is the result of a most cautious 
 comparison, word by word, of the original quarto editions 
 of the various plays with the original folio published by 
 Heminge and Condell, and of both with the editions of 
 Malone, Collier, and Knight. Though, from the nature 
 of the case, the text of no one editor can be so perfect as 
 to settle all disputes regarding particular passages, we 
 think it must be conceded to Mr. Verplanck that he has 
 executed this difficult and delicate task with a great deal 
 of acuteness and sagacity, and displayed a much clearer 
 insight into the spirit and form of Shakspeare's style 
 than a large majority of those who have undertaken the 
 drudgery of its arrangement. 
 
 But it is as a critic, rather than as an editor, that Mr. 
 Verplanck claims our attention here. His introductions 
 to the plays are really additions to the higher Shaks- 
 pearian criticism, not so much for any peculiar felicity 
 in the analysis of character, as in the view, partly 
 bibliographical, partly philosophical, which he takes of 
 the gradual development of Shakspeare's mind and the 
 different stages of its growth. It is the first connected 
 attempt to trace out Shakspeare's ictellectual history 
 and character, gathering, to use Mr Verplanck's ovra 
 words, " from various, and sometimes slight and circum- 
 stantial, or collateral, points of testimony, the order and 
 »iiccession of his works, assigning, so far as possible, each 
 
316 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 one to its probable epoch, noting the variations or difler- 
 ences of style and of versification between them, and 
 in some cases (as in Romeo and Juliet, Henry Fifth, 
 and Hamlet) the alterations and improvements of the 
 same play by the author himself, in the progress of his 
 taste and experience ; thus following out, through each 
 successive change, the luxuriant growth of his poetic 
 faculty and his comic power, and finally, the still nobler 
 expansion of the moral wisdom, the majestic contem- 
 plation, the terrible energy, the matchless fusion of the 
 impassioned with the philosophical, that distinguished 
 the matured mind of the author of Hamlet, of Lear, and 
 of Macbeth." In this portion of his labors, Mr. Ver- 
 planck has shown a solidity and independence of judg- 
 ment, and a power of clearly appreciating almost every 
 opinion from which he dissents, which give to his own 
 views the fairness and weight of judicial decisions. His 
 defects as a critic are principally those which come from 
 the absence in part of sensitive sympathies, and of the 
 power of sharp, minute, exhaustive analysis. He is 
 of the school of Hallam, a school in which judgment and 
 generalizatioii rule with such despotic control, that the 
 heart and imagination hardly have fair play, and strongly 
 marked individualities too often subside into correct gen- 
 eralities. 
 
 Before hazarding any remarks on Mr. Hudson's strik- 
 ing Lectures, it may not be out of place to refer to a few 
 of the philosophical critics who have preceded him, in 
 order that his station among them may be calculated 
 with some degree of accuracy. After a careful perusa. 
 of his work, we have been forced to the conclusion, that 
 m spite of its faults, there is no single critical productior 
 on Shakspeare which equals it in completeness and force 
 
shakspeare's critics. 217 
 
 of thought in the examination of individual characters. 
 It is a work which no person could have written without 
 devoting himself with rare constancy to one object, and 
 without availing himself to some extent of the labors 
 of his predecessors in the same department of thought. 
 The materials for a critical view of Shakspeare are widely 
 scattered. Almost every eminent poet and critic of Ger- 
 many and England has, within the last half-century, 
 recorded his impressions of the world's master mind ; 
 and perhaps in the stray observations of Goethe we have 
 glances into the nature of Shakspeare's genius as pro- 
 found and accurate as ever were won by the intensest 
 toil of inspection. Hallam, Carlyle, Campbell, and many 
 others, have presented striking criticisms on the plays, 
 or thrown out valuable suggestions respecting the char- 
 acters, in works not exclusively devoted to Shakspeare. 
 Hazlitt, Mrs. Jameson, and Ulrici, have produced sep- 
 arate volumes on the subject. Of the professed critics, 
 however, Schlegel and Coleridge, as they are first in 
 point of time, appear to us first in respect to excellence. 
 They were, to a great extent, the originators of the school 
 of philosophical criticism, and we find in them a sys- 
 tematic statement of its principles, in their application to 
 all forms of imaginative literature. 
 
 The history of the variations of criticism with regard 
 to Shakspeare would involve a consideration of all critical 
 theories, from those founded on individual impressions to 
 those based on an observation of the essential laws of 
 mental growth and production. These two extremes of 
 criticism, as different as subject and object, are often con- 
 founded, — a work of art as it affects a particular mind 
 being commonly a convervible phrase for a work of art 
 as it is in itself. The middle ground between the two 
 
21§ ESSAYS AND REVIEW&. 
 
 has niust obtained among those who are called men of 
 culture. This consists in testing the value of all works 
 of art by their conformity to certain rules generalized 
 from the productions of a particular school, — as if the 
 romantic drama, as seen in Shakspeare, should be judged 
 by the principles of the classic drama, as seen in Sophn- 
 cles. It is evident, we think, that if criticism be a 
 science, if it assume to convey any real knowledge, it 
 deals not with individual impressions or arbitrary rules, 
 but with laws ; and its progress will be determined by 
 Its success in employing a right method to discover the 
 laws of the objects to which it refers. As the philoso- 
 pher is content to investigate and establish the laws of 
 the human mind and the phenomena of nature, leaving 
 to the sceptic or the idealist the luxury of denying their 
 existence or supplying better from his own resources, 
 so the critic is bound to pursue a similar method with 
 regard to a work of art, and to interpret, if he can, its 
 inward meaning and significance. This, at least, is the 
 process in all other sciences. If a plant, insect, fish, 
 or other animal, is to undergo a scientific examination, 
 a savan is not welcomed with a shower of honorary 
 degrees because he has felicitously ridiculed its external 
 form, or shown its want of agreement with some other 
 natural object, but because he has investigated its inward 
 mechanism, indicated its purpose, and shown that its 
 form is physiognomical of its peculiar life. Now, we 
 think that Hamlet and Lear are as worthy of this toler- 
 ant ti'?atment as a bird or a fish ; at least, we are confi- 
 dent that no scientific knowledge of either can be obtained 
 in any other way. Because the principle impHes that a 
 true creation of the intellect has thus an independent 
 existence and merit of its own, and is to be judged by it» 
 
shakspeake's critics. 219 
 
 »wn laws, or its own fitness to serve th' purposes of its 
 creation, it does not thence follow, that its relative merit, 
 as compaleu with other works of art, is altogether put 
 Deyond tho jurisdiction of criticism. Because a rose 
 may be considered a finer flower than a violet, we are 
 not bound to test the beauty of one by its agreement with 
 the other. At least, in regard to the productions of the 
 intellect, there can be no accurate classification, no settle- 
 ment of their position in the sliding-scale of excellence 
 or greatness, without understanding the spirit and life 
 of each. 
 
 Now, the great merit of Schlegel consisted in discard- 
 ing from his system all quibbles respecting superficial 
 differences in the form of works of genius, and looking 
 directly at the inward life which anim'ated and shaped 
 the form. His view of Shakspeare, which did so much 
 to revolutionize the tone of English criticism, is con- 
 tained in his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, 
 delivered in Vienna, in the spring of 1808. Had he 
 written nothing else, this work would be sufficient to 
 place him among the greatest critics of the world. It 
 not only develops a system of principles of uncommon 
 reach and depth, but contains a review of the dramatists 
 ■and dramatic literature of Greece, Eome, France, Italy, 
 England, Spain, and Germany, grappling sturdily with 
 all the vexed questions of dramatic art which start up in 
 each stage of the inquiry. Almost for the first time, we 
 find, in his work, a critic who profoundly appreciates at 
 Dnce the drama of Greece, England, and Spain, and does 
 It in virtue of following out the central principle of a 
 comprehensive critical system. Sweeping over the whole 
 field of dramatic literature, he detects, in the variety of 
 its kinds, in its metempsychosis through various forma. 
 
220 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 the true character of each period of its devplopment, and 
 considers the genius of each period in relation to the 
 materials it assimilated and the purposes it served. He 
 as an ardent and intelligent admirer of jEschylus and 
 Sophocles, and for that very reason contemns all attempts 
 to reproduce them in other ages. As he really under- 
 stands the great Greek dramatists, he sees the excellence 
 of Shakspeare and Calderon in their departure from the 
 Greek models. Starting with a distinct idea of the dif- 
 ference between mechanical regularity and organic form 
 he is at once a remorseless critic of mediocrity and an 
 interpretative critic of genius ; for, by demanding that a 
 work of art, however modest its pretensions, shall be an 
 organic whole with a central principle of life, he discards 
 from his sympathies the productions of the most accom- 
 plished artisans of letters, and the most ingenious 
 combinations of inanimate parts. His work is the first 
 attempt at viewing the dramatic literature of the world 
 under the light of a principle broad enough to include 
 every variety of intellectual excellence, and overlooking 
 nothing informed with a living soul. 
 
 Had the author been entirely free from individual bias, 
 and had he possessed also the faculty of contracting his 
 vision with as much facility as he dilated it, his work 
 would hardly have left much for later critics to perform , 
 out we perceive, here and there, the effect upon his mind 
 I f the literary controversies in which he had been en- 
 gaged, and some of his individual judgments are contrary 
 to the catholicity of his principles. Besides, as his com- 
 prehensiveness was not accompanied by corresponding 
 acuteness, he not unfrequently becomes the dupe of his 
 own refinements, especially in criticizing the details of a 
 tvork of art ; for we imagine a truly acute man is not sp 
 
SHAESPE are's CRITICS, 221 
 
 Sksly to be deceived in a criticism, of particulars, as a 
 Eomprehensive one is, who affects subtilty in order to 
 bring the details of a thing into harmony with his 
 general conception. In Schlegel's celebrated view of 
 Shakspeare's mind and art, we perceive the influence of 
 this defect. Nothing can be more lucid than his expo- 
 sition of the general character and scope of Shakspeare's 
 genius, ani of the principles by which it should be 
 judged; but, when he comes to review the particular 
 plays, his very determination to find excellence in every- 
 thing often leads to his missing the greatest excellence. 
 He is so occupied in tracing out the main design of the 
 piece, and exhibiting the pervading unity through all the 
 variety of parts, that he comparatively overlooks the 
 characterization. Now, the fundamental idea, the ulti- 
 mate principle, the living root, of one of Shakspeare's 
 plays, can be reached only by an intense conception or 
 exhaustive analysis of the characters, — for these give to 
 the main design its peculiar Shakspearian coloring and 
 significance ; and to exhibit the dependence of the parts 
 on the main design, without fully appreciating the parts, 
 results in reducing the whole to something little above 
 commonplace. Every attempt to follow a purely syn- 
 thetic process in an exposition of Shakspeare's plays has 
 been a failure, because it requires a mind capable of 
 reproducing Shakspeare's own conceptions, and grasping 
 with one effort of imagination a Shakspearian whole, 
 ro exhibit a tragedy like that of Hamlet as it grew up 
 in the creator's mind, indicating the exact period when 
 the different characters necessarily branched off from the 
 trunk in obedience to the law at its root, would seem to 
 require a genius such as has not yet taken criticism for a 
 rocation. Goethe seeans to have had some inward idea 
 
i22 ESSAVS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 of the secret of Shakspeare's processes, but the scattered 
 observations in which he hinted his knowledge are but 
 stammering expressions of his conception. 
 
 The leading merit of Schlegel, as we have already 
 said, is rather in breadth of view than in any surpassing 
 felicity of individual criticism ; and in regard to Shak 
 speare, we think him inferior to Coleridge in strong and 
 vivid conception, and in the power of flashing a great 
 impression of a character or incident upon the mind, 
 through modes of expression which only a poet can com- 
 mand. With all his wilfulness and vagaries, Coleridge 
 possessed, as a critic, not only grand glimpses of the 
 inmost spirit of a work of art, but a remarkable faculty 
 of intellectual analysis ; and as he had made Shakspeare 
 and his creations the subject of profound and contem- 
 plative study, he was eminently calculated for the office 
 of his interpreter, both to the understanding and the 
 imagination of his countrymen. But he lacked the 
 talent of writing clearly in prose. A series of concep- 
 tions as they stood in his mind never found adequate 
 expression on his page. He has sentences of wonder- 
 ful beauty, distinctness, and force, embodying separate 
 thoughts of the greatest originality and depth ; but there 
 is little connection or orderly arrangement of matter in 
 his prose works. He offends against the first principle 
 of his own critical code, being essentially a writer of 
 parts, not of wholes, — of fragments, not of systems. In 
 respect to principles, he is probably the first critic of the 
 sentury; in respect to criticisms, he occupies a much 
 tower rank. His fragments on Shakspeare are of great 
 value, but their value consists chiefly in their suggestive- 
 ness, in the bright hints they have aflbrded to those who 
 
SHAKSPEAKE'S CEITICS. 223 
 
 have had the sagacity to plant them in their cwn oiindsk 
 and allowed them to germinate. 
 
 Hazlitt's work on the Characters of Shakspeare's 
 Plays is a medley of great and small matters, ranging 
 from criticism to vituperation, from the exhibition of 
 Shakspeare to the exhibition of himself. Hazlitt's sense 
 of his own individuality was so strong, that he could not 
 altogether forget it in the contemplation of the most 
 objective of poets ; and though his volume bears on every 
 page the marks of his acute and penetrating intellect, and 
 is animated by bursts of his captivating but distempered 
 eloquence, the general impression it leaves on the mind 
 is unsatisfactory. It is supposed that many of the finest 
 observations in his work were gathered in conversations 
 with Coleridge. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson's volume on the Female Characters is 
 a most eloquent and passionate representation of Shak- 
 speare's women, and in many respects is an important 
 contribution to critical literature. Its defects are so cov- 
 ered up in the brilliancy and buoyancy of its style, that 
 they are likely to escape notice. In the beautiful tumult 
 of bright words, and the uniform glare of the represent- 
 ation, we are apt to overlook the lack of close and search- 
 ing examination. Fine and true as are many of her 
 remarks, and valuable as is much of the information she 
 dares to give, she still is too ap: to blend her own indi- 
 'iduality with the individualities she is describing, and 
 to think she is comprehending Shakspeare when Shak- 
 speare is simply comprehending her. We feei it difficult 
 to say thus much in abatement of the praise cheer- 
 fully awarded to one of the most fascinating books in the 
 language, but vve hardly think that anj judicious admirer 
 9f Mrs. Jameson can suppose that Shakspeare's heroines 
 
224 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 could pass through the medium of her mind without a 
 modification of their essential character. 
 
 But exceeding all books on the great dramatist in bulk 
 and pretension is Ulrici's big octavo on Shakspeare's 
 Dramatic Art. This is German in the worst sense of 
 the word, "being so strange a conglomeration of sense and 
 fanaticism, of sagacity and dulness, that it is impossible 
 to call it either excellent or execrable. It is learned, 
 ingenious, acute, often eloquent, often profound, gives 
 evidence of careful research and deep thought, and 
 is worthy to be read by every man who can muster 
 courage to read it ; but it hardly conveys any impression 
 of Shakspeare at all. The author regards his system 
 first, himself second, and his nominal subject last. He 
 takes as high ground for Shakspeare's genius as can pos- 
 sibly be assumed, and then impresses on his whole works 
 the peculiar form of his own dominant dogma. Shak 
 speare, according to him, consciously or unconsciously, 
 wrote in perfect harmony with the truth of things, and 
 the " ground-idea " of every one of his plays is a theo- 
 logical doctrine. When he comes to develop this general 
 principle, we find that he is not taking Shakspeare as an 
 object of critical investigation, but as an illustration of 
 his own philosophical and theological opinions ; and the 
 • thousand-souled " Shakspeare, the " oceanic mind," 
 dwindles down into a mere auxiliary of the " one-idea'd " 
 dlrici. The characters are not analyzed, and are viewed 
 only in reference to the axiomatic moral they are said to 
 convey. The great " ground-idea " of the book may be 
 said to consist in the assumption that Shakspeare wrote 
 his plays to illustrate the five points of Calvinism. We 
 do not say that these poirts cannot be found in Shak* 
 spe-are, for almost every subjective mind finds thew 
 
SHAXSPEARE'S CRITICS. 225 
 
 exactly what it brings ; but it is somewhat ridiculous for 
 a person to suppose that he has measured the genius of 
 the world's master dramatist, when he has merely given 
 the measure of himself. Ulrici's ingenuity and learning 
 are sufficient to enable him to make out a plausible case ; 
 but he appears to us as far from Shakspeare in spirit as 
 old Eymer himself. 
 
 Ulrici is an indication of the extravagances to which 
 the principles of an interpretative criticism may seem to 
 lead, when they are employed as a mere cover under 
 which to smuggle individual impressions. In the Lec- 
 tures of Mr. Hudson, we perceive that a right applica- 
 tion of the same principles may result in a positive addi- 
 tion to knowledge. Although the American critic has 
 his own eccentricities of opinion and expression, and dis- 
 plays occasionally a disposition to fight his own battles 
 under Shakspeare's banner, he still contrives generally to 
 maintain a marked line of distinction between his own 
 impressions and the laws of the objects he investigates. 
 His work, apart from its independent merits of compo- 
 sition and criticism, stands in intimate relation to the 
 productions of his predecessors, especially to those of 
 Schlegel and Coleridge. Possessing in a considerable 
 degree the power of learning from other minds without 
 becoming their vassal, Mr. Hudson's Lectures are the 
 result of a study both of Shakspeare and his critics. By 
 thus embodying in his own work the most valuable por- 
 tion of former Shakspearian criticism, he is enabled to 
 advance beyond it. The leading characteristic of the 
 philosophical critics, that of excessive generalization, 
 which led them comparatively to neglect the analysis of 
 Shakspeare's characters, he has unconsciously avoided, 
 from the instinctive antipathy of his mind to all general 
 
 VOL. n. 15 
 
226 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ities not vitally connected with objects. Though his pa»«' 
 sionate dislike of abstractions deprives his Lectures of 
 that appearance of comprehensiveness which comes from 
 a suppression, rather than an inclusion, of details, ana 
 though it is sometimes felt as a real defect, still it is that 
 quality of his mind which has enabled him to succeed in 
 the most neglected department of Shakspearian criticism, 
 that of evolving the elements and laws of the individual 
 characters, and indicating their application to practical 
 afe. 
 
 Before, however, we attempt a consideration of Mr. 
 Hudson's positive merits as a thinker and critic, we must 
 notice some obvious peculiarities of his character and 
 style. These can hardly be allowed to elude criticism 
 on the ground of their genuineness, for we are by no 
 means inclined to give the critic the advantage of being 
 judged in accordance with the philosophical principles he 
 may apply to poets. The first impression which a reader 
 obtains of Mr. Hudson is undoubtedly that of a powerful 
 but somewhat perverse writer, gifted with more than an 
 ordinary degree of combativeness, and battling for opin- 
 ions with all the energy of a man engaged in a personal 
 conflict. Possessing a strong and sturdy understanding, 
 quick and deep sympathies, an affluent fancy, and a biting 
 wit, with a large command of the mo^st vigorous and 
 apposite language, and a perfect fearlessness as to whoflv 
 or what he hits, he stalks into the company of decorous 
 critics and prim essayists with his Shakspearian thesis in 
 his hand, and, on the slightest intimation of a desire for 
 tontroversy, incontinently rains down on his opponents a 
 gtorm of propositions, arguments and epigrams, from 
 which they are glad to escape by a precipitate flight. 
 Nothing can be more unphilosophical than Mr. Hudson's 
 
shakspej^ re's critics. 227 
 
 imnner, and it is in strange contrast with the polite 
 sneer, and somewhat prim and reserved contempt, with 
 which Schlegel dismisses an opponent, or the exclama- 
 tory regret with which Coleridge mourns the narrowness 
 of a critic's creed. Alike in narrative, in the exposition 
 of principles, in the analysis of characters, in side 
 thrusts at popular foibles and delusions, Mr. Hudson's 
 style is characterized by intensity and intellectual fierce- 
 ness. His only mode of conquering an adversary is to 
 overthrow him, and when he has him down he ends the 
 matter by pommelling him to death. He enters the lists 
 as Shakspeare's champion; and woe to the unlucky wight, 
 no matter how accredited his reputation as an author, 
 who has at any time dropped incautious expressions 
 raising a doubt of Shakspeare's supremacy. Thus, Mr. 
 Hume's unfortunate remark respecting the Elizabethan 
 age, as regards the correctness and taste of its literature, 
 affords the occasion of a furious attack on that acutest of 
 metaphysicians, in which every weak point in his mind 
 is pricked and pierced with the most remorseless cer- 
 tainty of aim, until he expires at last in an agony of 
 epigrams. Some miserable heretics against the true 
 critical faith, whose stupidity and insignificance preserve 
 them from being roasted in the slow fires of wit, but who 
 have been lifted into sottie celebrity by the enormity of 
 their crimes in attempting to improve Shakspeare down 
 to popular taste, are loaded with nicknames and pelted 
 with scornful epithets. Nahum Tate, one of these ple- 
 beian butchers of the poet's plots and style, is hooted at 
 as a '-wooden-headed man," and his improved Lear is 
 kicked from sentence to sentence down a truculent para- 
 graph, until at last our sympathies plead for poor Nahum 
 m the ground of the wrong implied in cruelty to am« 
 
228 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 mals. This feeling, that meddling with Shakspeare's 
 plays is literally sacrilege, and objecting to them is auda- 
 cious heresy, indicates how thorough is our author's 
 worship of his subject, and how intensely he has realized 
 it to his mind as a living reality. 
 
 The style of Mr. Hudson is a fair image of his intel- 
 lect and character, admitting considerable variety of 
 expression, but stamped throughout with strongly marked 
 and peculiar traits. It is the vehicle, not merely of anal- 
 ysis and reflection, but of wit, satire, scorn, passion, and 
 fancy. Often, indeed, the former qualities find their 
 raciest expression under the latter, and the reader is 
 favored with a chain of logical deduction the links of 
 which are epigrams, or with a theory impaled on a scalpel 
 festooned with imagery. It would be difficult to describe 
 the style, for it varies with the writer's moods and the 
 subjects treated, and is restrained neither by self-imposed 
 nor rhetorical rules. Now bristling with antithesis, now 
 flashing with satire, — at one time melting into softness 
 and sweetness of diction, at another bringing out the 
 thought with a jerk in a perfect verbal spasm, — now 
 sharp, crisp, biting, scornfully defiant, each short sentence 
 exploding into sparkles, and then again rolling on in a 
 grand succession of harmonious periods, — it always has 
 the merit of clearness and precision, and in all its alter- 
 nations, from scientific terms which approach the obscure 
 to homely phrases which fall plump into the inelegant, 
 there is little chance of missing the meaning. It is a 
 style full of the energy of life, but a life which is some- 
 limes galvanized into spasmodic strength. 
 
 The author's command of language is despotic, and 
 Ake all despots he not unfrequently exercises his power 
 capriciously. This is shown principally in extravagance 
 
shakspeaee's critics 229 
 
 of statement and in repetition of thoughi. The first is, 
 to a great extent, the re,5alt of his greatest merit, for 
 extravagance in expression comes as often from intense 
 as from feeble conception, resulting in one case from the 
 boiling over of the mind in vehement language, in the 
 excitement produced by proximity to a great object 
 which awakens all its pow^ers, and in the other being 
 merely an attempt to make words perform the office both 
 of thinking and expression. Mr. Hudson, except, per- 
 haps, in his analysis of Shakspeare's female characters, 
 does not give to his subjects that remoteness which 
 admits of their calm contemplation, but writes close to 
 the vital truth of the thing he describes, with that tin- 
 gling of the blood which such an immediate contact with 
 the soul of passion and the life of thought produces and 
 prolongs. To dive into the depths of Hamlet's mind, or 
 to follow step by step the p.^ogress of crime in the heart 
 and imagination of Macbeth, or to pass resolutely into 
 that awful region of passion whose terrible gusts rend 
 the frames of Othello and Lear, is not a thing to be done 
 or recorded with an even pulse and a cool brain. We 
 accordingly think that, in such instances as these, Mr. 
 Hudson's extravagance of expression, though not always 
 strictly accurate as to thought, is eminently true to feeling, 
 and will be more successful in stamping on the reader's 
 mind a living impression of the characters than if he had 
 weighed his words with more scrupulous care. But he 
 has an exaggeration of statement of another kind, which 
 consists in lifting persons into the perfection of prin- 
 ciples, and of confounding possibilities with realities. 
 Thus, in the view of Shakspeare's mind, in many re- 
 spects a masterly specimen of thought and composition, 
 he makes Shakspeare to be what he really only ap- 
 
230 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 proached, and seems to forget that, after all which can be 
 said of him as a great man, with large powers harmorii* 
 ously combmed, he was still a man, and not humanity. 
 This extravagance we know is simply the extravagance 
 of epigram, aiming to suggest the truth more vividly by 
 exaggerating it ; but an analyst so close, fierce, and sub- 
 tile, as Mr. Hudson, with his felicity and pride in limita- 
 tions, has hardly a right to expect that his readers or 
 critics will allow him t^ claim exemption from the very 
 letter of the law. 
 
 The other fault of Mr. Hudson, that of repetition, is 
 common to him with almost all lecturers. He has less of 
 it than Cousin and Villemain, in whose discourses the 
 leading ideas are made to perform an amount of labor, 
 in the mere changing of dress and attitude, which at 
 last wears and wastes them away. The repetition we 
 observe in Mr. Hudson results from an occasional fanati- 
 cism of acuteness, which is sceptical of the ability of a 
 proposition to convey a complete idea, and is eager to 
 express all its elements. Though he embodies the most 
 refined distinctions of analysis with uncommon skill and 
 verbal certainty, he lingers occasionally too long on one 
 subtilty, presents it in a variety of attitudes through a 
 succession of brilliant sentences, and, indeed, indulges 
 his power of condensed expression at the expense of real 
 condensation of thought. Thus, an acute or profound 
 ooservation is often first stated in language whose mean- 
 ing Ignorance itself cannot miss, then embodied in an 
 image, then again forced into an antithetic or epigram- 
 matic form, and afterw^ards, perhaps, slyly made to per- 
 form the office of sting to a gibe, until, in the end, it is 
 hammered out of the head m the very attempt tc 
 hammer it in. This characteristic is more especiall" 
 
SHAKSPEARE S CRITICS. 231 
 
 jbservable in the earlier lectures, in wl. ich, being com- 
 pelled to piesent the profoundest principles of philosophi- 
 cal ^'riticism in a popular form, his eagerness to make 
 them readily apprehended leads him to push them into 
 every minor avenue to the mind, as well as to send them 
 on the direct road to the understanding. 
 
 We have one more cause of quarrel vsrith Mr. Hudson 
 before v^^e proceed to the positive merits of his book. I< 
 is so rare to have a critic before our court of literary 
 justice, that when we do, it is proper to make him fee! 
 how " sharper than a serpent's tooth " is the bite of 
 criticism to an author. Our present objection refers tc 
 the explosions of Mr. Hudson's individuality in the 
 guerilla warfare which he wages against the reformers 
 and transcendentalists of our enlightened age. This 
 bush-fighting along the main road of the text, though it 
 lends raciness to the style, and will doubtless delighj 
 many who have no appreciation of his great merits as a 
 thinker and critic, is often carried to the extreme limits 
 of a reviewer's forbearance. Many of his remarks are 
 unquestionably acute and just, and as far as they ridicule 
 strutting pretension, presumptuous imbecility, and com 
 placent ignorance, — as far as they unmask the " moral 
 bullies and virtuous braggadocios " who are engaged in 
 beating up a little conscience into a great deal of ethical 
 and political froth, or probe sharply those small coteries 
 of elegant souls, where 
 
 " Self-inspec:ioD sucks his little thumb," — 
 
 we have little to say in objection, except that his digres- 
 sions somewhat break the unity of hi? discourse ; but he 
 himself is sometimes forced by his contempt or indigna- 
 tion to the opposite extreme, and to class, in apj^earance 
 
232 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 at least, the principles of civil and. religious liberty undei 
 the general head of conceit and spiritual pride, and to 
 exalt conformity to church and state into the perfection 
 of wisdom and piety. This seems to us " more excel 
 lent foolery than the other ;" and though we woujd not 
 directly charge it upon Mr. Hudson, there are rash and 
 peevish expressions in his book, which might be forced 
 to bear such a construction. 
 
 We have thus noticed at some length Mr. Hudson's 
 peculiarities of manner, not because they affect the in- 
 tegrity of his interpretation of objects, or seriously 
 detract from the intrinsic value of his work, but because 
 they are calculated to raise false issues regarding its 
 merits, apart from the shock they sometimes give to 
 good taste. Admitting everything which can be said 
 against it on these points, it has still solid excellences of 
 thought and style which require a different treatment. 
 We shall, therefore, now attempt to indicate its leading 
 characteristics as a work of philosophical criticism. 
 
 Mr. Hudson has thrown the whole strength of his 
 mind into the analysis of the plays, especially the char- 
 acters. In this respect, Schlegel, Coleridge and Hazlitt, 
 are imperfect and meagre in comparison with him, 
 though for his own success he is considerably indebted to 
 their previous labors. He has practically established one 
 important fact in regard to Shakspeare's characters, that 
 each is not only an individual, but a whole class individ- 
 ualized; and that, as the ideal or common head of a 
 class, it is not only admirable as a character, but indicates 
 the tendencies of a large body of men. So intense is 
 the individuality of each character, that it is only when 
 a powerful analysis has resolved it into its elements that 
 •ve perceive the vast amount of thought and observation 
 
SHAKSPEARE S CRITICS. 233 
 
 it embodies. This analysis, applied to all his characters, 
 conveys a living idea of the amazing force, clearness, 
 and grasp of Shakspeare's mind, in its relative compre- 
 hension of the actual and possible of human nature, and, 
 better than all vague panegyric, demonstrates his unap- 
 proachable greatness. For the first time in the history 
 of the intellect, we find in him a mind w^hose creative 
 vitality is commensurate with its comprehension ; reach- 
 ing down into the heart of things with as much facility 
 as it stretches over and around them ; seizing, at once, 
 the elements of human nature, and generalizing the 
 world of men, interpreting the latter by light derived 
 from the former, and by the harmonious action of his 
 powers of conception, combination, and observation, 
 enabled to express mankind in men, and womankind in 
 women. When to this we add the capacity of combin- 
 ing the elements of humanity into new and strange 
 forms of being, which are neither natural nor unnatural, 
 but supernatural, we have an object for contemplation 
 which criticism cannot exhaust, and which it has hardly 
 begun to conceive. The wonder is, not that Shakspeare 
 could have created so many characters, but that he could 
 have comprehended a world in so few ; that he was so 
 rare a combination of the poet and philosopher as to 
 grasp truth in the concrete, and embody the most 
 gigantic generalizations of the intellect in living forms. 
 Were his characters merely individuals, or merely per- 
 sonified ideas, they would not contain within themselves 
 a fraction of their present applicability to life. As it is, 
 he has occupied almost every department of thought. 
 CToethe has testified that he found it difficult to avoid an 
 imitation or repetition of Shakspeare, when he strove 
 
234 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 most conscientiously to express himself or his own crea- 
 tions. 
 
 In this analytic portion of his labors, Mr. Hudson has 
 opened and worked many rich veins of thought, and 
 indicated practically what is meant by Shakspeare's 
 opulence and breadth of mind. If, however, he had 
 merely analyzed the characters, and exhibited their wealth 
 of suggestiveness, he would have performed but one im- 
 portant portion of a critic's duty. He has not only done 
 this, but has forcibly conceived the characters as indi- 
 viduals, and happily blends their personal traits with 
 their general significance, in reproducing them to the 
 imagination and understanding. Shakspeare's plays 
 constitute a kind of world in themselves, and no person 
 of deep and delicate sympathies can dwell in it long 
 without giving a positive existence to its men and wo- 
 men, and referring to Hamlet and FalstafF and Cordelia 
 as though they were the companions of his eye as well 
 as mmd. This is especially true of Mr. Hudson. He 
 appears as the lover or enemy of many characters whom 
 Shakspeare is content to represent ; and considers what 
 they are and what they do as subjects of approval or 
 condemnation, as much as if they were veritable person- 
 ages in actual life. This intense realization is, perhaps, 
 the greatest charm of his book, though at the same time 
 it is one of the disturbing forces in his style, and the 
 occasion of many a gust of intellectual wrath. It gives 
 a certain heartiness to his most abstract discussions of 
 principles, and through its influence the peculiar Shak 
 Bpearian quality of each character rarely escapes his 
 imagination when it eludes his analysis. Indeed, hi 
 this interchange of the synthetic and analytic processes 
 »f criticism, his various powers appear in aU their force 
 
shakspeare's critics. 235 
 
 nnd refinement, for he commonly cortrives to leave a 
 concrete impression of a character upon the mind after 
 he has subjected its elements to the minutest scrutiny 
 The result of his examination of each play is a view of 
 its plot and design through the characters, and he thus 
 lifts it into a Shakspearian region of thought, action, and 
 being. The mistake of the German critics, as we have 
 remarked, consists in bringing down the play into a 
 comparatively commonplace region of existence, by over- 
 looking the modification which everything receives from 
 Shakspeare's own individuality, and from not adequately 
 perceiving that it is the characters which lend greatness 
 to the action and plan of the piece. 
 
 In exhibiting the mutual dependence of the characters, 
 and their connection with the drama in which they 
 appear, Mr. Hudson is very successful. He clearly 
 understands that individuals in Sl-.akspeare, as in life, 
 are developed by mutual contact and collision ; and 
 accordingly he views each person in his relations, and 
 interprets his character in the light cast upon it from all 
 parts of the play. For instance, in the masterly analy- 
 sis of lago, he sometimes discards the little demon's own 
 self-communings as furnishing evidence of his motives, 
 on the ground of his being a measureless liar ; and indi- 
 cates, in many instances, the snreness and subtilty of 
 Shakspeare's knowledge of human nature, in making his 
 deceivers thus practise deception upon themselves, and 
 lie even in soliloquies. In this portion of his labors, Mr. 
 Hudson displays a delicacy of thought, a capacity to 
 follow the minutest and most complex operations of the 
 mind, and occasionally a microscopic nicety of vision, 
 which would not discredit the raost accomplished meta- 
 physician. 
 
236 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 It would be difficult to decide whether our critic has 
 been more successful in delineating Skakspeare's men or 
 women. Certainly no reader, who judged of the scope 
 of his powers by their exercise in controversy, or in grap- 
 pling sturdily with some knotty difficulty which had to 
 be removed by main strength, would give him credit for 
 the delicacy and clearness of his perception of moral 
 beauty, and the refinements of the affections. The ex- 
 quisite felicity with which he touches without profanely 
 handling the most ideal of Shakspeare's heroines, and 
 his constant sense of a certain sacredness attaching tc 
 the sex, are in strange contrast, not only to his rough- 
 and-tumble mode of upsetting a critical dunce, but to his 
 close and fierce exposition of an lago and a Goneril 
 His delineations of Rosalind, Beatrice, Viola, Perdifc 
 Juliet, Cordelia, Desdemona, Hermione, not to mention 
 others, are conceived with great subtilty of sentimeni 
 and imagination, and have an indefinable charm caught 
 from an intense sympathy with their natures. Thesn 
 ideal creations of the great poet, more truly and vitally 
 natural than most of the women of actual life, he has 
 contrived to reproduce whole upon his page, in the clear 
 sweetness and beautiful dignity of their characters, and 
 has been especially successful in setting forth their in- 
 nate, unconscious purity of sou], shining through the 
 most equivocal circumstances, and lending a glory to 
 the simplest acts and expressions. It would be vain to 
 look elsewhere for so complete a demonstration of Shak- 
 speare's unrivalled success in exhibiting womankind in 
 women, or a more thorough exposure of the fallacy tha 
 Beaumont and Fletcher excelled him in female characters. 
 No extracts would convey a full impression of the felicitj 
 ^■ith which Mr. Hudson has entered into the spirit oi 
 
shakspeare's critics. H37 
 
 Shakspeare's heroines ; and we can quote but one speci- 
 men in justification of our praise. The following is a 
 portion of his remarks on Perdita : — 
 
 " The second part of Winter's Tale introduces us to very dif- 
 ferent scenes and persons from those which make up the first. 
 The lost princess, and heir-apparent of Bohemia, two of the 
 noblest and loveliest beings that ever fancy conceived, occupy 
 the centre of the picture, while around them are clustered rustic 
 shepherds and shepherdesses, amid their pastimes and pursuits, 
 the whole being enlivened by the tricks and humors of a merry 
 nedler and pickpocket. The most romantic beauty and the 
 lost comic drollery are here blended together. For simple 
 purity and sweetness, the scene which unfolds the loves and 
 characters of the prince and princess is not surpassed by any- 
 thing in Shakspeare, and of course is not approached by any- 
 thing out of him. All that is enchanting in romance, lovely in 
 innocence, elevated in feeling, sacred in faith, is here brought 
 together, bathed in the colors of heaven. The poetry is the very 
 innocence of love, embodied in the fragrance of flowers. Clad 
 in immortal freshness, this scene is one of those things which 
 we always welcome as we do the return of spring, and over 
 which our feelings may renew their youth forever : in brief, so 
 long as nature breathes, and flowers bloom, and hearts love, 
 they will do it in the spirit of what is here expressed. 
 
 " Perdita is a fine illustration of native intelligence as dis 
 tinguished from artificial acquirements, and of inborn dignity 
 .lur.sting through all the disadvantages of the humblest station. 
 Schlegel somewhere says, ' Shakspeare is particularly fond of 
 showing the superiority of the innate over the acquired j ' but 
 he has nowhere done it more beautifully or more powerfully 
 than in this unfledged angel. 
 
 'The prelfiest low-born lass that ever 
 Ran on the green-sward, nothing she does or seems 
 But smacks of something greater than herself.' 
 
 Tust as much a queen as if she were brought up at court, and 
 jurt as muf.h a shepherdess as if she were born a shep'ierd^i 
 
SJaCJ ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 daughter, the graces of the princely and the simplicities of the 
 pastoral character seem striving which shall express her loveli- 
 est. She is not a poetical being ; she is poetry itself; and 
 everything lends or borrows beauty at her touch. A playmate 
 of the flowers, when we see them together, we can hardly tell 
 whether they take more inspiration from her, or she takes more 
 from them ; and while she becomes the sweetest of poets in 
 making nosegays, the nosegays in her hands become the richest 
 of crowns. Courted by the prince in disguise at one of then 
 rustic festivals, herself the mistress of the feast, she transforms 
 the place into a paradise." — Vol. i., pp. 331, 332. 
 
 There is too wide a variety of subjects included in Mr. 
 Hudson's volumes to allow us room for a special criti- 
 cism on his treatment of each. His lectures on As You 
 Like It, The Tempest, Midsummer Night's Dream, 
 Cymbeline, and Romeo and Juliet, afford perpetual stim- 
 ulants both to attention and controversy. In these he 
 has given powerful, and for the most part accurate, 
 delineations of Prospero, Shylock, Jaques, Romeo, Mer- 
 cutio, and Caliban, not to mention Ariel, the Nurse, and 
 Bottom. His sketches of Malvolio as " self-love-sick," 
 
 — of Jaques as a refined epicure of sentimental emotion, 
 "an utterly useless, yet perfectly harmless man, seeking 
 wisdom by abjuring its first principle," — of ParoUes, 
 " that prince of braggarts, that valiant word-gun, that 
 pronoun of a man, a marvellous compound of wit, volu- 
 bility, impudence, rascality, and poltroonery," as a 
 " bugbear of pretension and shadow in man's clothing,"' 
 
 — of Master Slender, as a " most potent piece of imbe- 
 c lity, an indescribable and irresistible nihility, who is 
 obliged to be sui generis from a lack of force of charac- 
 ter to imitate or resemble anybody else," — of Caliban, 
 *s "a strange, uncouth, malignant, yet marvellously life 
 like confusion of natures, part man, part demon, part 
 
S'ttAKSPEARE's CRITICS. 2iJ'9 
 
 Drute, whom Prospero by his wonderful crt and faience 
 has educated into a sort of poet," — are all adn.iralily 
 done and faithful to the subject ; but we can only allude 
 to them. In the sharp analysis and genia reproduction 
 of the comic characters, Mr. Hudson shows that he is as 
 capable of understanding th-^ philosophy of the ludicrous 
 as of sympathizing with its mirth. 
 
 But the finest portion of his work is that devoted to 
 the four great tragedies, Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, and 
 Othello. These bear evident marks of much elaboration 
 in thought and diction, and rank, in our opinion, with 
 the best specimens of philosophical criticism in English 
 or German literature. The vigor and brilliancy of the 
 style, and the verbal felicities and Hudsonisms with 
 which it is variegated, are likely to dazzle away atten-^ 
 tion, in some degree, from the real weight and import- 
 ance of the matter. It would be absurd to say that 
 they are altogether original, for complete originality on 
 subjects which have engaged the attention of so many 
 powerful intellects would be another name for extrava- 
 gance and paradox ; but they are original in the sense 
 of containing the deeply meditated opinions of one mind, 
 who, while he has freely sought light from other minds, 
 has evidently adopted no opinions which he has not 
 scrupulously examined. Some views which are promi- 
 nent in other writers he has included in his own, by 
 altering their relations and limiting their applicaticn ; 
 but he has not hesitated to reject many which are well 
 accredited. The wonderful characters of these dramas 
 he appears to have profoundly stiditd, especially in 
 regard to the practical wisdom which may be evolved 
 from then by close study; and his elt cidation of their 
 uioml and mental constitution is always able, e ran whei; 
 
240 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 it leaves room for controversy. No one critic has 
 excelled him in the forcible presentation to the under- 
 standing and imagination of such a gallery of characters 
 us Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Hamlet, Polonius, Ophelia 
 Lear, Cordelia, Othello, lago, and Desdemona. 
 
 Mr. Hudson's general idea of Hamlet, Shakspeare's 
 enigma in character, is that of " conscious plenitude of 
 intellect, united with exceeding fulness and fineness of 
 sensibility, and guided by a predominant sentiment of 
 moral rectitude ;" and he attempts to show, with great 
 force and ingenuity, that Hamlet is withheld from 
 action, not from the lack of will, but by the strife in his 
 mind between incompatible duties ; filial piety prompting 
 him to obey the commands of the ghost, conscience for- 
 bidding him to commit regicide and murder; and the 
 result is, that the greatness of his nature can be ex- 
 pressed only in thought. It might be objected to this, 
 that will is a relative term, and even admitting that 
 Hamlet possessed more will than many who act with 
 decision and rapidity, the fact that his other powers 
 were larger in proportion justifies the common behef, 
 that he was deficient in energy of purpose, Mr. Hud- 
 son says that he always acts with decision, where his 
 moral nature is not divided between incompatible duties: 
 but this might be said with as much truth of the most 
 inefficient person, it being the characteristic of a healthy 
 mind that the will is in such harmony vdth the con- 
 science and the intellect that there can be no strife 
 between duties, but there must be a resolute choice of 
 one course of action as on the whole the wisest and best. 
 The truth is, Hamlet is so complex a creation, and 
 includes within the general unity of his character such a 
 variety of elements, that it is almost impossible to star* 
 
shakspeare's critics. 24i 
 
 any theory regarding him which shall adequately translate 
 our feeling of his individuality into an intellectual form ; 
 and Mr. Hudson himself is compelled to admit that there 
 is a mystery about him which " baffles the utmost efforts 
 of criticism," and to present his own view with more 
 indecision and less positiveness than is usual with him. 
 
 It would be easy to prove that the play of Hamlet, 
 considered as a work of art, is not so great as two or 
 three of the other tragedies ; but the feelings of men will 
 always pronounce in favor of its containing the greatest 
 of Shakspeare's characters. Considered in respect to 
 its universality, Lear, Macbeth, and Othello, are but 
 great specialities in comparison ; more distinctly appre- 
 hended, it is true, and addressing with more potency the 
 strongest passions and affections, but rather invigorating 
 us with a grand impression of human powers and ca- 
 pacities, than prompting those "thoughts which wander 
 through eternity," or touching that inward sense of our 
 mefficiency as moral beings, which is the mournful fas- 
 cination of Hamlet. The reading or representation of 
 the other plays produces a rush and glow of the blood, a 
 feeling of power and greatness as connected with the 
 energies of guilt and the struggles of passion, a wonder- 
 ful sense of what man is able to effect both in obeying 
 and conquering conscience. The impression left by 
 Hamlet is that of profound melancholy. 
 
 Many of the various elements in Hamlet's character 
 Mr. Hudson has distinctly exhibited, and acutely recon- 
 ciled some of its apparent inconsistencies ; and, as a 
 whole, we think his essay will bear comparison with 
 the best which have been written on this exhaustless 
 subject. The other characters of the play, especially 
 Ophelia and Polonius, are admirably discriminated 
 
 VOL. II. 16 
 
242 ES&Ay j AND REVIEWS. 
 
 The lecture on Macbeth is the ablest in the volume 
 for sustained vigor of thought and style. Its leading 
 excellence consists in that absorption of the writer's 
 mind in his subject which lends to his essay a portion 
 of the grandeur of the play itself, while it prevents him 
 from indulging in any freaks of digression. The general 
 view taken of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth we think is 
 as original as it is true, and it is sustained with much 
 power. Imagination, considered both as a faculty of the 
 mind and as an element of character, is most profoundly 
 analyzed ; and in a passage of which we can give but a 
 small part, it is applied to the settlement of various 
 disputes regarding the degree and kind of guilt which 
 should attach respectively to these partners in crime. 
 
 " A strong and excitable imagination, set on fire of con- 
 science, naturally fascinates and spell-binds the other faculties, 
 iind thus gives an objective force and effect to its own internal 
 workings. Under this guilt-begotten haliuciuation, the subject 
 loses present dangers in horrible imaginings, and comes to be 
 tormented with his own involuntary creations. Thus conscience 
 inflicts its retributions, not directly in the form of remorse, but 
 indirectly through imaginary terrors which again react on the 
 conscience, as fire is kept burning by the current of air which 
 itself generates. In such a mind the workings of conscience 
 may be prospective and preventive ; the very conception of 
 crime starting up a swarm of terrific visions to withhold the 
 subject from perpetration. Arrangement is thus made in our 
 nature for a process of compensation, in that the same faculty 
 which invests crime with unreal attractions also calls up unreal 
 terrors to deter from its commission. A predominance of this 
 faculty everywhere marks the character and conduct of Mac- 
 beth. Hence his apparent freedom from compunctious visitings, 
 even when he is in reality most subject to them. He seems 
 conscienceless from the very form in which his conscience 
 works ; seems flying from outward dangers, while conscious 
 guilt is the very source of his apprehensions. It is probablj 
 
shakspeare's critics. 243 
 
 Irom o-veisight of this that some have pronounced him a mere 
 cautious, timid, remorseless villain, restrained from crime only 
 oy a shrinking, selfish apprehensiveness. Undoubtedly there is 
 much in his conduct that appears to sustain this view : he does 
 indeed seem dead to the guilt, and morbidly alive to the dangers 
 of his situation ; free from remorses of conscience, and filled 
 with terrors of imagination ; unchecked by moral feelings, and 
 oppressed by selfish fears : but whence his wonderful and un- 
 controllable irritability of imagination? How comes his mind 
 so prolific of horrible imaginings, but that his imagination its 'If 
 is set on fire of hell ? The truth is, he seems remorseless only 
 oecause in his mind the agonies of remorse project and trans- 
 late themselves into the spectres of a conscience-stricken imag 
 ination. 
 
 " In Lady Macbeth, on the contrary, the workings of con 
 science can only be retrospective and retributive : she is too 
 unimaginative either to be allured to crime by imaginary splen 
 dors, or withheld from it by imaginary terrors. Without an 
 organ to project and embody its workings in outward visions, 
 her conscience can only prey upon itself in the tortures of 
 remorse. Accordingly, she knows no compunctious visitings 
 before the deed, nor any suspension or alleviation of them after 
 it. Thus, from her want or weakness of imagination, she 
 becomes the victim of a silent but most dreadful retribution. 
 Conscience being left to its own resources, she may indeed pos- 
 sess its workings in secret, but she can never for a moment 
 repress them ; nay, she cannot reveal them if she would, and 
 she dare not if she could ; the fires burn not outwards into 
 spectres to sear her eyeballs and frighten her out of her self- 
 possession, but concentrate themselves into hotter fury within 
 her. This is a form of anguish to which Heaven has apparently 
 denied the relief or the mitigation of utterance. The agonies 
 ol an imbosomed hell cannot be told, they can only be felt ; or, 
 at most, the awful secret can be but dimly shadowed forth, in 
 the sighings of the furn.xce when all is asleep but the unquench- 
 able fire, or in the burning asunder of the cords that unite the 
 BOUx to its earthly dweLing-place. "With such amazing depth 
 and power of insight does Shakspeare detect and unfold the 
 |o;ret workings of the human mind 1 " — Vol. ii., pp. 165- -167. 
 
244 ESSAtS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 The Weird Sisters Mr. Hudson has painted in al 
 their moral hideousness and grotesque grandeur. 
 
 " The "Weird Sisters, indeed, and all that belongs to theni; 
 are but poetical impersonations of evil influences : they are the 
 imaginative, irresponsible agents or instruments of the devil ; 
 capable of inspiring guilt, but not of incurring it ; in and 
 through whom all the powers of their chief seem bent up to the 
 accomplishment of a given purpose. But with all their essen- 
 tial wickedness, there is nothing gross or vulgar or sensual 
 about them. They are the very purity of sin incarnate; the 
 vestal virgins, so to speak, of hell; radiant with a sort of 
 inverted holiness ; fearful anomalies in body and soul, in whom 
 everything seems reversed ; whose elevation is downwards ; 
 whose duty is sin ; whose religion is wickedness ; and the law 
 of whose being is violation of law ! Unlike the Furies of 
 JEschylus, they are petrific, not to the senses, but to the 
 thoughts. At first, indeed, on merely looking at them, we can 
 hardly keep from laughing, so uncouth and grotesque is their 
 appearance : but afterwards, on looking into them, we find them 
 terrible beyond description ; and the more we look into them, 
 the more terrible do they become ; the blood almost curdling in 
 our veins, as, dancing and singing their infernal glees over 
 embryo murders, they unfold to our thoughts the cold, passion- 
 less, inexhaustible malignity and deformity of their nature." - • 
 Vol II., p. 148. 
 
 The essay on Lear is full of admirable matter, show 
 ing, however, a struggle with the difficulties of the sub- 
 ject. In some respects it is the most powerful and the 
 most characteristic of Mr. Hudson's Lectures. Leai 
 himself is analyzed at considerable length, and the amaz- 
 ing grandeur of the character, as it develops itself undei 
 the pressure of unnatural wrong, and the might and vari 
 Bty of passions which are let loose throughout the drama 
 are set forth with great distinctness and a firm clutch ot 
 Uie subject in all its parts. Edmund is finely dissected 
 
shakspeare's critics. 245 
 
 lind weU discriminated from lago and Richard. Kent 
 and Edgar are clearly portrayed in their connection with 
 the general design of the play. The description of Cor- 
 delia we have referred to before; but her heavenly 
 beauty is not more fully shown than the selfishness and 
 " hell-bom tact " of her sisters. " There is a smooth, 
 glib rhetoric," says Mr. Hudson, " in their professions, 
 unsweetened with the least infusion of feeling, and a 
 dry, hard, icy alertness of thought and speech in what 
 afterwards comes from them, which is almost terrific, and 
 which burns an impression into our minds from its very 
 coldness ; " and further on he does full justice to the 
 "wantonness and intrepidity of their malice." The 
 Fool has ever been a stumbling-block to critics of the 
 play ; but Mr. Hudson, instead of denying his right to be 
 in it at all> has wisely attempted to show Shakspeare's 
 object in placing him there. We extract the concluding 
 paragraph of his view of the character. 
 
 " I know not, therefore, how I can better describe the Fool, 
 than as the soul of pathos in a sort of comic masquerade ; one 
 in whom fun and frolic are sublimed and idealized into tragic 
 beauty ; with the garments of mourning showing through and 
 softened by the lawn of playfulness. In his ' laboring to out- 
 jest Lear's heart-struck injuries,' we see that his wits are set 
 a-dancing by grief; that his jests are secreted from the depths 
 of a heart struggling with pity and sorrow, as foam enwreatbes 
 the face of deeply troubled waters. So have I seen the lip 
 quiver and the cheek dimple into a smile, to relieve the eye of a 
 burden it was reeling under, yet ashamed to let fall. There is 
 al. along a shrinking, velvet-fouted delicacy of step in the Fool's 
 antics, as if, awed by the holiLess of the ground, they had put 
 the shoes from off their feet ; and he seems bringing diversion 
 to our thoughts, that he may the bette steal a sense of woe into 
 lur hearts ; as grief som< times puts on a face of mirth, and 
 toen gets betrayed by its very disguise. It is truly hard to 
 
246 E3SAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 tell wh'icuer the inspired antics which glitter and sparkle from 
 the surface of his mind be in more impressive contrast with the 
 dark, tragic scenes into which they are thrown, like rockets intc 
 a midnight tempest, or with the undercurrent of deep, tragic 
 thoughtfulness out of which they falteringly issue and play."- 
 Vol. II., pp. 273, 274, 
 
 We have little space left to remark on Mr. Hudson's 
 criticism of the tragedy of Othello. lago, Othello, and 
 Desdemona, characters well fitted to test the strength 
 and delicacy of his powers of analysis and interpretation. 
 he has treated very differently from most of Shakspeare's 
 critics. lago he considers as acting, not from revenge, but 
 from a certain intellectual pride and "lust of the brain;" 
 in regard to his own assignment of the motives for his 
 deeds, our critic agrees with Coleridge in calling it " the 
 motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity." This char- 
 acter is Mr. Hudson's masterpiece of intellectual anat- 
 omy, lago is the perfection of demoniacal cleverness, 
 and it is pleasant to see the wonderful inward mechan- 
 ism of his unmatched malignity of nature thus exhibited 
 in all its subtilty and complexity of arrangement and 
 movement. Othello is represented as the exact opposite 
 of lago, even in respect to jealousy, which, being a mean 
 and despicable passion, is more appropriate to our honest 
 Ancient than to the noble Moor. Mr. Hudson thinks 
 that Othello acted neither from jealousy nor revenge, but 
 from a sense of justice, in destroying Desdemona ; that 
 he killed her, not from suspicion, but from evidence of 
 her guilt ; and the fact that this evidence was the manu 
 kcture of lago's diabolical ingenuity does not alter tht 
 Liotives of his conduct. There can be little doubt that 
 this view is substantially the true one. Othello gives 
 eridenco, not only in his character taken by itself, but iv 
 
SHARSPEJlfiE's CRITICS. 241 
 
 rarious portions of the play, that jealousy and revenge 
 can have no place in his open and ingenuous mind ; and 
 in the last scene he particularly discriminates between 
 murdering Desdemona and sacrificing her. But we 
 think that the critic does not sufficiently consider in his 
 eloquent admiration of Othello's character, that though 
 the intention of the latter is to punish crime, he has a 
 wild way of doing it, and that the frightful tempests of 
 passion which sweep over his mind, and hurry him into 
 the commission of the deed, are characteristic not so 
 much of a just man as of a noble barbarian, who mis- 
 takes the object of justice from the very fact that justice 
 with him is a passion rather than a principle. We do 
 not believe, as Mr. Hudson seems to do, that Shakspeare 
 intended Othello as a model of manhood, but as an 
 instance of the weakness of a noble nature, in being the 
 victim of hot and treacherous impulses, when those 
 impulses pointed in the direction of honor. The fact 
 that he does not act from jealousy, revenge, or any mean 
 motive, but from passions noble and generous when 
 properly restrained, does not vindicate his manhood from 
 the reproach of folly in giving himself up to the excesses 
 of his sensibility. Mr. Hudson praises the objectiveness 
 of Othello's mind, and if we consider the Moor only in 
 his calm moments, the praise is deserved ; but no person, 
 who has ever felt the stir of a fierce impulse when he 
 has thought himself wronged or insulted, need be told 
 that passion not only blinds the best intellect, but draws 
 the conscience itself into its boiling depths ; not only 
 irnpei_s to act without a clear view of the case, but for 
 'he time sanctifies the impulse as right and just. Every 
 Krne and great man, therefore, distrusts what his pas- 
 
248 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 sions teach, and no person can be a model of manhoof* 
 whose nature is their victim. 
 
 The most beautiful portion of the lecture is thai 
 devoted to the representation of Othello and Desde 
 mona, in respect to their fitness for each other; and 
 a triumphant answer is given to the many objections tc 
 the match on the score of color and character. Mr. 
 Hudson calls it " the chaste union of magnanimity and 
 meekness." In his delineation of Desdemona, he devel- 
 ops the exceeding beauty of this most delicate and ex- 
 quisite of Shakspeare's women, with uncommon refine- 
 ment of sentiment and certainty of minute analysis, — 
 at the same time a little injuring the effect by snapping 
 his epigrammatic torpedoes in the faces of the champions 
 of woman's rights. This delineation is an illustration 
 of the flexibility with which the writer adapts his style 
 to the tone and character of his subject, and of his 
 singular felicity in exhibiting the pathos of gentleness, 
 and the beauty of deep, strong and quiet affection. 
 
 Mr. Hudson, in these lectures on Shakspeare, has 
 made the analysis of every character the occasion of 
 observations on a wide variety of subjects which its 
 nature suggests. He has thus given his philosophy of 
 life, in relation to the practical operation of the passions 
 and beliefs of men ; and we think he has been especially 
 successful in treating that important branch of ethic? 
 which refers to the passage of virtues into vices 
 through their connection with pride, vanity, or extrav 
 agant enthusiasm. As a large portion of the world' 
 goodness is, like King Richard's frame, but half made 
 up, and offends from its inharmonious and partial char 
 acter where it is most impressive by its separate quali 
 ties, the field open to the ethical analyst is unbounded 
 
shakspeare's cRiiics. 249 
 
 tnd as we havt rather ungently touched on some of Mr, 
 Hudson's digre, sions, it is but just to observe that he has 
 evinced throughout a disposition to disconnect virtue 
 from-cant, fanaticism, and conceit ; that he has detected 
 with a sure eye, and whipped with an honest ardor, the 
 excellence which is self-conscious, and the purity which 
 is proudly malignant ; and that he has exhibited, with a 
 fine union of sagacity and eloquence, the beauty of that 
 humble goodness which seeks to elude the eye, which 
 " vaunteth not itself and is not puffed up." In a period 
 like the present, when conscience rushes to the rostrum 
 anu explodes in fifth-rate heroics, and every "puny 
 whipster" of morality mistakes his appetite for noto- 
 riety for a call from the seventh heaven to rail at every 
 person wiser and better than himself, such lessons in 
 ethics may not be without their effect, recommended as 
 they are by a vigor and wi< as inexhaustible as the folly 
 and fanaticism on which they are exercised. We trust 
 that the present volumes will not be the last in which 
 the author's keen intellect and sturdy character will find 
 adequate expression. He has not, as yet, touched the 
 historical plays of Shakspeare, a sphere of investigation 
 and interpretation where he may win additional honors. 
 In choosing the world's great poet as the text for his 
 inquiries into human nature, he has a subject which, 
 however it may exhaust the resources of criticism, is in 
 Itself exhaustless. The present work we consider an 
 ■evidence rather than the measure of his capacity ; and 
 when we next meet him on the open field of literature, 
 we trust to find some extravagances retrenched and some 
 peculiarities suppressed, which now to some extent injure 
 His style, and encumber the movement of his mind. 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.* 
 
 The elegant edition of Sheridan's dramatic works, 
 published by Moxon, betrays one strange blunder, in 
 including the entertainment of The Camp, a feeble farce 
 written by Sheridan's friend Tickell, and altogether 
 unworthy of preservation in any form. The biography 
 furnished by Leigh Hunt possesses little merit beyond 
 an occasional luckiness of phrase and an occasional 
 felicity of criticism. It is written with more than his 
 usual languid jauntiness of style, and with less than his 
 usual sweetness of fancy. Indeed, that cant of good 
 feeling and conceit of heartiness, which, expressed in a 
 certain sparkling flatness of style, constitute so much of 
 the intellectual capital of Hunt's sentimental old age, are 
 as out of place, in a consideration of the sharp, shining 
 wit, the elaborate diction, and polished artifice of Sheri- 
 dan's writings, as in the narration of the brilliant deprav 
 ities and good-natured good-for-nothingness of Sheridan's 
 character. Like all Hunt's essays, however, it is exceed- 
 ingly anmsing, even in its vivacious presumption and 
 
 * The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. With a Biographi 
 cal and Critical Sketch. By Leigh Hunt. London : Edward Moxon. 8vo 
 pp. 153. 
 
 Speeches of the Right Honorable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Edited by 
 Constitutional Friend. London: Henry G. Bohn. 3 vols. 8vo.--Nori 
 American Review, January, 1848. 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 26 i 
 
 penial pertness ; but a man like Sheridan, the dramatist, 
 the orator, the politician, tne boon companion, 
 
 " The pride of the palace, the bo we , and the hall," 
 
 deserved a less supercilious consideration. Hunt's sketch 
 conveys a far more vivid impression of himself than of 
 his subject. 
 
 The prominent qualities of Sheridan's character were 
 ambition and indolence, the love of distinction and the 
 love of pleasure ; and the method by which he con- 
 trived to gratify both may be said to constitute his biog- 
 raphy. From the volatility of his mind and conduct, 
 it would be a misuse of language to say that he had 
 good principles or bad principles. He had no principles 
 at all. His life was a life of expedients and appearances, 
 in which he developed a shrewdness and capacity, made 
 up of talent and mystification, of ability and trickery, 
 which were found equal to almost all emergencies. He 
 most assuredly possessed neither great intellect nor great 
 passions. There was nothing commanding in his mind, 
 nothing deep and earnest in his heart. A good-humored 
 selfishness and a graceful heartlessness were his best 
 substitutes for virtue. His conduct, when not determined 
 by sensuality, was determined by vanity, the sensuality 
 of the intellect ; and in both he followed external direc- 
 tion. Yet, such as he was, the son of an actor, indolent, 
 immoral, unlearned, a libertine and a drunkard, without 
 fortune and without connections, he achieved high social, 
 literary, and parliamentary distinction. His life was one 
 long career of notoriety and sensuality. At the age of 
 twenty-six he had written some of the most sparkling 
 comedies in the English language From that period he 
 became a politician, and eventuilly was ranked with 
 
252 ESSAYS AND REVIEW 3. 
 
 Burke, Fox, and Pitt, among the most accomplished ora- 
 tors in the House of Commons. No other man with 
 such moral habits, joined to such slender acquirements 
 ever raised himself to such an elevation by pure force of 
 tact and talent. It might be said that Fox was as dissi- 
 pated ; but then Sheridan, unlike Fox, had not been 
 educated for a legislator; and more than all, he had none 
 of Fox's power of impassioned argumentation, none of 
 his greatness and generosity of siul. Burke, like Sheri- 
 dan, attained a prominent position in the most aristocratic 
 of parties, without the advantages of birth and connec- 
 tions ; but then he had the advantage of being the greatest 
 statesman of his country, and Sheridan could make nc 
 pretensions to Burke's force of character and amplitude 
 of comprehension, to his industry, his learning, or to that 
 fiery and flexible imagination which penetrated all with 
 life. It must be allowed that Sheridan approached 
 neither of these men in solid reputation ; but as his 
 ambition was but one side of his love of pleasure, the 
 notoriety which immediately succeeded his efforts was 
 all he desired. His vanity fed and his senses gratified, 
 there was little left for ambition to seek or pleasure to 
 crave. All that there is in immediate fame to intoxicate 
 the possessor, all that there is in fame which can be 
 enjoyed, he obtained with the smallest possible scorning 
 of delights, and the smallest possible living of laborious 
 days. 
 
 Sheridan was essentially a man of wit. By this we 
 do not mean that he was merely a witty man, but that 
 wit was as much the predominant element in his charac 
 ter as it was the largest power of his mind. From his 
 labit of looking at life and its duties through the mediun 
 Bf epigram, he lost all sincerity of thought and earnest 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 25«J 
 
 less of passion From his power of detecting what 
 was inconsistent, foolish, and bad in the appearances of 
 things, he gradually came to estimate appearances more 
 thr.n realities, and to do everything himself for effect. 
 His intellect became an ingenious machine for the man- 
 ufacture of what would tell on the occasion, without 
 regard to truth or falsehood. The consequence was a 
 wonderful power of contrivance, of shrewdness, oi finesse, 
 of brilliant insincerity, without any vitality of thought 
 and principle, without any intellectual character. His 
 moral sense, also, gradually wore away under a habit of 
 sensual indulgence, and a habit of overlooking moral 
 consequences in ludicrous relations. His conscience 
 ^ould give him no pang which a jest could not heal. 
 Vice, therefore, appeared to his mind as pleasantry as 
 well as pleasure, and wit " pandered will." For instance, 
 he was notoriously unfaithful to his marriage vow. To 
 no man could adultery wear a more jocose aspect. " In 
 marriage," he says, " if you possess anything good, it 
 makes you eager to get everything else good of the same 
 sort." He made no scruple of cheating his creditors, but 
 to his mind dishonesty was merely a practical joke. It 
 was the same with everything else. Crime appeared to 
 him as a kind of mischievous fun, and Belial always 
 reeled into his meditations hand in hand with Momus. 
 Blasphemy, intemperance, adultery, sloth, licentiousness, 
 trickery, — they were mere jests. No man ever violated 
 all the common duties of life with such easy good-nature 
 and absencs of malignant passions. He became unmoral 
 rather than immoral. 
 
 In considering Sheridan's career, we continually meet 
 this wit as a disposition of ciiaracter as well as a power 
 of mind. It gives a lightness and airiness to the many 
 
254 ESSAYS ANB REVIEWS. 
 
 rascalities and insincerities of his life. No man's vices 
 have been more leniently treated, because their verj 
 relation provokes a smile. He fascinates posterity as he 
 fascinated his contemporaries. Falsehood, heartlessness, 
 sensuality, insincerity, all those qualities which bring 
 contempt on other men, in him wear an attractive aspect ; 
 and in consideration of his being such a " good fellow," 
 the common rules by which we judge of character have 
 been waived in his case by general consent. 
 
 It would be impossible to set forth the talents of this 
 remarkable adept in mystification and Regius Professor 
 of appearances, without some sketch of his life. He 
 was the son of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and elocu- 
 tionist, and was bom in Dublin, in the month of Septem- 
 ber, 1751. His father was a man of no mean capacity, 
 but spoiled by an obstinate conceit of his powers, which 
 made his talents pass with others for less than they were 
 worth. His mother, whom Dr. Parr pronounced quite 
 celestial, was the writer of two or three plays, the novel 
 of Sidney Biddulph, and the Tale of Nourjahad. Her 
 nature was much finer than her husband's, a fact she con- 
 trived to conceal almost as much from herself as from 
 him, Richard early displayed an indisposition to learn ; 
 and rather than relinquish the sports for the studies of 
 boyhood, he endured with heroical resignation the stigma 
 fastened upon him by his father, of being an " impene- 
 trable dunce," In 1762, he was sent to Harrow, then 
 under the direction of Dr. Robert Sumner, and having 
 for one of its under-masters no less distinguished a per- 
 son than Dr, Parr. Neither of these eminent scholars 
 could overcome, either by command or persuasion, his 
 ndolence and indiflference, though their exertions were 
 prompted by the conviction that his mind was natura/lj 
 
niCHAKD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 25o 
 
 of no common order. The fact that some of his aristo- 
 cratical school-fellows taunted him with being "a player's 
 son," however much it might sting his sensitive vanity, 
 could not rouse in him the spirit of emulation. He pre- 
 ferred to make both masters and pupils his friends by his 
 good-humor and engaging manners, and was soon the 
 most popular person in the school. The boys emulously 
 prompted him in the recitations of his class; and his 
 brilliant mischievousness as often amused as provoked 
 the masters. He seems to have escaped the discipline 
 of the rod even under such a believer in the birch as Dr. 
 Parr. That good-natured audacity and that fascinating 
 address, which captivated so many in his subsequent 
 career, and rarely forsook him in the wreck of character 
 and fortune, were partially developed in his youth. But 
 he was not happy at school. He was constantly in that 
 state of wretchedness which results from the struggle of 
 vanity with indolence, — for years always behind his 
 companions, and trusting to momentary expedients to 
 escape the consequences of idleness. 
 
 At Harrow he remained until his seventeenth year, 
 and left it with but a distant acquaintance with any 
 branch of knowledge, imperfectly versed even in gram- 
 mar and spelling, but still with some dexterity iu Eng- 
 lish verse, and some knowledge of polite literature. We 
 should judge that Pope and Wycherley had been his 
 favorite authors, not merely because his rhymes were 
 modelled on the one and his plays betray the influence 
 of the other, but because he always nretended to dislike 
 Pope and to be ignorant of Wycnerley. He nevei 
 seems thoroughly to have mastered the mystery of spell- 
 ing. At the age of twenty he spelt thing, think, whether, 
 xoether, which, wi^h, where, were, and appeared to take a 
 
256 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 malignant delight in interfering with the domest.'c felicity 
 of double ?w's and s's. At Harrow he was not considered 
 vicious by Dr. Parr, who charged his subsequent irregu. 
 larities upon his being thrown upon the world without a 
 profession. At the period of his leaving school he was 
 strikingly handsome, with that fire and brilliancy in his 
 eyes which afterwards added so much to the effect of his 
 oratory. 
 
 He was not sent to the university, either from his 
 lather's inability to bear the expense, or from a despair 
 of its effect in making him a student. The elder Sher- 
 idan took him home, and undertook to complete his edu- 
 cation under his own eye ; but Richard proved as indo- 
 cile a pupil there as at school, and carelessly followed 
 his own tastes. At Harrow he had formed a friendship 
 with a vivacious school-fellow, named Halhed, who was 
 afterwards a judge in India, and in connection with him 
 had translated into English verse some of the poems of 
 Theocritus. Halhed went to Oxford, but kept up a cor- 
 respondence with Sheridan at Bath. They projected 
 various works, among which was a farce entitled Jupiter, 
 a volume of loose stories to be called Crazy Tales, and a 
 translation of Aristsenetus. The latter was completed, 
 though Sheridan's portion was long delayed by his indo- 
 lence, and the incessant references he was coiiipelled to 
 make to his dictionary. It was published in 1771, but 
 failed to bring either the fame or profit which the juve- 
 nile book-makers had anticipated. The book in itself is 
 worthless, both in the original and translation ; but the 
 latter is curious as indicating the light and libertine 
 tone of thought, and the command of florid common 
 places of diction, which Sheridan had acquired at the 
 tge of nineteen. Neither in its morality nor compos' 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAJN. 25'. 
 
 tion does it give any promise of future excellence in life 
 or letters. 
 
 But the peculiar character of his mind, and the style 
 in which he was eventually to excel, are well displayed 
 m a small ironical essay, written about the year 1770, 
 and devoted to a mock assignment of reasons why the 
 Duke of Grafton should not lose his head. The mean- 
 ness, fickleness, unpunctuality, and licentiousness, of the 
 noble duke; are quite felicitously caricatured. The posi- 
 tion is gravely taken, that his Grace's crimes are not of 
 such a nature as "to entitle his head to a place on 
 Temple Bar;" and to the charge of giddiness and neg- 
 lect of public duty the author triumphantly opposes some 
 undoubted facts. 
 
 " I think," he observes, " I could bring several instances which 
 would seem to promise the greatest steadiness and resolution. I 
 have known him to make the Council wait, on the business of 
 the whole nation, when he had an appointment to Newmarket. 
 Surely this is an instance of the greatest honor ; — and if we 
 see him so punctual in private appointments, must we not con- 
 clude he is infinitely more so in greater matters ? Nay, when 
 Wilkes came over, is it not notorious that the Lord Mayor went 
 to his Grace on that eveniiig, proposing a scheme, which, by 
 securing this fire-brand, might have put an end to all the 
 troubles he has caused ? But his Grace did not see him ; — no, 
 he was a man of too much honor ; — he had promised that even- 
 ing to attend Nancy Parsons to Ranelagh, and he would not 
 disappoint her, but made three thousand people witnesses of his 
 punctuality." 
 
 We perceive here that covert, sharp edge of ingenious 
 wit, which was silently fashioning Sheridan's mind and 
 iharacter. 
 
 During the first few years after leaving school, Sheri 
 
 VOL. II. 17 
 
258 ESSAYS AND PE VIEWS. 
 
 dan seems to have lived in his father's family, withoul 
 any definite purpose in life, and only varying the monot- 
 ony of gayety and idleness vs^ith occasional experiments 
 in composition. In 1771, he published a poem called 
 Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished, in which the 
 principal beauties of Bath are celebrated in some four 
 hundred rather loose-jointed octosyllabic lines. There is 
 one couplet, however, which has become classic : — 
 
 •' You write with ease to show your breeding, 
 But easy writing 's curst hard reading." 
 
 in this poem, also, there are eight lines which altogether 
 exceed any other poetical attempts of Sheridan, where 
 the least pretension is made to sentiment. 
 
 " MarJied you her cheek of rosy hue 7 
 Marked you her eye of sparkling blue ? 
 That eye in liquid circles moving ; 
 That cheek abashed at man's approving ; 
 The one Love's arrows darting round ; . 
 The other blushing at the wound : 
 Did she not speak, did she not move, 
 Now Pallas, now the Queen of Love ? " 
 
 At Bath, Sheridan fell in love with Miss Linley, a 
 fascinating young singer of sixteen, whose beauty and 
 accomplishments had turned the heads of the whole 
 town. In his management of the affair he displayed as 
 much finesse as passion. Among a crowd of suitors, he 
 seems to have been the only one who had touched hei 
 heart, and the only one whose intentions were concealed. 
 His brother, Charles Francis Sheridan, and his friend 
 Halhed, were among his rivals, yet both were ignorant 
 of his passion, and both made him their confidant. The 
 father of Miss Linley seems to have looked upon hei 
 
RICHAUD BRINSLEi; SHERIDAN. 259 
 
 from an exclusively business point of view, and would 
 of course, naturally oppose her engagement to a penni 
 less idler like Sheridan. His project of her life was 
 simply this : money was to be made by her profession as 
 a vocalist, and her singing was to lead the way to a 
 profitable marriage. Indeed, he had already engaged 
 her hand to an honest-hearted elderlj^ gentleman by the 
 name of Long ; but she escaped from the engagement just 
 before th'" period set for the marriage, by secretly repre- 
 senting to him the impossibility of his ever gaining her 
 affections. He magnanimously broke off the alliance, 
 without betraying the reason ; and when Mr. Linley 
 threatened a prosecution, generously settled £3000 upon 
 her to satisfy the father's demands. Romance has 
 hardly a nobler instance of disinterestedness, and cer- 
 tainly Miss Linley never possessed, in lover or husband 
 so true and unselfish a friend. 
 
 Then followed her elopement, and the scandal about 
 Captain Mathews. This portion of domestic history is 
 still involved in perplexing contradictions. As far as we 
 can glean the facts, they are these : Miss Linley had 
 become disgusted with her profession, partly from the 
 intrigues of Sheridan to push his suit, partly from her 
 being pestered with the dishonorable advances of a mar- 
 ried libertine by the name of Mathews. It has been 
 asserted that the latter had touched her heart, as well as 
 awakened her fears, and also that Sheridan assisted or 
 prompted his addresses, probably as a refined stratagem to 
 force her into a position which would make his services 
 necessary to her peace and honor. In that tumult of 
 mind springing from the conflict of various fears and pas- 
 sions, she formed the romantic determination, advised or 
 supported by Sheridan, of elcjiing to France and enter- 
 
26} ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ing a convent. Fe offered to be her protector in the 
 journey, was accepted, and the design was at once car- 
 ried into effect. On arriving at London, he raised the 
 necessary funds for the expedition from an old brandy 
 merchant, a friend of his father, by representing that he 
 was running away to France with an heiress. At Calais, 
 according to the most trustworthy accounts, he persuaded 
 her that her character was so compromised by her elope- 
 ment, that its salvation depended on an immediate mar- 
 riage with him. They were accordingly secretly united, 
 in March, 1772. Mr. Linley overtook them at Calais, 
 but not before the ceremony had been performed ; and 
 after some explanation of the affair from Sheridan, in 
 which the private marriage does not appear to have been 
 mentioned, took his daughter back to England. Sheri- 
 dan also returned, to brave an exasparated father, and 
 to fight a couple of duels with Captain Mathews, in the 
 last of which he was seriously wounded. But with all 
 his fine-spun intrigues and their unpleasant results, there 
 did not appear to be any hope of his being able to claim 
 his wife. The elder Sheridan and Mr. Linley were 
 both opposed to the union, and both seemingly ignorant 
 that a marriage had occurred. Every precaution was 
 employed to keep the lovers apart. Mr. Thomas Sheri- 
 dan made his son take an oath never " to marry " Miss 
 Linley. Mr. Linley cautiously watched his daughter. 
 A year's war of cunning and contrivance ensued, in 
 which Sheridan was of course victorious. Among other 
 expedients to see her, he at one time disguised himself 
 as a hackney-coachman, and drove her home from the 
 concert-room. They were finally married, according to 
 the English fashion, in April, 1773, — having fairly out 
 witted their parents in all their schemes, and at lasi 
 
Hir.HARD BRINSLtr SHERIDAN. 261 
 
 i»btained their consent or connivance to the union. The 
 elder Sheridan, however, discarded his son, and was not 
 reconciled to him for years. 
 
 During this excited period of his life, Sheridan did not 
 sacrifice his characteristic indolence and habit of procras- 
 tination. A shamefully libellous account of his second 
 duel with Captain Mathews was published in a Bath 
 paper. Indignant at this impudent lie, he resolved to 
 answer ii immediately, but first told his friend Woodfall 
 to publish it in his paper, in order that the public might 
 see the charge and the refutation. Woodfall followed 
 his directions, circulated the scandal through his columns, 
 but never could induce Sheridan to write the promised 
 exposure of the calumny. This is in perfect character, 
 — to hazard his life in two duels, and then bear the 
 imputation of cowardice rather than take the trouble of 
 writing a letter ! 
 
 The circumstances which attended his courtship and 
 marriage gave him great notoriety. His own talents and 
 fascinating manners, together with the musical and per- 
 sonal accomplishments of his wife, naturally brought him 
 into much society. For nearly two years, he subsisted, 
 after his own mysterious fashion, with no known income 
 except the interest on the £3000 settled by Mr. Long on 
 Mrs. Sheridan. Though he was entered as a student in 
 the Temple, neither his intellectual nor social tastes 
 would admit of a serious study of the law. But during 
 this period he wrote the exhilarating comedy of The 
 Rivals, which was produced at Covent Garden in Jan- 
 uary, 1775. It failed on the first night, from the stupid- 
 ity or indifference of the actor who performed Sir Lucius 
 O'Trigger. Another having been substituted in this part, 
 the play was very successful, and has been popular ever 
 
262 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 since. It placed Sheridan, at the age of twenty-three, ai 
 the head of living dramatists. Nothing so brilliant had 
 been brought out on the English stage since Farquhar ; 
 and while its wit and hilarity suggested the old school 
 of comic dramatists, it was open to no objection on the 
 score of decency. 
 
 The design of Sheridan in The Rivals was not dra- 
 matic excellence, but stage effect. In seeing it per- 
 formed, we overlook, in the glitter and point of the dia- 
 logue, the absence of the higher requisites of comedy. 
 The plot is without progress and development. The 
 characters are overcharged into caricatures, and can 
 hardly be said to be conceived, much less sustained. 
 Each has some oddity stuck upon him, which hardly 
 rises to a peculiarity of character, and the keeping of 
 this oddity is carelessly sacrificed at every temptation 
 from a lucky witticism. The comic personages seem 
 engaged in an emulous struggle to outshine each other. 
 What they are is lost sight of in what they say. Spar- 
 kling sentences are bountifully lavished upon all. Fag 
 and David are nearly as pungent as their masters. The 
 scene in the fourth act, where Acres communicates to 
 David his challenge to Beverley, is little more than a bril- 
 liant string of epigrams and repartees, in which the coun- 
 try clown plays the dazzling fence of his wit with all the 
 skill of Sheridan himself. When Acres says that no 
 gentleman will lose his honor, David is ready with the 
 brisk retort, that it then " would be but civil in honoi 
 never to risk the loss of a gentleman." Acres swears 
 " odd crowns and laurels," that he will not disgrace his 
 ancestors by refusing to fight. David assures him, Ir- 
 an acute non sequitur, that the surest way of not dis 
 gracing his ancestors is to keep as long as he can out of 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 26d 
 
 iheir conipany. " Look'ee now, master, to go to them in 
 Buch haste — with an ounce of lead in your brains — I 
 should think might as well be let alone. Our ancestors 
 are a very good sort of folks, but they are the last people 
 
 should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with " 
 iNo dramatist whose conception of character was strong 
 would fall into such shining inconsistencies. 
 
 The truth is, in this, as in Sheridan's other comedies, 
 we tacitly overlook the keeping of character in the blaze 
 of the wit. Everybody laughs at Mrs. Malaprop's mis- 
 takes in the use of words, as he would laugh at similar 
 mistakes in an acquaintance who was exercising his 
 mgenuity instead of exposing his ignorance. They are 
 too felicitously infelicitous to be natural. Her remark to 
 Lydia, that she is " as headstrong as an allegory on the 
 banks of the Nile," — her scorn of " algebra, simony, 
 fluxions, paradoxes, and such inflammatory branches of 
 learning," — her quotation from Hamlet, in which the 
 royal Dane is gifted with the " front of Job himself," — 
 her fear of going into "hydrostatic fits," — her pride in 
 the use of " her oracular tongue and a nice derangement 
 of epitaphs," — are characteristics, not of a mind flip- 
 pantly stupid, but curiously acute. In the scene where 
 Lydia Languish tells her maid to conceal her novels at 
 the approach of company, the sentimentalist is lost in 
 the witty rake ; " Lord Ainsworth " being ordered to be 
 thrust under the sofa, and " The Innocent Adultery" to 
 be put into " The Whole Duty of Man." 
 
 Sir Anthony Absolute is the best character of the 
 piece, and is made up of the elder Sheridan and Smoi- 
 let's Matthew Bramble. Doubtless Sheridan had many 
 a conversation with his father, of which tne first scene 
 between Sir Anthony and Captain Absoiute is but a 
 
264 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ludicrously heightened description. The scenes, also 
 where the doctrine and discipline of duelling are dis 
 cussed, and in which Acres and Sir Lucius shine with 
 so much splendor, the author may have obtained in the 
 course of his difficulties with Captain Mathews. Falk- 
 land is a satire on a state of mind which Sheridan him- 
 self experienced during his courtship of Miss Linley. 
 The fine talk of Falkland and Julia is as unintentionally 
 ludicrous as any comic portion of the play. We can 
 easily imagine how the author himself might have made 
 PufF ridicule it. Indeed, Sheridan's attempts at serious 
 imagery rarely reached beyond capitalizing the names of 
 abstract qualities, or running out commonplace similes 
 into flimsy and feeble allegories. His sentiment, also, is 
 never fresh, generous, and natural, but almost always as 
 tasteless in expression as hollow in meaning. The 
 merit of The Rivals is in its fun and farce ; and the 
 serious portions, lugged in to make it appear more like a 
 regular comedy, are worse than the attempts of Holcroft, 
 Morton and Reynolds, in the same style. 
 
 The farce of St. Patrick's Day, which Sheridan brought 
 out a few months after The Rivals, though written in 
 evident haste, bears, in a few passages, marks of that 
 elaborate and fanciful wit in which the chief strength of 
 his mind consisted. In the second scene of the first act, 
 the dialogue between Lauretta and her mother, on the 
 relative merits of militia and regular officers, is keen and 
 sparkling. "Give me," says Lauretta, " the bold, up- 
 right youth, who makes love to-day, and has his head 
 shot off to-morrow. Dear ! to think how the sweet fel- 
 lows sleep on the ground and fight in silk stockings and 
 lace ruffles." To this animated burst of girlish admira 
 tion, Mrs. Bridget contemptuously replies : — "To want 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 2fi5 
 
 31 husband that may wed you to-day and be sent the 
 Lord knows where before night ; then in a twelvemonth, 
 perhaps, to come home like a Colossus, with one leg at 
 New York and the other at Chelsea Hospital ! " This is 
 one of the most startlingly ludicrous fancies in Sheridan's 
 works. 
 
 The success of The Rivals seems to have inspired 
 Sheridan with industry as well as ambition, for during 
 the summer of this year he wrote the delightful opera 
 of The Duenna. It was produced at Covent Garden, in 
 November, 1775, and had the unprecedented run of 
 seventy-five nights, exceeding even the success of The 
 Beggar's Opera by twelve nights. 
 
 The diction of The Duenna, and the management of 
 its character and incident, evince a marked improvement 
 upon The Rivals. The wit, though not so intellectual 
 as that of The School for Scandal, is so happily com- 
 bined with heedless animal spirits, as often to produce 
 the effect of humor. It glitters and plays like heat- 
 lightning through the whole dialogue. Epigram, repar- 
 tee, and jest, sparkle on the lips of every character. The 
 power of permeating everything with wit and glee, — 
 love, rage, cunning, avarice, religion, — is displayed to 
 perfection. It touches lightly, but keenly, on that point 
 in every subject which admits of ludicrous treatment, 
 and overlooks or blinks the rest. The best of the songs 
 are but epigrams of sentiment. There is a spirit of joy- 
 ous mischievousness and intrigue pervading the piece, 
 which gives a delicious excitement to the brain. Little 
 Isaac, the cunning, overreaching, and overreached Jew, 
 is the very embodiment of gleeful craft, — " roguish, per- 
 iiaps, but keen, devilish keen." The scene in which he 
 woos the Dueina, and that which succeeds wi h Don 
 
266 
 
 ESSAYS ANB REVIEWS. 
 
 Jerome, are among the most exquisite in the play. Th 
 sentiment of the piece is all subordinated to its fun and 
 mischief. The scene in the Priory with the jolly monks 
 is the very theology of mirth. Father Augustine tellsj 
 his brothers of some sinner who has left them a hundred 
 ducats to be remembered in their masses. Father Pad 
 orders the money to be paid to the wine-merchant, and 
 adds, " We will remember him in our cups, which will 
 do just as well." When asked if they had finished their 
 devotions, their reply is, " Not by a bottle each." 
 
 The wit of The Duenna is so diffused through the dia- 
 logue as not readily to admit of quotation. It sparkles 
 over the piece like sunshine on the ripples of running 
 water. There are, however, a few sentences which stand 
 apart in isolated brilliancy, displaying that curious inter- 
 penetration of fancy and wit, in which Sheridan after- 
 wards excelled. Such is Isaac's description of the proud 
 beauty, — "the very rustling of her silk has a disdainful 
 sound;" and his answer to Don Ferdinand's furious 
 demand to know whither the absconding lovers have 
 gone : — "I will ! I will ! but people's memories differ ; 
 some have a treacherous memory: now, mine is a cow- 
 ardly memory, — it takes to its heels at the sight of a 
 drawn sword, it does i' faith ; and I could as soon fight 
 as recollect." In the same vein is Don Jerome's observa- 
 tion on the face of the Duenna : — "I thought that 
 dragon's front of thine would cry aloof to the sons of 
 gallantry; steel-traps and spring-guns seemed writ in 
 every wrinkle of it." The description of the same old 
 lady's face, as " parchment on which Time and Deform- 
 ty have engrossed their titles," was omitted in the pub- 
 lished copy ; though brilliant, he could afford to lose it 
 The Duenna's delineation of little Isaac, after tha 
 
RICHARn iJRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 261 
 
 leluded Jew has called her as " old as his mother ard 
 as ugly as the devil," reaches the topmost height of con- 
 temptuous hyperbole. " Dare such a thing as you," she 
 exclaims, " pretend to talk of beauty ? — A walking ron- 
 deau ! — a body that seems to owe all its consequence to 
 the dropsy ! — a pair of eyes like two dead beetles in a 
 wad of brown dough ! — a beard like an artichoke, with 
 dry, shrivellpd jaws which would disgrace the mummy 
 of a monke} ! " But perhaps the most purely intellect- 
 ual stroke of pleasantry is the allusion to Isaac, — who 
 has forsworn the Jewish faith, and " has not had time to 
 get a new one," — as standing " like a dead wall between 
 church and synagogue, or hke the blank leaves between 
 the Old and New Testament." 
 
 Mr. Moore has given a few sentences from the manu- 
 script of The Duenna which do not appear in the printed 
 copy. Among these is the following fine soliloquy of 
 [jopez, the servant of Don Ferdinand : — 
 
 " A plague on these haughty damsels, say 1 : — when they 
 ilay their airs on their whining gallants, they ought to consider 
 that we are the chief suflferers, — we have all their ill humors 
 at second-hand. Donna Louisa's cruelty to my master usuallv 
 converts itself into blows by the time it gets to me ; she can 
 frown me black and blue at any time, and I shall carry the 
 marks of the last box on the ear she gave him to my grave. 
 Nay, if she smiles on any one else, I am the sutTerer for it ; if 
 she says a civil word to a rival, I am a rogue and a scoundrel ; 
 and if she sends him a letter, my back .s sure to pay the 
 postage." 
 
 Sheridan's brilliant success as a dramatist led to his 
 investments in theatrical property, — a fertile source of 
 Decuniary difficulties to him in after years. In June, 
 .776, he purchased a portion of Garrick's share k the 
 
««lp ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 patent of Drury Lane Theatre. For this pioperty he 
 paid £10,000. How he obtained the money has never 
 been as.xrtained. Hunt conjectures that it was borrowed 
 from some wealthy nobleman. But the mysterious prin- 
 ciples of Sheridan's science of finance, or finesse, have 
 never been laid open. He afterwards, in 1778, bought 
 Mr. Lacy's moiety for £45,000, and thus having the con- 
 trol of the theatre, he made his father the manager, — a 
 reconciliation having taken place a short time before, 
 In raising all this money Sheridan must have displayed 
 a power of persuasion and management which w^ould 
 have done honor to a Chancellor of the Exchequer. It 
 is doubtful if even Mr. Pitt, who performed miracles in 
 the way of loans, ever equalled it. 
 
 The first fruit of Sheridan's new interest in the drama 
 was A Trip to Scarborough, altered, with but few addi- 
 tions, from Sir John Vanbrugh's Relapse. This was 
 really a service to the cause both of comedy and decency, 
 for the original play, though one of the most richly 
 humorous in the language, and in Lord Foppington, Sir 
 Tunbelly Clumsey, and Miss Hoyden, containing char- 
 acters which could not well be lost to the stage, was still 
 conceived in so libertine a spirit, and deformed with so 
 audacious a coarseness of expression, that it must soon 
 have passed from the list of acting plays. This comedy 
 shows us at once the superiority of Vanbrugh to Sheri- 
 dan in humor and dramatic portraiture, and his inferior- 
 ity in wit and polish. Sheridan could not have delineated 
 with such consistency of purpose that prince of coxcombs, 
 Lord Foppington. As an illustration of the difference 
 oetween the manner of the two dramatists, we extract 3 
 portion of the dialogue between Young Fashion and hi» 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 269 
 
 brother, on the return of the former to his native country. 
 Ji penniless adventurer : — 
 
 " Fashion. Now your people of business are gone, brother, I 
 nope I may obtain a quarter of an hour's audience with you. 
 
 "Lord Fop. Faith, Tam, I must beg you'll excuse me at 
 Ihis time, for I have an engagement which I would not break 
 for the salvation of mankind. 
 
 " Fash. Shall you be back to dinner? 
 
 "Lord Fop. As Gad shall judge me, I can't tell; for it is 
 passible I may dine with some friends at Donner's. 
 
 " Fash. Shall I meet you there ? For I must needs talk 
 With you. 
 
 " Lord Fop. That I 'm afraid may n't be quite so praper j for 
 those I commonly eat with are a people of nice conversation ; 
 and you know, Tam, your education has been a little at large. 
 But there are other ordinaries in town, very good beef ordina- 
 ries, — I suppose, Tam, you can eat beef? — However, dear 
 Tam, I 'm glad to see thee in England, stap my vitals." 
 
 This is the perfection of coxcombical heartlessness 
 and egotism, — the sublime of ideal frippery. It is easy 
 to distinguish here between the hearty exaggeration of 
 humor and the hard caricature of wit. 
 
 Sheridan reached the height of his dramatic fame in 
 May, 1777, by the production of The School for Scandal, 
 a comedy which still occupies the first place on the stage, 
 and which will ever be read with delight for the splen- 
 dor, condensation, and fertility of its wit, the felicitous 
 4.9ntrivance of some scenes and situations, the general 
 brilliancy of its matter, and the tingling truth of its 
 satirical strokes. As a representation of men as they 
 I ppear, and manners as they are, it has the highest 
 merit. The hypocrisies of life were never more skilfully 
 probed, or its follies exposed to an ordeal of more polisned 
 scorn. It was triumphantly successful from the first, 
 
270 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 and during its long run exceeded most other attractions 
 of town life. Probably no comedy ever cost its author 
 more toil, or was the slow result of more experiments in 
 diction and scenic effect. It was commenced before The 
 Rivals. With his usua. sagacity, Sheridan contrived 
 that it should appear, in a great measure, as the hasty 
 product of an indolent genius, spurred into activity by 
 the pressure of business engagements. Mr. Moore, in 
 his life of the author, has introduced us into the work- 
 shop of the literary mechanician, shown us the scattered 
 limbs of the characters, the disjointed sentences of the 
 dialogue, and the little grains of diamond dust as they 
 first sparkled into substantial being. Every portion was 
 elaborated with the nicest care, — not to purchase ele- 
 gance by dilution, but to fix the volatile essence of 
 thought in the smallest compass of expression, to sharpen 
 the edge of satire to the finest point, to give scorn its 
 keenest sting. Beginning with weakness and verbiage, 
 he did not end until he had reduced his matter to the 
 consistency as well as glitter of the most polished steel. 
 
 The last contribution of Sheridan to dramatic litera- 
 ture was the farce of The Critic, produced in 1779 ; we 
 say the last, for his adaptations of Pizarro and The 
 Stranger, twenty years after, were contributions neither 
 to literature nor the stage. The Critic excels everything 
 of its kind in the English language, for it is to be com- 
 pared with Buckingham's Rehearsal and Fielding's 
 Midas, not with Beaumont's' Knight of the Burning 
 Pestle. The wit always tells, and never tires. 
 
 Thus, at the age of twenty-eight, Sheridan, the " im 
 ■»enetrable dunce " of his first schoolmaster, had contrived 
 to enrich English letters with a series of plays which 
 are to English prose what Pope's satires are to Englislp 
 
RICnA.RU BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. ^71 
 
 ferse. We may now pauss to consider the nature and 
 extent of his comic powers, and his claim to be ranked 
 among the masters of comic genius. 
 
 Sheridan's defects as a dramatist answer to the defects 
 of his mind and character. Acute in observing external 
 appearances, and well informed in what rakes and men 
 of fashion call life, he was essentially superficial in mind 
 and heart. A man of great wit and fancy, he was sin- 
 gularly deficient in the deeper powers of humor and 
 imagination. All his plays lack organic life. In plot, 
 character, and incident, they are framed by mechanical, 
 not conceived by vital, processes. They evince no genial 
 enjoyment of mirth, no insight into the deeper springs 
 of the ludicrous. The laughter they provoke is the 
 laughter of antipathy, not of sympathy. It is wit detect- 
 ing external inconsistencies and oddities, not humor rep- 
 resenting them in connection with the inward constitution 
 whence they spring. The great triumphs of comic genius 
 have been in comic creations, conceived through the pro- 
 cesses of imagination and sympathy, and instinct with 
 the vital life of mirth. Such are the comic characters 
 of Shakspeare, of the elder dramatists generally, of 
 Addison, Goldsmith, Fielding, Sterne, Scott, and Dick- 
 ens. A writer who grasps character in the concrete 
 gives his creation a living heart and brain. His hold 
 upon the general conception is too firm to allow his fancy 
 to seduce him into inconsistencies for the sake of fine 
 separate thoughts. Everything that the character says 
 is an expression of what the character is. Such a crea- 
 tion impresses the mind as a whole. Its unity is never 
 'ost in the variety of its manifestation. This is erident 
 enough in the case of Falstaff", for the living idea of the 
 ooan impressed on our imaginations gives more e 'rthful 
 
372 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 delight than his numberless witticisms. The \ritticisms, 
 indeed, owe much of their effect to their intimate rela* 
 tion with the character. But the principle is no less 
 true, though less evident, of Mercutio, Beatrice, and the 
 airier creations of mirth generally. We conceive of 
 them all as living beings, whose wit and humor do not 
 begin with their entrance, or cease with their exit from 
 the scene, but overflow in fun, whether we are by to 
 hear or not. Such creations represent the poetry of 
 mirth, and spring from profound and creative minds. 
 
 Now, Sheridan's comic personages display none of this 
 life and genial fun. They seem sent upon the stage 
 simply to utter brilliant things, and their wit goes out 
 with their exit. Everything they say is as good as the 
 original conception of their individuality, and character 
 is therefore lost in the glare of its representation. In 
 truth, Sheridan conceived a character as he conceived a 
 jest. It first flashed upon his mind in an epigrammatic 
 form. In his Memoranda, published by Moore, we find 
 the hints of various dramatic personages embodied in 
 smart sayings. Thus, one is indicated in this significant 
 sentence : — "I shall order my valet to shoot me, the 
 first thing he does in the morning." Another is sketched 
 lis " an old woman endeavoring to put herself back into 
 a girl ;" another, as a man " who changes sides in all 
 arguments, the moment you agree with him ;" and an- 
 other, as a " pretty woman studying looks, and endeavor- 
 ing to recollect an ogle, like Lady , who has learned 
 
 to play her eyelids like Venetian blinds." In all these 
 we perceive wit laughing at external peculiarities, and 
 subjecting them to the malicious exaggeration of fancy 
 but not the dramatist searching for internal qualities, and 
 moulding them into new forms of mirthful being. The 
 
EICHAKD BKINSLEY SHERIDAN. 273 
 
 iharacter is but one of the many pleasantries it is made 
 to speak. In those instances where Sheridan most 
 nearly produces the effects of humor, it is done by the 
 cooperation of brisk animal spirits with fancy, or by 
 adopting and refining upon the delineations of others. 
 
 We would not, in these remarks, be considered as 
 underrating Sheridan's real powers. He is undoubtedly 
 to be placed among the wittiest of writers and speakers. 
 His plays, speeches, and the records of his conversation, 
 sparkle with wit of almost all kinds, from the most 
 familiar to the most recondite. Though seldom genial, 
 it is never malignant ; and if it rarely reaches far 
 beneath the surfaces of things, it plays over them with 
 wonderful brilliancy. No English comic writer, who 
 was not also a great poet, ever approached him in fine- 
 ness and remoteness of ludicrous analogy. In delicacy 
 of allusion, in exquisite lightness and certainty of touch, 
 in concise felicity and airiness of expression, his wit is 
 almost unmatched. It has been asserted that he had 
 not a fertile fancy, and that he gained much of his repu- 
 tation by the care with which he husbanded his stores. 
 He was doubtless often complimented for his readiness 
 when he least deserved it, and was cunning in the 
 concealment of preparation. But we think he was so 
 entirely a wit as to be choice to daintiness in what he 
 employed, and to aim at perfection in its verbal expres- 
 sion. He would not always trust to a mere flow of 
 animal spirits to fashion the light idea of the minute ; 
 for his object was not mere hilarity, but the keen, subtile, 
 piercing strokes of the intellect. We believe he sup- 
 pressed more sparkling jokes than he ever wrote or 
 uttered ; that the fertility of his fancy was great, but 
 that its expression was checked by his taste. There are 
 
 VOL. IL 18 
 
87 i ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 as many stories of his readiness as of his premeditatioii. 
 His calling Whitbread's image of the phoenix "a poul- 
 terer's description of a phcenix," and his objecting to a 
 tax on mile-stones as unconstitutional, because " they 
 were a race who could not meet to remonstrate," are as 
 happy as any of his most elaborated epigrams. 
 
 Brilliant as had been the success of Sheridan as a 
 dramatist, he commenced, shortly after the production of 
 The Critic, a still more brilliant career as an orator and 
 politician. His powers of conversation, and his delight 
 in social pleasures, brought him into terms of intimacy 
 with many prominent members of the Whig opposition 
 who could appreciate both his talents and good-fellow- 
 ship. Through Lord John Townsend, he became ac- 
 quainted with Mr. Fox, and they were mutually pleased 
 at their first meeting. Fox declared Sheridan the wit- 
 tiest man he had ever known. An introduction to 
 Burke soon followed. He soon became one of the most 
 welcome visiters at Devonshire House, " where politics 
 was made to wear its most attractive form, and sat 
 enthroned, like Virtue among the Epicureans, with all 
 the Graces and Pleasures for handmaids." At Brooks's 
 Club-house, where the Whig politicians blended con- 
 viviality with business, he soon shone preeminent among 
 the hardest drinkers and wittiest talkers, — the very man 
 to do honor to that 
 
 " liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill 
 Is hasty credit and a distant bill ; 
 Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, 
 Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid." 
 
 There his spirits were repressed by no attempt on the 
 part of his associates, noble by birth or genius, to assert 
 
KICHARD BRTNSLEY SHERIDAN. 275 
 
 <he lorvl or the Right Honorable. The usual style of 
 address was Jack Townsend, Ned Burke, Tom Gien- 
 ville, Dick Sheridan, and the like. The ease and famil- 
 iarity of the whigs in their social intercourse, and those 
 signs of the times which indicated their approachir^ 
 change from opposition to administration, offered stimu- 
 lants both to Sheridan's love of pleasure and to his ambi- 
 tion. He joined the party, and, with a few exceptions, 
 was faithful to its creed and leaders through life. His 
 brilliancy and adroitness made him an able coadjutor of 
 Burke and Fox in assailing the corruptions of the court, 
 and defending the liberties of the people. He was to be 
 a thorn in the side of toryism. 
 
 After performing some minor services to his party, he 
 was sent to the House of Commons as a member for the 
 borough of Stafford, in October, 1780. The nation was 
 suffering under the calamities of the American war, and 
 Lord North's administration was assailed with every 
 weapon of argument and invective, by an opposition 
 strong in popular favor and aristocratic connection, but 
 bitterly hated by the king. Sheridan's first speech was 
 a comparative failure. It was on the subject of a petition 
 complaining of the undue election of himself and his 
 colleague. He launched into an indignant vindication 
 of his constituents. When he had concluded, Mr, 
 Rigby, a member of the tory administration, coolly 
 ridiculed his elaborated rage. Sheridan was not pre- 
 pared to reply ; out Fox came to the rescue of his friend 
 r.nd informed the right honorable gentleman that, " those 
 mnisterial members who chiefly robbed and plundered 
 their constituents might afterwards affect to despise 
 them, yet gentlemen who felt properly the nature of 
 Jheir trust would always treat them and speak of them 
 
276 E3dAYS AND EEVIi, TS, 
 
 with respect." In an assembly where such language as 
 this was the commonplace of debate, it was evident that 
 a man, to keep his position, must learn to think quick 
 and strike hard; and Sheridan felt that he had much to 
 learn before he could rank high in his new profession 
 He asked his friend Woodfall to tell him candidly what 
 he thought of his first attempt, and received the dis- 
 couraging reply, that speaking did not appear to be in 
 his line, and he had much better have adhered to his 
 former pursuits. "It is in me, however," said Sher 
 
 idan, after a short pause, " and by , it shall come 
 
 out ! " From this moment his training as a debater 
 commenced, and he spared no effort to perfect himself in 
 his art. 
 
 He had many personal advantages suitable to an 
 orator, — a powerful frame, a face which, though coarse 
 in some of its features, was capable of great variety of 
 expression, a deep, clear voice, and an eye of piercing 
 brilliancy, which never winked. Beneath all his indo- 
 lence and sensuality, he possessed a desire for distinction, 
 and an ambition for effect, which inspired him with 
 sufficient industry to master the details of particular 
 questions, and prepare sparkling declamation to dehght 
 his audience. He had not that depth of feeling and 
 earnestness of purpose by which the great orator iden- 
 tifies himself with his subject ; but he could imitate 
 those qualities admirably. His sly, subtile intellect was 
 always on the watch for occasions for display, and he 
 seized them with exquisite tact. Besides, he had a long 
 training in the House of Commons ; and though as a 
 debater he never reached the first rank, from his lack of 
 perfect readiness and his want of familiarity with princi 
 pies, he still developed in the end a sturdy politica 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SH£RIDAN. 277 
 
 „ourage, and a command of expedients, which enabled 
 nim to meet without flinching the fiercest attacks of the 
 treasury ber'-h, and to bear bravely up even against the 
 arrogant scorn of Pitt. 
 
 During the first few years of Sheridan's political life, 
 he prodi:ed but a small impression; but he was steadily 
 feeling his way into notoriety. Enjoying the friendship 
 of Fox, Burke, and all the prominent whigb, he was 
 insensibly educating himself into a politician. On the 
 overthrow of Lord North's administration, and the forma- 
 tion of the Marquis of Rockingham's, in March, 1782, he 
 •yas appointed one of tne under-secretaries of state. This 
 office he occupied but four months. The death of Lord 
 Rockingham split the whig party into two divisions. One 
 of these, the Rockingham confederacy, led by the Duke 
 of Portland and Mr. Fox, and to which Burke and 
 Sheridan belonged, was the traditional whig party, the 
 heir of the principles of the Revolution, and was sup- 
 ported by the strength of the old whig families. It was 
 essentially aristocratic in its constitution, and derived 
 much of its power from the weai.li, stability, and parlia- 
 mentary influence of the great whig lords. The other 
 was the remnant of Lord Chatham's party, who had 
 combined with the Rockinghams in the opposition to 
 Lord North, and, on the overthrow of the latter, had 
 "^ceived a share of the spoils. It was led by Lord Shel- 
 Turne, father to the present Marquis of Lansdowne, and 
 was more popular in its character than the other division 
 if the whigs. George the Third, who bitterly hated the 
 firhig oligarchy, seized the opportunity presented by the 
 death of the Marquis of Rockingham of dealing it a 
 heavy blow. He appointed Lord SI dburne, instead of 
 fhe Duke of Portland, prime iiunister. Shelburne, with- 
 
278 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 out consulting his colleagues, accepted. Fox, Burke, anc! 
 the other " old whigs," immediately resigned and wen 
 into opposition. 
 
 There were thus three parties in the House of Com- 
 mons, the tory adherents of Lord North making the 
 third. To carry on the government, it was necessary 
 for two of these to unite. After some negotiations be- 
 tween the two divisions of the whigs, which resulted in 
 nothing, Fox formed a coalition with Lord North, and, 
 after a short, sharp struggle, came into power. This was 
 the most imprudent thing, judged by its effects, ever done 
 by the whig party ; for by the great body of the nation 
 it was considered a scandalous contempt of public princi- 
 ple, and it fixed an odium on Fox and Burke from which 
 they never wholly recovered. Sheridan, who, from his 
 lack of strong passions and high purposes, oft'^n excelled 
 his greater contemporaries in his judgment of the temper 
 of the people, strenuously opposed the coalition. He 
 could not appreciate the objects of Fox and Burke, but 
 he was shrewd enough to discover the inefficiency of 
 their means. 
 
 In the new ministry Sheridan was made secretary of 
 the treasury, and gained thereby some knowledge of 
 arithmetic, which he often paraded afterwards in discuss- 
 ing the financial measures of Mr. Pitt. The coalition 
 ninistry did not long exist ; it was detested both by the 
 king and people: The most ridiculous and atrocious 
 falsehoods were manufactured with regard to the objects 
 of its leaders. Its fate was sealed when Mr. Fox's East 
 India Bill was introduced. This great measure passed 
 the House of Commons by a large majority, but it was 
 defeated by intrigue and treachery when it came to the 
 House of Lords. On the failure of the bill. Fox and hi 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 210 
 
 colleagues were instantly dismissed by the king, although 
 they still possessed a majority of votes in the lower house. 
 William Pitt, then just entering upon his political career, 
 was made prime mini«+er, — fought for three months, 
 against a majority of the House of Commons, one of the 
 greatest parliamentary battles on record, — and on the 
 dissolution of parliament, and the election of a new 
 House of Commons, found himself firmly seated in 
 power. The whigs went into long and hopeless oppo- 
 sitioh. 
 
 This was one of the most exciting periods in English 
 political history, but its consideration belongs rather to 
 the biography of Burke and Fox than of Sheridan. One 
 of his most felicitous retorts, however, occurred in an 
 early scene of this hurried drama. While Pitt was 
 serving under Lord Shelburne, Sheridan fired some 
 epigrams into the ministry, which would have shone 
 bright among his happiest dramatic sallies. Pitt, in that 
 vein of arrogant sarcasm for which he was afterwards so 
 much distinguished, informed him, that if such dramatic 
 turns and epigrammatic points were reserved for their 
 proper stage, they would doubtless receive the plaudits 
 of the audience ; but the House of Commons was not the 
 proper scene for them. Sheridan, who was morbidly 
 sensitive to any allusion which connected him with the 
 stage, determined to silence such insinuations forever. 
 He felt, he said, flattered and encouraged by the right 
 honorable gentleman's panegyric on his talents, and if 
 hu ever engaged again in the compositions to which he 
 alluded, he might be tempted to an act of presumption, 
 — to attempt an improvement on one of Ben Jonson's 
 nest characters, — the character of the Angry Boy in The 
 A.lchemist. Nothing could have been better and bitterer 
 
2S0 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 than this retort ; and it pleased Sheridan so much, thai 
 he made a cast of the whole play, assigning each of the 
 prominent opponents of his party a character in harmony 
 with the whig doctrine regarding his disposition. Lord 
 Shelburne was Subtle ; Lord Thurlow, Face ; Mr. Dun- 
 das, Doll Common ; Mr. Rigby, Sir Epicure Mammon ; 
 General Conway, Dame Pliant ; and His Majesty himself 
 was honored with the part of Surly. 
 
 In an extravagantly burlesque sketch of Sheridan, 
 written by his friend Tickell in a copy of The Rivals, 
 there is a finely ludicrous account of the popular clamor 
 against the leaders of the coalition ministry, the humor 
 of which will be appreciated by all who know the politi- 
 cal history of the time, and the means used to prejudice 
 both king and people against the connection. It con- 
 tains also a pertinent allusion to Sheridan's devotion to 
 the bottle, and, through the exaggeration of caricature, 
 enables us to judge of his habits and character at this 
 period. 
 
 " He [Sheridan] was a member of the last parliaments that 
 were summoned in England, and signalized himself on many 
 occasions by his wit and eloquence, though he seldom came to 
 the House till the debate was nearly concluded, and never 
 spoke unless he was drunk. He lived on a fooling of great 
 intimacy with the famous Fox, who is said to have concerted 
 with him the audacious attempt which he made, about the year 
 1783, to seize the whole property of the East India Company, 
 amounting at that time to about £12,000,000 sterling, and then 
 to declare himself Lord Protector of the Realm by the title of 
 Carlow Khan. This desperate scheme actually received the 
 consent of the lower house of parliament, the majority of whoa 
 were bribed by Fox, or intimidated by his and Sheridan 
 threats and violence ; and it is generally believed that the revc 
 Iption would have taken place, if the lords of the king s be'. 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 281 
 
 thamber had not in a body surrounded the throne, and shown 
 the most determined resolution not to abandon their posts but 
 with their lives. The usurpation being defeated, parliamen 
 was dissolved, and loaded with infamy. Sheridan was one of 
 the few members of it who were reelected ; — the burgesses of 
 Stafford, whom he had kept in a constant state of intoxication 
 for three weeks, chose him again to represent them, which he 
 wa.s well qualified to do." 
 
 The fact of his reelection, mentioned in the last sen- 
 tence of this fine caricature, is the more to be noted, as 
 a hundred and sixty members of the old parliament, 
 favorable to Fox and North, were defeated. These 
 called themselves, with much truth as well as pleasantry, 
 " Fox's Martyrs." 
 
 In following- Mr. Fox into opposition, Sheridan soon 
 Decame one of his most efficient supporters. Mr. Pitt's 
 administration found in him a powerful opponent ; and 
 he was especially felicitous in ridiculing the pretensions 
 of the tories, and galling them with pointed declamation. 
 Incapable of projecting leading measures, and deficient 
 in those higher qualities of mind which made Burke and 
 Fox great statesmen, he was the most effective of parti- 
 sans. When pressed to speak on topics which required 
 extensive knowledge, or an appeal to authorit^ies, ne 
 would say humorously to his political friends, — " ^ou 
 know I'm an ignoramus, but here I am; instruct me, 
 and I will do my best." As a man of wit, — of '.vit not 
 only as a power of mind, but as a quality of character, — 
 he detected weak points in argument, or follies in deck 
 mation, with an instinctive insight. In the habit of 
 recording in a memorandum-book his most ingenious 
 thoughts as they occurred to him, ne had ever at hand 
 ^or.ie felicities to weav3 into every speech. A few of 
 
282 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 his brilliant ideas absolutely haunted him, and he too« 
 especial pleasure in varying their application, and mak 
 ing them tell on different occasions. One of these is 
 well known. In his private memoranda he speaks of 
 one " who employs his fancy in his narratives, and keeps 
 his recollections for his wit." This idea was afterwards 
 directed against a composer of music turned wine-mer- 
 chant, — a man, he said, " who composed his wine and 
 imported his music ; " — and was finally shot off, in a 
 seemingly careless parenthesis, in a speech in reply to 
 Dundas, — a right honorable gentleman, (" who depends 
 on his imagination for his facts, and his memory for his 
 wit,") &c. Again, he had a great love of a witty met- 
 aphor drawn from the terms of military science. It first 
 appears as a kind of satire on his own reputation for 
 extempore jests. " A true-trained wit," he says, " lays 
 his plans like a general, — foresees the circumstances of 
 the conversation, — surveys the ground and contingen- 
 cies, — and detaches a question to draw you into the 
 palpable ambuscade of his ready-made joke." In another 
 memorandum he sketches a lady who affects poetry. " 1 
 made regular approaches to her by sonnets and rebuses, 
 — a rondeau of circumvallation, — her pride sapped by 
 an elegy, and her reserve surprised by an impromptu ; 
 proceeding to storm with Pindarics, she, at last, saved 
 the further effusion of ink by a capitulation." Exquisite 
 as this is, it is even exceeded in the shape in which he 
 presented the general idea in the House of Commons. 
 Among the members of the whig party who had " rat- 
 ted," and gone over to the administration, was the Duke of 
 Richmond, a man who had been foremost in the extreme 
 radical ranks of his former connections. In the sessiou 
 of 1786, the duke brought forward a plan for the fortifi 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAJN. 283 
 
 cation of dock-yards. Sheridan subjected his report to 
 a scoiohing speech. He complimented the duke for the 
 proofs he had given of his genius as an engineer. 
 
 " He had made his report," said Sheridan, " an argument 
 of posts ; and conducted his reasoning upon principles of trig- 
 onometry as well as logic. There were certain detached data, 
 liiie advanced worlis, to keep the enemy at a distance from the 
 main object in debate. Strong provisions covered the flanks 
 of his assertions. His very queries were in casements. No 
 impression, therefore, was to be made on this fortress of soph- 
 istry by desultory observations ; and it was necessary to sit 
 down before it, and assail it by regular approaches. It was 
 fortunate, however, to observe, that, notwithstanding all the 
 skill employed by the noble and literary engineer, his mode of 
 defence on paper was open to the same objections which had 
 been urged against his other fortifications ; that if his adver- 
 sary got possession of one of his posts, it became strength 
 against him, and the means of subduing the whole line of his 
 argument." 
 
 From 1780, the period of his entering parliament, to 
 1787, Sheridan, though he had spoken often, had made 
 no such exhibition of his powers as to gain the reputa- 
 tion of a great orator. But about this time the genius 
 and moral energy of Burke started a subject, which not 
 only gave full expression to his own great nature, but 
 afforded the orators of his party a rare occasion for the 
 most dazzling displays of eloquence. We refer, of 
 course, to the impeachment of Hastings. In all matters 
 relating to the affairs of India, Burke bore sovereign 
 sway in his party. It was he who projected the unsuc- 
 cessful India bill, on which the coalition ministry was 
 wrecked. Defeat, however was not likely to damp the 
 energies of a mind like his when it had once fastened 
 on an object; and he kept alive among his ; ssociates 
 
aa4 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 the determination to bring the spoilers of India to a pub* 
 lie account for their misdeeds, and to hold them up to 
 hatred and execration as worthy successors of Cortes 
 and Pizarro, in plundering and depopulating the empire 
 they had conquered. Burke was the only man in Eng- 
 land in whom the prosecution of Indian delinquency and 
 atrocity was a fixed passion as well as a fixed principle. 
 By his ardor and complete comprehension of the subject, 
 he communicated his enthusiasm to his party, — a party 
 which always appeared best when it had public criminals 
 to brand and public corruptions to expose. In bringing 
 forward in the House of Commons the various charges 
 against Hastings, the charge relating to the spoliation 
 of the Begums was allotted to Sheridan. He was prob- 
 ably well supplied by Burke with materials, and he 
 resolutely determined to give the subject that attention 
 which would enable him to make an effective speech. 
 Of all the men engaged in the prosecution, he was per- 
 haps the most superficial in the feeling with which he 
 regarded the crimes against which he was to declaim. 
 His conscience and passions were not deeply stirred 
 against the criminal. Hunt says, in his light way, that 
 the inspiration of Burke in this matter was a jealous 
 hatred of wrong, the love of right that of Fox, " and the 
 opportunity of making a display at somebody's expense 
 that of Sheridan, without any violent care either for 
 right or wrong." With regard to the latter, at least, the 
 remark is just. We can conceive of nothing more ludi- 
 crous than the idea of Sheridan sitting down with his 
 bottle and documents, and, by dint of hard drinking anC 
 cautious reading, concocting ingenious epigrams out o 
 the frauds, and framing theatrical thunder against tli 
 irirnes, of the great oppressor of India. 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 285 
 
 However, the event was such as to reward all his dili- 
 gence. His speech was made on February 7, 1787, and 
 occupied five hours and a half in the delivery. All par- 
 ties agreed in its extravagant praise. Fox said, that all 
 he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when com- 
 pared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like 
 vapor before the sun. Burke and Pitt declared it to be 
 unequalled in ancient or modern eloquence. Logan, 
 who had written a defence of Hastings, went that even- 
 ing to the House with the strongest prepossession against 
 Sheridan and in favor of Hastings. After the former 
 had been speaking an hour, he observed to a friend, — 
 " All this is declamatory assertion, without proof." When 
 he left the House, at the end of the speech, he exclaimed, 
 — " Of all monsters of iniquity, the most enormous is 
 Warren Hastings." Windham, who was no friend to 
 Sheridan, said, twenty years afterwards, that, in spite of 
 some faults of taste, it was the greatest speech within 
 the memory of man. The most significant sign of its 
 effect was the adjournment of the House, on the ground 
 that the members were too much excited to render a fair 
 judgment on the case, — a ground that Burke very hap- 
 pily ridiculed. The practice of cheering at the end of a 
 good speech commenced with this splendid effort of 
 Sheridan. 
 
 There can be little doubt that this was, on the whole, 
 the greatest production of Sheridan's mind. There is no 
 report of it deserving the name. Although he had the 
 speech written out, he would never publish it. With his 
 usual sagacity, he judged that the tradition of its effects 
 would give him more fame than the production itself. 
 To account for his success is difficult. A great deal ia 
 to be referred to the materials which his subject fr> 
 
BOD ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 sented for oratorical display, to his beautiful delivery of 
 particular passages, to the care with which he elaborated 
 tlie whole, and to the surprise of the House at its superi 
 ority over all his previous speeches. He most certainly 
 did not possess that deep feeling of horror and detestation 
 for the crimes of Hastings which animated the breast of 
 Burke. Several years afterwards, when the Prince of 
 Wales introduced him to Hastings, he had the meanness 
 to tell the latter that he had attacked him merely in the 
 way of his vocation as a whig politician, and trusted 
 that it would not be considered as a test of his private 
 feelings. Hastings did not condescend to answer him, 
 but turned scornfully away. If the passion was thus in 
 a great measure simulated, it certainly was not expressed, 
 as far as we can judge from passages here and there in 
 the imperfect printed report, in a style very much above 
 verbiage and fustian. The passages which would have 
 best vindicated the eulogies it received were probably the 
 epigrammatic portions ; and these must have been of sur- 
 passing brilliancy, not only from the ingenuity of Sheri- 
 dan's mind, but from the startling contrasts with which 
 the subject itself was replete. Thus, the most felicitous 
 nassage which can be gleaned from the printed report is 
 that in which reference is made to the sordid spirit of 
 trade which blended with all the operations of the East 
 India Company as a government, and disgraced even 
 their boldest achievements, which showed the meanness 
 of pedlers and the profligacy of pirates. " Alike," he 
 says, " in the political and military line, could be observed 
 auctioneering ambassadors and trading generals ; — and 
 thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits; an 
 army employed in executing an arrest ; a town besiegea 
 on a note of hand ; a prince dethroned for the balance of 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 281 
 
 KU account. Thus it was <:hey exhibited a government 
 which unite 1 the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre and 
 the little traffic of a merchant's counting-house, — wield- 
 ing a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket 
 with the other." 
 
 On the 3d of June, 1788, Sheridan, having been 
 appointed one of the managers of the impeachment of 
 Hastings, delivered before the Lords in Westminster 
 Hall another oration on the same charge he had so bril- 
 liantly urged in the House of Commons. The fashion- 
 able excitement caused by this great state trial is said to 
 have reached its height on the occasion of his speech. 
 Fifty guineas were known to have been paid for a ticket. 
 The oration, including the examination of evidence, 
 occupied four days ; and although it did not wring the 
 hearts and overpower the understandings of the audience, 
 like the impassioned and comprehensive orations with 
 which Burke opened the impeachment, it still produced 
 the liveliest sensation. Burke, whose whole soul was in 
 the success of the cause, and who was delighted with 
 everything which helped it forward in popular estimation, 
 was heated with admiration during its delivery. " There," 
 he exclaimed to Fox, while listening to some passages, 
 " there, that is the true stjde ; something between poetry 
 and prose, and better than either." Fox replied, that he 
 thought the mixture was likely to produce poetic prose, 
 or, what was worse, prosaic poetry. 
 
 On the fourth day Sheridan strained his powers to the 
 utmost to charm and dazzle his auditory. In referring 
 to one crime of Hastings, he made an allusion to the 
 great historian of the age. Gibbon was present, and in 
 his Memoirs has recorded the pleasure he experienced in 
 receiviir.g such a compliment before all that was great 
 
288 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 and noble in the nation. " Not in the annals of Tacitus," 
 said Sheridan, " not on the himinous page of Gibbon, 
 could be found described such a monstrous act of cruelty 
 and treachery." At the conclusion of the speech, he 
 sunk back in the arms of Burke, as if overcome with 
 fatigue and emotion. One of his prosaic whig friends 
 came up to him and said, — "Why, Sherry, did you 
 compliment that tory. Gibbon, with the epithet lumi- 
 twus 1 " " I meant vo-luviinous,''^ answered Sheridan, in 
 a hoarse whisper. 
 
 It is commonly believed that the speech in West- 
 minster Hall was substantially the same as that delivered 
 in the House of Commons, although, in its diffusion 
 through two days. Fox and many others considered it 
 inferior to his first effort. Burke, however, in his cele- 
 brated eulogy on the oration, said, that from poetry up to 
 eloquence, there was not a species of composition of which 
 * complete and perfect specimen might not be culled from 
 't. Now, there is extant a verbatim report of the speech ; 
 md Mr. Moore, in his Life of Sheridan, has quoted all 
 ^hose passages which even the partiality of a biographer 
 could pronounce excellent. It is scarcely necessary to 
 say, that there is hardly a page in Burke's own works 
 which is not worth the whole of Sheridan's fine writing, 
 as far as eloquence can be estimated from the written 
 composition. Burke's extravagant praise is to be referred 
 partly to the magnanimity of a rival orator, emulous tc 
 outdo all others in hearty recognition of another's merits, 
 and partly to his intense enthusiasm for every effective 
 speech delivered un his side of the subject. In him the 
 success of the impeachment swallowed up every desire 
 for personal notoriety or fame in its prosecution, and he 
 naturally exaggerated the merit of all arguments and elo 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 289 
 
 quence which illustrated or enforced his own views. Sheri- 
 dan cared little for the impeachment, but cared much for 
 the reputation of a brilliant speech. Posterity has dealt 
 fairly with both. Burke has succeeded in fixing an ineradi- 
 cable brand of guilt on the brow of an able and unprincipled 
 public criminal, whose great capacity and great services 
 seemed to overawe the world's moral judgment, and has 
 consigned him to an immortality of infamy in orations as 
 imperishable as literature. Sheridan has succeeded in 
 gaining the reputation of an infinitely clever and dextrous 
 speaker, the records of whose speeches are read only in a 
 vain attempt to discover by what jugglery of action such 
 ingenious combinations of words ever imposed upon an 
 audience as the genuine language either of reason, imag- 
 ination, or passion. 
 
 As an orator, Sheridan belongs to a peculiar class. 
 He was certainly the most artificial of speakers, when 
 his ambition led him to imitate Fox in impassioned 
 declamation, or Burke in luminous disquisition and im- 
 aginative flights. Moore, in a strain of exquisite flattery, 
 celebrates him as one 
 
 " Whose eloquence, brightening whatever it tried, 
 Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave, 
 Was as rapid, as deep, and as brilliant a tide 
 As ever bore Freedom aloft on its wave." 
 
 Nothing, as Moore well knew, was more incorrect than 
 the impression of spontaneousness which this eulogy con- 
 veys. The private memoranda of Sheridan's speeches 
 show the exact place wnere the " Good God, Mr. Speak- 
 er," is to be introduced ; and exhibit painfully elaborated 
 " bursts " of passion, into which it was his intention to 
 be " hurried." With regard to imagery, those figures 
 vol.. II. 19 
 
390 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 which start up in the mind of the true orator in the 
 
 excitement of the moment, instinct with the life of the 
 occasion, were in Sheridan's case carefully fashioned 
 out beforehand and bedizened with verbal fnppery, cold 
 and lifeless in themselves, but made to tell upon the 
 audience by grace and energy of manner. It has been 
 repeatedly noticed, that in the notes of Burke's speeches 
 nothing is observable but the outline of the argument 
 and the heads of the information ; in the notes of Sheri- 
 dan's, little is seen but images, epigrams, and exclama- 
 tions. 
 
 Sheridan has been often classed with Irish orators, 
 that is, with orators having more feeling and imagination 
 than taste. Irish oratory, it is very certain, is not con- 
 fined to Hibernians, neither does it comprehend all Irish 
 speakers. Its leading characteristic is sensibility. But 
 this sensibility is good or bad, according to the mental 
 powers by which it is accompanied. In Burke, it 
 appeared in connection with an understanding and an 
 imagination greater than any other orator ever possessed, 
 and second, if second at all, only to Bacon among states- 
 men. In Grattan, it took the form of fiery patriotism, 
 stimulating every faculty of his intellect, and condensing 
 the expression of thought and fancy by pervading both 
 with earnest passion. In Curran, it quickened into 
 almost morbid action one of the readiest and most fertile, 
 though not comprehensive minds, ever placed in a hiraian 
 brain. In Shiel, it is seen in the rapidity, intensity, and 
 intellectual fierceness, given to the expression of blended 
 argument and fancy. In all of these, sensibility is more 
 or less earnest and genuine, penetrating thought with 
 fire, and thus giving it force to the will as well as per- 
 suasion to the understanding. In another class of Irish 
 
UICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 29) 
 
 orators, of which Phillips was once considered the repre 
 sentative, this sensibility is little more than the boiling 
 over of warm blood, without corresponding power ot 
 thought or imagination ; and it runs into all excesses 
 of verbose declamation and galvanized commonplace 
 Execrable as it is, liowever, and doomed to instanj 
 damnation in a tempes. of hisses as soon as it is printed, 
 it is still not without effect upon uncultivated or excited 
 audiences. This style of oratory is sometimes called 
 imaginative, although its leading absurdities are directly 
 traceable to a want of imagination. It is no more imag- 
 inative than Swift's mock reasoning to prove that Par- 
 tridge was dead is argumentative. 
 
 Now, to neither of these classes of Irish orators does 
 Sheridan belong ; for genuine sensibility, either in the 
 expression of reason or nonsense, does not enter into the 
 composition of his speeches. He feels neither like Burke 
 nor like Phillips. In serious declamation, he simply 
 attempts an imitation of intense and elevated feeling ; 
 and his passion, as artificial and as much made up as 
 the thunder of Drury Lane, finds suitable expression in 
 a diction curiously turgid, in meretricious ornaments, 
 and in a style of imagery plastered upon the argument, 
 instead of growing out of it. If, as a speaker, he had 
 used this florid style without stint, he must have failed. 
 We believe that it did not please his contemporaries 
 much more than it does posterity, and that it was gen- 
 erally held by them to bear about the same relation to 
 the peculiar merits of his speeches, which the fine talk 
 of Falkland and Julia beaiss to the fun of Acres and the 
 wit of Captain Absolute. What placed him by the side 
 of Burke, Fox, and Windham, as an orator, was not hia 
 earnestness of feeling, but his equalling them in the- 
 
292 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 felicity with which they exposed crime, corruption, soph 
 istry, and hypocrisy, to ridicule and contempt. His most 
 successful imitations of Burke consist in the employment 
 of verbal paradoxes and ironical fancies, in which the 
 opinions and statements of an opponent are exaggerated 
 into a kind of gigantic caricature, and then scornfully 
 eulogized. Pretence of all kinds soon collapses, when 
 subjected to this ordeal of wasting ridicule. The bubble 
 bursts at once, and " is resolved into its elemental suds." 
 As far as we can judge of Sheridan's great speech on 
 the Begums, his most effective weapon of attack was a 
 sarcastic mockery of Hastings's assignment of patriotic 
 motives for his crimes, an epigrammatic expression of 
 hatred and scorn for oppression and rapine, and a singu- 
 lar felicity in dragging down the governor of a vast 
 empire to the level of the common herd of profligates and 
 criminals, by connecting his greatest acts with the same 
 motives which influence the pickpocket and the cut- 
 throat. By bringing the large conceptions and beneficent 
 aims which should characterize a ruler of nations into 
 startling contrast with the small personal objects which 
 animate the heroes of Hounslow Heath, he had an oppor- 
 tunity to play the dazzling fence of his wit with the most 
 brilliant effect. Many of his most swollen comparisons 
 and strained metaphors are redeemed from absolute con- 
 tempt only by the presence of this mocking spirit. That 
 his great strength consisted in this power of viewing 
 everything under its ludicrous relations is seen in the 
 rapidity with which he ever extricated himself frcan the 
 consequences of failure in his florid flights. Mr. Law 
 the counsel for Hastings, very successfully ridiculed one 
 of the hectic metaphors of his speech. " It was the first 
 lime in his life," r'^plied Sheridan, " he had ever heard 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 293 
 
 »1 special pleading on a metaphor, or a bill of indictment 
 iigamst a trope. But such was the turn of the learned 
 counsel's mind, that when he attempted to be humorous, 
 no jest could be found, and when serious, no fact was 
 trisible." This retort is worth a thousand such tropes as 
 occasioned it. 
 
 Up to the impeachment of Hastings, Fox, Burke, and 
 Sheridan, were closely united ; but the illness of the 
 king, which soon followed, brought a question before 
 parliament, which, while it seemed to promise the acces- 
 sion of the whigs to power, resulted only in sowing the 
 seeds of distrust among their leaders. George the Third 
 became insane, and it devolved upon the legislature to 
 appoint or recognize a regent. The Prince of Wales, a 
 selfish debauchee and spendthrift, was the person that 
 would naturally be appointed ; and the prince, hating 
 tiis father and hated by him, was a whig. Mr. Pitt and 
 the tories were determined to restrict his prerogative ; 
 the whigs struggled to have him endowed with the full 
 powers of majesty. A fierce war of words and princi- 
 ples was the consequen-^e, in which Fox and Burke grave 
 way to unwonted gusts of passion, and Burke, especially, 
 indulged in some unwise al'usions to the king's situation. 
 Sheridan, who for a long time had been the companion 
 of the prince in his pleasure^;, and in some degree his 
 «gent in the House of Commons, was suspected by his 
 friends of intriguing for a higher office than his station 
 in the party would warrant. The king's recovery put 
 an end to the debates, and to the hopes of each. A por- 
 tion of the disappointment which Burke and Fox ex- 
 Dsrienced was transmuted into lislike of each other, each 
 Reeling that the violence of the discussion had injured 
 the party, and each placing the blame upon the other. 
 
294 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Both were suspicious of Sheridan, also, and doubted his 
 honorable dealing in the matter. 
 
 This slight feud would probably have been soon 
 healed, if the breaking out of the French Revolution 
 had not given an immediate occasion for all the discon- 
 tent in the party to explode. Burke, from the first, 
 looked upon that portentous event with distrust ; Fox 
 and Sheridan hailed it as an omen of good. The debate 
 on the Army Estimates, in 1790, was the first public 
 sign of the schism between the leaders of the whigs. 
 Sheridan, who seems to have foreseen that Fox and 
 Burke must eventually dissolve their connection, took 
 this opportunity, in an animated but indiscreet speech 
 against Burke's views, to hasten the separation ; but he 
 only succeeded in bringing Burke's wrath down upon his 
 own head, and a public disavowal of their friendship. 
 The progress of the Revolution, however, soon brought 
 on a final division of the whig party, upon which a 
 majority of its most influential members went over with 
 Burke to the support of the ministry. Fox and Sheri- 
 dan, not on the most cordial terms themselves, were left 
 to battle, in the House of Commons, both against their 
 old enemies and a powerful body of their old friends. 
 
 There is no portion of Sheridan's political life which 
 is more honorable than his services to freedom during 
 the stormy period between 1793 and 1801. It was a 
 time of extreme opinions. The French Revolution had 
 unsettled the largest intellects of the age, and seditious 
 and despotic principles clashed violently against each 
 other. The tories, to preserve order, seemed bent on 
 destroying freedom; and the radicals, enraged at the 
 attacks on freedom, or deluded by the abstract common- 
 places of the French schocj, overlooked order in thei 
 
EICHARD BRINSLKY SHERIDAN. 295 
 
 Btruggle against oppression. Fox, Sheridan, Grey, Tier- 
 ney, Erskine, were the nucleus of a legal opposition to 
 the ministry, and, at the head of a small minority of 
 whigs, defended the free principles of the constitution 
 against the court, the administration, and popular clamor. 
 Sheridan adhered generally to his party, though he con- 
 trived to escape some of its glorious unpopularity by 
 giving a hearty support to the government on a few try- 
 ing occasions. His various speeches during this period 
 display his usual brilliancy, with passages here and there 
 of powerful declamation. It is needless to say that his 
 dissipation and debts were on the increase. His patriot- 
 ism was not allowed to dull the edge of his sensuality. 
 In his habits of mystification, too, in the preparation of 
 his speeches, he displayed his customary cunning. In 
 1794, when called upon, as one of the prosecutors of 
 Hastings, to reply to Mr. Law, he spent two or three 
 days in such close application to reading and writing, as 
 to complain to a friend of having motes in his eyes. 
 When he entered Westminster Hall, he was asked by 
 one of his brother-managers for his bag and papers. He 
 answered, that he had none, and must get through with 
 his speech as he best might ; — "he would abuse Ned 
 Law, ridicule Plumer's long orations, make the court 
 laugh, please the women, and, in short, go triumphantly 
 through his task." Much to the surprise of the man 
 ftgers, he succeeded admirably. 
 
 In 1792, Mrs. Sheridan died. She was a woman of 
 fine mind, warm heart, and uncommon beauty, entering 
 with zeal into her husband's interests, and making his 
 home as happy as the home of a libertine could be, who 
 was gifted with good-nature rather t'nan principle, with 
 iffectionate sensations rather than a heart. In 1795, 
 
!!96 ESSAYS AND REYIEWR 
 
 Sheridan married again. The lady was Miss Ogle 
 daughter of the Dean of Winchester, and represented 
 as young, accomplished, and thoroughly in love. Sheri- 
 dan's powers of fascination neither dissipation nor the 
 reputation of a roue could weigh down. 
 
 During this stormiest period of English politics, Sheri- 
 dan preserved the same virtue in his speeches, and the 
 same self-indulgence in his conduct, which characterized 
 his whole life. When Pitt resigned, and the Addingtor 
 ministry was formed, in 1801, he, following the example 
 of a few other whigs, gave that feeble government, with 
 its toothless toryism, a kind of support. But the inflated 
 incapacity of that administration could not fail to draw 
 laughter from him, the prince of laughers. Addington 
 was nicknamed " The Doctor." When one of his meas- 
 ures was suddenly opposed by the Scotch members, 
 usually loyal to ministers, Sheridan set the House of 
 Commons in a roar by addressing the premier from Mac- 
 beth, — " Doctor, the thanes fly from thee ! " On the 
 return of Pitt to power, Sheridan went again into oppo- 
 sition. Of all his later speeches, his most celebrated is 
 one which he made in 1805, on his motion for repealing 
 the Defence Act. It was written during the debate, at a 
 coffee-house near Westminster Hall, and was full of the 
 fiercest attacks upon the premier. Pitt, commonly so 
 insensible, is said to have writhed under its declamatory 
 "sarcasm ; and many who were present thought they dis- 
 cerned at times in his countenance an intention to fix a 
 personal quarrel upon his flashing adversary. After the 
 dewith of Pitt, in 1806, and the formation of the Fox and 
 Jxrenville ministry, Sheridan was appointed Treasurer 
 L'f the Navy, an ofRce which he deemed altogether 
 oelow his deserts, and which indicated 'hat his positictu 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 297 
 
 tn the party had not advanced since 1789, The admin- 
 istration was dissolved shortly after the death of Fox, 
 owing- to the determination of Lord Grenville to push the 
 Catholic claims. Sheridan, though an Irishman himself, 
 and with every feeling of nationality arrayed on the side 
 of Catholic emancipation, was still vexed at the ministry 
 for committing itself to the measure, from his selfish fear 
 of losing ofRce. He knew the king would not consent to 
 it, and he had not the high Roman feeling of Lord Gren- 
 ville, who was indisposed to shape his course according 
 to the path marked by the bigotry of the monarch. "He 
 had heard," Sheridan said, " of people knocking out their 
 brains against a wall ; but never before knew of any one 
 building a wall expressly for the purpose." 
 
 After his loss of office, Sheridan's efforts in parlia- 
 ment were not frequent. He became engaged in various 
 IntriiTues regarding the formation of new administra- 
 tions, in which he lost the confidence of his political 
 friends. His intimacy with the Prince of Wales, and 
 his declining health and reputation, seem equally to 
 have hurried him into dishonorable tricks and insinceri- 
 ties. At last, in 1812, rendered desperate by the loss 
 of his theatrical property, embarrassed in purse, and 
 almost bankrupt in character, he closed a brilliant politi- 
 cal life by an act of treachery which will ever stain his 
 name. On the death of Mr. Perceval, great difficulty 
 was experienced in forming an administration. There 
 was a probability of the whigs again coming into power ; 
 overtures were made to Lords Grey and Grenville to 
 .brm a ministry. They would not accept, unless the 
 household were dismissed. Lord Yarmouth, one of this 
 number, requested Sheridan to convey to the two whig 
 lords their intention to resign, rather than be an obstacle 
 
298 ESSAYS AND KEVIEWS. 
 
 to the formation of a ministry. Had Sheridan done 
 Inis, the political history of England might have been 
 essentially different, and measures of reform might have 
 dated from 1812, instead of 1832. But he betrayed his 
 trust, partly because he was aware that ttie Prince 
 Regent did not really desire the accession of the whigs, 
 and partly because he disliked the inflexible character 
 of the lords who would have been at the head of affairs. 
 He not only did not communicate the offer of Lord Yar- 
 mouth, but, when a rumor of it had transpired, offered 
 to bet five hundred guineas that it was not in contem- 
 plation. His treachery was discovered too late to be 
 repaired. Lord Liverpool, "commonplace and loving 
 place," obtained the premiership, and held it during 
 fifteen years of tory rule. 
 
 Closely following this shipwreck of character, Sheri- 
 dan lost his seat in parliament. This was almost equiv- 
 alent to a loss of his personal liberty, for he was no longer 
 safe from arrest. From this time to his death, he gath- 
 ered in the harvest of long years of indolence, extrava- 
 gance, and vice. Disease was secretly wearing away his 
 originally powerful constitution. His face, once so full 
 of intelligence and beauty, had become deformed and 
 bloated with intemperance. His old friends looked 
 coldly upon him. Brilliant powers of conversation and 
 fascinating address no longer characterized the faded 
 wit and shattered debauchee. The Prince Regent, foi 
 whom he had so often sacrificed his interest and honor, 
 left him " naked to his enemies." All the mortifications 
 which could result from wounded pride and vanity, and 
 the sense of decaying intellect, thickened upon him. Hi3 
 min was swift and sure. His creditors seized upoii 
 everything which the pawnbroker bad not already takea 
 
RICHABD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 299 
 
 Eve.i Reynolds's portrait of his first wife as Saint Cecilia 
 passed from his possession. In the spring of 1815, he 
 was arrested and carried to a sponging-house, where he 
 was retained two or three days. His life sufficiently 
 shows that his sense of shame was not quick, but he 
 was deeply humiliated at this arrest, feeling it as "a 
 profanation of his person." 
 
 And now came the misery of his last scene. He 
 appeared to feel that his life was drawing to a close. 
 To some sharp remonstrances from his wife on his con- 
 tinued irregularities, he replied in an affecting letter. 
 "Never again," he wrote, "let one harsh word pass 
 between us during the period, which may not perhaps 
 be long, that we are in this world together, and life, 
 however clouded to me, is spared to us." His last ill- 
 ness soon followed. Even his dying bed was not free 
 from the incursions of writs and sheriffs. He was ar- 
 rested, and would have been taken away in his blankets, 
 had not his physician threatened the officer with the 
 consequences of committing murder. At last, on the 
 seventh of July, 1816, in his sixty-fifth year, he died. 
 
 Then came the mockery of a splendid burial. Dukes, 
 royal and noble, bishops, marquesses, earls, viscounts, 
 right honorables, emulously swelled the train of his 
 funeral. " France," said a French journalist at the 
 time, " is the place for an author to live in, and England 
 the place for him to die in." In the Poet's Corner of 
 Westminster Abbey, the )nly spot remaining unoccupied 
 was reserved for the body of him whose death-bed was 
 not safe from the sheriffs writ. Tom Moore, in a fine 
 strain of poetical indignation, published just after Sheri- 
 dan's death, thus cuttingly refers to the noble IcAis who 
 ' honored " the funeral : — 
 
300 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 " How proud they can press to the funeral array 
 
 Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow! 
 How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, 
 Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow ! " 
 
 The task of lightening the misery of Sheridan's last 
 Hours was left to such commoners as Samuel Rogers 
 Thomas Moore, and good Doctor Bain. 
 
 The moral of Sheridan's life lies on the surface, and 
 we shall not risk any commonplaces of ethical horror in 
 commenting upon its hollowness and its sins. The 
 vices for which he was distinguished are generally repro- 
 bated, and their position in the scale of wickedness is 
 sufficiently marked ; but they are not the darkest kind 
 of vices. We are not of that number who select him 
 from his contemporaries, and expend upon his follies and 
 errors the whole strength of their indignation. Allow- 
 ing him to have been as bad as his nature would allow, 
 we believe he was a much better man than many of his 
 contemporaries who are commonly praised as virtuous. 
 The man who brings misery upon himself and his fam- 
 ily by intemperance and sloth is justly condemned, but 
 he is innocent compared with one who, from bigotry or 
 lust of power, would ruin or injure a nation. George 
 the Third is praised as a good king ; but the vices of 
 Sheridan's character were mere peccadilloes compared 
 with the savage vices which raged and ruled in the heart 
 of his Majesty. In a moral estimate which included all 
 grades of sin, Sheridan would compare well even with 
 Lord North, William Pitt, or Spencer Perceval, with all 
 their social and domestic merits. The American war 
 and the war with France originated, or, at least, were 
 continued, in a spirit which approaches nearer to the 
 diabolical than the sensuality of Sheridan ; and we fee 
 
KICHARE BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 301 
 
 little disposed to chine in with that morality which 
 passes over all the rats and liberticides, the servile poli- 
 ticians and selfish statesmen, the bad and bigoted spend- 
 thrifts of blood and treasure, during a whole generatior, 
 to hurl its heaviest anathemas upon one poor, weak, vol- 
 atile, brilliant, and hard-pressed rouL 
 
 But while we thus remember that there are natures 
 which have contrived to indulge darker passions than he 
 ever dreamed, without coming under the ban of either 
 historian or moralist, and while we therefore have little 
 sympathy with one class of Sheridan's judges and critics, 
 we do not join in the absurd sentimentality of another 
 class, who strive hard to place his case among the infirm- 
 ities and calamities of genius. The sources of his errors 
 were not those which have sometimes hurried large and 
 unregulated minds into evil, and there is something 
 ridiculous in placing him by the side of the Otways, the 
 Savages, the Chattertons, the Burnses, and the Byrons. 
 With regard to his calamities, there is hardly another 
 instance in literary history of a man who enjoyed so 
 much fame with such moderate powers, and who was 
 enabled to run so undisturbed a career of sensuality from 
 manhood to within three years of his death. What 
 commonly goes under the name of enjoyment of life he 
 had in full measure, not only without the check which 
 comes from means limited by honest scruples, but almost 
 without the remorse with which conscience usually 
 dashes unhallowed pleasure. And with respect to the 
 desertion of which he complained in the last years of his 
 ife, it was, as far as regarded his political connections, 
 the result of his political treachery ; and as his personal 
 friendships sprang from the fellowship of vice rathe- 
 
302 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 than feeling, he had no right to expect that the rakes 
 and good fellows, his companions of the bottle and the 
 debauch, would be the bankers of his poverty, or the 
 consolers of his dying hours. 
 
HENRY FIELDING.* 
 
 Theee is no word more provokingly equivocal than 
 history. In one sense, it simply indicates a department 
 of literature ; in another, the sum and substance of all 
 departments. He who should read all the so-called his- 
 torians of the world, from Herodotus to Hallam, would, 
 in common phrase, be considered as possessing a knowl- 
 edge of history ; but in respect to the thing itself, he 
 might be more ignorant of many ages and nations than 
 one who had devoted his time to plays and novels. In 
 regard to the history of England, especially, it is curious 
 how small a portion of our realized and available knowl- 
 edge of the English mind and people is derived from the 
 standard narratives of public events. When, after ex- 
 hausting the strictly historical department of English 
 literature, we turn to its works of imagination, and from 
 these to the numerous trifles in poetry and romance 
 which every age has poured forth, we discover that we 
 are increasing our historical information, while we are 
 seemingly gratifying only taste, indolence, or whim. 
 Indeed, it is impossible to understand the causes of 
 England's material supremacy in any summary now ex- 
 tant of the persons and events connected witJi its differ- 
 
 * The WorKs of Henry Fielding, with a Life of the Aa'-hor. By TicvM 
 Eoscoe. London : Henry G. Bohn 1843. 8vo. pn. ni6. — Notth Ams-if a» 
 Review, January, 1849. 
 
3U4 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ent stages. That peculiar combination of virtues and 
 vices, of practical sense and stubborn prejudice, which 
 occurs to us when we think of an Englishman, never 
 was obtained from Hume alone. The literature of the 
 country, in the most generous meaning of that word, is 
 therefore a portion of its history, conducting us close to 
 the heart, character, and external costume, the body anti 
 soul, of the nation, and enabling us to realize the people 
 as living beings. A drama by Fletcher, a pamphlet by 
 Nash, a satire by Donne, a novel by Mrs. Behn, a com- 
 edy by Congreve, not to mention the stores of informatior. 
 in Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, may 
 convey more real historical knowledge, and enable us 
 better to understand England in its manners and un- 
 written institutions, than Holinshed and Carte, than 
 Oldmixon and Burnet. A person whose notions of 
 dignity prevent him from penetrating into such minor 
 avenues of letters will never gain much more than the 
 shell of history. If the object of historical studies be 
 thus to give an idea of a past age, approaching as neai 
 as possible in vividness to that which we have of our 
 own, then certainly no student of the eighteenth century 
 should overlook the life and works of Henry Fielding, — 
 dramatist, lawyer, journalist, magistrate, novelist, and 
 man of wit and pleasure about town. Tom Jones and 
 Joseph Andrews may not seem of so much importance 
 as George II. and Sir Robert Walpole ; but no one ever 
 followed the adventures of the former without acquiring, 
 unconsciously, a vast amount of information shedding 
 light on the policy of the latter. 
 
 Of all the English authors, the most exclusively Eng- 
 lish, the two into whose very being the life of their age 
 and country passed most completely., are Ben JonsoD 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 305 
 
 and Henry Fielding; and no person can be pronounced 
 Ignorant of England who has studied their works, and 
 obtained a living conception of their personal characters. 
 Our present concern is with Fielding, who, somewhat 
 leficient in that positiveness and dogmatism of the Eng- 
 lish character which appear so grandly in old Ben, and 
 in heedless animal spirits suggesting the Irishman rather 
 than the Englishman, still in mind and disposition rep- 
 resents that basis of sensuality, humor, coarse and strong 
 morality, that practical grasp of things in the concrete, 
 and that thorough-going belief in the senses, which char- 
 acterize the genuine Saxon. Scott, indeed, thinks that 
 Fielding can hardly be relished and understood by per- 
 sons not habitually conversant with old English life. 
 Doubtless, this is true to a certain extent ; but we can 
 name no novelist who so felicitously exhibits human 
 nature through its modification of English nature, or 
 conveys so vivid an idea of both, in modes so universally 
 appreciable. 
 
 The period in which Fielding lived and wrote pre 
 sented a society richly diversified in character and man 
 ners, and affording to the novelist exhaustless material 
 of humor and observation. It had already, in Pope 
 Swift, Young, Arbuthnot, and others, found its satirists 
 men who made its crimes and follies the butt of theL 
 aggressive wit ; but it had not as yet been mirrored or? 
 ^he page of a deep and genial humorist, combining the 
 requisite insight with the requisite toleration to represent 
 it in its peculiar life and costume. The profligacy and 
 levity which disgraced the higher classes had been par- 
 tially reflected in the comedies of Congreve ; and Van- 
 brugh, with a stronger grasp of character, had brought 
 L'p Sir Tunbelly Clumsey and Sir Francis Wronghead 
 
 VOL. II. 20 
 
306 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 from the country, to introduce them to the Lord Fop* 
 pingtons and Sir John Brutes of the town ; but the man 
 who should exhibit church and state, town and country, 
 in characters at once national, local, and individual, and 
 be able to present pictures by which after ages might 
 recognize the form and spirit of the time, was yet to 
 appear. Fielding not only possessed the jovial tempera- 
 ment and mental power to perform this truthfully, but 
 the vicissitudes of his life brought him face to face with 
 every order of English society. Born of a noble family, 
 but thrown at an early age into the world to make his 
 own living, he knew almost every form of poverty and 
 distress, and obtained his knowledge of mankind by the 
 scientific process of observation and experience. He 
 knew equally well the mansion of the aristocrat and the 
 garret of the author, the palace and the sponging-house, 
 the court and St. Giles, Westminster Hall and Wapping, 
 the cathedral and the Methodist meeting, the manor- 
 house and the country inn. To dine with the Duke of 
 Roxburgh or his Grace of Bedford in the West End, to 
 sup with Savage or Boyce in a cellar, — to converse 
 with Lord Chesterfield at Pulteney's, and with a country 
 coachman at an ale-house in Dorsetshire, — to hear some 
 member of the great whig connection expatiate on the 
 blessings of the Hanover succession, and to hear some 
 old Jacobite squire roar out a song to Charlie over the 
 water, after the fifth bottle, — to know all varieties of 
 fortune, and consequently all varieties of company, and 
 intensely to enjoy everything short of misery itself, — 
 was the common experience of the great delineator of 
 English character and manners. No other author of 
 his time had his experience of life ; and his experience 
 would have converted almost any other author into a 
 
HENRY FIELDINR 30? 
 
 npittire satirist, or moody misanthrope. Towwouse 
 Squire Western, Parsons Adams, Barnabas, and Trul- 
 liber, Dr. Harrison, Colonel Bath, Square, Thwackum, 
 Bliful, Allworthy, Partridge, Fanny, Sophia Western, 
 Mis. Slipslop, Lady Bellaston, — almost every form 
 which selfishness, baseness, levity, licentiousness, cleri- 
 cal worldliness, political corruption, as well as honesty, 
 innocence, and truth, assumed in the men and women 
 of his age, — Fielding knew with a certainty and accu- 
 racy almost approaching the perfection of science. And 
 he surveyed the whole with a kind of inimitable absence 
 of spleen and egotism, more wonderful than his knowl- 
 edge. His works represent greater varieties of rascality 
 and hard-heartedness than those of almost any other 
 writer; yet he never leaves the impression that human 
 nature is to be given over as beyond redemption, or that 
 the world is effete. 
 
 Fielding was born April 22, 1707. He was the son 
 of Edmund Fielding, an officer who served with some 
 distinction under Marlborough, and who eventually was 
 promoted to the rank of lieutenant-genera^ By his 
 father's side, Henry was connected with the noble fam- 
 ilies of Kingston and Denbigh, and through the latter 
 with the renowned house of Hapsburg, from which 
 Austria has drawn her emperors. Gibbon, in that burst 
 of enthusiasm for literary fame in which he exhorts the 
 noble Sponsors, enriched by the trophies of Marlborough, 
 to consider still " the Fairy Queen as the most precious 
 iewel in their coronet," also finely alludes to Fielding's 
 noble descent. " Far different," he says, " have been 
 the fortunes of the English and German divisions of the 
 family of Hapsburg ; the former, the knights and sheriffs 
 pf Leicestershire, have slowly risen to the dignity of a 
 
308 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 peerage ; the latter, the emperors of Germany and kings 
 of Spain, have threatened the liberty of the Old and 
 invaded the treasures of the New World. The succes- 
 sors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of Eng- 
 land ; but the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite pic- 
 ture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the 
 Escu*iul and the imperial eagle of Austria." This con- 
 fident prophecy seems in the present year to be in the 
 course of fulfilment. 
 
 Fielding received the rudiments of education from 
 the Rev. Mr. Oliver, a coarse, avaricious, and narrow- 
 minded priest, whom he afterwards immortalized in the 
 character of Parson TruUiber. From the hands of this 
 clerical bear he was removed, when he arrived at a suit- 
 able age, to Eton, where he distinguished himself for 
 his quickness of parts, and laid the foundation of that 
 classical knowledge which he always loved, and which 
 he was so fond of parading even in his novels. At this 
 school he formed the acquaintance of many boys who 
 afterwards became eminent, and among others of Lord 
 Lyttelton, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Pitt. It was his father's 
 intention to make him a lawyer, and accordingly he was 
 sent from Eton to Leyden, in his eighteenth year, to 
 study the civil law. How he conducted himself abroad 
 've are not informed ; but launched, as he was, into life 
 m the heyday of youth, and with a constitution which 
 could bear any excesses into which his irresistible animal 
 spirits might im.pel him, we have always thought that 
 his knowledge of law was principally obtained in experi- 
 encing the consequences of its violation. His biogra- 
 phers are careful to inform us that he studied hard with 
 the celebrated Professor Vitriarius, and some of them 
 mournfully regret that his father could not sustain the 
 
HENERY FIELDING. 309 
 
 txpense of carrying him through a course of study so 
 auspiciously commenced, and which was winning him 
 the approbation of the learned Thebans of Leyden. 
 The probability is, that Fielding's expenses were consider- 
 ably larger than properly belong to a simple devotee of 
 knowledge, and that General Fielding had to support 
 the bon vivant as well as the scholar. At any rate, his 
 father's remittances failed after he had enjoyed the ines- 
 timable companionship of Professor Vitriarius for a period 
 short of three years, and he was compelled to return to 
 England. It cannot be doubted that he returned with 
 some knowledge of the world and of the classics, with a 
 keen sense of the pleasurable, and a disposition to gratify 
 it in the elegant recreations suitable to a rake and a 
 blood ; but of his civil law we hear no more. 
 
 General Fielding was married four times, and had a 
 large and constantly increasing family, which in respect 
 to number was compared to King Priam's ; and accord- 
 ingly, on Fielding's arrival in England, he found his 
 good-natured father perfectly willing that he should be 
 his own master, and willing also to settle on him £200 
 I year, — an allowance, however, which was never paid. 
 Thus, at the age of twenty. Fielding was cast upon the 
 world of London, with nobody to assist or check him, 
 and with five particularly ravenous senses to provide 
 with objects of necessity or indulgence. He immediately 
 renewed his aciquaintance with many of his schoolboy 
 friends, and plunged resolutely into the dissipation of the 
 time. With a handsome person, a constitution of iron, 
 a fand of spirits which glorified the hour and disregarded 
 the future, with brilliant conversational powers and 
 irresistible bonhommie of manner, he soon became popu- 
 lar, and ranked among his a&sociates all the good fellows 
 
no ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 of the day, from the nohle profligate to the ne^dy author. 
 But this kind of life requires money, and Fielding prob- 
 ably soon found that there is a limit to the patience 
 of unpaid landladies and the liberality of fashionable 
 friends, and that he must choose an occupation. It is 
 needless to say that Professor Vitriarius and the civil 
 law were forgotten, and that his thoughts were at once 
 turned to the stage, as presenting the best means of 
 solving the problem, how a young adventurer, whose wit 
 and sprightliness were the talk of London society, could 
 gratify an insatiable love of pleasure without heaping up 
 a portentous mountain of debts. At the early age of 
 twenty, therefore, he became a playwright, having no 
 alternative, as he expressed it, but to be a hackney 
 writer or a hackney coachman. 
 
 His first comedy, Love in Several Masques, was pro- 
 duced in 1707. Though it succeeded The Provoked 
 Husband, which had attracted large audiences for twenty- 
 eight nights, it still met with a moderate share of suc- 
 cess. Wilks, Gibber, Mrs. Booth, and Mrs. Oldfield, did 
 all that good acting could do in promoting the author's 
 interest. When published, the play was dedicated, in 
 ^n elegant preface, to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, 
 who was a connection of Fielding's. The author may 
 be considered to have started fair in his dramatic career, 
 with nothing to prevent his reaching the most profitable 
 summits of theatrical excellence, provided his genius was 
 calculated for the drama. Congreve, at about the same 
 age, had, under somewhat similar circumstances, laid 
 the foundations of his fortune in The Old Bachelor. 
 But Love in Several Masques indicates none of Con- 
 greve's original merit. It is a well-written imitation of 
 the latter's style, bearing about the same relation to iti 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 311 
 
 Uiodil vihich Hayley bears to Pope, or the Right Honor- 
 alle John Wilson Croker to Scott. In character, plot, 
 and diction, it is but a repetition of the established the- 
 atrical commonplaces of that period. In the throng of 
 affected similes and ingenious comparisons, which the 
 author forces into his dialogue to make it seem brilliant, 
 we look in vain for one touch of Fielding's peculiar 
 genius, as afterwards evinced in his novels. The play 
 simply exhibits fashionable life after the approved fashion. 
 The beau is " everything of the woman but the sex, and 
 nothing of the man beside it ;" the lord considers " beauty 
 as the qualification of a mistress, fortune, of a wife," 
 "virtue so scarce as not to be worth looking after, and 
 beauty so common as not worth the keeping ; " and the 
 brisk town wit of the play, with the usual cant of his 
 function, swears that a charming woman, divested of her 
 fortUQe, is like " Beau Grin out of his embroidery, or 
 my Lady Wrinkle out of her paint." The dialogue is 
 smart and glib rather than witty, with a continual effort 
 after brilliancy. The only thing which distinguishes the 
 play from the hundred forgotten productions of its school 
 is an occasional touch of humanity or hearty sentiment, 
 proving that the best-humored and most joyous man in 
 Great Britain could not altogether forget his nature, even 
 when cramped in the most artificial of styles. There is 
 something amusing in the moral tone of the prologue, 
 whether we consider the freedom of the particular 
 comedy it introduces, or the coarseness of the plays 
 which succeeded it. It expresses, in rather indiferent 
 verse, the ethical object which at that time every fifth- 
 rate professor of ribaldry and licentiousness affected to 
 Uave in view, however scandalous might be his language 
 and dramatis persorus : — 
 
312 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 " No private character these scenes expose ; 
 Our bard at vice, not at the vicious, throws. 
 
 Humor still free from an indecent flame, 
 
 Which, should it raise your mirth, must raise your shame. 
 
 Indecency's the bane to ridicule, 
 
 And only charms the libertine or fool. 
 
 Nought shall offend the fair one's ears to-day. 
 
 Which they might blush to hear, or blush to say. ' 
 
 Fielding was now fairly entered upon his occupatior 
 of man of letters, and during the ensuing ten years 
 produced eighteen comedies and farces. The Temple 
 Beau, which succeeded Love , in Several Masques, was 
 brought out in 1729. The introductory scene, between 
 Lady Lucy Pedant and Lady Gravely, is a good speci- 
 men of malignant genteel raillery; and the scene in 
 which Sir Harry Wilding breaks into his son's chambers 
 in the Temple, and discovers the peculiar kind of law 
 which his darling student is practising, is finely ludi- 
 crous ; but the play is generally uninteresting and devoid 
 of originality. With these two comedies, Fielding 
 seems to have bid adieu to the school of Congreve, and 
 resolved to try a kind of writing which less tasked his 
 fancy, and which he could despatch in more haste. 
 Tom Thumb, a grand caricature of the popular tragedies 
 of the day, including those of Dryden, and aiming to 
 produce laughter by the broadest gushes of drollery, 
 appeared in 1730, and still keeps the stage. In a 
 similar, though even coarser style, is the Covent Garden 
 Tragedy, produced in 1732. The Coffee-House Politi- 
 <cian, which Arthur Murphy gravely praises, could have 
 Deen written only when the author was drunk. The 
 fumes of gin and tobacco, we think, can be detected ii: 
 most of his plays after he had been two years at work 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 313 
 
 trv^lwin i.ii-» *>f brazen vulgarity about them which 
 oaoinwill^, btrggeBtt the pot-house. The year 1732 
 -ecims tO ^"lave beeu tiie most industrious period of his 
 iramatic life. Ihe iVltjck Doctor, and The Miser, from 
 Moliere, The DebaucAt^ss, and The Covent Garden 
 Tragedy, were all produced in this year. The wretch- 
 edness of the profession ke Aad chosen is perhaps suffi- 
 ciently indicated in the chj^/ccier of the entertainments 
 he provided for the public ; l>a^ ia the dedication of The 
 Universal Gallant, in 1734, to t\>^ Duke of Marlborough, 
 he indicates another evil. Thib c anedy was condemned 
 with particular emphasis ; and lie complains bitterly 
 that there were some young gentiei^wn about town who 
 " made a jest of damning plays.' lie speaks of the 
 cruelty of this kind of wit, especially dt, trxercised upon a 
 person like himself, depending on h^tj labors for his 
 bread ; and he adds, that " he must be a^ inhuman crea- 
 ture, who would, out of sport and wantonuti^s, prevent a 
 man from getting a livelihood in an inoffensive way, and 
 make a jest of starving him and his family.- 
 
 About this time, he seems to have concei-.cd the idea 
 of being a manager himself, the ill success oi his plays 
 probably rendering the great theatres indisposea w receive 
 his productions. Accordingly, in 1735, he assembled a 
 company of discarded actors, under the name of tnt3 Great 
 Mogul's Company of Comedians, to perform his owri dra- 
 mas at the small theatre in the Haymarket. Though this 
 project hardly met with any more success than his other 
 contrivances for a living, failure does not appear to have 
 damped his miraculous spirits, or to have impaired the 
 elastic vigor of his mind. At this theatre, we believe, 
 he brought out his two political satires, Pasquin, in 1736, 
 and The Historical Register, in 1737, which, in them- 
 
314 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 selves of no great importance, were the cause of the 
 celebrated measure of Walpole to restrain the licentious- 
 ness of the stage, by giving discretionary power to the 
 Lord Chamberlain to refuse a license for any play which 
 did not meet his approbation. 
 
 This measure created at the time a great deal of clamor 
 among the dramatists, and has been the cause of a great 
 deal of cant among them since. During its passage 
 through parliament. Lord Chesterfield delivered a power- 
 ful speech against it. It seems to us that the merits of 
 the bill must be considered apart from the motives of the 
 framers, in order to form a correct judgment upon it. 
 That some check was needed, there can be no doubt. 
 The evil which the bill assumed to remedy was one 
 which strikes at the very root of society. To outrage 
 morality and decency in public places of amusement, to 
 have a legalized system of entertainments whose only 
 tendency was to make drunkards, blasphemers, and liber- 
 tines, might be very justly considered as demanding the 
 interference of the civil power even by those who would 
 give the largest liberty to the publication of irreligious 
 and immoral opinions. Fielding himself, in 1729, indi- 
 cated the necessity of some regulation of the stage, when, 
 in mourning over the degradation of authorship, he ex- 
 claimed, — " Be profane, be immodest, be scurrilous; and 
 if you would ride in a coach, deserve to ride in a cart." 
 In truth, the obligation of every ruler to enforce decency, 
 if he cannot enforce morality, called for some measure to 
 check the profligate stupidity and comic irreligion which 
 t!very broken-down Grub-street hack might indite ovei 
 his morning gin, to feed a vulgar appetite for brutal 
 Tierriment. 
 
 But important as this measure eventually proved ij 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 315 
 
 purifying the stage, nothing can be more ludicrous than 
 to praise Sir Robert Walpole, as Coxe, his biographer, 
 gravely professes to do, for his agency in the reform. He 
 was undoubtedly a man not destitute of virtues, and when 
 we consider that he was a hunted politician, it must be 
 acknowledged he ^vas singularly free from cruel and 
 malignant passions ; but it would be absurd to allege a 
 regard for decency as the motive of any of his acts. He 
 had always been accustomed to the English theatre as it 
 had been left by Charles II., — the theatre of Wycherley, 
 Vf.nbrugh, Congreve, and Farquhar, — and doubtless 
 considered libertinism as a prominent element in every 
 brilliant play. Besides, he was himself utterly destitute 
 of delicacy and refinement. His talk, it is well known, 
 was confined to two subjects, politics and women ; and 
 he conversed about the latter in a style to shock even 
 the gentlemen of a generation famous for its preference 
 of plain noun substantives to cautious circumlocutions. 
 His summer revelries at Houghton made him the nui- 
 sance of the neighborhood ; and if indecency and pro- 
 fanity, inspired by "potations pottle deep," were heard 
 anywhere with peculiar emphasis and shameless vocifer- 
 ation, it was at the board of England's prime minister. 
 The truth is, he cared nothing about the license of the 
 stage until it attacked his darling power. Fielding might 
 have violated every morality and decency of civilized life, 
 without being much disturbed by Sir Robert; but in 
 Pasquin and The Historical Register, he exhibited and 
 exposed the political corruption of the day; and Wal- 
 pole then found it was high time to put a stop to the 
 demoralization of the drama. 
 
 But if Walpole s motive was not a hatred of licentious- 
 oess, neither was Fielding's motive a hatred of political 
 
516 ESSi\ . S AND REVIEWS. 
 
 corruption. He had a grudge against the prime minister. 
 In 1730, he had solicited his patronage, which Walpole 
 with his usual contempt for literary men, had refused 
 In 1731, he dedicated The Modern Husband to him, 
 exhorting him to protect the Muses, reminding him that 
 heroe'5 and statesmen had ever been the patrons of poets, 
 and adjurmg him to add to his many noble and patriotic 
 qualities the glory of being the protector of literature. 
 The flattery and the advice Walpole seems equally to 
 have disregarded. Accordingly, Fielding became a pa- 
 triot, as the word was understood at that day; — that is 
 he joined those politicians who were indignant at the 
 corruption which they could not themselves wield, or in 
 whose fruits they could not participate. Walpole bought 
 all the patriots he feared, and defied or ridiculed the rest. 
 He never patronized literary merit; but if he discovered 
 a writer able to do the dirty work of political pamphleteer- 
 ing without any scruples whatever, — a man whose mind 
 presented the harmonious combination of tact, impudence, 
 shamelessness, and talent for influencing the mob, — he 
 was ready to give such a person the full enjoyment of 
 the luxuries of the secret-service fund. Thus, he paid 
 £10,000, at different periods, to that " intermediate link 
 between man and the baboon," the profligate Arnall. As 
 far as Fielding's political opinions were concerned, he 
 seems to have viewed Sir Robert with great admiration. 
 In his latest work, he speaks of him as " one of the best 
 of men and of ministers." 
 
 We have seen that, during the ten years that Fielding 
 was a dramatist, he averaged about two plays a year. 
 The composition of these occupied but a comparatively 
 Email portion of his time. He would sometimes contract 
 i3 write a farce or comedy in the evening, pass a gooo 
 
HENRY FIELBING. 317 
 
 portion of the night convivially, and bring in a whole 
 scene the next morning, written on the paper in which 
 his darling tobacco was wrapped. His plays never met 
 with any brilliant success, and failed to provide for his 
 wants. He said himself that he left off writing for the 
 stage at the period when he should have begun. There 
 are some indications of his genius scattered over his 
 comedies, though but little evidence is given of dramatic 
 art. As a playwright, he never reached the success 
 which was afterwards obtained by such men as Holcroft, 
 Morton, and Reynolds. 
 
 There are few memorials extant of his mode of life 
 during these ten years of contrivances and failures. That 
 he plunged heedlessly into dissipation, and led the life of 
 a man of wit and pleasure about town, there can be no 
 doubt. As an author, he was distinguished from his 
 brother hacks by having the social position of a gentle- 
 man. He repeatedly received pecuniary assistance from 
 Lyttelton and other friends, who were delighted with his 
 vivacity and good fellowship. Lyttelton said that, in 
 conversation, he had more wit and humor than all the 
 celebrities of Queen Anne's day put together. Bui 
 though thus assisted by the patronage of rich and titled 
 acquaintances. Fielding must have participated more or 
 less in the vices, miseries, and humiliations, of the liter- 
 ary drudge of the time, — the hireling of managers and 
 booksellers, the vagabond by practice and author by pro- 
 fession. The appreciation which the government had of 
 literary men is perhaps best indicated in the remark of 
 Creorge I. to Lord Hervey, who had some sins of verse 
 lying heavy on his soul : — "Do not write poetry, — 'tis 
 beneath your rank ; leave that to little Mr. Pope ; — 't is 
 lis trade." A man who, in that day, adopted authorship 
 
318 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 as a means of livelihood, was immediately associated with 
 one of the most curious bodies of men of which we have 
 any record ; — the clan of Grub-street hacks, so remorse- 
 lessly gibbeted by Pope. During the reigns of George 1. 
 and George II., it was very difficult for a man of genius 
 to escape this most miserable of social grades. As soon 
 as he fell into the clutches of a bookseller, he had passed 
 through that gate over which was written, "Let those 
 who enter here leave Hope behind." He had joined that 
 lean anu squalid band of litterateurs, 
 
 " Who must, like lawyers, either starve or plead, 
 And follow, right or wrong, where guineas lead" ; — 
 
 men on whose brows was blazoned the sign, " Mind to 
 be let ; " who were slaves to every stupid, ignorant, and 
 unprincipled publisher, engaged in supplying a demand 
 for frivolity, scurrility, indecency, and sedition ; and who, 
 with the tastes of scholars and the wages of draymen, 
 ended at last in being the most dissolute and the most 
 wretched of day-laborers. To be the tenant, at best, of 
 an attic or a cellar ; to be hunted by enraged unpaid 
 tradesmen ; to wait for weeks in the antechamber of a 
 lord to exchange a dedication for a guinea ; to have all 
 the spirit of a man extinguished by the necessity of 
 sreeping and cringing before a vulgar taskmaster; to 
 know want and need in all their bitterest forms ; to pass 
 at evening from the back-room of a Curll, an Osborne, or 
 a Mist, with a worn-out brain and a jaded body, and rush 
 to purchase a few hours' pleasure in a low debauch ; to 
 exercise more- ingenuity in dodging bailiffs and bilking 
 'andladies than in writing poems or pamphlets; — this 
 was the existence of many an enthusiast who came up tc 
 London filled with aspirations after fame, and expecting 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 319 
 
 the fortune of Pope or Swift. Squalor and beggary were 
 the commonplaces of an author's life. " Could I have 
 guessed," ?ays the aggrieved Mrs. Moneywood to I^ack- 
 less, " that I had a poet in my house ? Could I have 
 looked for a poet under lace clothes ? " And the good 
 /ady goes on to mourn that her floor is all spoiled with 
 ink, her windows with verses, and her door almost beaten 
 down with duns. 
 
 But connected with these scholars and men of talent 
 there were all varieties of quacks, pretenders, panders, and 
 buffoons. Authorship was the last refuge of the outcasts 
 of society, — of liars, libellers, and vagabonds, — of penny, 
 half-penny, and two-penny blasphemers and reprobates, 
 — of men who, having tried every other petty contriv- 
 ance of knavery to filch a livelihood, at last, on the small- 
 est possible capital of grammar and sense, descended to 
 the trade of writing. Any one who will condescend to 
 glance over the minor literature of the period between 
 1720 and 1770, for the purpose of catching the general 
 character of its composition, will be surprised at the 
 extreme lowness of its moral and intellectual tone. Its 
 stupidity is absolutely amazing, amid all its efforts to be 
 bright by the grace of ribaldry and scurrility ; and it 
 becomes difiicult at times to consider such lifeless slang 
 and imbecile indecency as the product of the human 
 mind. Scattered over Fielding's various works are 
 allusions to this gang of litterateurs, who degraded 
 authorship even below the level to which poverty and 
 imBrovidence had reduced it, by offering to do the work 
 if scholars and men of ahlity for a smaller pittance than 
 the miserable one they already received. Such was the 
 ;gnorant charlatan that Booth, in the novel of Amelia, 
 meets in the sponging-house, collecting subsci iptions foi 
 
320 ESSAYS AJ^D REVIEWS. 
 
 a translation of Ovid, of whose language he is as ig. 
 norant as a South-Sea islander. The scenes, in The 
 Author's Farce, between Bookweight and his hacks 
 Dash, Quibble, Blotpage, and Scarecrow, are probably 
 almost literal transcripts of the truth. We extract a 
 specimen, as it tells the story better than any words of 
 ours could do.*^ 
 
 * Book. Fie upon it, gentlemen! what, not at your pens? Do you ecu 
 sider, Mr. Quibble, that it is a fortnight since your Letter to a Friend in the 
 Country was published? Is it not high time for an Answer to come out? At 
 this rate, before your Answer is printed, your Letter will be forgot. I love to 
 keep a controversy up warm. I have had authors who have writ a pamphlet 
 in the morning, answered it in the afternoon, and answered that again at 
 night. 
 
 GLuib. Sir, I will be as expeditious as possible ; but it is harder to writs 
 on this side the question, because it is the wrong side. 
 
 Book. Not a jot. So far on the contrary, that I have known some authors 
 f.hoose it as the properest to show their genius. Well, Mr. Dash, have you 
 done that murder yet ? 
 
 Dash. Yes, sir, the murder is done; I am only about a few moral reflec 
 lions to place before it. 
 
 Book. Very well : then let me have the ghost finished by this day se'n 
 night. 
 
 Dash. What sort of a ghost would you have this, sir? the last was a pale 
 one. 
 
 Book. Then let this be a bloody one. Mr. Quibble, you may lay by that 
 life which you are about, for I hear the person is recovered, and write me 
 out proposals for delivering five sheets of Mr. Bailey's English Dictionary 
 every week, till the whole be finished. If you do not know the form, you 
 may copy the proposals for printing Bayle's Dictionary in the same manner. 
 The same words will do for both. 
 
 Enter Index. 
 Ho, Mr. Index, what news with you ? 
 
 Index. I have brought my bill, sir. 
 
 Book. What's here? For fitting the motto of Risum teaeatis Amici to j 
 dozen pamphlets, at sixpence for each, six shillings ; for Omnia vincit Amoi 
 Bt nos cedarr.us Amori, sixpence ; for Difficile est Satyram non scribere, six' 
 pence. Hum ! hum ! hum ! — sum total for thirty-six Latin mottoes, eighteen 
 shillings ; diXo English, one shilling and ninepence ; ditto Greek, four — fou 
 shillings. These Greek mottoea are excessively dear. 
 
 Ind. If you have '.hem cheaper at either of the unireraitios, I will giv 
 Vou mine for nothing. 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 321 
 
 When we consider the wretchedness and knavery 
 tvhich were associated in the public mind with the pro- 
 fession of literature, it is not wonderful that such men as 
 Ford, in the reign of Charles I., and Congreve and Hor- 
 
 Book. You shall have your money immediately ; and pray remember thai 
 I must have two Latin seditious mottoes, and one Greek moral motto, for 
 pamphlets, by to-morrow morning. 
 
 GLuib. I want two Latin sentences, sir, — one foi page the fourth in the 
 j^raise of loyalty, and another for page the tenth in praise of liberty and 
 property. 
 
 Dash. The ghost would become a motto very well, if you would bestow 
 one on him. 
 
 Book. Let me have them all. 
 
 Ind. Sir, I shall provide them. Be pleased to look on that, sir, and print 
 me five hundred proposals and as many receipts. 
 
 Book. "Proposals for printing by subscription a New Translation of Cicero 
 Of the Nature of the Gods, and his Tusculan Questions, by Jeremy Index, 
 Esq." I am sorry you have undertaken this, for it prevents a design of 
 mine. 
 
 Ind. Indeed, sir, it does not ; for you see all of the book that I ever intend 
 10 publish. It is only a handsome way of asking one's friends for a guinea. 
 
 Book. Then you have not translated a word of it, perhaps. 
 
 Ind. Not a single syllable. 
 
 Book. Well, you shall have your proposals forthwith : but I desire you 
 would be a little more reasonable in your bills for the future, or I shall deal 
 with you no longer ; for I have a certain fellow of a college, who offers to fur- 
 nish me with second-hand mottoes out of the Spectator for twopence each. 
 
 Ind. Sir, I only desire to live by my goods ; and I hope you will be pleased 
 10 allow some difference between a neat fresh piece, piping hot out of the 
 classics, and old, threadbare, worn-out stuff, that has passed through every 
 pedant's mouth, and been as common at the universities as their drabs. 
 
 SCENE V. — BooKWEiGHT, Dash, Quibble, Blotpage, Scarecrow. 
 
 Scare. Sir, I have brought you a libel against the ministry. 
 
 Book. Sir, I shall not take anything against them ; for I have two in tha 
 press already. [Aside. 
 
 Scare. Then, sir, I have an Apology in defence of them. 
 
 Bock. That I shall not meddle with neither ; they don't sell so well. 
 
 Scare. I have a translation of Virgil's .^neid, with notes on it, if we can 
 sgree about the price. 
 
 Book. Why, what price would you have ? 
 
 Scare. You shall read it first ; otherwise, how will you know the value 1 
 
 Book. No, no, sir, I never deal that- way — a poem is a poem, and a pam 
 phlet a pamphlet, with me. Look ye, sir, I don't like your title-page; how 
 VOL. II. 21 
 
322 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ace Walpole at a later period, men of fine powers, but 
 also of little vanities, should have shrunk from the accu- 
 sation of authorship, and desired to be considered in their 
 mortal capacity, as gentlemen, rather than in their 
 immortal, as writers. By the inevitable law of associa- 
 tion, a man rises or falls in public estimation exactly 
 according to the condition and conduct of the class to 
 which he belongs ; and as a class, English authors have 
 not been considered respectable until a comparatively 
 late period. This is, of course, a satire on English soci- 
 ety, rather than on its literary men ; but ludicrous as the 
 statement may sound, we believe it is accurate. At 
 any rate. Fielding was relieved from the drudgery of his 
 own tasks, the companionship of dissolute associates, and 
 all those corrupt influences which attached to the "writer 
 of his time, by an important event, which he and his best 
 friends were inclined to deem his salvation. This was 
 
 ever, to oblige a young beginner, I don't care if I do print it at mj own 
 expense. 
 
 Scare. But pray, sir, at whose expense shall I eat? 
 
 Book. At whose? Why, at mine, sir, at mine. I am as great a friend to 
 learning as the Dutch are to trade : no one can want bread with me who will 
 earn it; therefore, sir, if you please to take your seat at my table, here will 
 be everything necessary provided for you : good milk porridge, very often 
 twice a day, which is good wholesome food and proper for students; a trans- 
 lator, too, is what I want at present, my last being in Newgate for shop- 
 lifting. The rogue had a trick of translating out of the shops as well as the 
 langu iges. 
 
 Scare. But I am afraid I am not qualified for a translator, for I understand 
 uo language but my own. 
 
 Book. What, and translate Virgil ? 
 
 Scare. Alas ! I translated him out of Dryden. 
 
 Book. Lay by your hat, sir, — lay by your hat, and take your seat imme- 
 diately. Not qualified! — thou art as well versed in thy trade as if ihou 
 hadst labored in my garret these ten years. Let me tell you, friend, you will 
 have more occasion for invention than learning here. You will be obliged to 
 translate books out of all languages, especially French, that were never priatea 
 \n any language whatsoever. 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 323 
 
 his marriage, in 1736, to a beautiful, amiable, and accom- 
 plished young lady, by the name of Cradock, who, in 
 addition to her other virtues, possessed a fortune of 
 £1500. Fielding's mother, dying abcut this time, left 
 him a small estate in Dorsetshire, worth £200 a year. 
 He accordingly forswore Bacchus and Momus, the mid- 
 night debauch and the green-room, and went with his 
 wife to his estate in the country, with the determination 
 of reforming his life, and devoting lis time to study, lit- 
 erature, and domestic pursuits. But he had no sooner 
 arrived at his new home than his natural improvidence, 
 extravagance, and vanity, led him into a style of expense 
 suitable only to a rich country squire. Living among 
 his superiors in fortune, he became emulous at once to 
 rival them in his mode of living. He was by no means 
 an aristocrat. The Earl of Denbigh once asked him the 
 reason of their spelling the family name differently, the 
 earl's branch placing the e before the i, and Fielding's 
 branch the i before the e. " I can't tell, my lord," was 
 the philosophic reply, " except it be that my branch of 
 the family first learned how to spell." But now that he 
 was a landholder and country gentleman, Fielding seems 
 to have had his nobility roused ; for was it not intolera- 
 ble that a man of the family of Denbigh and Hapsburg 
 should be excelled in ostentation by the Squire Westerns 
 and Sir Tunbelly Clumseys of his neighborhood ? In- 
 stead, therefore, of devoting himself to composition, he 
 dashed into thei hilarities a.id hospitalities of English 
 country-life ; kept his coach, his dogs, his horses, his 
 servants in yellow liveries his open house, and free 
 table ; and in less than three years he was a beggar, 
 mth a constitution shattered by scisual indulgence, and 
 » wife and family dependent on ;aim for support. To 
 
324 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 these years, however, we owe his knowledge of rural life 
 and character, and to his ruin the novels in which it was 
 embodied. As soon as he found himself incapable of 
 continuing his country life, he at once escaped from the 
 censures and reproaches of his friends and acquaintances, 
 — who, having assisted in his downfall, of course bitterly 
 assailed his improvidence, — and went directly to Lon- 
 don, with the intention of studying law. He entered 
 himself as a student in the Temple ; alternately studied 
 hard and drank hard ; and, after the usual term of pro- 
 bation, was called to the bar. But he was unsuccessful 
 as a lawyer, partly owing to the distrust of attorneys, 
 who hesitated about giving important cases to a wit and 
 a believer in the bottle, and partly to the wild habits of 
 dissipation which still clung to him, and prevented him 
 from giving his serious and undivided attention to any 
 subject. Even his attendance on his profession, desul- 
 tory as it was, was soon interrupted by fits of the gout, 
 which now began their remorseless work on his tough 
 and solid frame. He gave up law in disgust, and returned 
 to his original occupation of man of letters. He poured 
 forth in rapid succession a series of fugitive pieces, to 
 provide for the wants of the hour. He thought also of 
 resuming his connection with the stage, and wrote his 
 farce of Miss Lucy in Town for that purpose ; but the 
 Lord Chamberlain discerned in it an intention to hold 
 up a man of quality to ridicule, and refused his license. 
 We believe, also, that he produced at this time his farce 
 of Eurydice. Its fate is sufficiently indicated on its title- 
 page, being published, not, in the usual phrase, " as it 
 was acted," but " as it was d — mn'd, at the Theatre 
 Royal, Drury Lane." 
 But the time was approaching when his genius coul ' 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 325 
 
 •ind some tit expression of the power and richness it 
 fiad attained through his manifold experience of life. 
 We owe his novel of Joseph Andrews to a lucky acci- 
 dent. In 1740, Richardson published Pamela. Before 
 this period, prose fiction had hardly occurred to any 
 writer of eminence as affording an opportunity for the 
 acquisition of fame or money. Nonsense, stupidity, and 
 obscenity, or, at best, such moderately clever and im- 
 moderately licentious fictions as those of Mrs. Behn and 
 Mrs. Manley, monopolized romance. Novels were below 
 plays and newspapers in respect to literary rank. In- 
 deed, Richardson himself did not contemplate writing a 
 story when he commenced Pamela. A bookseller, who 
 had learned his talent for epistolary composition, induced 
 him to prepare a book of letters for the benefit and in- 
 struction of those who found the task of conducting a 
 tender or friendly correspondence to be, what Fuseli's 
 fop found the reading of Milton, " an exceedingly tough 
 business." He commenced his work with this humble 
 purpose ; but soon adopted the idea of giving to it the 
 interest of a story, and in three months produced Pamela. 
 The success of this novel was of that peculiar kind so 
 flattering to an author who starts an original school of 
 composition. The book became the talk of the town, 
 and ran through five editions the first year of its publi- 
 cation. Everybody, high and low, read and commented 
 upon it. At Ranelagh Gardens, the ladies held it up to 
 each other in triumph as th'^y passed. Pope said it 
 contained more good morality than twenty volumes of 
 sermons. Dr. Sherlock, not daunted by some highly 
 drawn scenes, innocently enough indelicate, recommend- 
 ed it from the pulpit. One significant sign of its popu- 
 larity was Its changing the pronunciation of the name 
 
.526 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 itself, which in Pope is accented on the second syllable, 
 and in Richardson on the first, — the public being wiJl 
 ing to introduce discord into a line of the former, rathei 
 than spoil the harmony of a few verses which the latter 
 had inserted in the novel. Richardson, at the age of 
 fifty, found himself in some measure the centre of attrac- 
 tion, and his exacting and importunate vanity was fed 
 daily with incense of private and public praise. A 
 clique of female puffers and toadies was especially gen- 
 erous and indiscriminate in panegyric, and did every- 
 thing in the power of foolish women to make hirn mor- 
 bidly sensitive to blame or ridicule levelled at himself 
 and his heroine. Fielding watched the fever, and, in a 
 spirit of good-natured mischievousness, resolved to par- 
 ody the novel, in a mock heroic style, as Cervantes had 
 parodied the romances of -chivalry in Don Quixote, and 
 as Scarron had parodied the romances of gallantry in 
 the Bxyman Comique. To a man of his quick sense of 
 the ridiculous, and knowledge of life and character, the 
 glaring faults of Pamela were instinctively evident. 
 The moral pedantry, the conceit of virtue, the exagger- 
 ated importance attributed to the conventional distinc- 
 tions of society, the absence of nature and truth, and the 
 " do-me-good " air of the work, struck his humorous 
 fancy at once. He saw that, in spite of its passages of 
 simplicity and pathos, and the power of mind it evinced, 
 it was still essentially a deception, — that its boasted 
 morality was practically false, and its sentiment mawk 
 ish. Pamela thus had the honor to provoke the produc- 
 tion of Joseph Andrews, the beauty and exquisite humoi 
 of which have immortalized not only itself, but the 
 work it condescended to make the butt of its sunn'j 
 Taerriment. 
 
HENRY FIELDING, 327 
 
 '' The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, 
 and his Friend, Mr, Abraham Adams," was published 
 in 1742, It revealed at once that wealth of invention, 
 humor, and character, in Fielding's large and joyous 
 mind, which had heretofore found no adequate expres- 
 sion. If w^e compare this novel with Tom Jones, we 
 must pronounce it inferior in story, in variety of charac- 
 ter, and in the range of its comprehension of life ; but it 
 seems to us superior even to that, in glad and exuberant 
 feeling, in sensuous beauty, in warm and overflowing 
 benevolence of spirit, and in the combination of the 
 shrewdest practical observation with the most delicious 
 abandonment to pleasurable impulses. The author 
 seems himself to take the most intense enjoyment in the 
 scenes he describes. He realizes them so thoroughly to 
 his own consciousness, that he communicates the glow 
 of their gladness to the reader. The inartistical arrange- 
 ment and beautiful waywardness of the narrative ; its 
 ^uick growth from a mere caricature of Pamela to an 
 independent work ; the readiness with which the author's 
 mind yields to every temptation to revel in rural scenes 
 of adventure and enjoyment ; the unmatched irony of 
 his allusions to the novel he professes so much to ad- 
 mire ; the heaped and overrunning measure of delight 
 he continually pours forth from an exhaustless fund of 
 good-natured creativeness ; and, especially, the broad 
 and deep gushes of humor, instinct with the very spirit 
 of fun, coming from a heart as beneficent as it is mirth 
 ful, and flooding all banks and bounds of conventional 
 propriety with overpowering merriment ; make this work 
 one of the happiest, as well as the most natural and most 
 poetical, that ever came from the comic genius of Eng- 
 V nd. But the marvel of the book consists in the union 
 
S2S ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 of vast worldly knowledge with childlike enthusiasm, — 
 in the description of the faults and follies of men 
 without the intrusion of an atom of gall or bitterness 
 and in enveloping the coarsest and most indisputablj 
 natural persons and events in a rich atmosphere of 
 romance. It is an exact reflection of life, but a reflec 
 tion similar to that we sometimes perceive in a still, 
 deep river, which mirrors the trees and shrubs on its 
 banks, and converts everything into beauty without 
 altering its form or hue. 
 
 In Joseph Andrews we have the best exponent of 
 Fielding's nature, with its goodness as an instinct and 
 lack of goodness as a principle. No one can read it 
 without feeling that in the author's heart were the germs 
 of a philanthropy as warm and all-embracing as ever 
 animated a human breast ; but from the absence of high 
 moral and religious aspiration, it seems to expend itself 
 simply in the desire to make the whole world comfort- 
 able. Not a shade of moroseness, intolerance, or malig- 
 nity, darkens the sunny and breezy tract which clips 
 in his mind. After fifteen years' experience of the self- 
 ishness of the world, and with a frame shattered by 
 indulgence in its vices, we find him in Joseph Andrews 
 radically sound in heart and brain, without a trace of 
 misanthropy in his composition, cheerful, cosy, chirping, 
 with a man's large and wide knowledge united to a 
 boy's hopeful and gleeful spirit. If we consider his mind 
 in respect either to its scope or its healthiness, we do 
 not see how we can avoid placing it above that of any 
 English poet, novelist, or humorist, of his century. In 
 strength, depth, and massiveness of mind, Swift might 
 be deemed his equal ; but Swift's perceptions were sc 
 distorted by his malignities, that he is neither sc trust 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 329 
 
 worthy nor so genial as Fielding. Pope, with all his 
 brilliancy, and epigrammatic morality, and analogies 
 from the surfaces of things, appears little in comparison, 
 the moment he snaps and snarls out his spiteful wit and 
 rancorous pride. Addison and Goldsmith, with their 
 deep and delicate humor, and mastery of the refine- 
 ments of character, have not Fielding's range and fruit- 
 fulness ; nor, perhaps, his occasional astonishing subtilty 
 of insight into the unconscious operations of the mind. 
 Thus, the huntsman, in Joseph Andrews, grumbles as 
 he draws off his dogs from Joseph and Parson Adams, 
 because his master is in the custom of thus encouraging 
 the creatures to hunt Christians, making them follow 
 vermin instead of sticking to a hare, — this being, in the 
 opinion of the servant, the sure way to spoil them.. 
 Smollett has occasional touches of pathos and power 
 beyond Fielding; but, not to mention his grossness, his 
 scurrility, and his cynicism, his portraits are caricatures, 
 compared with those which appear in Tom Jones, 
 Amelia, and the novel we have at present under consid- 
 eration. Richardson, with his intense concentrativeness 
 and hold upon the minutest threads of his subject, his 
 dogged habit of accretion, his matter-of-fact accumulation 
 of uninteresting details, presents so strong a contrast to 
 Fielding's fresh, springing, elastic vigor, and habit of 
 flashing a character or a feeling upon the magination in 
 a sentence, that comparison is out of the question. 
 
 It seems difficult to reconcile Fielding's mind with his 
 temperament. In his life, we find him the most heedless 
 of good fellows, delivering himself up to every impulse 
 pf sensibility, tossed and tumbled ai'iout on every wave 
 of desire, unguided by the experience he gathers from 
 his follies, and repenting of one excess only to rush 
 
330 ESSjiiYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 immediately afterwards into some other. The fact, that 
 ne was in conduct so confirmed a " rowdy," and seem- 
 ingly as reckless and feather-brained as Tom Fashion, or 
 Sir Harry Wildair, makes us disposed to underrate his 
 intellect. Yet the moment we forget his habit of deify- 
 ing the moment, and calmly consider his mind, we are 
 amazed at its weight and range, — its sure, steady, deep, 
 and refined perception of the motives of action, — its 
 keen vision, before which cant and hypocrisy instinct- 
 ively unveil, in the very despair of eluding detection, — 
 its humor, so sly, so shrewd, so profound, so broad, so 
 introversive, penetrating beyond the reach of analysis to 
 the inmost springs of life, — and its just and discrimi- 
 nating views of those things which are commonly over- 
 laid with prejudice and passion. 
 
 But passing from these remarks to the work which 
 occasioned them, it is certain that, if Joseph Andrews is 
 the most delightful of Fielding's novels, the first book of 
 Joseph Andrews is the most delightful portion of the 
 whole. The strain of irony in which he alludes in the 
 commencement to Richardson is exceeded only by his 
 stroke at CoUey Gibber, who had lately published his 
 gossiping apology for his life. Gibber had called Field- 
 ing a " broken wit ;" and the latter, in alluding to the 
 former's autobiography, mockingly praises its design. 
 " How artfully, by insinuating that he escaped being pro- 
 moted to the highest stations in church and state, doth 
 he teach us a contempt of worldly grandeur! How 
 strongly doth he inculcate an absolute submission to oui 
 superiors ! Lastly, how completely doth he arm us 
 against so uneasy, so wretched, a passion as the fear of 
 shame! how clearly doth he expose the emptiness and 
 vanity of that phantom, reputation ! " The account o- 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 331 
 
 Joseph's youth, which follows, — of his position as foot- 
 boy to Lady Booby, and his promotion thence to the 
 post of footman, — of the unfortunate passion which her 
 ladyship experiences for him, and his rejection of her 
 unworthy advances, — of the letter which he writes to 
 his sister, the divine Pamela, describing his temptation, 
 and his being turned away by Lady Potiphar Booby from 
 his place, on account of his heroic virtue, — is steeped 
 through and through with mirth. 
 
 The scenes which succeed are even better. Joseph, 
 on his return home, is waylaid at night by robbers, 
 pounded almost to death, and thrown naked into a ditch. 
 A stage-coach passes, and the postilion, hearing a groan, 
 offers to stop. But the coachman tells him to go on, that 
 the stage is confounded late, and that they have no time 
 to look after dead men. A lady, however, interferes, but 
 as soon as she finds the condition that poor Joseph is in 
 her modesty impels her to desire that he may be left 
 where he is, it being better that he should freeze to death 
 than that her delicacy should be wounded. Every pas- 
 senger in the coach develops some form of selfishness, — 
 and the coachman, after it is concluded to take Joseph in, 
 swears that it shall not be done unless somebody pays a 
 shilling for the remaining four miles he is to ride. After 
 this point is settled, nobody will lend him a great coat to 
 wrap himself in ; the coachman, who has two, refusf33, 
 lest they should be made bloody ; and the poor fellow 
 must inevitably have perished, were it not that the pos- 
 tilion, whom Fielding is carefnl to inform us in a paren- 
 thesis was transported shortly after for robbing a hen- 
 roost, strips off his own coat, and swearing a great oath, 
 ffor which the passengers rebuke him,) exc.aims 'thai 
 
132 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 he would rather ride in his shirt all his life than suffer a 
 fellow-creature to lie in so miserable a condition." 
 
 The scenes which succeed, at the ale-house of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Towwouse, beggar description. Betty, the 
 maid, runs to the surgeon, and he, understanding that 
 some gentleman is hurt, hastily dresses himself; but 
 on being informed that the woimded man is only a poor 
 foot-passenger, gravely rebukes Betty for calling him at 
 unseasonable hours, slips off his clothes again, and 
 quietly returns to bed and to sleep. Mrs. Towwouse, 
 with her pursed lips, her harsh, loud voice, her sharp, 
 red-pointed nose, the two bones which stood at " the 
 upper end of that skin which composed her cheeks, 
 almost hiding a pair of small red eyes," and her poor 
 pin-hearted and hen-pecked husband, now make their 
 appearance. This beautiful shrew, on being informed 
 that her husband had lent poor Joseph one of his shirts, 
 goes off into one of her fits of connubial rage. " But," 
 says Towwouse, meekly, " this is a poor wretch." " Yes," 
 returns his spouse, with unanswerable logic, " I know it 
 
 is a poor wretch ; but what the have we to do with 
 
 poor wretches ? The law makes us provide for too many 
 already We shall have thirty or forty poor wretches in 
 red coats shortly." " But," still persists Towwouse, 
 " this man hath been robbed of all he hath." " Well, 
 then," answers she, " where 's his money to pay his 
 reckoning ? " The husband at last concludes not to con- 
 tradict her. She compliments the wisdom of this last 
 determination, by saying, " If the devil' was to contra- 
 dict me, I would make the house too hot to hold him." 
 
 However, Joseph is in the house, — Betty has managec 
 to borrow some clothing of the hostler, — the surgeor 
 speaks knowingly of the extreme danger of the unwe* 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 333 
 
 come g^est, — Mrs. Towwouse is apprehensive that she 
 will have to bear the expense of a funeral, — and the 
 parson, Mr. Barnabas, is called up to Joseph from the 
 bar-room, to give him some ghostly consolation. He 
 desires to know if he has any sins unrepented of ; if he 
 has, to make haste and repent of them as soon as he can, 
 " that they may repeat over a few prayers together," — 
 the hint in regard to haste in repentance being given 
 becaruse the company down stairs are about to prepare a 
 bowl of punch, and no one is willing to squeeze the 
 /emons until Barnabas comes. After being thus shrived, 
 the sick man desires some tea ; but Mrs. Towwouse 
 answers that " she had just done drinking it, and could 
 not be slopping all day," and orders a mug of beer to be 
 carried to him instead. The appearance of Parson 
 Adams now changes matters in favor of Joseph, and a 
 few more diverting scenes, brimful of nature and char- 
 acter, conclude the first book. We know not anywhere 
 slse such fine ingenuity in exhibiting the selfish element 
 ;n human nature, or such invincible good-humor in its 
 representation. 
 
 A good portion of the rest of the novel is taken up 
 with the adventures of Joseph and Parson Adams on 
 their road homewards, and is full of humorous pictures 
 of the English life of that period, high and low. Of 
 Parson Adams, the most poetical character in any novel 
 not written by Scott, — a man whose virtues had so 
 endeared him to a bishop, that, at the age of fifty, he was 
 presented with a handsome living of £23 a year, where 
 with to support a wife and six children, — we shall 
 bardly presume to speak. His vanity simplicity, learn- 
 ing, benevolence, evangelical purity of mind, — his stout 
 udgel, pedestrian habits, and copy of ^schylus, - • ara 
 
■33* ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 as well known as anything in romance. The other char 
 acters are drawn with a fidelity which leaves nothing to 
 wish. There is Fanny, simpler and purer than Pamela 
 herself, a rose-bud with the morning dew upon it, just 
 the true and innocent creature that we might expect in 
 one who had followed the teachings of the good parson. 
 There is Mrs. Slipslop, with her garrulous vulgarity, her 
 town-bred airs, her impertinence to inferiors, her servility 
 to superiors ; mourning over the " frail sect," and always 
 " confidious " that she is in the right ; more eager to part 
 vith her virtue than others are to retain it, — the per- 
 fection of waiting- women, and worth all of Congreve's 
 put together. There are Lady Booby, and Squire Booby, 
 and Beau Didapper, vivid as life itself. Pamela, towards 
 the close of the novel, is subjected to a process of 
 caricature, whose merry maliciousness might well en- 
 rage Richardson. She is represented as seconding the 
 entreaties of Squire Booby to make Joseph give up 
 Fanny, as a match below the rank of her brother ; and 
 on being told that the girl is her equal at least, she 
 answers, in a strain of the most exquisite imbecility, — 
 " She was my equal ; but I am no longer Pamela 
 Andrews. I am now this gentleman's lady, and as 
 such am above her. 1 hope I shall never behave with an 
 unbecoming pride ; but at the same time, I shall always 
 endeavor to know myself, and question not the assistance 
 of grace to that purpose." 
 
 The publication of Joseph Andrews gave the author 
 increased reputation, but it made him bitter enemies 
 among the friends of Richardson, and the paltriest means 
 were taken to decry his talents and scandalize his repu- 
 tation. Richardson himself was stung to the quick, and 
 never forgave Fielding. His resentment took the form 
 
HENRY FIELDIXG. 335 
 
 fi contemptuous commiseration. Rancor ate intc his 
 heart, but he expressed it in the style of an offended 
 saint, looking pityingly down on a low sinner who had 
 attacked his unstained purity. He went so far as to 
 deny invention to Fielding, and even after the lat- 
 ter's death pursued his memory with his deep, quiet, 
 narrow, and unappeasable hatred. With regard to 
 Joseph Andrews, he could not see any merit even in 
 Parson Adams. Fielding, he said, took the character 
 from Parson Young, " but made him more absurd than 
 he is known to be." On an allusion of one of his cor- 
 respondents to his own novel, he refers to it as the 
 Pamela which Fielding "abused in his Shamela. Before 
 his Joseph Andrews, (hints and names taken from that 
 story with a lewd and ungenerous engraftment,) the poor 
 man wrote without being read, except when his Pasquins, 
 &c., roused party attention and the legislature at the 
 same time." And to crown all, Richardson and his knot 
 of admiring widows and spinsters comforted themselves 
 with the faith that the author whom they made the tar- 
 get of their petty malice would be soon forgotten. 
 
 It is certain that Fielding would not, even to save 
 himself feom this prophesied oblivion, put out his repu- 
 tation to nurse, and attempt to keep the bantling alive by 
 milk diet and baby talk. He was in quest, not so much 
 of praise or fame, as of a subsistence ; and accordingly, 
 soon alter the publication of his novel, he brought out 
 his comedy of The Wedding Day, at Drury Lane. It 
 was acted but six nights, and the author received only 
 £50. This comedy is not without humor, sprightliness, 
 and character ; but the stage was not Fielding's sphere. 
 His careless scorn of the " patrons of the drama" came 
 near producing the condemnation of this play on the first 
 
336 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 night of its representation. Garrick, who played Mil la 
 mour, and who was then a young and skittish actor 
 entreated him to omit a particular passage, calculated to 
 provoke the hisses of the audience, as such a repulse 
 would so flurry his spirits as to disconcert him for the 
 whole evening. " No ! " replied Fielding, with an oath ; 
 " if the scene is not a good one, let them find that out.'' 
 Garrick's fear proved to be correct ; a storm of hisses and 
 cat-calls greeted his utterance of the objectionable pas- 
 sage ; and he retired, boiling over with rage and chagrin, 
 to the green-room. He there found Fielding, in his most 
 ecstatic mood, enveloped in tobacco-smoke, and glorious 
 with champagne. " What 's the matter, Garrick ? " said 
 the dramatist, cocking his eye at the actor ; " what are 
 they hissing now ? " " Why, the scene that I begged you 
 to retrench ; I knew it would not do ; and they have so 
 frightened me, that I shall not be able to collect myself 
 the whole night." — " 0," answered the author; "they 
 HAVE found it out, have they ? " 
 
 But while Fielding was thus bearing, cheerily enough, 
 the miseries consequent upon his state of wretched 
 dependence on his pen, dogged by creditors and racked 
 by the gout, a new calamity, the most severe of his 
 life, burst upon him. This was the death of his wife, a 
 woman whom he tenderly and passionately loved, and 
 who, in her devotion to his interests and happiness, and 
 the smiling resignation with which she bore the conse- 
 quences of his errors, deserved the bountiful admiration 
 he afterwards lavished upon her in the character of 
 Amelia. For once, at least, in his life, he was utterly 
 broken down and disheartened. His affectionateness 
 was as characteristic as his joyousness, and the rude shock 
 »phich both received by this event almost drove him fran 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 337 
 
 tic. There is a curious story told about him, in this 
 connection, which as it is in keeping with his character, 
 we are inclined to believe, though it is not mentioned by 
 Arthur Murphy, Scott, or Roscoe. Mrs. Fielding had 
 a maid, who assisted her in taking care of the children. 
 She was fondly attached to her mistress, and on the death 
 of the latter, so piteously bewailed her loss, that she 
 attracted the notice of Fielding in his affliction. As she 
 seemed the only person who really echoed his own grief, 
 he naturally enough was led into repeated conversations 
 with her regarding the good qualities of his deceased 
 wife. Thus mutually mourning the departed, they 
 insensibly became mutually attached, and in the end they 
 were married. She proved a faithful and affectionate 
 wife ; and though the houses of Denbigh and Hapsburg 
 might not receive any additional splendor from the match, 
 the girl was probably as virtuous and disinterested as any 
 that their line could boast. There is something ludi- 
 crous in the dignity of Fielding's biographers, in avoiding 
 this incident of his life. They should have recollected 
 Mrs. Slipslop's righteous indignation at Mrs. Graveairs, 
 for attempting to play the gentlewoman in a stage-coach : 
 — " My betters ! who is my betters, pray ? " 
 
 Fielding, as soon as he recovered from the first shock 
 of his wife's death, displayed no lack of industry in fol- 
 lowing his profession of authorship. Besides a volume 
 of miscellanies published in 1743, in which was included 
 " A Journey from this World to the Next," an unfinished 
 work, marked by many of his peculiar excellences, but 
 apparently aimless as to general design, — he produced 
 " The History of the Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild 
 the Great." This work smacks of the vulgarity of the 
 localities to which its characters are principally confined 
 
 VOL. u. 22 
 
338 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 out the genera] idea, that of showing how much of ttit 
 
 greatness which passes in this world is identical in spirit 
 with that of the highwayman, is enforced in a strain of 
 irony which no other author then living could have 
 approached. We can almost sympathize with Wild's 
 detection of the analogies between his own actions and 
 those of many vigorous characters who have exercised 
 murder and rapine in a wider sphere of destruction. 
 " For my own part," he says, " I confess I look on this 
 death of hanging to be as proper for a hero as any other ; 
 and I solemnly declare, that, had Alexander the Great 
 been hanged, it would not in the least have diminished 
 my respect for his memory." The episode of Heartfree 
 and his wife has many touches of genuine pathos, and 
 the humanity of Fielding finely underlies the mocking 
 praise he awards to their hard-hearted and selfish perse- 
 cutor. The conversation between Wild and the Ordinary 
 of Newgate is as deservedly celebrated as any passage 
 in Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones. The sudden placa- 
 bility of the Ordinary, when Wild interrupts his holy 
 invectives by offering to treat him to a bottle of wine, is 
 exceeded only by his objection to that beverage. "Why 
 wine? Let me tell you, Mr. Wild, there is nothing so 
 deceitful as the spirits given us by wine. If you must 
 drink, let us have a bowl of punch; a liquor I the rather 
 prefer, as it is nowhere spoken against in the Scripture, 
 and as it is more wholesome for the gravel, a distemper 
 with which I am grievously afflicted." This work covers 
 the whole philosophy of that system in accordance with 
 which the strong prey upon the weak, and consider 
 superior intelligence as given to men only to make them 
 more ingenious wolves and more profound tigers. 
 
 In addition to these works, Fielding started, in 1746 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 339 
 
 B paper in the whig interest, full of enthusiasm for 
 the Hanoverian succession, entitled The True Patriot. 
 This, with The Jacobite's Journal, commenced in 1748, 
 expressed sufficient zeal for the cause of the ministry to 
 entitle him to receive some of its favors ; but his services 
 were not appreciatsd, and meaner men bore off the 
 rewards of loyalty. At last, in 1749, through the influ- 
 »ence of his constant friend, Lyttelton, he received a small 
 pension, with the office of Justice of Peace for West- 
 minster and Middlesex. This was hardly a reputable 
 position. The magistrates of Westminster were called 
 trading justices, being paid for their services in fees, ^— 
 " a mean and wretched system," says Scott, " which 
 made it the interest of these functionaries to inflame 
 every petty dispute which was brought before them, to 
 trade, as it were, in guilt and misery, and wring their 
 precarious subsistence out of thieves and pickpockets." 
 Fielding was now brought into connection, as a justice, 
 with the lowest and vilest classes of society, with rogues, 
 vagabonds, and debauchees, and his own habits seem to 
 have suffered from the character of his environments. 
 To his honor, it must be admitted, he did not avail him- 
 self of the means his office afforded, of selling justice, or 
 of' wringing from the miserable their last pittance. He 
 was too humane to make money by his position. His 
 predecessor, with less business, had cleared £1000 a 
 year; but Fielding says, in regard to himself, that by 
 composing quarrels, " and refusing to take a shilling 
 .from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had 
 another left, I had reduced an income of £500 a year, of 
 the dirtiest money on earth, to little more than £300, a 
 considerable portion of which remained with my clerk.' 
 He appears to have bent his powerful mind, while in this 
 
340 jsSSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 office, to an inrestigation of the causes and cure of the 
 crimes which at that period were so common in England. 
 His cnarge to the Grand Jury of Middlesex, and his In- 
 quiry mto the Increase of Thieves and Bobbers, both full 
 of just remarks and benevolent sentiments, were his 
 chief productions on subjects relating to his magistracy. 
 
 His office, as we have seen, gave him but a slender 
 income ; but ho could convince nobody of the fact. The 
 Secretary of State told him, when he asked for an 
 increase of his pension, that his office was not on all 
 accounts a very desirable one, but that all the world knew 
 it was lucrative. Fielding, therefore, was as poor as 
 ever. Horace Walpole has left a picture of him at this 
 time, at once laughable and mortifying. Rigby and 
 Bathurst, two of Walpole's friends, carried a servant of 
 the latter, on the charge of attempting to shoot his mas- 
 ter, before Fielding. He sent word that he was at sup- 
 per, and that they must call in the morning; but they 
 pushed into the Justice's room, and found him banquet- 
 ing with a blind man, a woman of doubtful character, 
 and three Irishmen, " on some cold mutton and a bone 
 of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. He 
 never stirred, nor asked them to sit. Rigby, who had 
 seen him come so often to beg a guinea of Sir C. Wil- 
 liams, and Bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for 
 victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled 
 themselves chairs, — on which he civilized." Rigby and 
 Bathurst doubtless proved themselves insolent puppies 
 by this conduct, and Horace Walpole an unfeeling one 
 by his mode of narrating it ; but there is little in this 
 reflection to excui^e the abject position in which the 
 account places the magistrate. 
 
 It was amid the disgusting and ill-paid duties of this 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 341 
 
 iffice, and while under tLie influence of the habits it 
 engendered, that Fielding composed Tom Jones, the 
 great prose epic of English literature. He was indebted 
 for the means of subsistence, while writing it, to Ralph 
 Allen, Lyttelton, and the Duke of Bedford. The former 
 has been immortalized, both in the character of All 
 worthy, and in the celebrated couplet of Pope : - • 
 
 "Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, 
 Do good by srealth, and blush to find it fame." 
 
 His kindness to Fielding was, we believe, wholly unso- 
 licited. He once sent him two hundred pounds anony- 
 mously, or, at least, before he knew him in any other 
 way than as a distressed man of letters. 
 
 Tom Jones was published by Andrew Millar, the 
 Murray of that period. He was a shrewd, enterprising, 
 and not illiberal bookseller, but celebrated, even in that 
 generation of topers, for his devotion to the bottle. It is 
 said that for years there was not a day in which he 
 was not in that muddled state, which, in Bacchanalian 
 phraseology, goes under the name of " boozy." In this 
 condition he could always be found behind his counter, 
 g-oing through the business of his occupation with com- 
 mendable gravity, and though hardly able to stand or 
 speak, still contriving to avoid making mistakes in his 
 dealings either with authors or customers. He bought 
 Tom Jones for six hundred pounds, and, on its meet- 
 ing with extraordinary success, generously presented the 
 author an additional hundred, of his own free will. 
 
 In Tom Jones, Fielding has comprehended a largei 
 variety of incidents and characters under a stricter unity 
 of story than in Joseph Andrews ; but he has given to 
 the whole a tone of worldliness, which does not mar the 
 
342 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 delightful simplicity of the latter. As an expression of 
 the power and breadth of his mind, however, it is alto* 
 gether his greatest work, and in the union of distinct 
 pictorial representation with profound knowledge of prac- 
 tical life, is unequalled by any novel in the language, 
 We not only see all the personages as clearly as if they 
 were brought bodily before our eyes, but so close and 
 /ifelike is the imitation, that the moment they converse, 
 /he page itself seems to speak, and, in our illusion, we 
 iardly distinguish reading from listening. Characters 
 ind events are so softly and yet so indelibly impressed 
 on the imagination, that we care not to discriminate 
 between the memory of them and the memory of facts 
 which have fallen within our own experience. It would 
 almost seem to argue an unreasonable scepticism to 
 doubt the existence of such a veritable personage as 
 Square, lover of Plato and Molly Seagrim, with his 
 brain full of transcendental morality, and his heart full 
 of descendental appetites ; of Thwackum, malignant ora- 
 tor of grace, and most graceless of boisterous mahgnants; 
 of Ensign Northerton, the very pink of rakes, braggarts, 
 and upstarts, with his profane disrespect of " Homo," 
 his contempt of all learning associated in his mind with 
 pedagogic flagellations, and his exultation at deceiv- 
 ing " the old put," his father, out of his intention of 
 making him a parson; of Blifil, the most sublime of 
 didactic coxcombs, with his deep and solemn shamming 
 of virtue, so completely a hypocrite that he almost con- 
 ceals himself, and seems more an appearance than a 
 beiug ; of Allworthy, in whose delineation the author's 
 whole beneficence of heart overflows ; and of Tom Jones 
 himself, with his unguided heart glowing with all the 
 pnpulses, disinterested and sensual, and allowing each 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 343 
 
 to act of its own will, — sincere, generous, affectionate, 
 and unprincipled. But above all, what shall we say of 
 Squire Western, next to Falstaff the most universally 
 popular of comic creations, and as genuine a lump of 
 clay and passion as ever started into being under the 
 magical touch of a humorist? His shrewdness, his 
 avarice, his coarse kindness, his sense-defying Jacobit- 
 ism, his irresistible unreasonableness , his brutal anger, 
 making the page which chronicles it shake with oaths, 
 interjections, and screaming interrogations ; — loving his 
 daughter as he loves his dogs and horses, and willing to 
 use the whip and the spur the moment she does not obey 
 him with due alacrity, as in the case of his other brutes, 
 and loving himself with a depth of affection, with a dis- 
 regard of everything else on and over the earth, which 
 touches the pathetic in selfishness ; — all these go to 
 make up a character so natural, and yet so eccentric, as 
 to disturb our faith in the dogma that reason is the sep- 
 arating line between man and the beast. Parson Sup- 
 ple, his spiritual adviser and boon companion, looking 
 after the Squire's soul, and running on his errands, is a 
 suitable appendage to this " good old English gentle- 
 man." Then there is Black George, the gamekeeper, 
 oscillating between rascality and honesty, like a pendu- 
 lum; the interesting and accomplished family of that 
 gentleman ; and Partridge, with his proverbs, and pro- 
 verbial pedantry, the unfortunate scape-goat of the sins 
 »nd vices of others. Sophia Western, whose rich, red 
 ips almost peep through the yage as we read; Mrs. 
 Honor, her maid, a younger sister of Mrs. Slipslop, with 
 the peculiarities of her blood tripping from her tongue 
 in every impertinence she utters ; Mrs. Waters and Lady 
 Bellaston, admirably discriminated in their worthless 
 
344 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ness ; and Mrs. Western, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick, anil 
 Molly Seagrim, and Mrs. Miller, — all are indisputably 
 genuine, though not altogether flattering delineations of 
 female character. 
 
 We are, in fact, made acquainted through this book 
 with England as it was in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. Every personage, from lord to chambermaid, 
 — every incident, — every description of a custom, an 
 amusement, a fashion of dress, — every form of collo- 
 quial speech, vulgar or delicate, — every allusion to the 
 political parties which divided the country, is a mine of 
 information ; and the whole gives the lie direct to half 
 the impressions we derive from history, and enables us 
 to grasp the reality and substance of the national life. 
 Squire Western is probably but a heightened representa- 
 tion of the country gentleman of that period, as he was 
 found by Walpole or Newcastle, when the minister 
 desired to push a measure through the House of Com- 
 mons, and established commercial relations with its ob- 
 stinate Jacobites and patriots " open to reason." West- 
 ern would have imperfectly comprehended a question of 
 national policy, but would be sure to have known the 
 market price of votes. The political corruption of that 
 period has been often laid to the different administrations 
 of the government. But no reader of Fielding can fail 
 to see how common it was, for a person holding a por- 
 tion of the legislative power of the country, to consider 
 it a piece of property, which should not be induced to 
 utter a simple " aye " without an introduction to the 
 secret-service money. There is a great difference be 
 tween a prime minister who corrupts representatives 
 and a prime minister who has to deal with representa- 
 tives who set themselves up for sale. In the latter case 
 
HENEY FIELDING. 345 
 
 that statesman would seem to be the best who contrives 
 to purchase the largest number of votes with the smallest 
 ex])enditure of the public money. 
 
 In addition to the wealth of character and incident in 
 this novel, its fulness of spirit and humor, and its almost 
 exhaustless capacity to amuse and to instruct, the story 
 is distinguished from that of most works of fiction by its 
 artistic unity and completeness. It contains nothing, if 
 we except the episode of the Old Man of the Mill, which 
 interferes with the main design. With a beautiful art, 
 so felicitously concealed as to seem instinctive, incident 
 grows out of incident, at once springing from and develop- 
 ing character ; and the stream of events, growing broader 
 with every accession, flows naturally forward to the 
 catastrophe. The style also varies with the scenes, 
 exhibiting a singular command of apt and pictorial lan- 
 guage, and is especially delicious in the expression of 
 irony and mock-heroic grandeur. The description of the 
 battle between Molly Seagrim and half of the parish, in 
 which she does such direful execution among the country 
 nymphs and swains, is a masterpiece of triumphant 
 parody. But no quotations or allusions would do any 
 justice to the exquisite perfection of this novel, in respect 
 either to its plot, its characters, or its style. 
 
 There has been much speculation on the question 
 \/hether Tom Jones is an immoral work. Scott decides 
 it somewhat after the manner in which Dr. Johnson 
 decided a similar question regarding the morality of The 
 Beggcir's Opera. He says that the novel never added 
 one libertine to the company of licentious debauchees ; 
 and he fears that the frankness and generosity of the 
 hero have found as few imxtators as his vice and indis- 
 cretion. This 'judgment, however, implies that all niinda 
 
346 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 are healthy enough to escape contamination from immora' 
 works of imagination, which is just the reverse_^ of the 
 fact. 
 
 The discussion of the question in respect to the novel 
 under consideration may be considerably narrowed by 
 attempti'ig to define in what the immorality of a work 
 consists. Some persons, without allowing for changes 
 in national manners, pronounce coarse and direct expres- 
 sion, in plain, plump words, to be immoral ; and in this 
 sense Tom Jones shares the stigma with Shakspeare and 
 Ben Jonson, with Dr. South and many a luminary of the 
 Church. Others consider all representation of profligacy 
 and falsehood, unaccompanied by resounding maxima 
 declaring their naughtiness, to be immoral ; and in this 
 sense every delineator of life and character is bound to 
 be immoral by the first principles of his art. Others, 
 without the breadth of mind to take in the whole design 
 and total effect of a work of imagination, condemn it as 
 licentious by fastening their moral gripe on some par- 
 ticular scene, which should be viewed in its relations. 
 A few, with a juster and more catholic judgment, con- 
 fine the accusation to books intended to inflame the pas- 
 sions and unsettle the principles, coming from an incurably 
 corrupt mind, which basely makes itself the pander to 
 appetite and crime. 
 
 Certainly, in this last meaning, Tom Jones cannot be 
 pronounced immoral. Fielding's object was, undoubt- 
 edly, that which he professed in his preface, — to recom- 
 mend goodness and innocence ; to show that no acquisitions 
 of guilt can compensate for the loss of that solid inward 
 comfort of mind which is the lot of the virtuous; to 
 employ vit and humor in laughing men out of theil 
 fevorite vices and follies ; and to inculcate the truth, tha 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 34'7 
 
 virtue and innocence lall into the snares of deceit and 
 villany chiefly through indiscretion. He also asserts 
 that there is nothing in the book " inconsistent with the 
 strictest rules of decency, or which can offend the chast- 
 est eye in its perusal," — a statement which sounds 
 ironical in this age, but which, we know, would not have 
 seemed strange fifty years ago. There are persons 
 living now who, in their boyhood, read Tom Jones aloud 
 to their mothers and grandmothers, without any thought 
 of impropriety on either side. 
 
 Not only must Fielding be acquitted of intentional 
 immorality in his composition of the novel, but it must 
 also be allowed that he has indicated the connection of 
 vice and misery, indiscretion and discomfort, as closely 
 as the logic of Chillingworth himself could rivet it. But 
 the true question of literary morality lies back of all the 
 considerations to which we have referred. The morality 
 of a book is something unconsciously impressed upon it, 
 and is independent of intention. It takes its tone from 
 the character of the author, rather than from his opinions 
 or his will. If sensuality or malice pervades his mind, 
 it will find vent in his book, however cautiously he may 
 abstain from directly expressing it, however affluent he 
 may be in moral and religious commonplaces. Thus we 
 see many a modern novel, professing the loftiest princi- 
 ples and sentiments, seemingly only too elevated to be 
 practical, and yet as truly licentious as the amatory 
 verses of Rochester, or the rakish comedies of Sedley ; 
 md many a treatise of theology, studded all over with 
 Scripture quotations, and yet as malignant and irrelig- 
 pus in spirit as if it were inspired by the devil himself. 
 
 If we try Fielding by this test, we shall, it is true, find 
 Tom Jones as moral as The Love= if the Angels, or The 
 
348 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Corsair, not to speak of Little's poems, Don Juan, and 
 the prodigies of profligacy we import from France ; but 
 we shall not find it moral in the true sense of the term. 
 Fielding suffered too much from his own vices and follies 
 not to know what a miserable sham and deceit is thai 
 happiness which comes from a violation of moral laws, 
 and he would have been the last man intentioually to 
 recommend it to others ; but his character was what his 
 life had made it, and his sensations accordingly pene- 
 trate his verbal ethics, flash out in the turn of his sen- 
 tences, and peep through the best-intentioned morsels of 
 moral advice he is so ready to give. There were no 
 malignant vices in his composition, nothing which urged 
 him to defy heaven, or vilify and hate man ; but he 
 necessarily had too much toleration for what Gibbon., 
 with characteristic indulgence to the sensual, calls the 
 " amiable weaknesses of our nature ; " and this prevents 
 him from arranging his wonderfully vivid representations 
 in relation to higher laws than those which inhere in the 
 things themselves. He had, in short, if the term be 
 admissible, a good deal of honest sensuality, — that is, 
 he never elaborately disguised it in dainty sentiment and 
 philanthropic metaphysics, according to the modern cus- 
 tom ; and though the quality is a blot upon his works, 
 and limits the upward movement of his mind, it is hardly 
 so insidiously depraving as the Satanic sentimentality 
 and sugared corruption which have succeeded it. 
 
 The brilliant success of Tom Jones, which lifted 
 Fielding at once -to an almost undisputed eminence 
 among the great writers of his century, seems to have 
 emboldened him to proceed in his new vocation. He 
 accordingly commenced Amelia, and completed and pub- 
 lish«i it in 1751, performing, at the same time, his duties 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 349 
 
 as a magistrate, and occasionally throwirg off a pam- 
 phlet on some subject which engaged public attention at 
 the time. His proposal for making an effectual provision 
 for the poor, proves that he had applied his mind vs^ith no 
 inconsiderable force to social and political questions ; and 
 his short essay on the mysterious case of Elizabeth Can- 
 ning, "in which," as Scott observes, "he adopted the 
 cause of common sense against popular prejudice, and 
 failed, in consequence, in the object of his publication," 
 reflected credit on his sagacity and his benevolence. 
 
 Amelia is a novel not generally read, even by those 
 who appreciate the other works of Fielding. It must be 
 adnr^itted that it indicates a decay of vigor, not in the 
 deliueation of character or in the vividness of particular 
 scenes, but in that fusion of all the parts into a living 
 whole, and that elastic and onward movement of the nar- 
 rative, which are the charm of Tom Jones. It lingers 
 and loiters at times around a character or an incident, 
 not lovingly and in the spirit of enjoyment, as in Joseph 
 Andrews, but seemingly from a lack of strength or inven- 
 tion to proceed. But of all his novels, it leaves the finest 
 impression of quiet domestic delight, of the sweet home 
 feeling, and the humanities connected with it. We have 
 not the glad spring or the glowing summer of his genius, 
 but its autumnal mellowness and mitigated sunshine, 
 with something of the thoughtfulness befitting the season. 
 Amelia herself, the wife and the mother, arrayed in all 
 matronly graces, with her rosy children about her, is a 
 picture of womanly gentleness and beauty, and unosten- 
 tatious heroism, such as n3ver leaves the imagination in 
 which it has once found a place This char?c-;;'r Field- 
 ing is said to have drawn from the model ol his first 
 wife, while in Booth he intended, partly, at least, to 
 
350 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 represent the weaknesses, follies, and improvidence, which 
 characterized himself. Nothing can be more beautifui 
 than the fidelity with which Amelia adheres to her affec- 
 tionate but uu\^; irthy husband, the refinement of love she 
 displays in concealing from him her knowledge of his 
 mtrigue with Miss Matthews, and the full-hearted affec- 
 tion with which she greets him on his return from every 
 adventure in which his imprudence has laid up a nev 
 store of sorrows for herself. Booth never thinks her 
 unreasonable but on two occasions, when she insists on 
 his breaking off his acquaintance with two friends, appar- 
 ently from mere caprice. He afterwards discovers that 
 they were pestering her with dishonorable proposals, and 
 that she would not tell him the true reason of her dis- 
 like, from the apprehension that the result would be a 
 duel. 
 
 Most of Fielding's pathos is unintentional and uncon- 
 scious, and is commonly overlooked both by readers and 
 critics ; but there is one scene in this novel which goes 
 directly to the heart. We refer to that where Amelia is 
 represented alone at evening in her little room, expect- 
 ing, after a weary day of anxiety and care, her husband 
 to supper, and pleased at the idea that she has -prepared 
 a meal of which he is particularly fond. She waits hour 
 after hour until midnight, but he does not come. It 
 appears that he is at the gaming-table with Captain 
 Trent, hazarding and losing guineas by the score, and 
 iaying up fresh troubles for himself and her. She, the 
 same afternoon, had checked a desire to buy some little 
 luxury for herself, because it would cost sixpence, a sum 
 she thought she could not spare from their small hoard 
 We are inclined to forgive Captain Booth all his errors 
 "U.t this disappointment to Amelia. No reader eve 
 
HENRY FIELING. 351 
 
 nustered sufficient charity to cover that cruel thought- 
 essness, although the wife pardoned it at once. 
 
 The characters of this novel are delineated in Field 
 ing's most felicitous manner, and pcssess sufficient vari 
 ety to have established a reputation for any other author. 
 Dr. Harrison, a clergyman after the style of Parson 
 Adams, but discriminated from him by his abruptness of 
 tone, his greater knowledge of the world and a cyni 
 cism assumed to veil a boundless beneficence, is a grand 
 personation of practical Christianity. Sergeant Atkin- 
 son, with his deep, quiet, humble love, his devotion to 
 Booth and Amelia, his self-sacrificing generosity, is one 
 of those embodiments of goodness of heart which Field- 
 ing, to his honor, delighted to represent. The fair and 
 frail and malicious Miss Matthews ; the shrewd, knowing, 
 learned, equivocal Mrs. Bennet ; the vapid Mrs. James ; 
 Colonel Bath, with his high sense of honor, and perfect 
 willingness to blow out the brains of his best friend on 
 a punctilio ; Colonel James, the polite town rake, com- 
 placent in his shallow baseness ; the dogmatic j^oung 
 theological student, who violently disputes with Dr. 
 Harrison, to the great chagrin of his politic father, who 
 appreciates benefices better than logic ; the little, round, 
 fat Mrs. Ellison, the best-natured of pimps ; and espec- 
 ially that wretched devotee of lust, and embodiment of 
 all which is disgusting in sensuality, the lord who is her 
 employer, — are characters which Fielding in his best 
 days hardly excelled. The descriptions of town life, 
 also, are so graphic, tl at we seem transported to the 
 London of 1750. The masquerade at Kanelagh, and the 
 scene at Vauxhall, where the two brainless town-bloods 
 frighten Amelia and the children with their profanity 
 »nd insolence, are ciaguerreotypes of manners. The 
 
352 ESSAYS AND REMEWS. 
 
 author evidently intended that the novel should have a 
 moral effect upon his readers, and the fact that many 
 scenes would novv^ be accounted coarse or licentious only 
 proves that manners have changed. The Beaux Strat- 
 agem, or Love and a Bottle, would now be considered 
 strange productions to find in the hands of a lady ; yet 
 the virtuous and tender Amelia, who reads Barrow's 
 sermons with so much profit, and whom Dr. Harrison 
 considers the saint of his church, is represented as 
 solacing a weary hour of impatient watching in perusing 
 " the admirable comedies " of Farquhar. 
 
 The comparative failure of Amelia threw Richardson 
 and his admirers into ecstacies. Mrs. Donallan asks him 
 if he is going to leave them to Captain Booth and Betty 
 Thoughtless for their examples. " As for poor Amelia, 
 she is so great a fool, we pity her, but cannot be humble 
 enough to desire to imitate her." Richardson, in reply, 
 assures her that Captain Booth has done his own busi- 
 ness ; that the piece is as dead as if it had been published 
 forty years ago, as to sale ; and that Mr. Fielding 
 " seems in his last journal ashamed of it himself, and 
 promises to write no more." He compliments his corre- 
 spondent on her " admirable " remark, that, by several 
 strokes in the novel, Fielding " designed to be good, but 
 lost his genius, low humor, and spirit, in the attempt." 
 Again, he chuckles over the assumed fact, that Fielding 
 had been beaten by his own imitators, and that since the 
 time " his spurious brat, Tom Jones," met with its 
 " unaccountable success," the public have discovered 
 what " stuff" they have been admiring. But his happi- 
 est expression of petty rancor is contained in that letter, 
 wrritten in 1752, in which he affects to pity Fielding 
 describes how he insulted the sisters of the latter, by hi» 
 
HENEY FIELDING. 353 
 
 depreciation of their brother ; and narrates the whole in 
 a strain of moral coxcombry unexcelled in the annals of 
 Pharisaic criticism. " I could not help telling his sisters 
 that I am equally surprised at, and concerned for, his 
 continual lowness. Had your brother, said I, been born 
 m a stable, or been a runner at a sponging-house, one 
 should have thought him a genius, and wished he had 
 had the advantage of a liberal education, and of being 
 admitted into good company." He goes on to say, that 
 it is beyond his conception, that a man of family, having 
 " some learning, and who really is a writer, should 
 descend so excessively low in his pieces. Who can care 
 for any of his people ? " But the most ludicrous outbreak 
 of conceit, both of respectability and wit, follows this 
 precious specimen of Christian commiseration. " A per- 
 son of honor," he says, " asked me, the other day, what 
 he could mean by saying in his Covent Garden Journal 
 that he had followed Homer and Virgil in his Amelia. 
 I answered, that he was justified in saying so, because 
 he must mean Cotton's Virgil Travestied, where the 
 women are drabs and the men scoundrels." Keats rep- 
 resents himself as once being in a very genteel circle 
 of wit-snappers, who, in speaking of Kean, the actor, 
 affected to regret that he kept such low company, Keats 
 remarks, that he wished at the time he was one of that 
 company. No one can read Richardson's correspondence, 
 and be bored by the insipidity of his female toadies 
 and persons of honor, without being perfectly willing 
 to exchange their refinement for Fielding's " excessive 
 lowness." 
 
 Fielding was superior to the small malice and misera- 
 ble vanity which would prompt such a mode of attack 
 IS that adopted by RicnardSon. To his large and tol 
 
 VOL. u. 23 
 
354 ESSAYS AND EEVIEWS. 
 
 erant mind, it would have appeared ridiculous to wreak 
 a personal spiie against an author by depreciating his 
 works. Pope and Swift had both referred to him in early 
 life, with a contemptuous fleer at his talents ; but it never 
 entered his brain to refuse to quote and praise them be- 
 cause they disliked him. In the fifth number of the 
 Jacobite Journal, published at a time when he knew that 
 Richardson was exulting over his supposed failures, and 
 making his genius the butt of his insolent pity, he speaks 
 in terms of high eulogy of Clarissa Harlowe. He knew 
 human nature too well not to divine the meanness to 
 which the delineator of Clarissa and Clementina would 
 descend, when his sensitive vanity was stung by ridicule j 
 but it was a part of his philosophy to view such things 
 with good-natured indulgence, and not hesitate to ac- 
 knowledge the good qualities which might exist in 
 connection with vices so paltry and so malignant. 
 
 Millar, Fielding's publisher, paid a thousand pounds 
 for Amelia, thinking it would meet with the success of 
 Tom Jones ; but while it was in press, he obtained a 
 hint that it was an inferior work, and might turn out a 
 bad speculation. His stratagem to save himself from 
 loss indicated the ingenuity of a master-mind in "the 
 trade." At a general sale to the booksellers, he told 
 them, with his accustomed tipsy gravity, that he should 
 sell his other publications at the usual terms, but that 
 there was such a demand for Amelia he should be com- 
 pelled to decline all offers for that except at a reduced 
 discount. The booksellers, cuiming as they were, were 
 all deceived by his manner, greedily swallowed the bait 
 and the whole edition w^as ordered before it was pub- 
 lished. 
 
 After the publication of his last novel, Fielding 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 355 
 
 returned to his former occupation of newspapt r essayist, 
 and commenced, in 1752, The Covent Garden Journal. 
 In this paper he published some of his most agreeable 
 essays. His style in these has the cosiness and aban- 
 donment of an after-dinner chat, and is peculiarly felic- 
 itous in gossiping comments on literature and manners. 
 In this journal he was drawn into a verbal quarrel with 
 Smollett, who had established a fame, by Roderick Ran- 
 dom and Peregrine Pickle, second only to his own. The 
 Journal was discontinued on account of Fielding's health, 
 which now suffered from a complication of diseases, of 
 which the principal were asthma, dropsy, and jaundice. 
 The physicians recommended a milder climate as the 
 only means of preserving his life, and Lisbon was fixed 
 upon for his residence. Before he went, however, he 
 undertook, at the request of the Duke of Newcastle, and 
 for a fee of six hundred pounds, to extirpate some gangs 
 of robbers and murderers who infested the metropolis. 
 After performing this duty with great sagacity and com- 
 plete success, he prepared for his voyage. On the 26th 
 of June, 1754, he took that melancholy leave of his 
 children which he has described with such affectionate 
 pathos in his Voyage to Lisbon. This, his latest work, 
 cut short by death, indicates that his mind was bright and 
 his spirits joyous to the very verge of the tomb. He 
 died at Lisbon, in the beginning of October, 1754, in the 
 forty-eighth year of his age. His family, consisting of a 
 wife and four children, were left penniless, but were pre- 
 served from want by the kindness of Sir John Fielding, 
 and the ever-active charity of Ralph Alien. 
 
 It would seem that the most rigid moralist, in review- 
 ing the events of a life illustrated by virtues so imper- 
 fectly rewarded, and by vices so severely expiated, as 
 
356 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 that of Fielding, would be inclined rather to regret his 
 misfortunes than harshly to condemn his faults. His 
 whole existence, from the age of twenty, was one long 
 struggle with fortune, in which he bore humiliations and 
 experienced distresses which would have crushed a more 
 sensitive spirit at the outset. His life, judged by its ex- 
 ternal events, without taking into account the character 
 of the man, appears as wretched as any chronicled in 
 the calamities of genius. But it was the peculiar consti- 
 tution of his nature, that those qualities which whirled 
 him into excesses blunted the edge of the miseries into 
 which his excesses plunged him. In his lowest state, he 
 rarely desponded, rarely lost the vigor of his intellect 
 and the gladness of his disposition. Lady Montague, 
 writing soon after she heard of his death, says that "his 
 happy constitution (eveu when he had with great pains 
 half demolished it) made him forget every evil, when he 
 was before a venison pasty or over a flask of champagne ; 
 and I am persuaded," she adds, " he knew more happy 
 moments than any prince upon earth. His natural 
 fcpirits gave him rapture with a cook-maid, and cheer- 
 fulness when he was starving in a garret." As a conse- 
 quence of this felicity of disposition, he never whined 
 about his misfortunes, never scolded the public for 
 neglecting him, never represented his sensualities and 
 weaknesses as the result of his ardent genius. From 
 all nauseous cant of this kind, which so commonly in- 
 fects authors and their biographers, Fielding's sense of 
 humor would have preserved him, even if he had not 
 been saved from it by his sense of the pleasurable. And 
 that much abused noun of multitude, the World, against 
 whose injustice poets have ever stormily inveighed, may 
 6nd two consolations, at least, for its comparative neglec 
 
HENRY FIELDING. 351 
 
 of Fielding ; — in the thought that it could not possibly 
 have lavished upon him an amount of wealth which his 
 improvidence would not instantly have wasted ; and in 
 the reflection that, but for his poverty, he never would 
 have produced those exquisite creations of humor and 
 imagination, with their large knowledge of human nature 
 and their large toleration of human infirmity, which 
 have made Ms name immortal. 
 
DINARS POEMS AND PROSE WRITINGS.* 
 
 This collection of the writings of one of our deepes 
 and most suggestive thinkers ought to have been maHe 
 before, although, from the preface, we should judge that 
 the author had undertaken a somewhat unwilling duty 
 in making it even now. It contains all of Mr. Dana's 
 poems and prose writings formerly published, together 
 with a large addition, in the shape of reviews and essays 
 originally contributed to various periodicals, and now f ar 
 the first time collected. The matter in the second vol- 
 
 ume will be new to most readers who are familiar with 
 The Buccaneer and The Idle Man, it being wholly 
 composed of articles reprinted from the North American 
 Review, the Spirit of the Pilgrims, and a few other 
 sources. The volumes will undoubtedly take a promi- 
 nent place in American literature, among the best men- 
 tal productions of the country; and our object in the 
 present article is, to give a hasty view of the qualities 
 of mind and disposition they display, and the peculiar 
 individuality pervading the whole. We would not' do 
 Mr. Dana the injustice to judge his 'writings by any less 
 exacting principles than those which apply to the higher 
 class of minds. 
 
 * Poems and Prose Writings. By Richard Henry Dana. New York 
 Bakor and Scri .)ner. 1850. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 443, 440. — Christian Ea 
 aminer, March, 1850. 
 
 i 
 
Dana's poems and pkose writings. 359 
 
 In Mr. Dana's nature there is evidently no divorce 
 between literature and life, and he belongs to a class of 
 authors widely different from those who follow letters as 
 a profession, as a trade, as a means of amusing others 
 or displaying themselves. His writings carry with them 
 the evidence of being the genuine products of his own 
 thinking and living, and are full of those magical signs 
 which indicate patient meditation and a nature rooted in 
 the realities of things. From his prevailing seriousness, 
 everything, too, has a meaning and purpose, and bears 
 directly on the conduct of life ; and there are passages 
 of a certain still and deep intensity which seem forced 
 from a mind eloquent from restrained agony, and ex- 
 pressive at the expense of impairing its vitality. The 
 objects of thought seem to press so closely upon his 
 heart and brain, that he cannot remove them to that safe 
 distance which admits of their being cheerily contem- 
 plated ; and he therefore has little of that free swing and 
 felicitous audacity of manner, natural to thinkers in 
 whom subject and object are in genial companionship. 
 The general impression which his works leave on the 
 mind is the combination of earnestness and conscien- 
 tiousness in the spirit of the author, — an earnestness 
 which, in spite of his clear-seeing and quick-shaping 
 imagination, is apt to become didactic when it might be 
 representative, and a conscientiousness which has a nerv- 
 ous and morbid, as well as a muscular and healthy 
 movement. 
 
 There is, indeed, in Mr. Dana's nature a singular 
 disagreement between faculty and disposition. His in- 
 tellect has an instinctive tendency to objects ; is clear, 
 sure, and bright, in its vision ; endowed with the discern- 
 ng power of the observer and the divining power of the 
 
360 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 poet, and, in its natural action, equally capable m the 
 region of facts and in the region of principles. His 
 sensibility, also, is strong and direct, quick to feel the 
 flash and stir of great passions, and impatient of obstacles 
 which obstruct the expression of its wealth of emotion. 
 As far as regards intellect and passion, he appears the 
 most objective and sympathetic of our poets ; but the 
 moment we pass into the more subtile sources of charac- 
 ter, curious to scan the qualities which lie nearer the 
 heart of his being, we discover widely different elements 
 at work in the region of his sentiments. As shy and 
 sensitive as they are deep and delicate, these sentiments 
 exact more of society and mankind than either can give ; 
 and the result is a peculiar development of mental dis- 
 gust, compounded of self-distrust and dissatisfaction with 
 the world, which reacts both upon his intellect and his 
 sensibility, introduces a subjective element into his clear- 
 est representations, and sometimes hurries his mind from 
 objects into ideal reveries suggested by objects. His 
 finer affections, the saint-like purity of his moral feelings, 
 the sentiments of awe, wonder, reverence, and beauty, 
 mcorporated with his religious faith, though fine and 
 rare elements of his soul, are hardly elements of power, 
 for they have not been harmoniously blended with the 
 other qualities of his character. Had these, which are 
 most assuredly the deepest things in his nature, flowed 
 in a healthy current through his intellect, the creative 
 Dower of his mind would have been increased, a more 
 joyous and elastic spirit would bound through his pro- 
 ductions, and his large nature would have had a grander 
 impetus in its lyric expression, and a sunnier energy in 
 its representations of external life. As it is, we have in 
 these volumes the records of a great mind, but of one 
 
Dana's poems and prose writings. 361 
 
 which appears to have been placed in circumstances not 
 conducive to its genial development, — a mind in whom 
 noble virtues and refined sentiments have acted as 
 restraints rather than inspirations ; — humility being 
 separated from force ; modesty producing a slightly 
 morbid self-consciousness, generating self-distrust, and 
 impairing the will's vital energies ; exquisite sensibility 
 to !he beautiful expended more in contemplating than in 
 creating beauty ; moral sentiment divorced from moral 
 audacity; — and all these subtile inward workihgs and 
 cross movements of elusive emotions going on in a really 
 broad and high mind, resolute in its grasp of the realities 
 of things, with instincts for the great in thought and the 
 daring in action, and, at times, tearing its way into ex- 
 pression with a fierce rending apart of the fine web of 
 feelings in which its activity is entangled. In many of 
 his writings he seems a kind of Puritan-Cavalier, with 
 the Puritan's depth of religious experience without his 
 self-will, with the Cavalier's tastes and accomplishments 
 without his self-abandonment ; and he accordingly has 
 neither the strength of fanaticism nor the impetus of 
 sensibility. 
 
 This inward shrinking from the exercise of undoubted 
 power, this moral fastidiousness of a strong moral 
 nature, this mental disgust " sickling o'er " the energies 
 of a great mind, though doubtless to be referred, in some 
 degree, to inward constituti6n, must be accounted foi 
 principally by the fact that Mr. Dana's life has been one 
 of antagonism to the tastes and opinions of the com- 
 munity in which he was placed. As a poet, as a critic, 
 as a speculator on government and social phenomena, 
 he has shown the force, grasp, and comprehensiveness, 
 of his intellect ; but he has always been in opposition to 
 
'02 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 v»ttrrent schools and systems. If this had been owing tc 
 -fc natural combativeness of disposition, it would have 
 brought with it its own " exceeding great reward ; " for, 
 on the ground of mere self-satisfaction, few persons are 
 more to be envied than pugnacious disputants : but Mr. 
 Dana's nature is as averse to controversy as it is 
 solicitous for the truth, and he found himself in opposi- 
 tion because he had positive principles in art and phi- 
 losophy as distinguished from conventional rules and 
 empirical generalizations. At present his views would 
 generally, excite nothing more than respect and admira- 
 
 ,. tion for the thinker; but at_the time they weie^rst 
 announced they fell upon a politely unsympathi^g 
 audience, disposed to consider them as the freaks of 
 spiritual caprice, and perfectly masters of that subtile 
 superciliousness which eats into the very heart of a man 
 who is at once modest and earnest. His critical princi - 
 ples were radically those of Lessing and Schlegel, of 
 
 ^^Wirdswo£tBu^i^3"Coleridg% princIpTeF which are an 
 accurate philosophical statement of the processes of all 
 creative minds ; but he did not possess the peculiai 
 egotism which enabled Wordsworth, and the peculiai 
 dogmatism which enabled Coleridge, to bear with dog- 
 ged contempt, or voluble and passionate replication, the 
 common smiling indifference and the occasional sharp 
 attacks of his opponents. This lack of recognition when 
 there is really nothing in the mode of presentation to 
 excite silent or stormy opposition, — this struggle of one 
 man against ten thousand, to substitute positive princi 
 pies for empirical rules, — is especially saddening to a 
 nature as sympathetic as it is strong, and as shy as it it 
 earnest. Mr. Dana persisted, in spite of unpopularity, v 
 is true, and wrote in verse and prose according to hi» 
 
Dana's poems and prose writings. 363 
 
 own Leas; but his persistence lacked geniality, A 
 notion appears to have risen in his mind of a natural 
 antithesis between popularity and excellence, — a sure 
 sign, perhaps, that popularity was necessary to the 
 healthy action of his nature ; that he required echoes of 
 his mind from without to assure him that there was 
 really power within. Cheerfulness, and the joyous exer- 
 cise of creative energy, are so characteristic of assured 
 genius, that we doubt if such an antithesis ever arose in 
 a thoroughly live and sunny nature. If Mr. Dana had 
 been as popular as he deserved, if the richness and depth \ 
 of his mind had been gladly recognized, the present j 
 volumes would hardly have been a tithe of his contribii- / 
 tions to literature, and we should have had now a differ- I 
 ent class of personal qualities to emphasize as character- I 
 istics. There are, in authorship, professors of the impu- | 
 dent and supercilious, who require a sharp resistance on 
 the part of the public to tame their wilful and aggressive 
 egotism ; but Mr. Dana belongs to a class who arrive at 
 the fact of their excellence rather by an induction from 
 the Tesults they produce on the public mind than by 
 self-esteem ; and to such, a lack of recognition is hurt- 
 ful. 
 
 The compositions of Mr. Dana, produced under the 
 circumstances we have indicated, evince sufficient intens- 
 ity both of sensibility and intellect ; but it is that kind 
 of intensity which declares rather than disputes with 
 power, — which is strong on positive grounds, but una- 
 vailable in attack. Accordingly, in many of the articles 
 published in the second volume, we discern, in the side 
 references to opposite opinions, no hearty invective, no 
 bold strokes of satire ; but the fine superciliousness of 
 the mechanical school of critics -S met, on his own part 
 
?" 
 
 X 
 
 364 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 with a scorn as fine. Mr. Dana is not a good hater, 
 because his mind needs sympathy more than it dislikes 
 antagonism, and because austere principles are connected 
 in his mind with gentle feelings, not with aggressive 
 passions ; and his impatience at error, theretore, rather 
 frets than foams into expression. 
 
 Though there is hardly a page in^Mr. Dana's writings 
 which does not declare him a poet, bis poems are com- 
 paratively few. These are now generally well known, 
 though their rare merit has not yet been heartily recog- 
 nized. Mr. Dana is properly of no particular " school " 
 of poetry, but in the direction given to his poetic faculty 
 we perceive the influence and inspiration of Wordsworth 
 and Coleridge. In his preface to The idle Man,~he spieal j 
 of his friend Bryant as having lived, when quite young, 
 where few works of poetry were to be had, " at a period, 
 too, when Pope was still the great idol in the Temple of 
 Art ;" and that, upon his opening Wordsworth's Ballads, 
 "a thousand springs seemed to gush up at once in his 
 heart, and the face of nature, of a sudden, to change 
 into a strange freshness and life." Something of this 
 effect Wordsworth appears to have exerted upon Mr. 
 Dana ; an effect, however, which never was manifested 
 in a conscious or unconscious imitation of his author, 
 and which tended to develop rather than submerge his 
 individuality. Though he looks at nature somewhat in 
 Wordsworth's spirit, he never looks with Wordsworth's 
 eyes, but always with his own. The leading character- 
 istics of his poems are the calm, clear intensity of his 
 vision of objects, and his power of penetrating them 
 through and through, with life and spiritual significance. 
 His imagination has a Chaucerian "tertainty in repre* 
 senting a natural object in its exact form, color an . 
 
Dana's poems and prose writings. 365 
 
 iimensionSj the image before his intellect being as real 
 as if it were before his eyes ; and if he fail at all as an 
 objective poet, he fails in interpreting its true life and 
 meaning. Nature to him is ever symbolical of spirit; 
 but, instead of evolving hers, he will often superadd his 
 own. In both processes there is life as well as form, but 
 in one case we have the life of nature, in the other the 
 life of the poet. There are grand examples of pure 
 objective imagination in Mr. Dana's poems, in which 
 what is peculiar in the author's spirit does not penetrate 
 the description, and the whole scene has the delicious 
 remoteness of artistical creation ; but commonly a subtile 
 tinge of individual sentiment is diffused over the picture 
 he so distinctly presents, and the impression which it 
 leaves tells us that the life communicated to our hearts 
 is not the life of nature, but of one individual's experi- 
 ence. Were Mr. Dana a purely subjective poet, his 
 imagination playing whatever freaks with objects the 
 caprices of his individuality might dictate, the difficulty 
 of describing the action of his mind would be greatly 
 lessened; but the elusive quality in his genius, which 
 analysis is continually toiling after in vain, comes from 
 the conflict in his nature between the objective tendency 
 of his intellect and the subjective tendency of his dispo- 
 sition. We will give a few extracts illustrative of the 
 varying operation of his imagination, according as it 
 works impersonally or with his peculiar moods. The 
 feUowing, for instance, is pure picture : — 
 
 " And inland rests the green, warm dell ; 
 The brook comes tinkling down its side ; 
 From out the trees the Sabbath bell 
 Rings cheerful, far and ^ride, 
 Mingling its sound with Dleatings of the flocks. 
 That feed about the vale among the rocks." 
 
366 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 Here ws have complete self-forgetfulness, the mind 
 gazing at the scene it has conjured up, and representing 
 it as a distinct reality. In the following there is a faint 
 intrusion of the individual in the picture : — 
 
 " 'T was twilight then ; and Dian hung her bow 
 Low down the west ; and there a star 
 Khidly on .hee and me, from far. 
 Looked out, and blessed us through the passing glow." 
 
 In the following exquisite poem, the imagery is so 
 clear, that we are at first hardly aware that the whole 
 takes from the sadness of the mood in which it is con- 
 templated a dreamy melancholy, delicious but slightly 
 morbid. 
 
 "THE LITTLE BEACH-BIRD. 
 
 " Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea. 
 Why takest thou its melancholy voice, 
 And with that boding cry 
 Along the breakers fly? 
 O, rather. Bird, with me 
 Through the fair land rejoice ! 
 
 " Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale, 
 As driven by a beating storm at sea ; 
 Thy cry is weak and scared. 
 As if thy mates had shared 
 The doom of us : Thy wail, — 
 What doth it bring to me ? 
 
 " Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge 
 Restless and sad : as if, in strange accord 
 With the motion and the roar 
 Of waves that drive to shore. 
 One spirit did ye urge, — 
 The Mystery, —the Word. 
 
 "Of thousands, thou, both sepulchre and paJ, . 
 
 Old Ocean ! A requiem o'er the dead, 
 From out thy gloomy cells, 
 A tale of mourning tells, — 
 
Dana's poems and prose waitings. 367 
 
 Tells of man's woe and fall, 
 His sinless glory fled. 
 
 ' Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight 
 Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring 
 Thy spirit never more ; 
 Come, quit with me the shore, 
 And on the meadows light, 
 Where birds for gladnesi sing ! " 
 
 Vol, I., pp. 129, 130. 
 
 We might extract from Factitious Life, Thoughts 
 1)11 the Soul, The Dying Raven, and Daybreak, nu- 
 merous passages where this melancholy deepens into 
 gloom, if not despair, and while the poet's hold upon the 
 form of natural objects is as sure as ever, the spirit is 
 thoroughly individual. These poems could only have 
 come from a deep experience of life, and there is a 
 breadth of solemnity to them whiih is not without its 
 charm ; but the fatal objection to them is, that they do 
 not communicate life. Their tendency is rather to 
 awaken a conviction of wickedness than to inspire the 
 energy of virtue. As lessons in psychology, however, 
 they have great value. 
 
 One of the best of Mr. Dana's minor poems is that on 
 Chantrey's Washington. We extract it, as one of the 
 rery few tributes to Washington worthy the grandeur 
 of the subject. 
 
 " Father and Chief, how calm thou stand'st oncie more 
 Upon thine own free land, thou wonn'st with ioil , 
 Seest thou upon thy country's robe a soil, 
 As she comes down to greet thee on the shore 7 
 
 " For thought in that fine brow is living still, — 
 Such thought as, looking far off into time, 
 Casting by fear, stood up in itrengtn sublime, 
 When odds in war shook vale and shore anr" hill j— 
 
"t68 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 " Such thought as th -a possessed thee, when was laid 
 Our deep foundation, — when the fabric shooli 
 With the wrathful surge which high against it broke,— 
 When at *hy voice the blind, wild sea was stayed. 
 
 " Hast heard our strivings, that thou look'st away 
 Into the future^ pandering still our fate 
 With thoughtful mind ? Thou readest, sure, the date 
 To strifes, — thou seest a glorious coming day. 
 
 ' For round those lip; dwells sweetness, breathing good 
 To sad men's souls, and bidding them take heart, 
 Nor live the shame of those who bore their part 
 When round their towering chief they banded stood. 
 
 " No swelling pride in that firm, ample chest ! 
 The full, rich robe falls round thee, fold on fold. 
 With easy grace, in thy scarce conscious hold : 
 How simple in thy grandeur, — strong in rest ! 
 
 " 'Tis like thee : such repose thy living form 
 Wrapped round. Though some chained passion, breaking forth 
 At times swept o'er thee like the fierce, dread north, 
 Yet calmer, nobler, cam'st thou from the storm. 
 
 " O mystery past thought ! — that the cold stone 
 Should live to us, take shape, and to us speak, — 
 That he, in mind, in grandeur, like the Greek, 
 And he, our pride, stand here, the two in one ! 
 
 " There 's awe in thy still form. Come hither, then. 
 Ye that o'erthrong the land, and ye shall know 
 What greatness is, nor please ye in its show, — 
 Come, look on him, would ye indeed be men ! " 
 
 Vol. I., pp. 127, 12&. 
 
 The Buccaneer is the most celebrated of Mr. Dana's 
 poems, and though the plan of the story is open to 
 objections, and it fails to reach that mystical element 
 of the mind which it addresses, the characterization and 
 scenery evince great closeness and force of imagination 
 With some obvious faults, it appears to us to exhibi 
 
Dana's poems and prose writings. 369 
 
 more of the depth, strength, and daring of genius, thar 
 any other American poem. Everything is realized with 
 such intensity that it could not have been written with- 
 out tears and shudderings, and there are portions of it so 
 vividly real and lifelike that the reader almost reproduces 
 the author's mental agony in reproducing his concep- 
 tions. The stern condensation of the diction corresponds 
 admirably with the concentrated strength with which the 
 author grasps the central idea and every minor detail of 
 the poem. The fierce passions raging through the whole 
 are relieved by numerous passages replete with the sun- 
 niest beauty and repose. Throughout the whole, noth- 
 ing is described, everything is represented ; and we can 
 hardly recollect a stanza in which the attention is drawn 
 away from objects to note the words which present 
 them. 
 
 But in this poem, and in all of Mr. Dana's poems, we 
 notice two defects which must always interfere with his 
 popularity as a poet. He has great distinctness of men- 
 tal vision, but little visionary charm ; a shaping imagina- 
 tion, but no poetic atmospihere encircling the forms he 
 creates. He realizes with great power, but the ideal is 
 almost lost in the realization. This is the more remark- 
 able, as it is in atmosphere more than form that the 
 great poets of the present century, and especially his own 
 .avorites among them, excel all others. The other defect 
 of his Muse is a lack of melody. This, we think, is not 
 a natural, but a somewhat wilful defect, — a mode of 
 sh:)wing his contempt for the smooth conventional versi- 
 fication which he has so much decried as a critic. As a 
 prose- writer he is often exquisitely melodious. Let the 
 •■eader compare the essay on Domestic Life, or that enti- 
 tled Musings, with any poem in the present collection, 
 
 VOL. II. 24 
 
370 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 and he cannot but be struck with the musical flow of the 
 one, as contrasted with the comparatively rugged tramp 
 of the other. 
 
 As a prose-writer Mr. Dana is principally known by 
 his essays and stories published in The Idle Man. The 
 second volume of the present collection of his works 
 contains, in the shape of fugitive articles originally con- 
 tributed to periodicals, as strong evidences as are fur- 
 nished by his more elaborate production that his rank as 
 a wr'ter, in respect to mere excellence of style, is second 
 to no other author in the country. The prominent fig- 
 ure in The Idle Man is Paul Felton, certainly a creation 
 which no reader could have dreamed would glare out 
 upon him from the pages of a book bearing such a 
 title. In respect tc mere power over the sensibilities, the 
 story of Paul and Esther is the greatest of Mr. Dana's 
 works, and it exhibits a mingled firmness and vividness 
 of vision, in gazing into the blackest gulfs of Satanic 
 passion, which cannot but awaken at times the reader's 
 admiring wonder. But the impression it leaves upon 
 the mind is one of unrelieved horror; and we suppose 
 that the author, on his own principles of taste, would 
 declare that such an impression was altogether removed 
 from the purpose of art. Should an actor imitate nature 
 so perfectly, that, when he is stabbed on the stage, he 
 conveyed to our minds the same feelings we should 
 experience in witnessing a murder committed in the 
 streets, he would be called a bad actor. The line separ- 
 ating the sympathies awakened by ideal and actual dis- 
 tress cannot be mistaken, and the novelist who aims to 
 call out the latter succeeds only in producing the horri- 
 ble, not the beautiful or sublime. The power displayed 
 in Paul Felton, therefore, is not communicated to •';he 
 
Dana's poems and prose w.ieiTiNGS. 371 
 
 •■ead<3r, out leaves him both weak and miserable. In the 
 story of Tom Thornton, we have almost equal power, 
 with more relief. Edward and Mary is a simple story, 
 in wnich the author throws himself confidingly upon the 
 finer sentiments in their primitive action, and the result 
 is true romance. The article on Kean's Acting is proba- 
 bly the finest piece of critical writing which any English 
 performer ever called forth. In a far different style 
 are the essays entitled Domestic Life, and Musings. 
 The serene and beautiful wisdom so melodiously con- 
 veyed in these has a still, searching power, which pene- 
 trates into the very substance of the soul, and both 
 Durifies and tranquillizes. 
 
 As a critic, Mr. Dana manifests the same hold upon 
 the^solidities and realities of life, and the same dislike 
 for the superficial in intellect and the conventional in 
 manners, which characterize the whole strain of his 
 meditations. His sensibility to poetic excellence has a 
 depth and acuteness which no mere critic could reach, 
 and his statements are often better and truer than the 
 most labored analysis of a less sympathetic and imagina- 
 tive mind. The articles in the present collection, on 
 Allston's Sylphs of the Seasons, Hazlitt's Lectures on 
 the^nglish Poets, PoUok's Course of Time, The Sketch 
 Book, an3 Edgeworth's Readings on Poetry, are gen- 
 erally of the highest order of critical merit. The author 
 deals always with concrete principles, not with abstract 
 propositions, and his articies are therefore full of original 
 power and beauty, and ever contributions to the subjects 
 he discu?ses. They contam sentences of clear sweetness, 
 of vivid description, of penetrating remark, which leave 
 ft lingering sense of delight in the mind long after it has 
 passed on to t'ie topic which succeeds. The observa- 
 
372 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 tions with which Mr. Dana commences the review of 
 AUston's poem are more poetical than any extracts he 
 makes from it. " His mind," he says, " seems to have 
 in it the glad but gentle brightness of a star, as you 
 look up to it, sending pure influences into your heart, 
 
 and making it kind and cheerful He has not 
 
 only an eye for nature, but a heart too ; and his imag- 
 ination gives them a common language, aTid they talk 
 
 together He views his scenes with a curious and 
 
 exquisite eye, instilling some delicate beauty into the 
 most common thing that springs up in them, imparting 
 to it a gay and fairy spirit, and throwing over the whole 
 a pure, Jloating glow." AUston's satire, he says, "ap- 
 pears so bright and playful, that the fairest prospects 
 look gladder in it, and we see it flickering along the 
 more gloomy, like a stream of moonlight, stretching a 
 glittering and silvery line over the ^eely blackness of 
 the waters, as they lie sleeping under the brown, solemn 
 hills." 
 
 The following extract, relating generally to the poet, 
 is exceedingly beautiful, and illustrates that union of 
 power and repose which constitutes so much of the charm 
 of Mr. Dana's prose style : — 
 
 "Little, indeed, do such men see, that the out-of-door indus- 
 Iry, which leads to wealth and importance, owes much to the 
 jSoet for its thriving existence ; that the poetry of a pec:ple ele- 
 vates their character, and makes them proud of themselves ; 
 quickens the growth of the nicer feelings, and tones the higher 
 virtues ; that it causes blessings to shoot up round our homes ; 
 smooths down the petty roughness of domestic life, and softens 
 and lays open the heart to the better affectio'is ; that it calls the 
 mind off from the pursuits of the tainted and wearing pleasures 
 oi the world, and teaches it to find its amusements in the exer 
 cisn of its highest and purest powers ; that it makes the inte 
 
D1NAS POEMS AND PROSE WRITINGS. 373 
 
 lect ri\ acious, and gives an interest and stir to the society of 
 the wise ; shames us from our follies and crimes, turns us to 
 the love and study of what is good, gives health to the moral 
 system, and brings about what must always go along with the 
 virtue of society, the beauty of order and security. Little, too, 
 do they know of the poet's incessant toil. His eyes and thoughts 
 are ever busy amidst the forms of things. He looks into the 
 intricate machinery of the heart and mind of man, and sees its 
 workings, and tells us to what end it moves. He goes forth 
 with the sun over the earth, and looks upon its vastness and 
 sublimity with him, and searches out with him every lesser 
 thing. His studies end not with the day ; but when the splen- 
 dor of the west has died away, and a sleepy and dusky twilight 
 throws a shadowy veil over all things, and he feels that the 
 spirit which lifted him up and expanded his frame, as he looked 
 forward on the bright glories of the setting sun, has sunk slowly 
 and silently down with them, and that the contemplative light 
 about him has entered into his heart, and the gladness of the 
 day left him, he turns and watches the lighting up of the reli- 
 gious stars, by which he studies in soberer and more* intent 
 thought the things that God has made." 
 
 The essays in the second volume on Old Times, The 
 Past and Present, and Law as suited to Man, are among 
 the best evidences which Mr. Dana has given of the 
 philosophical capacity of his mind. They are good 
 illustrations of the difference between principles and 
 propositions, the author's imagination and sentiment, as 
 well as his understanding, being active throughout. 
 The}' are characterized by the intensest spirit of medita- 
 tion, and a calm, strong grasp, and close application, of 
 principles. The introspective and retrospective elements 
 of his nature, however, appear in these essays in their 
 most refined operation. The past is subtly identified 
 with, its ideals, the present is criticized in the light of 
 those ideals, and tested by their most exacting require- 
 
374 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
 ments. The result is a kind of despair for the present, 
 and a lack of hopefulness in surveying the future. De- 
 mocracy, especially, has little justice done to it. But 
 still, the most besetting sins and dangers of the country 
 are exhibited in an original and forcible manner, without 
 any appeal to the controversial passions, and the essays 
 leave a profound impression of the author's depth of 
 nature. 
 
 From the exceedingly complex character of Mr. Dana's 
 genius, we have been able, in these hasty observations, 
 to give but an imperfect exhibition of that peculiar com- 
 bination of mental and moral qualities which constitutes 
 the life of his writings. The best criticism on the pres- 
 ent volumes is that which most strongly directs the pub- 
 lic attention to them, for they cannot be read without 
 mental and spiritual improvement; and we trust that 
 their circulation will be large enough to give a flattering 
 idea of the estimate placed in the United States upon 
 great and rare powers devoted to high purposes. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THOMAS HOOD.* 
 
 The name of Thomas Hood is known wherever language is put 
 upon the rack. Every civilized Englishman who uses words is 
 Ecquainted with the great word-twister. He is the acknowledged 
 monarch of Pun-land. All other luminaries " pale their inef- 
 fectual fire" before the quick sparkle of his multitudinous quib- 
 bles. He has made punning a kind of genius. He has redeemed 
 it from the detractions of the dull and pedantic. Any man may 
 now play upon words, without having his friend point significantly 
 to the gallows, and murmur that " he who makes a pun would 
 pick a pocket." What King James, and Bacon, and Shakspeare, 
 and Donne, and Cowley, could not do, — what Canning and the 
 whole Anti-Jacobin club could not effect, — has been done by 
 Thomas Hood. The analogies of sound seem now as much prized 
 as those of thought. The fact that the greatest men in all ages 
 have displayed a love for this kind of wit, must be admitted as a 
 strong argument in its favor. The " verbal Unitarians," as Hood 
 calls his opponents, have been compelled to abate the insolence of 
 their censures, and relax the grimness of feature with which they 
 once frowned defiance on double-meanings. The great family of 
 Words, which might be supposed most interested in the issue of 
 the struggle, have willingly given up their frames to the torture, 
 and suffer martyrdom daily. The priests in the Inquisition of 
 Verbiage, with their racks, wheels, scourges, and hot- irons, are 
 
 * " Whims and Odd; 'es," s-jd " Prose and Terse." 
 
376 APPENDIX. 
 
 doing what is called a " fair business;" and every shriek drawn 
 from the agonies of a tortured word is registered as a pun. 
 
 Hood, then, has so far influenced the legislation of letters as to 
 turn quibbling from a crime iato a fashion ; but his own popular- 
 ity as a humorist is not owing altogether to his word-twistings. 
 He has one of the most singular minds ever deposited in a human 
 brain. Whims and oddities come from him, because he is himself 
 a whim and oddity, He seems of different natures mixed. He 
 has the fancy, if not the imagination, of a poet, and some touches 
 of pathos almost equal to the most brUliant scintillations of his 
 wit. Behind his most grotesque nonsense, there is generally some 
 moral, satirical, or poetic meaning. He often blends feeUng, 
 fancy, wit, and thoughtfulness, in one queer rhyme, or quaint 
 quibble. The very extravagance of his ideas and expression; the 
 appearance of strain and effort iu his puns; the portentous 
 jumbling together of the most dissimilar notions by some merry 
 craft of fancy ; and the erratic, dare-devil invasion of the inmost 
 sanctuaries of conventionalism, have, in his writiags, a peculiar 
 charm, which we seek for in vaia among his imitators, or among 
 the tribe of extravagant wits generally. We do not believe he 
 would be so fine a humorist, if he were not so much of a poet. 
 There is a vein of genial kindliness in his nature, which modifies 
 the mocking and fleering tendencies of his wit. 
 
 Hood was no humorist in the sense in which the word is some- 
 times employed. He was no mere provoker of barren laughter, 
 but a man whose mirth had its roots deep in sentiment and 
 humanity. He saw the serious side of life as clearly as the ludi- 
 crous. He knew what thin partitions separate in this world tears 
 from laughter; that the deepest feeling often expresses itself in 
 the quaint oddities of caricature ; that wisdom sometimes conde- 
 scends to pun, and grief to wreathe its face in smiles. Indeed, 
 there is occasionally a little misanthropy in him. A close observer 
 of his writings will often see a bitter personal experience of the 
 author embodied in the most farcical and bewildering freaks of his 
 fun. Hood makes us sympathize more quickly with the troubles 
 of his life, from not thrusting them in our faces, with the usua< 
 parade of sorrow and lamentation. We laugh with him, and fee. 
 for him. Few writers have ever succeeded in blending so much 
 thought and sentiment, so much true humor and no less trut 
 
THOMAS HOOD. 377 
 
 pathos, •with the most extravagant drollery and fknciful exagger- 
 ation. 
 
 Two of the most ludicrous of Hood's punning poems are the 
 lachrymose ballads of " Sally Brown and Ben the Carpenter," 
 ai-d "Faithless Nelly Gray." The mockery, ia these exquisite 
 morceaux, of the plaintive style of the modern ballad, glistens with 
 wit and humor. They are so well known that to extract from 
 them would be an impertinence. " The Wee Man" is another 
 queer specimen of his drollery. In the poem called " Jack Hall," 
 (Jackal) the resurrectionist, he commences with wailing the cus- 
 tom of disinterring bodies, and remarks, with much logical feel- 
 ing:— 
 
 " 'T is hard one cannot lie amid 
 The mould beneath a coffin lid, 
 But thus the Faculty will bid 
 
 Their rogues break through it ! 
 If they don't want us there, why did 
 They send us to it 7 " 
 
 The situation of the lover, who comes to sentimentalize over hit 
 mistress's grave, is thus vividly portrayed : — 
 
 " The tender lover comes to rear 
 The mournful urn, and shed his tear — 
 Her glorious dust, he cries, is here I 
 
 Alack ! alack ! 
 The while his Sacharissa dear 
 
 Is in a sack! " 
 
 Here is a grave, grim, and dismal pun : — 
 
 " Death saw two players playing at cards, 
 But the game was not worth a dump. 
 For he quickly laid them flat with a spade, 
 To wait for the final trump ! " 
 
 Hood's wit plays about the tomb somewhat daringly, but still 
 he can hardly be said to disturb its sanctities. In the ballad of 
 " Mary's Ghost" he makes the poor spirit lament the distribution 
 of her former body among the physicians. She cries - - 
 
 " O William dear ! O William dear I 
 My rest e) irnal ceases ; 
 Alas ! my everlasting peace 
 Is broken into pieces. 
 
378 APPENDIX. 
 
 "The body-snatchers, they have come. 
 And made a snatch at me ; 
 It 's very hard them kind of men 
 Won't let a body be." 
 
 After Diucli agonizing description, respecting tlie disposition o. 
 the several pai-ts of her once compact frame, she concludes : — 
 
 " The cock it crowa — I must be gone ! 
 My William, we must part ! 
 But I '11 be yours in death, although 
 Sir Astley has my heart. 
 
 "Don't go to weep upon my grave, 
 And think that there I be ; 
 They have n't left an atom there 
 Of my anatomie." 
 
 One of the finest things in " Prose and Verse " is the piece 
 called " The Great Conflagration." It refers to the burning of 
 the Houses of Parliament, in 1834, and consists chiefly of letters 
 written by Sir Jacob Jubb, M. P., and various members of his 
 household, descriptive of the event. Sir Jacob was severely burnt, 
 " by taking his seat in the House, on a bench that was burning 
 under him. The danger of his situation was several times pointed 
 out to him, but he replied that his seat had cost him ten thousand 
 pounds, and he could n't quit. He was at length removed by 
 force." The richest epistolary gem is the letter of Ann Gale, 
 housemaid. Her speculations on the fire are very deep. She 
 understands that " The Lords and Commons was connected with a 
 grate menny historicle associashuns, wich of coarse will hav to 
 make good all dammage." Her feelings are strongly enlisted 
 in favor of the members. " Ware the poor burnt-out creturs will 
 go noboddy nose. Sum say Exetur Hall, sum say the Refudge for 
 the Destitut, and sum say the King will lend them his Bensh to 
 set upon." She tells her correspondent that the fear of fire leaves 
 her no peace. " I don't dare to take my close off to go to bed, 
 and I practise clambering up and down by a rop in case, and I gi^ 
 Police Man 25 a shillin now and than to keep a specious eye to 
 nunibir fore, and be reddy to ketch anny one in his harms. * * 
 * * ! Mary, how happy is them as livs lick you, as the 
 Bong says, ' Fur from the buzzy aunts of men.' Don't neglect to 
 take out ewery nite, see that ewery sole in the how8 is tureied 
 
THOMAS HOOD. 379 
 
 down xtinguished, and allways bio youreself out befoure you go to 
 
 youre piller." 
 
 " The Bridge of Sighs," " The Lady's Dream," and the " iSong 
 of the Shirt," all having relation to the claims of poverty and 
 wretchedness, are included in this collection. The long prose 
 paper, entitled " Copyright and Copywrong," originally contrib 
 uted to the London Athenaeum, represents Hood pleading for his 
 own craft, in his own peculiar way. The question never was dis- 
 cussed with more liveliness, if with more cogency. La alluding to 
 American republications, he disclaims hostility to the United 
 States in very characteristic expression. " The stars and stripes," 
 he says, " do not affect me like a blight in the eye, nor does Yankee 
 Doodle give me the ear-ache. I have no wish to repeal the Union 
 of the United States ; nor to alter the phrase in the Testament into 
 ' republicans and sinners.' In reality, I have rather a Davidish 
 feeling toward Jonathan, remembering whence he comes, and what 
 language he speaks ; and holding it better in such cases to have 
 the wit that traces resemblances, than the judgment which detects 
 differences, — and perhaps foments them." Toward the close of 
 one portion of his quaint pleadings for the rights of authors. Hood 
 bursts out in an eloquent acknowledgment of his obligations to 
 literature, and to men of genius. " They were," he says, •' my 
 interpreters in the House Beautiful of God, and my Guides among 
 the Delectable Mountains of Nature. They reformed my preju- 
 dices, chastened my passions, tempered my heart, purified my 
 tastes, elevated my mind, directed my aspirations. I was lost in 
 a chaos of undigested problems, false theories, crude fancies, 
 obscure impulses, and bewildering doubts, — when these bright 
 intelligences called my mental world out of darkness like a new 
 creation, and gave it ' two great lights,' Hope and Memory, — the 
 past for a moon, and the future for a sun." 
 
 This touches the real point in every discussion respecting the 
 rights of authors. We owe them a debt of gratitude, which we 
 should taKe pleasure in repaying. Instead of doing this, we avail 
 ourselves of every subterfuge of quibbling, to justify the most 
 selfish and heartless conduct trwards them. The book that comes 
 to us as a benefactor, — which opens to our view boundless 
 domains of beauty and grandeur, — which makes itself " felt in 
 (he blood, and felt along the heart;" is it consistent that wfl 
 
380 APPENDIX. 
 
 should be so careful to reckon its exact value in tlie current coin 
 of the land ? Is it not ridiculous for us to play a huckstering 
 trade with the man who is to pour into our minds the infinite 
 riches of his genius ? While our hearts are overflowing with 
 kindlLuess for him who has peopled our solitude with beings of 
 unearthly sweetness and majesty, — who has thrown celestial 
 light around the bed of sickness and pain, — who has spoken a 
 word of cheer to us in many a period of sorrow and abasement, — 
 whose great heart has beaten close to ours iu many a moment of 
 passionate exaltation; — who, by the sweat of his brow and the 
 sweat of his brain, has passed long years of labor in order that 
 our lives might be made more beautiful and happy, — shall we 
 grudge him the just rewards of his labor, — shaU we compliment 
 ourselves on our shrewdness in being able to steal from him the 
 means of subsistence ? What an antithesis is here, — what won- 
 derful exaltation of thought and feeling, — what consummate 
 littleness and meanness of action! We treat our greatest friend 
 and benefactor, for whom our love and gratitude should be bound- 
 less, not only worse than we would treat a common acquaintance, 
 but worse than we would treat our butcher or tailor. We would 
 have our imaginations exalted, our hearts kindled, our minds 
 stored ; and then pride ourselves principally on our cunning in 
 evading all payment for such a priceless good. We fear that our 
 shrewdness here overleaps itself. It may be questioned whether 
 or not the serene and beautiful face of literature can be seen in its 
 loveliness, or felt in its power, while it is in such close approxima- 
 tioi i: the all-absorbing DoUar. 
 
 LEIGH HUNT'S POEMS. 
 
 There are some authors whose writings and conduct we do not 
 applaud or condemn by any fixed " laws " of taste or propriety. 
 They are free of the " Principles of Rhetoric." They are allowed 
 to sing and sin, of their own sweet will, without regard to Doc 
 tors Blair and Whately. At first they are ridiculed and de 
 nounced; but, after the time-honored tortures of criticism hav» 
 
LEIGH HUNT S POEMS. 381 
 
 been rigorouslj applied to discover -whefher their peculiarities are 
 ingrained or merely affectations, they are allowed to practise 
 whatever verbal gymnastics and pyrotechnics they please. Critics 
 gradually grow weary of stretching them on the rack. Readers, 
 after a few petulant remonstrances, silently assent to the claims 
 of their individuality. Conservatism nods its sullen acquiescence. 
 And thus literary radicals, whose first sallies brought down upon 
 their heads the most scorching satire, are soon seen side by side 
 with the legislators and scrupulous Pharisees of letters, and their 
 praise is echoed from lips which once curled in polite disgust at 
 their outrages. It is discovered that there is originality, perhaps 
 genius, in their singularities of thought and diction, and that a 
 man may write agreeable works without taking the " best models" 
 for his pattern. 
 
 Leigh Hunt must be considered, on the whole, to belong to this 
 class. In spite of his faults, there is something quite bewitching 
 in his character and poems. We hardly judge him by the same 
 laws we apply to other poets ; we are willing to take him as he is. 
 The same errors and fooleries which would be insufferable ia 
 another, alter their aspect, if not their nature, as observed in the 
 easy impudence of his chirping egotism. No man has been more 
 severely attacked, no man is more open to censure; yet we feel 
 that none can bear it with a more careless philosophy. The true 
 object of punishment is to reclaim, and Hunt was past reclaiming 
 before critics began to punish. All severity is lost upon him. 
 He is what he is by virtue of his nature. The jauntiaess, the 
 daintiness, the vanity, the flippancy, the accommodating morality, 
 which look upon us from his life and writings, and which, in their 
 rare combination in one peculiar mind, made Byron call him an 
 honest charlatan who believed in his own impostures, would be 
 disgusting if less in harmony with the character of the individual; 
 but, considered as part and parcel of Leigh Hunt, and of him 
 alone, they are often pleasing. 
 
 Hunt has had bitter enemies and warm friends ; but, from his 
 position as a liberal, his enemies have possessed the advantage of 
 arraying against him the prejudices of party, as well as skilfully 
 availing themselves of the weak points in his transparent nature. 
 For many years he was pursued with the fiercest animosity of 
 political and personal hatred. His name has beep used by a 
 
382 APPENDIX. 
 
 clique of unscrupulous writers as a synonyme of everything base, 
 stupid, brainless, and impudent. His poems have been analyzed 
 parodied, misrepresented, covered with every epithet of contempt, 
 pierced by every shaft of malice. Men like Gifford and Wilson 
 have sacked the vocabulary of satire and ridicule, have heaped 
 together all phrases and images of contumely, to destroy his repu- 
 tation, and render him an object of universal scorn. It must be 
 confessed that the faults of his mind and manner, the faults of his 
 taste and conduct, the presumption with which he spoke of his 
 eminent cotemporaries, the flippancy with which he passed judg- 
 ments on laws and government, laid him open to animadversion, 
 and were, in some instances, apologies for the malice and severity 
 of his adversaries. For a number of years he was so pertina- 
 ciously attacked in Blackwood's Magazine, in connection with his 
 friends, Keats and Hazlitt, that it almost seemed as if the promi- 
 nent object of that flashing journal was to crush one poor poet and 
 his associates. He was stigmatized as the founder and exponent 
 of the " Cockney school of poetry." His poems were held up as 
 a strange compound of vulgarity and childishness — as a sort of 
 neutral ground between St. Giles and the niirsery. His style was 
 represented as a union of all in expression which is coarse and 
 affected, with all that is feeble and babyish. Byron, who pre- 
 tended at one time to be his friend, says, in a letter to Moore — 
 "He believes his trash of vulgar phrases, tortured into compound 
 barbarisms, to he old English;" and adds, of the "Foliage," that 
 " of all the ineffable centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love 
 upon a nightmare, I think this monstrous Sagittary the most 
 prodigious." 
 
 That this cruelty, and, in numerous cases, elaborate dishonesty 
 of criticism, has produced no apparent change in his disposition, 
 has never led him to correct or alter any of the besettiug sins of 
 his style, a,nd has not diminished his popularity, is a singular fact, 
 and one calculated to illustrate how small can be the influence of 
 malignant criticism, both upon the mind of the object and the 
 taste of readers. The friends of Hunt have borne patiently all the 
 attacks which their association with him has provoked, and 
 those who have suff'ered most by the connection have been the 
 most uncompromising of his advocates. There must be much 
 frankness and genial kindness in his nature, there must be mucll 
 
LEIGH HUNTS i^EBiS. 383 
 
 In him to bve, or he could not have numbered among his friends 
 men so opposite in taste and opinion as Shelley, Talfourd, Lamb 
 and Proctor. Shelley, at one time, gave him £1400 to extricate 
 him from pecuniary difficulties. 
 
 The character of Hunt is so closely connected with all he has 
 written, that it is difficult to consider them apart. " Rimini " is 
 the most popular of his poems, and it contains qualities which 
 will long sustain its reputation. Its excellences and its faults are 
 both individual and peculiar, and we hardly Itnow of a poem mor« 
 open to criticism. The subject itself is not pleasant to contem- 
 plate, and it requires the nicest tact and most cunning sophistry 
 to reconcile it to the moral sense of the reader. We are required 
 to confound misfortune with crime, and express pity instead of 
 indignation at unnatural wrong. The morality, separated from 
 the poetry, is pernicious. There may be solitary instances where 
 the greatest injury that can be inflicted on a husband may be 
 performed by a brother, and the crime spring from circumstances 
 which seem to mitigate its enormity, but it is dangerous to tamper 
 with such instances, and attempt to reconcile them with the usual 
 impulses of affection. If such a deviation from nature and recti 
 tude be made the subject of an elaborate poem; if it be accom 
 panied by a luxury of description which lulls the conscience, and 
 creates an unconscious sympathy with the offenders ; if the parties 
 be represented as superior beings, worthy of our esteem and love; 
 if they are decked in all the trappings of fancy and sentiment, 
 and the steps from weakness to crime be taken over a velvet path, 
 which gives no echo and leaves no footprint; and if the author, 
 all the while, is himself fooled by his own casuistry, and warmly 
 sympathizes with his creations, we do not see how the effect of 
 such an assault upon the conscience, through the affections and 
 (sense of beauty, can be otherwise than injurious. The poet who 
 deals with such a subject should have an exact perception of 
 moral distinctions, and no loose notions about the intercourse 
 between the sexes; but Hunt is not such a person. His are the 
 "self-improved morals of elegant souls." We believe that he 
 might have taken the plot of Hamlet, and converted the crime of 
 Gertrude and the King into a dainty weakness, ending tragically 
 but with such sadness and pathos that his readers would ha^ 
 
384 APPENDIX 
 
 justified him in burying the lovers iu •' one grave, beneath a tree * 
 and not have wondered that 
 
 " on fine nights in May, 
 
 Young tiearis betroihed used to go there to play." 
 
 We are in the custom of congi-atulating ourselves on the purity 
 of English literature in this age, as contrasted Avith the coarsenesa 
 of the elder time. This purity, in many cases, is only in expres- 
 sion. A person of delicacy may be oifended with many words in 
 Shakspeare, may be disgusted with the hardy licentiousness of 
 Rochester and Sedley, but may be corrupted with the smooth 
 decency of verbiage which covers so much immorality of priaciple 
 in much contemporary poetry and romance. 
 
 We perhaps err in treating Hunt as if he were amenable to the 
 usual laws of morality and taste, after having exempted him from 
 their dominion; but still no reader of healthy mind can fail at 
 times to be provoked by his lack of manliuess, his effeminacy in 
 morals, his foppery in sentiment. There is a want of depth, 
 seriousness and intensity, La him, which often justify petulance, 
 if not anger, in the reader. His sense of physical beauty is ex- 
 ceedingly keen and nice, but it rarely rises to spiritual beauty. 
 He may almost be described as a man with a fine fancy and fine 
 senses. Outward objects awake his feeliag of luxury, fill him 
 with delicious sensations, and that is aU. But judged by himself 
 alone, thinkiag of him as Leigh Hunt, we cannot fail to find much 
 in him to admire. His perception of the poetry of things is ex- 
 quisitely subtle, and his fancy has a warm flush, a delicacy, an 
 affluence, which are almost inimitable. He is full of phrases and 
 images of exceeding beauty, which convey not only his thoughts 
 and emotions, but also the subtlest shades and miuutest threads 
 of his fancies and feelings. To effect this, he does not always 
 observe the proprieties of expression. He often produces verbal 
 combinations which would make a lexicographer scowl, if not 
 curse, and his daintiness and effeminacy sometimes produce pret- 
 tinesses and "little smallnesses," which are not in the best taste. 
 He is full of such epithets and phrases as "balmy briskness," 
 "firming foot," "feel of June," " sudden-ceasiag sound of 
 wateriness," " scattery light. " He manufactures words without 
 Bmy fear of the legislators of language. He links serious ideas tt 
 
LEIGH hunt's poems. 385 
 
 expressions which convey ludicrous associations to other minds. 
 But with all abatements, it cannot be denied that his style, in. its 
 easy flow, its singing sweetness, and the numberless fancies with 
 which it sparkles, is often of rare merit. Many phrases and lines 
 of exquisite delicacy and richness might be caught at random in 
 carelessly reading one of his poems. "Low-talking leaves," 
 "dim eyes sliding iato rest," "heaped with strength," "the 
 w.->?d fmote crushingly," are examples. The following is fine : — 
 
 "Far away 
 
 Appeared the streaky fingers of the dawn ; " 
 
 and this line : — 
 
 " The peevish winds ran cutting o'er the sea ; " 
 and this: — 
 
 " The least noise smote her like a sudden wound." 
 
 The following lines convey an image of a different kind :— 
 
 " A ghastly castle, that eternally 
 Holds its blind visage out to the lone sea." 
 
 Here is a condensed and splendid description : — 
 
 " Giovanni pressed, and pushed, and shifted aim, 
 And played his weapon like a tongue of flame." 
 
 In the "Feast of the Poets," the most delightful, fanciftil, 
 witty and impudent, of Hunt's poems, there are numerous passages 
 worthy of being garnered in the memory. The judgments of 
 Hunt's Apollo are not always correct, but they have the advantage 
 in sprightliness over most criticisms. At times we are reminded, 
 m the style, of the " polished want of polish " of Sir John Suck- 
 ling. The foUowiag description of Phoebus has a mingled richness 
 and raciaess to which none can be iasensible : — 
 
 " Imagine, however, if shape there must be, 
 A figure sublimed above mortal degree, 
 His limbs the perfection of elegant strength — 
 A fine flowing roundness inclining to length — 
 A back dropping in— an expansion of chest, 
 (For the god, you '11 observe, like his statues waa drert ) 
 
 /OL. n. 25 
 
386 APPENDIX. 
 
 His throat like a pillar for smoothness and graca, 
 
 His curls in a cluster — and then such a face, 
 
 As marked him at once the true offspring of Jove, 
 
 The brow all of wisdom, the lips all of love ; 
 
 For though he was blooming, and oval of cheek, 
 
 And youth down his shoulders went smoothing and sleok, 
 
 Yet his look with the reacli of past ages was wise, 
 
 And the soul of eternity thought through his eyes." 
 
 The satire in this " Feast," on some of the poets and dramatisui 
 of the period, is often very felicitous. After mentioning a number 
 of scribblers, who called upon Apollo, he fleers at two of them in a 
 couplet of much point : — 
 
 " And mighty dull Cobb, lumbering just like a bear up, 
 And sweet Billy Dimond, a patting his hair up." 
 
 He accounts for the absence of Colman and Sheridan, by remarking 
 that " one was in prison, and both were in liquor." The following 
 B a good fling at GifiFord : — 
 
 "A hem was then heard consequential and snapping. 
 And a sour little gentleman walked with a rap in." 
 
 Dr. Wolcott has a hard rap given to him in a very characteristio 
 ccuplet : — 
 
 " And old Peter Pindar turned pale, and suppressed. 
 With a death-bed sensation, a blasphemous jest." 
 
 The following lines contain a magnificent description of the god of 
 the lyre, in all the glory of his divinity : — 
 
 " He said ; and the place all seemed swelling with light, 
 While his locks and his visage grew awfully bright ; 
 And clouds, burning inward, rolled round on each side, 
 To encircle his state, as he stood in his pride ; 
 Till at last the full deity put on his rays. 
 And burst on the sight in the pomp of his blaze! 
 Then a glory beamed round, as of fiery rods, 
 With the sound of deep organs and chorister gods ; 
 And the faces of bards, glowing fresh from their skies. 
 Came thronging about with intentness of eyes — 
 And the Nine were all heard, as the harmony swelled — 
 And the spheres, pealing in, the long rapture upheld — 
 And all things above, and beneath, and around. 
 Seemed a woi'd of bright vision, set floating in souiui" 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE A.S A POLITICIAN. 387 
 
 Thege passages must be allowed to display wit, fancy and genti- 
 ment, even by the haters of Hunt. Indeed, there is a charm in 
 his grace of expression, and often in his light impertinence and 
 flippant egotism, which no criticism can destroy. There is every 
 reason to suppose that hia poems will long survive the life of their 
 author, and the reputation of the majority of his assailants. 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE AS A POLITICIAJN. 
 
 It would doubtless be unjust to deny Carlyle's claim to be con- 
 sidered a thinker on practicaJ subjects ; but he is an intense rather 
 than a calm and comprehensive one. A comprehensive thinker 
 looks at everythiag, not singly, but in its relations; an intense 
 thinker seizes hold of some particular thing, exaggerates it out of 
 its proper place in the economy of the world, and looks at every- 
 thing in its relation to his own hobby. In reasoning on the evils 
 of society and government, there is nothing so unphilosophical as 
 to growl or snarl. If a man cannot look an evil in the face with- 
 out rushing into rage at its prevalence, and considering that evil 
 as the root of all others, he will do little for reform. Indeed, 
 Carlyle appears to us to find delight in getting the world into a 
 corner. Nothing pleases him more than to shoot a sarcasm a< 
 statesmen and philanthropists who are grappling practically with 
 some abuse; in this way warning everybody to avoid particular 
 medicines, and come to him for a universal panacea. Thus his 
 works on social evils are substantially little more than savage jests 
 at the depravity of mankind, and contemptuous fleers at those who 
 lire attempting to mitigate it. It is needless to remark that he is 
 not always consistent; but this is the general character of his 
 political writings He criticizes human life as he would a play or 
 H novel, and looks to his own taste alone in passing his judgments. 
 
 In "Past and Present," and "Chartism," Carlyle states his 
 views regarding the source and character of the evils afflicting the 
 British nation, and the means by which they may be mitigated and 
 removed. " Past and Present ' ' is the most splendidly written and 
 carefuUy meditated of the two. It contains many sentences of 
 
388 APPENDIX. 
 
 remarkable force and beauty, with numerous touches of that sly 
 savage humor peculiar to ihe author. The tone of the work, how- 
 ever, is one of perfect discontent. The style bristles with Carlyle's 
 usual extravagance about society and government, declaring both 
 to be shams and unveracities, and sneering at all plans for improve- 
 ment which the ingenuity or benevolence of others has framed. 
 If we understand Carlyle aright, he considers that the constita- 
 tional government of England is a humbug; that William the 
 Conqueror and Oliver Cromwell were the best governors that 
 England has ever had ; that since Cromwell's time the country has 
 been governed by Sir Jabesh Windbag, strong in no faith but that 
 " paragraphs and plausibilities will bring votes;" and that every- 
 body is a fool or a flunkey except Thomas Carlyle. He hates every 
 form of government which it is possible to establish in this world 
 — democracy among the rest. If his work may be said to have 
 any practical bearing on politics, it is this — that a governor is 
 wanted with force enough to assume arbitrary power, and exercise 
 it according to the dreams of mystics and sentimentalists. His 
 system is a compound of anarchy and despotism. His ideal gov- 
 ernor is a man blessed with an incapacity or indisposition to explain 
 himself, who rises up some day and cries — " The government of 
 this country is a lie, the people cannot make it a reality, but I can 
 and will." His notion of the wretched condition of society is dis- 
 heartening enough. Man, he tells us, has lost all the soul out of 
 him, "This is verily the plague-spot — centre of the universal 
 social gangrene, threatening all modern things with frightful death. 
 You touch the focal centre of all our disease, of our frightful 
 nosology of diseases, when you lay your hand on this. There is no 
 religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks 
 antiseptic salt. Vainly; in killing kings, in passing Reform Bills, 
 in French Revolutions, Manchester Insurrections, is found no 
 •emedy. The foul elephantine leprosy reappears in new force and 
 desperateness next hour." Sad condition of poor depraved hu- 
 manity ! A whole generation, except one man, withoat souls, and 
 thfxt one exception without his senses ! It is curious to notice the 
 illusions of an understanding so powerful, when governed by a 
 sensibility so tempestuous. It Avoiild be unjust, however, to ques 
 tion the depth of many detached thoughts, and truth of sc me o 
 the speculations, in thi'i volume. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE AS A POLITICIAN. 389 
 
 It ■would be useless to deny that Carlyle's work on Cromwell is 
 me of great merit; that it places many equivocal acts of Cromwell 
 in a truer light than that in which they have formerly been viewed, 
 — that there is an attempt to represent the subject dramatically 
 from the heart of the man — and that the whole representation 
 blazes with that stern, rough, intense, and fiery eloquence, which 
 flames through the other writings of the author ; — but stUl no 
 reader, with a grain of moral sense, or common sense, can fail to 
 see that Carlyle's zeal for Cromwel' has completely blinded him to 
 all the bad qualities of his character; and that, in the remarks on 
 the Irish war, at least, he has compromised every principle of 
 morals, and every instinct of humanity, in his eagerness to make 
 out a case for his hero. In his contempt for what he is pleased to 
 call the "rose-colored" sentimentality of those who love peace, 
 and shrink with horror from rapine and murder, he hardly seems 
 aware that, under the influence of a morbid sentimentality of 
 another kind, he himself has come forward to whitewash Oliver 
 Cromwell. We may judge of his love for his subject, by his 
 willingness to sacrifice justice, mercy and truth to it. In his 
 justification of Cromwell's wholesale massacres in Ireland — in 
 echoing the bigoted or crafty religious phrases under which Crom- 
 well himself veiled their enormity — in that perversion of sympathy 
 by which he would try to make us honor, not the heroic men who 
 fought for their cause against hope, but their cold-blooded mur- 
 derer — and, finally, for attempting to give the sanction of religion 
 to the whole — Carlyle appears as a sort of compound historian, 
 made up of Machiavelli, Sir Harry Vane, Jack Ketch and Mr. 
 Squeers. It would be just as easy to defend the master of " Dothe- 
 boys Hall," and make him out a philanthropist, as to give any 
 character of religion or mercy to Cromwell's cruelties in Ireland, 
 Besides, the great Protector needs none of this pufling. His fame, 
 stained as it is with some crimes, is as clear as that of many other 
 great men of action But the mode pursued by Carlyle would 
 make history and biography more immoral and detestable than the 
 most licentious fictions. It would canonize all guilt which has 
 been accompanied by energy; it would hold up bigotry, tyranny, 
 hypocrisy, murder, as things noble and great; it would make 
 Hampden and Washington give way to Dantjn and Mirabeau. 
 ^esidjs, it destroys all discrimination in judging character, and 
 
390" APPENDIX 
 
 daubs vices with the same eulogy it occasionally vouchsafes to vir- 
 tues. The thing would appear ridiculous in any other mode of 
 representation %an that adopted by Carlyle, but he possesses a 
 singular power in corrupting the moral sense through appeals to 
 the senses and the imagination, and in making the reader ashamed 
 of the axioms of morals and religion, by stigmatizing those who 
 abide by them as superficial, incapable, and deficient in insight. 
 
 The English Revolution of 1640 began in a defence of legal priv- 
 ileges, and ended in a military despotism. It commenced in with- 
 standing attacks on civE and religious rights, and ended in the 
 dominion of a sect. The point, therefore, where the lover of free- 
 dom should cease to sympathize with it is plain. It is useless for 
 the republican to say that every revolution of the kind must neces- 
 sarily take a similar course, for that is not an argument for Crom- 
 well's usurpation, but an argument against the expediency of 
 opposing a king's assaults on the rights and privileges of the peo- 
 ple. The truth is that the English Revolution was at first a 
 popular movement, having a clear majority of the property, intel- 
 ligence, and numbers, of the nation on its side. The king, in 
 breaking the fundamental laws of the kingdom, made war on the 
 community, and was to be resisted just as much as though he had 
 been king of France or Spain, and had invaded the country. It 
 is easy to trace the progress of this resistance, until, by the action 
 of religious bigotry and other inflaming passions, the powers of 
 the opposition became concentrated in the hands of a body of mil- 
 itary fanatics, commanded by an imperious soldier, and represent- 
 ing a small minority even of the Puritans. The king, weak and 
 vacillating, made an attempt to establish arbitrary power, was 
 resisted, and after years of civil war, ended his days on the scaf- 
 fold. Cromwell, without any of those palliations which charity 
 might urge in extenuation of the king on the ground of the prej- 
 udices of his station, took advantage of the weakness of the 
 country, after it had been torn by civil war, usurped supreme 
 power, and became the most arbitrary monarch England had seen 
 since William the Conqueror. No one doubts his genius, and it 
 seems strange that any one should doubt his despotic character. 
 This, however, is growing into fashion, even among sturdy demo- 
 orats and republicans. 
 
 The truth is, that Cromwell's natural character, even on th« 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE AS A POLITICIAN, 391 
 
 hypothesis of his sincerity, was arbitrary, and the very opposite 
 of the character of a champion of freedom. It seems to us 
 lupremely ridiculous to tallc of such a man as being caj/able of 
 having his conduct determhied by a parliament or a council. He 
 pretended to look to God, not to human laws or fallible men, for 
 the direction of his actions. In the name of the Deity he charged 
 at the head of his Ironsides. In the name of the Deity he mas- 
 sacred the Irish garrisons. In the name of the Deity he sent 
 dragoons to overturn parliaments. He believed neither in the 
 sovereignty of the people nor the sovereignty of the laws ; and it 
 made little difference whether his opponent was Charles I. or Sir 
 Harry Vane, provided he were an opponent. In regard to the 
 inmost essence of tyranny, that of exalting the individual will over 
 everything else, and of meeting opposition and obstacles by pure 
 fbrce, Charles I. was a weakling in comparison with Cromwell. 
 Now, if, in. respect to human governments, democr.acy and repub- 
 licanism consist in allowing any great and strong man to assume 
 the supreme power, on his simple assertion that he has a commis- 
 sion from Heaven so to do, — if constitutional liberty is a govern- 
 ment of win instead of a government of laws, — then the partisans 
 of Cromwell are justified in their eulogies. It appears to us that 
 the only ground on which the Protector's tyranny can be consid- 
 ered more endurable than the king's, consists in the fact that from 
 its nature it could not be permanent, and could not establish itself 
 into the dignity of a precedent. It was a power depending neither 
 on the assent of the people, nor on laws and institutions, but sim- 
 ply on the character of one man. As far as it went, it did no 
 good in any way to the cause of freedom; for to Cromwell's gov- 
 ernment, and to the fanaticism which preceded it, we owe the 
 reaction of Charles the Second's reign, when licentiousness in man- 
 ners, and servility in politics, succeeded in making virtue and 
 freedom synonymous with hypocrisy and cant. 
 
 In regard to Cromwell's massacres in Ireland, he simply acted 
 xs Cortes did in Mexico, and Pizarro in Peru, and deserves no 
 .More charity. If he performed his l;»irbarities from policy, as 
 Carlyle intimates, he must be considered a disciple of Machiavelli 
 md the Devil; if he performed them from religious bigotry, he 
 loay rank with St. Dominic and Charles the Ninth. AVe are sick of 
 Vearing brutality and wickedness, either in Puritan or Catholic 
 
^92 APPENDIX. 
 
 extenuated on the ground of bigotry. The bigotry whi !h prompts 
 inhuman deeds is not an excuse for sin, but the greatest of spirit 
 ual sins. It indicates a condition of mind in which the individual 
 deifies his malignant passions. 
 
 The style of the book on Cromwell is occasionally a trial even 
 to the lovers of Carlyle's picturesque and shaggy diction, and few 
 men can pronounce some of the sentences aloud without running 
 the risk of being throttled. To follow the course of his thought 
 through the sudden turns and down the abrupt declivities of his 
 style, exposes one at times to the danger of having his eyes put out 
 of joint. Carlyle is said to have copied his style from Jean Paul; 
 but we should think he had copied it rather from Swiss scenery. 
 Of all English styles, it reminds us most of the terrible alexan- 
 drines of old George Chapman's Homer, whose words we are 
 sometimes compelled to dodge, as though they were missiles hurled 
 at us by the gigantic combatants they so graphically describe. 
 Carlyle, indeed, sometimes speaks as Ajax spoke, who, when 
 enraged, according to Chapman, " throated his threats." His 
 style is a faithful symbol of his powerful but perverse nature, in 
 all the inconsistency of its formal contempt of formulas and cant- 
 ing hatred of cant. 
 
 NOVELS OF THE SEASON.* 
 
 There was a time when the appearance of a clever novel would 
 ustify its separate examination in a review, and a nice discussion 
 of the claims of its Mr. Herbert or Lady Jane to be enrolled among 
 men and women. But in this age of ready writers, romances 
 must be reviewed in battalions, or allowed to pass unchallenged. 
 Every week beholds a new irruption of emigrants into the sunny 
 land of fiction, sadly disturbing the old balance of power, and 
 introducing a fearful confusion of names and habits. Within a 
 few years, all the proprieties of the domain have been violated by 
 the intrusion of hordes of ruffians, pickpockets, and vagabonds 
 Sir Charles Grandison finds himself face to face with Jack Shep. 
 
 * Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Hawkstons 
 Bac.heloi cf the Albany, Harold, (Irantley Manor, Vanity Fair. 
 
NOVELS OF THE SEASOIv. 393 
 
 pard, and no scorn sparkling in the eyes of Di Vernon can abash 
 the impudence of Mr. Kichard Turpin. The swagger of vulgar 
 villany, the lisp of genteel imbecility, and the free and easy man- 
 ner of Wapping, are now quite the rage in the Elysian fields of 
 romance. Another evil is the comparative absence of individual- 
 ities, amid all the increase of population. Opinions have nearly 
 supplanted characters. We look for men, and discern propositions; 
 for women, and are favored with woman's rights. Theologians, 
 metaphysicians, politicians, reformers, philanthropists, prophets 
 of the general overturn and the good time coming, the march-of- 
 intellect boys in a solid phalanx, have nearly pushed the novelist 
 aside. The dear old nonsense which has delighted the heart for so 
 many centuries is so mixed up with nonsense of another kind, that 
 it cannot be recognized either in drawing-room or kitchen. The 
 sacred flame, it is true, still burns in some sixpenny or ninepenny 
 novelettes, the horror of the polite and the last hope of the senti- 
 mental; but it burns in a battered copper lamp, and it burna 
 among ruins. 
 
 Accordingly, in the novels whose titles grace the head of the 
 present article, our readers must not expect to find, in its full per- 
 fection, that peculiar aspect of human weakness of which the nov- 
 elist is the legitimate exponent. They must be content with a 
 repast of matters and things in general, among which may be 
 named some good philosophy, several dishes of controversial theol- 
 ogy, much spicy satire, a little passable morality, a little imperti- 
 nent immorality, and a good deal of the philosophy of history and 
 the science of the affections. 
 
 The first three novels on our list are those which have proceeded 
 from the firm of Bell & Co. Not many months ago, the New Eng- 
 land States were visited by a distressing mental epidemic, passing 
 under the name of the " Jane Eyre fever," which defied all the 
 usual nostrums of the established doctors of criticism. Its effects 
 raried with different constitutions, — in some producing a soft 
 pthical sentimentality, which relaxed all the fibres of conscience, 
 and in others exciting a general fever of moral and religious 
 indignation. It was to no purpose that the public were solemnly 
 assured, through the intelligent press, that the malady was not 
 ^ely to have any permanent effect either on the Lntehectual or 
 tooral constitution. The book which caused the distemper would 
 
394 APPENDIX. 
 
 probably Lave been inoffensive, had not some sly manufacturer of 
 mischief hinted that it was a volume which no respectable man 
 should bring into his family circle. Of course, every family soon 
 had a copy of it, and one edition after another found eager pur- 
 chasers. The hero, Mr. Rochester, (not the same person who 
 comes to so edifying an end in the pages of Dr. Gilbert Buruet,) 
 became a great favorite in the boarding-schools, and in the wor 
 shipful society of governesses. That portion of Young America 
 known as ladies' men began to swagger and swear in the pres- 
 ence of the gentler sex, and to allude darkly to events iu their 
 lives which excused impudence and profanity. Accordingly, 
 while one portion of the community was clamoring for the reap- 
 pearance of the principles of the Pilgrim Fathers, another was 
 vociferating impotent Byronics against conventional morality. 
 
 "While fathers and mothers were in a state of inconceivable 
 agony at this strange conduct of their innocents, and with a par- 
 donable despair were looking for the dissolution of all the bonds of 
 Bociety, the publishers of Jane Eyre announced Wuthering Heights, 
 by the same author. When it came, it was purchased and read 
 with universal eagerness; but, alas ! it created disappointment 
 almost as universal. It was a panacea for all the sufferers under 
 the epidemic. Society returned to its old condition; parents were 
 blessed in hearing once more their children talk common sense, 
 and rakes and battered profligates of high and low degree fell 
 instantly to their proper level. Thus ended the last desperate 
 attempt to corrupt the virtue of the sturdy descendants of the 
 Puritans. 
 
 The novel of Jane Eyre, which caused this great excitement, 
 purports to be edited by Currer Bell, and the said Currer divides 
 the authorship, if we are not misinformed, with a brother and 
 sister. The work bears the marks of more than one mind and one 
 sex, and has more variety than either of the novels which 
 acknowledge the paternity of Acton Bell. The family mind ia 
 strikingly peculiar, giving a strong impression of unity; but it is 
 still male and female. From the masculine tone of Jane Eyre, it 
 might pass altogether as the composition of a man, were it not for 
 lome unconscious feminine peculiarities, which the strongest- 
 minded woman that ever aspired after manhood cannot suppress 
 lliese peculiarities refer not only to elaborate desfjriptioas o 
 
WOVELS OF THE SEASON. 395 
 
 di^s, anct the miimtiae of the sick-chamber, but to various super- 
 ficial refinements of feeling in regard to the external relations of the 
 Bex. It is true that the noblest and best representations of female 
 character have been produced by men, but thero are ::iceties of 
 thought and emotion in a woman's mind -which no man can delin- 
 eate, and Tvhi».h only escape unawares from a female writer. 
 There are numerous examples of these in Jane Eyre. The lead- 
 ing characteristic of the novel, however, and the secret of its 
 charm, is the clear, distinct, decisive style of its representation of 
 character, manners, and scenery; and this continually suggests a 
 male mind. In the earlier chapters there is little, perhaps, to break 
 the impression that we are reading the autobiography of a bold, 
 powerful and peculiar female intellect; but when the admirable 
 Mr. Rochester appears, and the profanity, brutality, and slang of 
 the misanthropic profligate give their torpedo shocks to the nervous 
 system, — and especially when we are favored with more than one 
 scene given to the exhibition of mere animal appetite, and to 
 courtship after the manner of kangaroos and the heroes of Dryden's 
 plays, — ^we are gallant enough to detect the hand of a gentleman 
 in the composition. There are also some scenes of passion, so hot, 
 emphatic, ^nd condensed in expression, and so sternly masculine 
 in feeling, that we are almost sure we observe the mind of the 
 author of Wuthering Heights at work in the text. 
 
 The popularity of Jane Eyre was doubtless due to the freshness, 
 raciness, and vigor of mind, it evinced ; but it was obtained not so 
 much by these qualities as by its frequent dealings in moral para- 
 dox, and the hardihood of its assaults upon the prejudices of proper 
 people. NothiQg causes more delight, to at least one third of every 
 community, than a successful attempt to wound the delicacy of 
 their scrupulous neighbors, and a daring peep into regions which 
 Acknowledge the authority of no conventional rules. The authors 
 of Jane Eyre have not accomplished this end without an occasional 
 violation of probability, and considerable confusion of plot and 
 character; and they have made the capital mistake of supposing 
 that an artistic representation of character and manners is a literal 
 Imitation of individual life. The consequence is, that in dealing 
 with vicious personages they confound vulgarity with truth, and 
 ftwaken too often a feeling of disgust. The writer who dolors too 
 irarmly the scenes through which his immaculate hero passes v 
 
396 APPENDDT. 
 
 rightly held as an equivocal teacher of purity ; and it is not hy the 
 bold expression of blasphemy and ribaldry that a great novelist 
 conveys the most truthful idea of the misanthropic and the disso- 
 lute. The truth is, that the whole firm of Bell & Co. seem to have 
 a sense of the depravity of huma.n nature peculiarly their own. It 
 is the yahoo, not the demon, that they select for representation ; 
 their Pandem inium is of mud rather than fire. 
 
 This is especially the case with Acton Bell, the author ofWuth- 
 ering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and, if we mistake not, 
 of certain offensive but powerful portions of Jane Eyre. Acton, 
 when left altogether to his own imaginations, seems to take a 
 morose satisfaction in developing a full and complete science of 
 human brutality. In Wuthering Heights he has succeeded in 
 reaching the summit of this laudable ambition. He appears to 
 think that spiritual wickedness is a combination of animal feroci- 
 ties, and has accordingly made a compendium of the most striking 
 qualities of tiger, wolf, cur, and wild-cat, in the hope of framing 
 out of such elements a suitable brute-demon to serve as the hero of 
 his novel. Compared with Heathcote, Squeers is considerate and 
 Quilp humane. He is a deformed monster, whom the Mephisto- 
 pheles of Goethe would disdain to acknowledge, whom the Satan of 
 Milton would consider as an object of simple disgust, and to whom 
 Dante would hesitate in awarding the honor of a place among those 
 whom he has consigned to the burning pitch. This epitome of 
 brutality, disavowed by man and devU, Mr. Acton Bell attempts 
 in two whole volumes to delineate , and certainly he is to be con- 
 gratulated on his success. As he is a man of uncommon talents, it 
 is needless to say that it is to his subject and his dogged manner 
 of handlmg it, that we are to refer the sliriek of dislike ATith which 
 the novel was received. His mode of deliaeating a bad character 
 is to narrate every offensive act and repeat every vUe expression 
 which are characteristic. Hence, in Wuthering Heights, he details 
 all the ingenuities of animal malignity, and exhausts the whole 
 rhetoric of stupid blasphemy, in order that there may be no mis- 
 take as to the kind of person he intends to hold up to the popular 
 gaze. Like all spendthrifts of malice and profanity, however, he 
 overdoes the business. Though he scatters oaths as plentifally as 
 lentimental writers do interjections, the comparative parsimony 
 »f great novelists in this respect is productive of infinitely morfi 
 
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. SOT 
 
 iffect. It must be confessed that this coarseness, though the 
 prominent, is not the only characteristic of the writer. His attempt 
 lit origiaality does not stop with the conception of Heathcote, but 
 lie aims further to exhibit tlie action of the sentiment of love on the 
 nature of the equivocal being whom his morbid imagination has 
 created. This is by far the ablest and most subtile portion of his 
 labors, and iadicatea +hat strong hold upon the elements of char- 
 acter, and that decision of touch in the delineation of the most 
 evanescent qualities of emotion, which distinguish the mind of the 
 whole family. For all practical purposes, however, the power 
 evinced in Wuthering Heights is power thrown away. Nightmares, 
 and dreams through which devils dance and wolves howl, mate 
 bad novels. 
 
 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is altogether a less unpleasing story 
 than its immediate predecessor, though it resembles it in the excess- 
 ive clumsiness with which the story is arranged, and the promi- 
 nence given to the brutal element of human nature. The work 
 seems a convincing proof that there is nothing kindly or genial in 
 the author's powerful mind, and that, if he continues to write 
 novels, he will introduce into the land of romance a larger number 
 of hateful men and women than any other writer of the day. 
 Gilbert, the hero, seems to be a favorite with the author, and to be 
 intended as a specimen of manly character; but he would serve as 
 the rufiian of any other novelist. His nature is fierce, proud, 
 moody, jealous, revengeful, and sometimes brutal. We can see 
 nothing good in him except a certain rude honesty, and that 
 quality is chiefly seen in his bursts of hatred, and his insults to 
 women. Helen, the heroine, is doubtless a strong-minded woman, 
 and passes bravely through a great deal of suffering ; but if there 
 be any lovable or feminine virtues in her composition, the author has 
 managed to conceal them. She marries a profligate, thinking to 
 reform him; but the gentleman, with a full knowledge of her pur-- 
 pose, declines reformation, goes deeper and deeper into vice, and 
 becomes at last as fiendlike as a very limited stock of brains will 
 allow. This is a reversal o'' the process carried on in Jane Eyre; 
 but it must be admitted thac the profligate in The Tenant of Wild 
 fell Hall is no Rochester. He is never virtuously inclined, except 
 in those periods of illness and feebleness which his debaucheriet 
 Vave occasioned, thus illustrating the old proverb, — 
 
398 APPENDIX. 
 
 "When the devil waa sick, the devil a monk would be; 
 When the devil was well, the devil a monk waa he." 
 
 He Las almost constantly by him a choice coterie of boon compan* 
 ions, ranging from the elegant libertine to the ferocious sensualist, 
 and the reader is favored with exact accounts of their drunken 
 orgies, and with numerous scraps of their profane conversation. 
 All the characters are drawn with great power and precision of 
 outline, and the scenes are as vivid as life itself Everywhere is 
 Been the tendency of the author to degrade passion into appetite, 
 and to give prominence to the selfish and malignant elements of 
 human nature; but while he succeeds in making profligacy dis- 
 gusting, he fails in making virtue pleasing. His depravity is total 
 depravity, and his hard and impudent debauchees seem to belong 
 "to that class of reprobates whom Dr. South considers " as not so 
 much born as damned into the world." The reader of Acton Bell 
 gains no enlarged view of mankind, giving a healthy action to his 
 sympathies, but is confined to a narrow space of life, and held 
 down, as it were, by main force, to witness the wolfish side of his 
 nature literally and logically set forth. But the criminal courts 
 are not the places in which to take a comprehensive view of human- 
 ity, and the novelist who confines his observation to them is not 
 likely to produce any lasting impression except of horror and 
 disgust. 
 
 The next work on our list is Hawkstone. This is a theological 
 novel, the hero of which is a knight-errant of the Church of Eng- 
 land. Though the book contains many powerftd and some pathetic 
 scenes, and is written with considerable force and beauty, events 
 are made so subsidiary to doctrines, that it can hardly claim the 
 dubious honor of being called a novel. Its authorship is ascribed 
 to Professor Sewall, of Oxford, a learned gentleman, who took a 
 prominent part in the disgraceful scene at that university on the 
 occasion of presenting President Everett with an honorary degree. 
 From his connection with that paltry outburst of religious and 
 political bigotry, the character of his opinions may be inferred 
 He looks upon the world through a pair of theological spectacles, 
 and instead of seeing things as they are, he views them altogether 
 in relation to his creed. Were he a fanatic, we might excuse his 
 Iliberality, for passion is some extenuation of dogmatism; but tha 
 Dip-otry of our author is of that cool, smooth, contemptuous, self 
 
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 399 
 
 ntiefied kind, which irritates without stimulating. Assuming to 
 Bpeak by the authority of the Church, he quietly makes his own 
 perceptions the limits of human intelligence, and from his pinnacle 
 of self-content judges mankind. His whole wisdom consists in 
 opposing the world as it is, and taking the exact opposite view of 
 every question from that taken by liberal men. He is not content 
 with stigmatizing Chartists, Radicals, and Whigs, but takes every 
 opportunity to inform his readers what poor creatures are Sir 
 Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington. It is difScult to say 
 whether he most dislikes Papists or Dissenters, but we should 
 judge there was more rancor in his representations of the former 
 than the latter. To be sure, the sects he despises may have the 
 consolation of knowing that he has represented his own church in 
 the person of a young clergyman whom every reader must con- 
 sider an impertinent puppy ; but he has done it with a beautiful 
 unconsciousness of the fact. 
 
 We hardly know of a book which shows a greater ignorance of 
 the world, or more intolerance and dogmatism based on so small a 
 foundation of common sense. If the writer confined himself to 
 theology, and contented his egotism with connecting all dissent 
 from his own dogmas with folly or sin, he might be allowed to 
 pass with a herd of other self-constituted popes, of whom Ranke 
 makes no mention; but when he invades every department of 
 moral, social, and political science, and views with a certain pity- 
 ing contempt the labors of great and good men, convicting them 
 of ignorance, presumption, or wickedness, because they do not 
 hold the same extreme notion of the functions and offices of the 
 Church of England which he is pleased to entertain, it is diifioult 
 to treat his absurd intolerance with common courtesy. In his 
 speculations on political economy, especially, he revels in all the 
 impertinence of ignorance, and wantons in helpless and hopeless 
 fatuity. He has discovered that it is a sin to take interest on 
 money, and has made a masterly assault on the law of supply and 
 demand. In his next work he will probably take ground against 
 the attraction of gravitation. The only allusion he makes to the 
 United States is quite in character; he speaks pityingly of "that 
 Dnhappy country." He did not probably think, at the time, tliat 
 Vhe country was happy in possessing persons who would call tor 
 Rte editions of his book, and that oui- tolerant novel-readera 
 
400 APPENDIX. 
 
 teould vouchsafe to it the same attention they give to Harrison 
 Ainsworth and George Sand. 
 
 Hawkstone is interesting in one respect, as it exhibits the degree 
 of dogmatism of which every true Englishman is capable, and in 
 which he is only equalled by the Russian serf. Education seems 
 to work but little change in him, as far as regards the solidity of 
 his self-esteem, though it may mitigate the blindness and ferocity 
 of its expression. Here is a man having all the characteristics 
 of a scholar and a gentleman, whose mind from early youth has 
 been trained in what are called liberal studies, and yet he has 
 acquired no power of learning from other minds, no toleration for 
 what he considers error, no comprehension either of heart or head. 
 It is true that this bigotry is one cause of England's colossal 
 power. It makes every man self-sufficient, places him in a surly 
 antagonism to other nations, and by teaching him to despise for- 
 eigners, stimulates the courage by which he is enabled to violate 
 their rights. The moment the mind of the nation rose from its 
 local ethics to general principles of reason or morality, its man- 
 ners and institutions, and with these its material supremacy, 
 would pass. away. 
 
 Very different from Hawkstone, both in style and opinion, 
 are the sparkling and pungent Bachelor of the Albany, and The 
 Falcon Family. Both are not so much novels as dashing essays 
 on life and manners cast in a narrative form; but they are replete 
 with brilliant common-sense, and the interest they lack in regard 
 to events and characters is supplied by the xmflagging vigor and 
 elastic spring of the style, and the perpetual sparkle of satire and 
 epigram. The author's mind preserves that due balance between 
 sharpness and good-nature which is the condition of pleasantry, 
 and touches in a light and graceful, but decisive manner, on a 
 hundred topics, without exhausting one. His style is strewn with 
 verbal felicities, and there are passages exhibiting one continuous 
 glitter of the glancing lights of fancy and wit. Occasionally a 
 string of sentences goes off in epigrams, one sentence after 
 another, like a series of percussion-caps. 
 
 The author is a sensible but superficial English whig, and like 
 all his class, whether brilliant or stupid, he has a contempt for ex- 
 tremes, without understanding the internal causes which lead men 
 into extremes. The most exhilarating portions of his novels ar« 
 
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 401 
 
 those in which he subjects the pedantic absurdities of the " ear- 
 nest" men of the day to a process of merry caricature, or with a 
 few probing witticisms emancipates the air shut up in a political 
 bubble. He takes life himself in evident good humor, and is 
 troubled very little with the mysteries of his nature or his mission 
 to the human race. He does not appear to think that the eyes of 
 the world are upon him, or that his utterance of an axiom is to 
 make an era in the history of humanity. But it must be admitted 
 that in avoiding bathos he also avoids depth, and purchases his 
 persiflage at the expense of all serious thought. Life with him 
 is composed of two portions, a portion to be enjoyed and a portion 
 to be laughed at, and with this comprehensive philosophy it can- 
 not be expected that he should succeed ia the exhibition of charac- 
 ter or passion. Most of his personages are embodied epigrams, or 
 rather jokes elevated to the dignity of persons. There is a great 
 difference between being jocose and being a jest. 
 
 In Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings, Sir Bulwer Lytton has 
 attempted an historical romance, and has certainly displayed 
 scholarship, research, and remarkable talent, in the undertaking. 
 But we fear that the work derives little help from the subject. 
 The author is master of a style which is singularly attractive, and 
 contrives to give a degree of interest to everything his pen touches, 
 whether he treats it well or ill. No one can read Harold without 
 feeling the force of this charm, but we think it is less felt in this 
 novel than in manj' of his less ambitious productions. Neither ia 
 Harold, nor in The Last of the Barons, does he evince the power 
 of a great historical novelist. The great defect of Harold, espec- 
 ially, is its heterogeneousness. Fact and fiction are either placed 
 side by side or huddled together, instead of being fused into one 
 consistent narrative. Harold, the Saxon king of history, and 
 Harold, the hero of Sir Bulwer Lytton's romance, so modify each 
 other, that the result somewhat resembles Mrs. Malaprop's Cerbe- 
 rus, — he is " two gentlemen at once." Indeed, though it cannot 
 be said that the author is devoid of imagination, he does not 
 possess the faculty for any available purpose of history or romance. 
 As he unconsciously blends his own morbid feelings with his 
 representations, he cannot vivddly reproduce the persons and 
 events of a past age in their original life and coloring, is the 
 historian Thierry has done in his Norman Conquest ; and there- 
 
 voL. II. 26 
 
i{i'2 APPKrsuix. 
 
 fore, though his imagination, considered separately, may be largei 
 than that of many graphic and picturesque historians, he has not 
 in any degree their power of historical imagination. We think 
 that this will be evident to any clear-headed person whj will take 
 Harold and Duke William as they appear in the charming pages 
 of Thierry, and compare them with the same princes as conceived 
 by Sir Bulwer Lytton. If this defect in regard to historical per- 
 sonages was balanced by a power of combining the elements of 
 human nature into new forms of character, through the creative 
 processes of the imagination, he might still be a great novelist; 
 but in this respect, also, Bulwer is deficient. Though in romance 
 and the drama the power of creating or delineating character 
 supposes a healthy mind, gifted with a sure vision of external 
 objects, and capable of a quick sympathy vrith opposite natures, 
 this power is still often possessed in a limited degree by men who 
 can create original characters, but are incapable of reproducing 
 real persons. In Godwin's Life of Chaucer, and in his historical 
 productions generally, his kings, dukes, barons, and rebels, are as 
 dead as those of Mr. Hallam ; and yet the power of vital concep- 
 tion cannot be denied to the author of Caleb Williams and St. 
 Leon. Though a creative imagination is thus sometimes possessed 
 by persons deficient in its inferior form of historical resurrection, 
 all ample minds will be found to possess both. An intellect 
 thoroughly alive cannot be content with names of persons or with 
 aggregates of abstract qualities, in contemplating either actual or 
 possible life, but by its very nature conceives living beings. 
 
 Now, we must profess our inability to discover any capacity in 
 Sir Bulwer Lytton to conceive character at all. With considerable 
 respect for his talents and accomplishments, we think that he 
 always fails in every attempt demanding creative energy or clear 
 representation. As an historical novelist, he stands half-way 
 between Scott and James, between truth and truism. He is often 
 faithful to the external fact, but never penetrates to its internal 
 meaning. The readers of his novels are made acquainted with life 
 and character in the past or present, not as they are in themselves, 
 but as his own ingenious and brilliant, but morbid and discoloring 
 mind, has conceived them. He is an illustration of Kant's theory, 
 that the qualities of objects are not perceive i by the mind, but 
 {►rejected from it ; and accordingly all his lovels, whether th« 
 
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 403 
 
 hero be Pelham or Warwick, Devereux or Harold, leave a similar 
 impression. A character goes into his head as Duke WilliaiE or 
 Lafranc, but it ever comes out Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bt^rt. 
 
 This absence of objective perception, this confinement of the 
 mind within itself, is not only fatal to Bulwer's claims to dramatic 
 delineation, but it explains the sombre and unsatisfying tone of 
 his productions. There is a singular lack of cheerfulness in his 
 novels, and they are accordingly read without any refreshment to 
 the intellect. Compare him with Fielding, or Goldsmith, or Scott, 
 or Dickens, novelists widely differing from each other, and it will 
 be readUy seen how different is his feverish excitement and hectic 
 flush from their healthy and bracing tone. After reading one of 
 Bulwer's novels, we have a feeling that mankind is composed of 
 scoundrels and sentimentalists, and that the world is effete. The 
 atmosphere is that of a hot-house, not the exhilarating breeze of 
 the moors. The vices of the novelist have that character of sickly 
 licentiousness which we might expect from the rhetorical character 
 of his virtues. He is not a free-spoken fellow like Fielding, and 
 in his whole writings there is not one burst of honest and hearty 
 sensuality, such as we often meet in the author of Tom Jones ; but 
 instead of this we have plentiful quantities of the " self-improved 
 morals of elegant souls," in which adultery and seduction are 
 gracefully adorned in alluring sentiments, and saunter, with a 
 mincing gait, to the pit that is bottomless. 
 
 In Harold, to be sure, there is a marked improvement in our 
 author's literary morals. As Thomas Moore wrote pretty little 
 hymns to offset his pen's early peccadilloes, so Bulwer ventures in 
 the present novel on Platonic love to compensate for the peculiar 
 kind of passion he has inculcated in other novels. It must be de- 
 lightful news to many good people, that the author of Pelham and 
 Paul Clifford has sown his wild oats, and now ranks " in the first 
 file of the virtuous;" and as he formerly seemed to object to mar- 
 riage because it interfered with the natural rights of passion, he 
 now has no other quarrel with it than that it is needless to the 
 pure love of the soul The lady whom history pr(?nounce3 to be 
 Harold's mistress Bulwer converts into the object of Harold's 
 spirit love, while he follows history in giving Harold a wife, but 
 one whom he marries as a matter of state convenience and policy 
 
404 APPENDIX. 
 
 riiis ia a notablo reconciliation of the conflicting claims of earth 
 and heaven, which will doubtless much edify the saints. 
 
 There are two besetting peculiarities of Bulwer's mind which 
 are more prominent, perhaps, in Harold than in any other of hia 
 novels. These are an affectation of philosophy, and an affectation 
 of noble sentiments. By the former we do not mean that pervad- 
 ing air of thoughtful ennui which is not always an unpleasing 
 characteristic of his diction, but his assiduous personification 
 of abstract terms, his emphatic mode of uttering commonplaces, 
 and his way of reaching climaxes in dissertation by fiercely print- 
 ing axiomatic phrases in capital letters. These are cheap substi- 
 tutes for depth of thought, but to us they are more endurable than 
 his substitutes for depth of feeling. His fine sentiments and 
 delicate emotions can hardly impose on any mind which has 
 arrived at the consciousness of sentiment and emotion, or under- 
 stands the difference between elegance and genuineness. They 
 are the cheap manufactures of mere rhetoric, contrived with 
 malice aforethought to awaken the reader's admiration. The 
 heart never speaks its own language in Bulwer's writings. No 
 outbreak of genuine passion seizing and shaping its own expres- 
 sion, no touch of humanity falling from the pen with a beautiful 
 unconsciousness, ever surprise and delight us in his pages. There 
 is one infallible test of a man's sincerity which Buhver's expression 
 of sensibility cannot stand for a moment. Natural emotion com- 
 pels the mind to lose itself for the time in the objects which stir 
 and arouse it. Now, Bulwer, instead of celebrating the beauty and 
 grandeur of what he feels, is continually celebrating the beauty 
 and grandeur of his feelings. This is the exact difference between 
 real and rhetorical passion, and it is a difference of some moment. 
 
 Indeed, allowing to Bulwer the merit of wit, fancy, learning, 
 an ingenious mechanical apparatus of understanding, and consid- 
 erable power of appropriation, he is still, in all that relates to the 
 living movements of the heart and brain, the most superficial 
 writer that ever acquired the reputation of a great novelist. As 
 his capacity, such as it is, is under the control of a morbid egotism 
 and a still more morbid vanity, his productions appear more like 
 the consequences of intellectual disease than like intellectual nutri 
 meat. This disease is as regularly taken by persons at a certaij 
 sge of the mind, as the measles are at a certain age of the body 
 
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 405 
 
 [f Bulwerism, however, saves any intellect from Byronism, it 
 doubtless has its uses. The varioloid is bad in itself, but it is 
 better than the small-pox. There is, strictly speaking, no food 
 for the mind in Bulwer, bad or good — nothing which the intellect 
 can assimilate. With Byron it is different ; the great English 
 poet's vitality may be the vitality of poison, but it is still life. 
 
 We cannot pass from Bulwer to Lady Georgiana Fullerton with- 
 out taking a perilous leap. Grantley Manor is a novel having the 
 rose-color of Young England and the purple light of Puseyism on 
 its pages, and doubtless presents a very one-sided view of many 
 important matters with which it deals; but it evinces talent of a 
 very high order, and is one of the most pleasing novels of the sea- 
 son. The author is perhaps too elaborate in her diction, and is 
 stirred too often by an ambition for the superfine, to catch that 
 flowing feUcity of style which should be the aim of the novelist — 
 a style in which sentences should only represent thought or fact, 
 and never dazzle away attention from the matter they convey. 
 But with some faults of manner and some blunders in plot, the 
 novel evinces considerable dramatic power, and has a number of 
 striking characters. The interest is well sustained, though 
 rapidity of movement in the story is ever subsidiary to complete- 
 ness of delineation in the characters. Perhaps the chief element 
 in the plot, and the source of all the agony which torments the 
 principal personages, is too provokingly slight to be strictly prob- 
 able; but it serves its purpose of developing the piety of Ginevra 
 and the selfishness of Neville. No one can criticize the novel with 
 any justice to the writer, without keeping constantly in mind that 
 her object is not so much a consistent, or even probable story, as a 
 forcible and subtile representation of character, as influenced by 
 events best calculated to bring out all its hidden virtues or vices. 
 Thus, Neville, who is about as abject a combination of arrogance, 
 selfishness, and littleness of spirit, as ever was chosen for a hero, 
 would probably pass in ordinaiy life for a free, hearty, indepen 
 dent, and high-toned gentleman. One event converts him into a 
 compendium of small vices such as Sir Forcible Feeble himself 
 might hoot at. Besides, his degradation was necessary to bring 
 out all the resources of Ginevra's nature, and it is but common 
 gallantry tr admit the right of a lady writer to abase the hen 
 rather than the heroina when it is necessai-y to degrade either 
 
406 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Ginevra is an original and beautiful delineation, the founlation 
 of whose character is imaguiation, intensified by passion and 
 purified by religion. So fine a union of sensibility and fortitude 
 of impulse and will, is a rare appearance in a popular novel. 
 Margaret, her half-sister, a sweet, good-natured creature, with a 
 magnanimous superficiality of feeling, is well conceived and sus- 
 tained, though the writer ventures on some perilous edges of experi- 
 ment in her case, and barely saves her, in two or three instances, 
 from being a failure. Walter is genuine and manly in genera; 
 with an occasional touch of sickliness and feebleness. Though far 
 from being a lady's man, he is unmistakably a man delineated 
 by a lady. Colonel Leslie is a bore and a blunder. Perhaps, to 
 those who appreciate results from the difiiculties in the way of 
 their production, the delineation of the amiable but commonplace 
 old people of the novel will be considered a great proof of the 
 writer's skill in character. It evinces much of the shrewdness 
 and nicety of Miss Austen — qualities which we should hardly- 
 expect to see in connection with so strong an idealizimg tendency, 
 and with so much passionateness. 
 
 Vanity Fair, by W. M. Thackeray, one of the most brilhant of 
 English magazine writers, is an attempt, somewhat after the 
 manner of Fielding, to represent the world as it is, especially the 
 selfish, heartless, and cunning portion of it. The author has 
 Fielding's cosy manner of talking to his readers in the pauses of 
 his narrative, and, like Fielding, takes his personages mostly from 
 ordinary life. The novel, though it touches often upon topics 
 which have been worn threadbare, and reproduces many common- 
 place types of character, is still, on the whole, a fresh and vigorous 
 transcript of English life, and has numerous profound touches of 
 humanity and humor. Sir Pitt Crawley, coarse, uneducated, 
 Bordid, quarrelsome, his sharp, narrow mind an epitome of vulgar 
 Bhrewdness, is a sort of combination of Sir John Brute, Sir Tun- 
 belly Clumsey, and Squire Western; but though exceedingly 
 ludicrous, is hardly natural. George Osborne, Dobbin, and 
 Amelia, are characters almost UteraUy true, and are developed 
 with most consummate skill and fidelity. Mr. Osborne, we fear 
 Ls too fair a representative of the English man of business of the 
 nuddle class, — selfish, arrogant, purse-proud, cringing to superi 
 ors and ferocious to inferiors, rejoicing in a most profound igiO' 
 
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 401 
 
 ranoe of his owu meanness and cruelty, and ever disposed to rise 
 on the ruin rf his neighbors. That disposition in English society, 
 of every class, to trample on the one immediately beneath it, and 
 to fawn on the one immediately above it, Thackeray felicitously 
 represents in this and other characters of his novel. Nothing can 
 be more edifying than Mr. Osborne's conversations with his son 
 George on his intimacy with men of rank who fleece him at cards, 
 and on his duty to break off a match with Amelia, after her father 
 has become bankrupt. But the finest character in the whole novel 
 is Miss Rebecca Sharp, an original personage, worthy to be called 
 the author's own, and as true to life as hypocrisy, ability, and 
 cunning, can make her. She is altogether the most important 
 person in the work, being the very impersonation of talent, tact, 
 and worldliness, and working her way with a graceful and execu- 
 tive impudence unparalleled among managing women. She indi- 
 cates the extreme point of worldly success to which these qualities 
 will carry a person, and also the impossibility of their providing 
 against all contingencies in life. Becky steadily rises in the world, 
 reaches a certain height, makes one inevitable mistake, and then as 
 steadily falls, while many of her simple companions, whom she 
 despised as weakUngs, succeed fi:x)m the very simplicity with which 
 they follow the instinctive sagacity of pure and honest feeling. 
 Colonel Rawdon Crawley, a brainless sensualist, whom Becky mar- 
 ries, and in some degree reforms, but who, by having an occasional 
 twinkle of genuine sentiment in his heart, always was her superior, 
 is drawn with a breadth and a nicety of touch which are rare in 
 such delineations. The exact amount of humanity which coexists 
 with his rascality and stupidity, is given with perfect accuracy. 
 Old Mr. Sedley is a most truthful representation of a broken-down 
 merchant, conceived in the spirit of that humane humor which 
 blends the ludicrous and the pathetic in one. Joe Sedley, the 
 East Indian, slightly suggests Major Bagstock. He has the Major's 
 physical circumference, apoplectic turn, and swell of manner, with 
 the addition of Cockney vulgarity and cowardice. His retreat from 
 Brussels, just before the battle of Waterloo, is described with th« 
 lirt of a comic Xenophon. 
 
 Of aU the novels on our list. Vanity Fair is the only one in which 
 tlie author is content to represent actual life. His page swarms 
 witb personages whom we recognize at oik^ as genuine. It is aiao 
 
408 APPENDIX. 
 
 aoticeable, that Thackeray alone preserves himself from the illusiftns 
 of misanthropy and sentimentality; and though dealing with a host 
 of selfish and malicious characters, his book leaves no impression 
 that the world is past praying for, or that the profligate have it. 
 His novel, as a representation of life, is altogether more compre- 
 hensive and satisfying than either of the others. Each may excel 
 him in some particular department of character and passion, but 
 each is confined to a narrow space, and discolors or shuts out the 
 other portions of existence. Thackeray looks at the world from no 
 exclusive position, and his view accordingly includes a superficial 
 if not a substantial whole; and it is creditable to the healthiness 
 of hia mind, that he could make so wide a stirvey without contract 
 ing either of the opposite diseases of misanthropy or worldlinew 
 
 TBB BUD. 
 
^tanbatD anti g>Dpular %xhtatp ^otih^ 
 
 SELECTED FROM THE CATALOGUE OF 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 
 Brooks Adams. The Emancipation of Massachusetts, crown 
 8vo. 
 
 John Adams and Abigail Adams. Familiar Letters of, 
 during the Revolution, i2mo, $2.00. 
 
 Oscar Fay Adams. Handbook of English Authors, i6mo, 
 75 cents; Handbook of American Authors, i6mo, 75 cents. 
 
 Louis Agassiz. Methods of Study in Natural History, Illus- 
 trated, i2mo, $i-So; Geological Sketches, Series I. and II., 
 i2mo, each, $1.50; A Journey in Brazil, Illustrated, i2mo, 
 $2.50; Life and Letters, edited by his wife, 2 vols. i2mo, 
 $4.00; Life and Works, 6 vols. $10.00. 
 
 Anne A. Agge and Mary M. Brooks. Marblehead 
 Sketches. 4to, $3.00. 
 
 Elizabeth Akers. The Silver Bridge and other Poems, i6mo. 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Story of a Bad Boy, Illustrated, 
 i2mo, $1.50; Marjorie Daw and Other People, i2mo, $1.50; 
 Prudence Palfrey, i2mo, $1.50; The Queen of Sheba, i2mo, 
 $1.50; The Stillwater Tragedy, i2mo, $1.50; Poems, House- 
 hold Edition, Illustrated, i2mo, $1.75; full gilt, $2.25; The 
 above six vols. i2mo, uniform, $9.00; From Ponkapog to 
 Pesth, i6mo, fi.25 ; Poems, Complete, Illustrated, 8vo, $3.50; 
 Mercedes, and Later Lyrics, cr. 8vo, $1.25. 
 
 Rev. A. V. G. Allen. Continuity of Christian Thought, i2mo, 
 
 )?2.00. 
 
 American Commonwealths. Per volume, i6mo, $1.25. 
 Virginia. By John Esten Cooke. 
 Oregon. By William Barrows. 
 Maryland. By Wm. Hand Browne. 
 Kentucky. By N. S. Shaler. 
 
2 Houghton, Mifflin and Company's 
 
 Michigan. By Hon. T. M. Cooley. 
 
 Kansas. By Leverett W. Spring. 
 
 California. By Josiah Royce. 
 
 {In Preparation .) 
 
 New York. By Ellis H. Roberts. 2 vols. 
 
 Tennessee. By James Phelan. 
 
 Pennsylvania. By Hon. Wayne MacVeagh. 
 
 South Carolina. By Hon. W. H. Trescot. 
 
 Connecticut. By Alexander Johnston. 
 
 Missouri. By Lucien Carr. 
 American Men of Letters. Per vol., with Portrait, i6mo, 
 $1.25. 
 
 Washington Irving. By Charles Dudley Warner. 
 
 Noah Webster. By Horace E. Scudder. 
 
 Henry D. Thoreau. By Frank B. Sanborn. 
 
 George Ripley. By O. B. Frothingham. 
 
 J. Fenimore Cooper. By Prof. T. R. Lounsbury. 
 
 Margaret Fuller Ossoli. By T. W. Higginson. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. By Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe. By George E. Woodberry. 
 
 Nathaniel Parker Willis. By H. A. Beers. 
 {In Preparation.") 
 
 Benjamin Franklin. By John Bach McMaster. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne. By James Russell Lowell. 
 
 -William Cullen Bryant. By John Bigelow. 
 
 Bayard Taylor. By J. R. G. Hassard. 
 
 William Gilmore Simms. By George W. Cable. 
 American Statesmen. Per vol., i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 John Quincy Adams. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 
 John C. Calhoun. By Dr. H. von Hoist. 
 
 Andrew Jackson. By Prof. W. G. Sumner. 
 
 John Randolph. By Henry Adams. 
 
 James Monroe. By Pres. D. C. Gilman. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
 
 Daniel Webster. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 
 Albert Gallatin. By John Austin Stevens. 
 
 James Madison. By Sydney Howard Gay. 
 
Standard and Popular Library Books. 3 
 
 John Adams. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
 John Marshall. By Allan B. Magruder. 
 Samuel Adams. By J. K. Hosmer. 
 Thomas H. Benton. By Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 {In Preparation.) 
 Henry Clay. By Hon. Carl Schurz. 2 vols. 
 Martin Van Buren. By Hon. Wm. Dorsheimer. 
 George Washington. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 2 vols. 
 Patrick Henry. By Moses Coit Tyler. 
 
 Martha Babcock Amory. Life of Copley, 8vo, $3.00. 
 Hans Christian Andersen. Complete Works, 10 vols. i2mo, 
 
 each $1.00. New Edition, ib vols. i2mo, $10.00. 
 Francis, Lord Bacon. Works, 15 vols. cr. 8vo, $33.75 ; Pop- 
 ular Edition, with Portraits, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, $5.00 ; Promus of 
 
 Formularies and Elegancies, Svo, $5.00; Life and Times of 
 
 Bacon, 2 vols. cr. Svo, $5.00. 
 L. H. Bailey, Jr. Talks Afield, Illustrated, i6mo, $1.00. 
 M. M. Ballou. Due West, cr. Svo, $1.50 ; Due South, $1.50. 
 Henry A. Beers. The Thankless Muse. Poems. i6mo, $1.25. 
 E. D. R. Bianciardi. At Home in Italy, i6mo, $1.25. 
 William Henry Bishop. The House of a Merchant Prince, 
 
 a Novel, i2mo, $1.50; Detmold, a Novel, iSmo, I1.25 ; Choy 
 
 Susan and other Stories, i6mo, $1.25. 
 Bjornstjerne Bjornson. Synnove Solbakken, Bridal March, 
 
 Captain Mansana, i6mo, each $1.00 ; New Edition, 3 vols. 
 
 i2mo, the set, $4.50. 
 Anne C. Lynch Botta. Handbook of Universal Literature, 
 
 New Edition, i2mo, $2.00. 
 British Poets. Riverside Edition, cr. Svo, each $1.50 ; the 
 
 set, 68 vols. Iioo.oo. 
 Phillips Brooks. Oldest School in America. i6mo, $1.00. 
 John Brown, A. B. John Bunyan. Illustrated. Svo, $4.50. 
 John Brown, M. D. Spare Hours, 3 vols. i6mo, each $1.50. 
 Robert Browning. Poems and Dramas, etc., 15 vols. i6mo, 
 
 $22.00; Complete Works, New Edition, 8 vols. cr. Svo, 
 
 $13.00; Ferishtah's Fancies, i6mo, $1.00; cr. Svo, $1.00; Jo- 
 
 coseria, i6mo, $1.00; cr. Svo, $i.ao. 
 William Cullen Bryant. Translation of Homer, The Iliad, 
 
4 Houghton, Mifflin and Companfs 
 
 cr. 8vo, $2.50 ; 2 vols, royal 8vo, $9.00 ; cr. 8vo, $4.00 ; The 
 Odyssey, cr. Svo, $2.50; 2 vols, royal 8vo, $9.00; cr. 8vo, ^^4.00. 
 
 Sara C. Bull. Life of Ole Bull. Popular Edition. i2mo, 
 $1.50. 
 
 John Burroughs. Works, 7 vols. i6mo, each $1.50. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. Essays, with Portrait and Index, 4 vols 
 i2mo, $7.50 ; Popular Edition, 2 vols. i2mo, I3.50. 
 
 Alice and Phcebe Gary. Poems, Household Edition, Illus- 
 trated, i2mo, $1.75 ; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25 ; Library Edition, 
 including Memorial by Mary Clemmer, Portraits and 24 Illus- 
 trations, Svo, $3.50. 
 
 Francis J. Child. Poems of Religious Sorrow, Comfort, 
 Counsel, and Aspiration. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Lydia Maria Child. Looking Toward Sunset, i2mo, $2.50; 
 Letters, with Biography by Whittier, i6mo, $1.50. 
 
 James Freeman Clarke. Ten Great Religions, Parts I. and 
 II., 1 2mo, each $2.00; Common Sense in Religion, i2mo, ^2.00; 
 Memorial and Biographical Sketches, i2mo, $2.00. 
 
 John Esten Cooke. My Lady Pokahontas, i6mo, I1.25. 
 
 James Fenimore Cooper. Works, new Hoiisehold Edition, 
 Illustrated, 32 vols. i6mo, each $1.00; the set, $32.00; Fire- 
 side Edition, Illustrated, 16 vols. i2mo, $20.00. 
 
 Susan Fenimore Cooper. Rural Hours. i6mo. 
 
 Charles Egbert Craddock. In the Tennessee Mountains, 
 i6mo, $1.25; Down the Ravine, Illustrated, $1.00; The 
 Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, i6mo, $1.25; In The 
 Clouds, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 C. P. Cranch. Ariel and Caliban. i6mo. 
 
 The ^neid of Virgil. Translated by Cranch. Svo. 
 
 T. F. Crane. Italian Popular Tales, Svo, $2.50. 
 
 F.Marion Crawford. To Leeward, i6mo, $1.25; A Roman 
 Singer, i6mo, $1.25 ; An American Politician, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 M. Creighton. The Papacy during the Reformation, 2 vols. 
 Svo, $10.00. 
 
 Richard H. Dana. To Cuba and Back, i6mo, $1-25; Two 
 Years Before the Mast, i2mo, $1.00. 
 
 Or. W. and Emma De Long. Voyage of the Jeannette. 2 
 vols. Svo, $7.50; New One- Volume Edition, Svo, $4.50. 
 
 Thomas De Quincey. Works, 12 vols. i2mo, each $1.50; 
 the set, $iS.oo. 
 
Standard and Popular Library Books. 5 
 
 Madame De Stael. Germany, lamo, $2.50. 
 
 Charles Dickens. Works, Illustrated Library Edition, with 
 Dickens Dictionary, 30 vols. i2mo, each $1.50 ; the set, $45.00 ; 
 Globe Edilioti, 15 vols. i6mo, each $1.25; the set, $18.75. 
 
 J. Lewis Diman. The Theistic Argument, etc., cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; 
 Orations and Essays, cr. 8vo, $2.50. 
 
 Theodore A. Dodge. Patroclus and Penelope, Illustrated, 
 8vo, $3.00. i6mo, Outline Illustrations, $1.25. 
 
 Bight Studies of the Lord's Day. i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 George Eliot. The Spanish Gypsy, a Poem, i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. Works, Riverside Edition, 1 1 vols, 
 each $1.75; the set, $19.25; "Little Classic'''' Edition, 11 vols. 
 iSmo, each, $1.50; Parnassus, Household Edition, i2mo, $1.75; 
 Library Edition, 8vo, $4.00 ; Poems, Household Edition, Por- 
 trait, i2mo, $1.75. 
 
 English Dramatists. Vols. 1-3, Marlowe's Works ; Vols. 
 4-11, Middleton's Works; Vols. 12-14, Marston's Works; 
 each vol. $3.00 ; Large-Paper Edition, each vol. $4.00. 
 
 Edgar Pawcett. A Hopeless Case, i8mo, $1.25 ; A Gentle- 
 man of Leisure, i8mo, $1.00 ; An Ambitious Woman, i2mo, 
 $1.50. 
 
 F^nelon. Adventures of Telemachus, i2mo, $2.25. 
 
 James T. Fields. Yesterdays with Authors, i2mo, $2.00; 8vo, 
 Illustrated, $3.00 ; Underbrush, i8mo, $1.25 ; Ballads and other 
 Verses, i6mo, $1.00; The Family Library of British Poetry, 
 royal 8vo, $5.00 ; Memoirs and Correspondence, cr. 8vo, $2.00. 
 
 John Piske. Myths and Mythmakers, i2mo, $2.00; Outlines 
 of Cosmic Philosophy, 2 vols. 8vo, $6.00 ; The Unseen World, 
 ■ and other Essays, i2mo, $2.00 ; Excursions of an Evolutionist, 
 i2mo, $2.00; The Destiny of Man, i6mo, $1.00; The Idea of 
 God, i6mo, $1.00; Darwinism, and Other Essays, New Edi- 
 tion, enlarged, i2mo, $2.00. 
 
 Edward Pitzgerald. Works. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 O. B. Frothingham. Life of W. H. Channing. Cr. 8vo. 
 
 William H. Furness. Verses, i6mo, vellum, $1.25. 
 
 Gentleman's Magazine Library. 14 vols. 8vo, each $2.50; 
 Roxburgh, $3.50; Large-Paper Edition, $6.00. I. Manners and 
 Customs. II. Dialect, Proverbs, and Word-Lore. III. Pop- 
 
6 Houghton, Mifflin and Company's 
 
 ular Superstitions and Traditions. IV. English Traditions 
 and Foreign Customs. V., VI. Archaeology. {Last two styles 
 sold only in sets. ) 
 
 John F. Genung. Tennyson's In Memoriam, cr. 8vo, I1.25. 
 
 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Faust, Part First, Trans- 
 lated by C. T. Brooks, i6mo, $1.25 ; Faust, Translated by Bay- 
 ard Taylor, cr. 8vo, $2.50 ; 2 vols, royal 8vo, $9.00 ; 2 vols. i2mo, 
 $4.00; Correspondence with a Child, i2mo, $1.50; Wilhelm 
 Meister, Translated by Carlyle, 2 vols. i2mo, $3.00. Life, by 
 Lewes, together with the above five i2mo vols., the set, $9.00. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. The Vicar of Wakefield, 32mo, $1.00. 
 
 Charles George Gordon. Diaries and Letters, Svo, I2.00. 
 
 George H. Gordon. Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain, 1861-2. 
 Svo, $3.00 ; Campaign of Army of Virginia, 1862. Svo, ^4.00 ; 
 A War Diary, 1863-5. ^'^o, $3.00. 
 
 George Zabriskie Gray. The Children's Crusade, i2mo, 
 $1.50 ; Husband and Wife, i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 F. W. Gunsaulus. The Transfiguration of Christ. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Anna Davis Hallo^well. James and Lucretia Mott, $2.00. 
 
 R. P. Hallowell. Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts, I1.25. 
 
 Arthur Sherburne Hardy. But Yet a Woman, i6mo, J^i.25 ; 
 The Wind of Destiny, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Bret Harte. Works, 5 vols. cr. Svo, each $2.00 ; In the Car- 
 quinez Woods, i8mo, $1.00; Flip, and Found at Blazing Star, 
 iSmo, $1.00; On the Frontier, i8mo, $1.00; By Shore and 
 Sedge, i8mo, $1.00; Maruja, i8mo, |i.oo; Snow-Bound at 
 Eagle's, iSmo, $1.00; Poems, Household Edition, Illustrated, 
 i2mo, $1.75; cr. Svo, full gilt, $2.25 ; Red- Line Edition, svadW 
 4to, $2.50 ; Cabinet Edition, $1.00. 
 
 Nathaniel Ha^wthorne. Works, '■^Little Classic " Edition, 
 Illustrated, 25 vols. i8mo, each $1.00; the set $25.00; New 
 Riverside Edition, Introductions by G. P. Lathrop, 11 Etch- 
 ings and Portrait, 12 vols. cr. Svo, each $2.00; Wayside Edi- 
 tion, with Introductions, Etchings, etc., 24 vols. i2mo, $36.00; 
 Fireside Edition. 6 vols. i2mo, $10.00; The Scarlet Letter, 
 i2mo, $1.00. 
 John Hay. Pike County Ballads, i2mo, $1.50; Castilian 
 Days, i6mo, $2.00. 
 
Standard and Popular Library Books. 7 
 
 Caroline Hazard. Memoir of J. L. Diman- i6mo. 
 S. E. Herrick. Some Heretics of Yesterday, cr. 8vo, $1.50. 
 George S. Hillard. Six Months in Italy, i2mo, $2.00. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. Poems, Household Edition, Illus- 
 trated, i2mo, $1.75 ; cr. 8vo, full gilt, I2.25 ; Ilhistrated Library 
 Edition, 8vo, $3.50; Handy-Volume Edition, 2 vols. 32mo, 
 %2. 50 ; The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, cr. Bvo, $2.00 ; 
 Handy- Volume Edition, 32mo, $1.25; The Professor at the 
 Breakfast-Table, cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; The Poet at the Breakfast- 
 Table, cr. 8vo, I2.00 ; Elsie Venner, cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; The Guar- 
 dian Angel, cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; Medical Essays, cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; 
 Pages from an Old Volume of Life, cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; John Lo- 
 throp Motley, A Memoir, i6mo, $1.50; Illustrated Poems, 
 8vo, $4.00; A Mortal Antipathy, cr. 8vo, ^1.50; The Last 
 Leaf, Illustrated, 4to, $10.00. 
 Nathaniel Holmes. The Authorship of Shakespeare. New 
 
 Edition. 2 vols. $4.00. 
 Blanche Willis Ho"ward. One Summer, Illustrated, i2mo, 
 
 $1.25; One Year Abroad, i8mo, $1.25. 
 William D. Ho"wells. Venetian Life, i2mo, $1.50; Italian 
 Journeys, i2mo, $1.50; Their Wedding Journey, Illustrated, 
 l2mo, $1.50; i8mo, $1.25; Suburban Sketches, Illustrat-ed, 
 i2mo, $1.50; A Chance Acquaintance, Illustrated, i2mo, 
 I1.50; i8mo, $1.25; A Foregone Conclusion, i2mo, I1.50; 
 The Lady of the Aroostook, i2mo, $1.50; The Undiscovered 
 Country, i2mo, $1.50. 
 Thomas Hughes. Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby, 
 i6mo, $1.00 ; Tom Brown at Oxford, i6mo, $1.25 ; The Man- 
 liness of Christ, i6mo, $1.00 ; paper, 25 cents. 
 William Morris Hunt. Talks on Art, 2 Series, each $1.00. 
 Henry James, Jr. A Passionate Pilgrim and other Tales, 
 i2mo, $2.00; Transatlantic Sketches, i2mo, $2.00 ; Roderick 
 Pludson, i2mo, $2.00 ; The American, i2mo, $2.00 ; Watch 
 and Ward, i8mo, $1.25; The Europeans, i2mo, $1.50; Confi- 
 dence, i2mo, $1.50; The Portrait of a Lady, i2mo, $2.00. 
 Mrs. Anna Jameson. Writings upon Art Subjects. New 
 
 Edition, 10 vols. i6mo, the set, $12.50. 
 Sarah Orne Jewett. Deephaven, i8mo, $1.25 ; Old Friends 
 
8 Houghton, Mifflin and Company's 
 
 and New, i8mo, $1.25 ; Country By-Ways, i8mo, $1.25 ; Play- 
 Days, Stories for Children, square i6mo, $1.50; The Mate of 
 the Daylight, i8mo, $1.25 ; A Country Doctor, i6mo, %i.2i, ; 
 A Marsh Island, i6mo, $1.25 ; A White Heron, i8mo, $1.25. 
 
 Rossiter Johnson. Little Classics, 18 vols. i8mo, each ;^r.oo ; 
 
 the set, j^iS.oo. 9 vols, square i6mo, $13.50. 
 Samuel Johnson. Oriental Religions : India, 8vo, $5.00 ; 
 
 China, 8vo, $5.00 ; Persia, 8vo, $5.00 ; Lectures, Essays, and 
 
 Sermons, cr. 8vo, $1.75. 
 Charles C. Jones, Jr. History of Georgia, 2 vols. 8vo, $10.00. 
 "Walter M. Kerr. The Far Interior. 2 vols. 8vo, $9.00. 
 Omar Khayyam. Rubaiyat, Red- Line Edition, square i6mo, 
 
 $1.00 ; the same, with 56 Illustrations by Vedder, folio, $25.00 ; 
 
 the same, Phototype Edition, 4to, $12.50. 
 T. Starr King. Christianity and Humanity, with Portrait. 
 
 i6mo, $2.00 ; Substance and Show, i6mo, $2.00. 
 Charles and Mary Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare. Han^ 
 
 dy- Volume Edition. 32mo, $1.00. 
 Henry Lansdell. Russian Central Asia. 2 vols. $10.00. 
 Lucy Larcom. Poems, i6mo, $1.25 ; An Idyl of Work, i6mo, 
 
 $1.25 ; Wild Roses of Cape Ann and other Poems, i6mo, 
 
 $1.25; Breathings of the Better Life, i8mo, $1.25; Poems, 
 
 Household Edition, Illustrated, i2mo, $1.75; full gilt, $2.25 ; 
 
 Beckonings for Every Day, i6mo. 
 George Parsons Lathrop. A Study of Hawthorne, i8mo, 
 
 $1.25. 
 Henry C. Lea. Sacerdotal Celibacy, 8vo, $4.50. 
 Sophia and Harriet Lee. Canterbury Tales. New Edition. 
 
 3 vols. i2mo, $3.75. 
 Charles G. Leland. The Gypsies, cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; Algonquin 
 
 Legends of New England, cr. 8vo, $2.00. 
 George Henry Le^wes. The Story of Goethe's Life, Por- 
 trait, i2mo, $1.50; Problems of Life and Mind, 5 vols. 8vo, 
 
 $14.00. 
 J. G. Lockhart. Life of Sir W. Scott, 3 vols. i2mo, $4.50. 
 Henry Cabot Lodge. Studies in History, cr. Svo, $1.50. 
 Henry "Wads-worth Longfello-w. Complete Poetical and 
 
 Prose Works, Riverside Edition, 11 vols. cr. Svo, each $1.50; 
 
Standard and Popular Library Books, 9 
 
 the set, $16.50; Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition, 4 vols. 
 l2mo, $7.00; Poems, Octavo Edition, Portrait and 300 Illus- 
 trations, $7.50; household Edition, Illustrated, i2mo, $1.75; 
 cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25; Red-Line Edition, Portrait and 12 Il- 
 lustrations, small 4to, $2.50; Cabinet Edition, $1.00 ; Library 
 Edition, Portrait and 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50; Christus, 
 Household Edition, $1.75; cr. 8vo, full gilt, t2..2t^; Cabinet 
 Edition, $1.00 ; Prose Works, Cambridge Edition, 2 vols. 
 i2mo, $3.50 ; Hyperion, i6mo, $1.50 ; Kavanagh, i6mo, $1.50 ; 
 Outre-Mer, i6mo, $1.50; In the Harbor, i6mo, $1.00; Michael 
 Angelo : a Drama, Illustrated, folio, $5.00 ; Twenty Poems, 
 Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50; Translation of the Divina Com- 
 media of Dante, i vol. cr. 8vo, $2.50 ; 3 vols, royal 8vo, $13.50 ; 
 cr. 8vo, I4.50 ; Poets and Poetry of Europe, royal 8vo, $5.00 ; 
 Poems of Places, 31 vols, each $1.00; the set, $25.00. 
 
 James Russell Lo^well. Poems, Red-Lijie Edition, Portrait, 
 Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50; Household Edition, Illustrated, 
 i2mo, $1.75 ; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25 ; Library Edition, Portrait 
 and 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50 ; Cabinet Editio7t, $1.00 ; Fire- 
 side Travels, i2mo, $1.50 ; Among my Books, Series I. and II. 
 i2mo, each $2.00; My Study Windows, i2mo, $2.00; De- 
 mocracy and other Addresses, i6mo. 
 
 Thomas Babington Macaulay. Works, 16 vols. i2mo, 
 
 $20.00. 
 
 Mrs. Madison. Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison, 
 i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Harriet Martineau. Autobiography, New Edition, 2 vols. 
 i2mo, $4.00; Household Education, i8mo, $1.25. 
 
 H. B. McClellan. The Life and Campaigns of Maj.-Gen. 
 J. E. B. Stuart. With -Portrait and Maps, 8vo, $3.00. 
 
 G. W. Melville. In the Lena Delta, Maps and Illustrations, 
 8vo, $2.50. 
 
 Owen Meredith. Poems, Household Edition, Illustrated, 
 i2mo, $1.75; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25; Library Edition, Por- 
 trait and 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50 ; Lucile, Red-Line Edi- 
 tion, 8 Illustrations, small 4to, $2.50 ; Cabinet Edition, 8 Illus- 
 trations, $1.00. 
 
 Olive Thorne Miller. Bird- Ways, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 John Milton. Paradise Lost. Handy- Volume Edition. 32mo, 
 $1.00. Riverside Classics Edition, i6mo, Illustrated, $1.00. 
 
lo Houghton, Mifflin and Company's 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell. In War Time, i6ino, ^1.25 ; Roland 
 Blake, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 J. W. Mollett. Illustrated Dictionary of Wards used in Art 
 and Archasology, small 4to, $5.00. 
 
 Michael de Montaigne. Complete Works, Portrait, 4 vols. 
 i2mo, $7.50. 
 
 William Mountford. Euthanasy, i2mo, $2.00. 
 
 T. Mozley. Reminiscences of Oriel College, etc., 2 vols. i6mo, 
 $3.00. 
 
 Elisha Mulford. The Nation, 8vo, $2.50; The Republic of 
 God, 8vo, $2.00. 
 
 T. T. Munger. On the Threshold, i6mo, $1.00 ; The Freedom 
 of Faith, i6mo, $1.50 ; Lamps and Paths, i6mo, |i.oo. 
 
 J. A. W. Neander. History of the Christian Religion and 
 Church, with Index volume, 6 vols. 8vo, $20.00 ; Index, $3.00. 
 
 Joseph Neilson. Memories of Rufus Choate, 8vo, $5.00. 
 
 Edmund Noble. The Russian Revolt, i6mo, %i.q6. 
 
 Charles Eliot Norton. Notes of Travel in Italy, i6mo, $1.25 ; 
 Translation of Dante's New Life, royal 8vo, $3.00. 
 
 Wm. D. O'Connor. Hamlet's Note-Book, i6mo, jgi.oo. 
 
 G. H. Palmer. Translation of Homer's Odyssey, Books 1-12, 
 8vo, $2.50. 
 
 James Parton. Life of Benjamin Franklin, 2 vols. 8vo, $5.00 ; 
 Life of Thomas Jefferson, 8vo, $2.50; Life of Aaron Burr, 
 2 vols. 8vo, $5.00; Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. 8vo, $7.50 ; 
 Life of Horace Greeley, 8vo, I2.50 ; General Butler in New 
 Orleans, 8vo, $2.50 ; Humorous Poetry of the English Lan- 
 guage, i2mo, $1.75; full gilt, $2.25; Famous Americans of 
 Recent Times, 8vo, $2.50 ; Life of Voltaire, 2 vols. 8vo, jS56.oo; 
 The French Parnassus, i2mo, $1.75 ; crown 8vo, $3.50; Cap- 
 tains of Industry, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Blaise Pascal. Thoughts, i2mo, $2.25; Letters, i2mo, $2.25. 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. The Gates Ajar, i6mo, $1.50 ; 
 Beyond the Gates, i6nio, $1.25; Men, Women, and Ghosts, 
 i6mo, $1.50; Hedged In, i6mo, $1.50; The Silent Partner, 
 i6mo, $1.50; The Story of Avis, i6mo, $1.50 ; Sealed Orders, 
 and other Stories, i6mo, $1.50; Friends: A Duet, i6mo, 
 ji5i.25 ; Doctor Zay, i6mo, $1.25 ; Songs of the Silent World, 
 l6mo, gilt top, %\ .25 ; An Old Maid's Paradise, i6mo, paper, 50 
 
Standard and Popular Library Books. ii 
 
 cents ; Burglars in Paradise, i6mo, paper, 50 cents ; Madonna 
 of the Tubs, i2nio, illustrated. 
 
 Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt. Selected Poems, i6mo, $1.50. 
 
 Carl Ploetz. Epitome of Universal History, i2mo, $3.00. 
 
 Antonin Lefevre Pontalis. The Life of John DeWitt, 
 Grand Pensionary of Holland, 2 vols. 8vo, $9.00. 
 
 Adelaide A. Procter. Poems, Cabinet Edition, $1.00; Red- 
 Line Edition, small 4to, $2.50. 
 
 Progressive Orthodoxy. i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 Sampson Reed. Growth of the Mind, i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 C. F. Richardson. Primer of American Literature, iSmo, % .30. 
 
 Riverside Aldine Series. Each volume, i6mo, $1.00. First 
 edition, $1.50. i. Marjorie Daw, etc., by T. B. Aldrich; 
 2. My Summer in a Garden, by C. D. Warner ; 3. Fireside 
 Travels, by J. R. Lowell ; 4. The Luck of Roaring Camp, etc., 
 by Bret Harte ; 5, 6. Venetian Life, 2 vols., by W. D. How^- 
 ELLS ; 7. Wake Robin, by John Burroughs ; 8, 9. The Biglow 
 Papers, 2 vols, by J. R. Lowell ; 10. Backlog Studies, by C. 
 D. Warner. 
 
 Henry Crabb Robinson. Diary, Reminiscences, etc. cr. 8vo, 
 $2.50. 
 
 John C. Ropes. The First Napoleon, with Maps, cr. 8vo, $2.00. 
 
 Josiah Royce. Religious Aspect of Philosophy, i2mo, $2.00. 
 
 Edgar Evertson Saltus. Balzac, cr. 8vo, $1.25 ; The Phi- 
 
 • losophy of Disenchantment, cr. 8vo, $1.25. 
 
 John Godfrey Saxe. Poems, Red-Line Edition, Illustrated, 
 small 4to, $2.50; Cabinet Edition, $1.00; Household Edition, 
 Illustrated, i2mo, $1.75 ; full gilt, cr. 8vo, $2.25. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. Waverley Novels, Illustrated Library 
 Edition, 25 vols. i2mo, each $1.00; the set, $25.00; Globe 
 Edition, 100 Illustrations, 13 vols. i6mo, $16.25; Tales of a 
 Grandfather, 3 vols. i2mo, $4.50 ; Poems, Red-Line Edition, 
 Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50 ; Cabinet Edition, $1.00. 
 
 W. H. Seward. Works, 5 vols. 8vo, $15.00 ; Diplomatic His- 
 tory of the War, 8vo, I3.00. 
 John Campbell Shairp. Culture and Religion, i6mo, $1.25 ; 
 Poetic Interpretation of Nature, i6mo, $1.25; Studies in Po- 
 etry and Philosophy, i6mo, $1.50; Aspects of Poetry, i6mo, 
 $1.50. 
 
12 Houghton, Mifflin and Company s 
 
 William Shakespeare. Works, edited by R. G. White, Riv- 
 erside Edition, 3 vols. cr. 8vo, $7.50 ; 6 vols. 8vo, $15.00 : the 
 same, cr. 8vo, uncut, $10.00 ; The Blackfriars Shakespeare. 
 (In Press.) 
 
 A. P. Sinnett. Esoteric Buddhism, i6mo, I1.25; The Occult 
 World, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Dr. Williain Smith. Bible Dictionary, American Edition, 4 
 vols. 8vo, $20.00. 
 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman. Poems, Farringford Edition, 
 Portrait, i6mo, $2.00; Household Edition, Illustrated, l2mo, 
 $1.75; full gilt, cr. 8vo, $2.25; Victorian Poets, i2mo, $2.00; 
 Poets of America, i2mo, $2.25. The set, 3 vols., uniform, 
 i2mo, $6.00 ; Edgar Allan Poe, an Essay, vellum, i8mo, $1.00. 
 
 W. W. Story. Poems, 2 vols. i6mo, $2.50; Fiammetta: A 
 Novel, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Harriet Beecher Sto'we. Novels and Stories, 10 vols. i2mo, 
 uniform, each $1.50; A Dog's Mission, Little Pussy Willow, 
 Queer Little People, Illustrated, small 4to, each $1.25 ; Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin, 100 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.00 ; Library Edition, 
 Illustrated, i2mo, $2.00 ; Popular Edition, i2mo, $1.00. 
 
 Jonathan S"wift. Works, Editiojt de Luxe, 19 vols. 8vo, the 
 set, $76.00. 
 
 T. P. Taswell-Langmead. English Constitutional History. 
 New Edition, revised, 8vo, $7.50. 
 
 Bayard Taylor. Poetical Works, Household Edition, I2mq, 
 $1.75 ; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25; Melodies of Verse, i8mo, vel- 
 lum, $1.00; Life and Letters, 2 vols. i2mo, $4.00; Dramatic Po- 
 ems, i2mo, $2.25; Household Edition, i2mo, $1.75; Life and 
 Poetical Works, 6 vols.,uniform. Including Life, 2 vols. ; Faust, 
 2 vols. ; Poems, i vol. ; Dramatic Poems, i vol. The set, cr. 
 8vo, $12.00. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. Poems, Household Edition, Portrait and 
 Illustrations, i2mo, $1.75; full gilt, cr. 8vo, $2.25; Illus- 
 trated Crown Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, $5.00 ; Library Edition, 
 Portrait and 60 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50 ; Red- Line Editiott, 
 Portrait and Illustrations, small 4to, $2.50 ; Cabinet Edition, 
 $1.00; Complete Works, Riverside Edition, 6 vols. cr. 8vo, 
 $6.00. 
 
standard and Popular Library Books. 13 
 
 Celia Thaxter. Among the Isles of Shoals, i8mo, $1.25; 
 Poems, small 4to, $1.50; Drift- Weed, i8mo, $1.50; Poems 
 for Children, Illustrated, small 4to, $1.50 ; Cruise of the Mys- 
 tery, Poems, i6mo. 
 
 Edith M. Thomas. A New Year's Masque and other Poems, 
 i6mo, $1.50; The Round Year, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Joseph P. Thompson. American Comments on European 
 Questions, 8vo, $3.00. 
 
 Joseph Thomson. To the Central African Lakes, 2 vols. 
 i2mo, $6.00. 
 
 Henry D. Thoreau. Works, 9 vols. i2mo, each $1.50; the 
 set, $13.50. 
 
 George Ticknor. History of Spanish Literature, 3 vols. Svo, 
 $10.00 ; Life, Letters, and Journals, Portraits, 2 vols. i2mo, 
 $4.00. 
 
 Bradford Torrey. Birds in the Bush, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Sophus Tromholt. Under the Rays of the Aurora Borealis 
 Illustrated, 2 vols. $7.50. 
 
 Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. H. H. Richardson and 
 his Works. 
 
 Jones Very. Essays and Poems, i6mo. 
 
 Annie Wall. Story of Sordello, told in Prose, i6mo. 
 
 Charles Dudley Warner. My Summer in a Garden, River- 
 side Aldine Edition, i6mo, $1.00 ; Illustrated Edition, square 
 i6mo, $1.50; Saunterings, i8mo, $1.25; Backlog Studies, 
 Illustrated, square i6mo, $1.50; Riverside Aldine Edition, 
 l6mo, $1.00 ; Baddeck, and that Sort of Thing, i8mo, $r.oo; 
 My Winter on the Nile, cr. Svo, $2.00 ; In the Levant, cr. Svo, 
 $2.00; Being a Boy, Illustrated, square i6mo, $1.50; In the 
 Wilderness, iSmo, 75 cents ; A Roundabout Journey, i2mo, 
 $1.50. 
 
 William F. Warren, LL. D. Paradise Found, cr. Svo, $2.00. 
 
 William A. Wheeler. Dictionary of Noted Names of Fic- 
 tion, i2mo, $2.00. 
 
 Edwin P. Whipple. Essays, 6 vols. cr. Svo, each $1.50. 
 
 Richard Grant White. Every-Day English, i2mo, $2.00; 
 Words and their Uses, i2mo, $2.00; England Without and 
 Within, i2mo, $2.00; The Fate of Mansfield Humphreys, 
 l6mo, |i.2S; Studies in Shakespeare, i2mo, $1.75. 
 
14 Standard and Popular Library Books. 
 
 Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. Stories, 12 vols. i2mo, each $1.50; 
 Mother Goose for Grown Folks, i2mo, $1.50; Pansies, square 
 i6mo, $1.50; Just How, i6mo, $1.00; Bonnyborough, i2mo, 
 $1.50; Holy Tides, i6mo ; Seed-Down, i2mo. 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier. Poems, Household Edition, Illus- 
 trated, i2mo, $1.75 ; full gilt, cr. 8vo, $2.25 ; Cambridge Edi- 
 tio7t, Portrait, 3 vols. i2mo, $5.25 ; Red-Line Editiott, Por- 
 trait, Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50; Cabinet Edition, $r.oo; 
 Library Edition, Portrait, 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50 ; Prose 
 Works, Cambridge Edition, 2 vols. i2mo, $3.50; The Bay of 
 Seven Islands, Portrait, i6mo, $1.00 ; John Woolman's Jour- 
 nal, Introduction by "Whittier, ^1.50; Child Life in Poetry, 
 selected by Whittier, Illustrated, i2mo, $2.00; Child Life in 
 Prose, i2mo, $2.00; Songs of Three Centuries, selected by 
 Whittier: Household Edition, Illustrated, i2mo, $1.75; full 
 gilt, cr. 8vo, $2.25 ; Library Edition, 32 Illustrations, 8vo, 
 $3.50 ; Text and Verse, i8mo, 75 cents ; Poems of Nature, 4to, 
 Illustrated, $6.00 ; St. Gregory's Guest, etc., i6mo, vellum, 
 $1.00. 
 
 "Woodrow Wilson. Congressional Government, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 J. A. Wilstach. Translation of Virgil's Works, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, 
 $5.00. 
 
 Justin Winsor. Reader's Handbook of American Revolu- 
 tion, i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 W. B. Wright. Ancient Cities from the Dawn to the Day» 
 light, i6ino. 
 

 
 
 Kvyy i vy> \ y ■tWvvvvvvy^ V vv\f\vvvv 
 
 
 
 > K> > ) * V > » > > > >'> K> > >vK> >> > K