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THE FRIEND. 
 
 * 
 
THE 
 
 FRIEND ; 
 
 A 
 
 SERIES OF ESSAYS. 
 
 BY S, T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 " Accipe principium rursus, corpusque coactum 
 " Desere : mutatu. melior procede figura." 
 
 Cl,AUDIAV. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR GALE AND CURTIS, PATERNOSTER -ROW. 
 1812. 
 
The Jirst Twenty-eight Sheets of this Work were 
 originally Published as the successive Numbers of a 
 Weekly Paper '; which was discontinued from the incon- 
 veniences and difficulties of the place, and the mode 
 of Publication. 
 
Treasure Room 
 
 M& 
 
 A LITERARY, MORAL, AND POLITICAL 
 WEEKLY PAPER, 
 
 EXCLUDING PERSONAL AND PAETY POLITICS AND 
 THE EVENT* OP THE DAY. 
 
 CONDUCTED 
 
 By S. T. COLERIDGE, 
 
 OF 
 
 GRASMERE, WESTMORLAND. 
 
 t* 1 iJ 1 i; O O 
 
THE FRIEID. 
 
 No. 1. THURSDAY, June 1, 1809. 
 
 Crede miki, non est parva Jiducice, polliceri opem decertantibus t 
 consilium dubiis, lumen ceecis, spem dejectis, refrigerium Jessis. 
 Magna quidem hcec sunt, si jtant ; parva, si promittantur. Verum 
 ego non tarn aliis legem ponam, quam legem vobis mece propria mentis 
 exponam : quam qui probaverit, teneat ; cui non placuerit, abjiciat. 
 Optarem, fateor, talis esse, qui prodesse possem quam plurimis. 
 
 Petrarch : " De vita solitaria." 
 
 Believe me, it requires no little Confidence, to promise Help to 
 the Struggling, Counsel to the Doubtful, Light to the Blind, Hope 
 to the Despondent, Refreshment to the Weary. These are indeed 
 great Things, if they be accomplished ; trifles if they exist but in a 
 Promise. I however aim not so much to prescribe a Law for others, 
 as to set forth the Law of my own Mind ; which let the man, who 
 shall have approved of it, abide by ; and let him, to whom it shall 
 appear not reasonable, reject it. It is my earnest wish, I confess, 
 to employ my understanding and acquirements in that mode and 
 direction, in which I may be enabled to benefit the largest number 
 possible of my fellow-creatures. 
 
 If it be usual with writers in general to find the first 
 
 paragraph of their works that which has given them the 
 
 most trouble with the least satisfaction, the Author of 
 
 The Friend may be allowed to feel the difficulties and 
 
 anxiety of a first introduction in a more than ordinary 
 
 degree. He is embarrassed by the very circumstances, 
 
 that discriminate the plan and purposes of the present 
 
 weekly paper from those of its' periodical brethren, as well 
 
 as from its' more dignified literary relations, which come 
 
 forth at once and in full growth from their parents. If it 
 
 had been his ambition to copy its' whole scheme and 
 
 fashion from the great founders of the race, The Tatler 
 
 .and Spectator, he would indeed have exposed his 
 
 Essays to a greater hazard of unkind comparison. An 
 
 imperfect imitation is often felt as a contrast. On the 
 
 other hand, however, the very names and descriptions of 
 
 the fictitious characters, which he had proposed to assume 
 
 in the course of his work, would have put him at once in 
 
 possession of the stage; and his first act have opened 
 
 with a succession of masks. Again, if the Author had 
 
THE FRIEXD. 3 
 
 proposed to himself one unbroken work on one given 
 subject, the same acquaintance with its' grounds and bear- 
 ings, which had authorized him to publish his opinions, 
 would with its principles or fundamental facts have sup- 
 plied him with his best and most appropriate commence- 
 ment. 
 
 More easy still would my task have been, had I 
 planned The Friend chiefly as a vehicle for a weekly 
 descant on public characters and political parties. Per- 
 fect freedom from all warping influences ; the distance 
 which permitted a distinct view of the game, yet secured 
 the Looker-on from its' passions ; the Liberty of the 
 Press ; and its' especial importance at the present period 
 from — whatever event or topic might happen to form the 
 great interest of the day ; — this would have, been my 
 recipe ! it was ready to my hand ! and it was framed so 
 skilfully and has been practised with such constant effect, 
 that it would have been affectation to have deviated from 
 it. Excuse me therefore, gentle reader! if borrowing 
 from my title a right of anticipation, I avail myself of the 
 privileges of a friend before I have earned them ; and 
 waiving the ceremony of a formal introduction, permit me 
 to proceed at once to a Principle, trite indeed and familiar 
 as the first lessons of childhood ; which yet must be the 
 foundation of my future Superstructure with all its orna- 
 ments, the hidden Root of the Tree, I am attempting to 
 rear, with all its Branches and Boughs. But if from this 
 principle I have deduced my strongest moral motives for 
 the present undertaking, it has at the same time been 
 applied in suggesting the most formidable obstacle to my 
 success— as far, I mean, as my Plan alone is concerned, 
 and not the Talents necessary for its' Completion. 
 
 Conclusions drawn from facts which subsist in per- 
 petual flux, without definite place or fixed quantity, must 
 always be liable to plausible objections, nay, often to 
 unanswerable difficulties ; and yet having their foundation 
 in uncorrupted feeling are assented to by mankind at large, 
 and in all ages, as undoubted truths. Such are all those 
 facts, the knowledge of which is not received from the 
 senses, but must be acquired by reflection ; and the exist- 
 ence of which we can prove to others, only as far as we 
 can prevail on them to go into themselves and make their 
 own minds the Object of their stedfast attention. As our 
 notions concerning them are almost equally obscure, so 
 
 m rl O £} yj O 
 
4 THE FRIEND. 
 
 are our convictions almost equally vivid, with those of out 
 life and individuality. Regarded with awe, as guiding 
 - principles by the founders of law and religion, they are the 
 favourite objects of attack with mock philosophers, and 
 the demagogues in church, state, and literature ; and the 
 denial of them has in all times, though at various inter- 
 vals, formed heresies and systems, which, after their day 
 of wonder, are regularly exploded, and again as regularly 
 revived, when they have re-acquired' novelty by courtesy 
 of oblivion. 
 
 Among these universal persuasions we must place the 
 sense of a self-contradicting principle in our nature, or 
 a disharmony in the different impulses that constitute it 
 — the sense of a something which essentially distinguishes 
 man both from all other animals, that are known to exist, 
 and from the idea of his own nature, from his own con- 
 ception of the original man. In health and youth we may 
 indeed connect the glow and buoyance of our bodily sen- 
 sations with the words of a theory, and imagine that we 
 hold it with a firm belief. The pleasurable heat which 
 the Blood or the Breathing generates, the sense of external 
 reality which comes with the strong Grasp of the hand or 
 the vigorous Tread of the foot, may indifferently become 
 associated with the rich eloquence of a Shaftesbury, im- 
 posing on us man's possible perfections for his existing 
 nature ; or with the cheerless and hardier impieties of a 
 Hobbes, while cutting the gordian knot he denies the 
 reality of either vice or virtue, and explains away the 
 mind's self-reproach into a distempered ignorance, an 
 epidemic affection of the human nerves and their habits 
 of motion. " Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy ! " 
 I shall hereafter endeavour to prove, how distinct and 
 different the sensation of positiveness is from the sense of 
 certainty, the turbulent heat of temporary fermentation 
 from the mild warmth of essential life. Suffice it for the 
 present to affirm, (to declare it at least, as my own creed) 
 that whatever humbles the heart and forces the mind in- 
 ward, whether it be sickness, or grief, or remorse, or the 
 deep yearnings of love (and there have been children of 
 affliction, for whom all these have met and made up one 
 complex suffering) in proportion as it acquaints us with 
 " the thing, we are," renders us docile to the concurrent 
 testimony of our fellow-men in all ages and in all nations. 
 From Pascal in his closet, resting the arm, which sup- 
 
THE FRIEND. 5 
 
 ports his thoughtful brow, on a pile of demonstrations, to 
 the poor pensive Indian, that seeks the missionary in the* 
 American wilderness, the humiliated self-examinant feels 
 that there is Evil in our nature as well as Good, an evil 
 and a good for a just analogy to which he questions all 
 other natures in vain. It is still the great definition of 
 humanity, that we have a conscience, which no mechanic 
 compost, no chemical combination, of. mere appetence, 
 memory, and understanding, can solve ; which is indeed 
 an Element of our Being ! — a conscience, unrelenting, 
 yet not absolute ; which we may stupify but cannot de- 
 lude ; which we may suspend, but cannot annihilate ; al- 
 though we may perhaps find a treacherous counterfeit in 
 the very quiet which we derive from its slumber, or its 
 entrancement. 
 
 Of so mysterious a phenomenon we might expect a 
 cause as mysterious. Accordingly, we find this (cause 
 be it, or condition, or necessary accompaniment) involved 
 and implied in the fact, which it alone can explain. For 
 if our permanent Consciousness did not reveal to us our 
 Free-agency, we should yet be obliged to deduce it, as a 
 necessary Inference, from the fact of our Conscience: or 
 rejecting both the one and the other, as mere illusions of 
 internal Feeling, forfeit all power of thinking consistently 
 with our Actions, or acting consistently with our 
 Thought, for any single hour during our whole Lives. 
 But 1 am proceeding farther than 1 had wished or intend- 
 ed. It will be long, ere I shall dare flatter myself, that I 
 have won the confidence of my Reader sufficiently to 
 require. of him that effort of attention which the regular 
 Establishment of this Truth would demand. 
 
 After the brief season of youthful hardihood, and 
 the succeeding years of uneasy fluctuation, after long- 
 continued and patient study of the most celebrated works, 
 in the languages of ancient and modern Europe, in 
 defence or denial of this prime Article of human Faith, 
 which (save to the Trifler or the Worldling,) no frequency 
 of discussion can superannuate, 1 at length satisfied my 
 own mind by arguments, which placed me on firm land. 
 This one conviction, determined, as in a mould, the form 
 and feature of my whole system in ReKgion, in Morals, 
 and even in Literature. These arguments were not sug- 
 gested to me by Books, but forced on me by reflection on 
 my own Being, and by Observation of the Ways of those 
 
6 TttE FRIEND. 
 
 about me, especially of Children. And as they had the 
 power of fixing the same persuasion in some valuable 
 minds, much interested, and not unversed in the contro- 
 versy, and from the manner probably rather than the sub- 
 Stance, appeared to them in some sort original^ (for 
 oldest Reasons will put on an impressive semblance of 
 novelty, if they have indeed been drawn from the 
 fountain-head of genuine self- research) and since the 
 arguments are neither abstruse, nor dependent on a long 
 chain of Deductions, nor such as suppose previous Habits 
 of metaphysical disquisition ; I shall deem it my Duty to 
 state them with what skill I can, at a fitting opportunity, 
 though rather as the Biographer of my own sentiments 
 than a Legislator of the opinions of other men. 
 
 At present, however, 1 give it merely as an article of 
 pay own faith, closely connected with all my hopes of 
 amelioration in man, and leading to the methods, by 
 which alone I hold any fundamental or permanent amelio- 
 ration practicable : that there is Evil distinct from Error 
 and from Pain, an Evil in human nature which is not 
 wholly grounded in the limitation of our understandings. 
 And this too L believe to operate equally in subjects of 
 Taste, as in the higher concerns of Morality. Were it my 
 conviction, that our Follies, Vice, and Misery, have their 
 entire origin in miscalculation from Ignorance, I should 
 act irrationally in attempting other task than that of add- 
 ing new lights to the science of moral Arithmetic, or 
 hew facility to its acquirements. In other words, it 
 would have been my worthy business to have set forth, if 
 it were in my power, an improved system of Book- 
 keeping for the Ledgers of calculating Self-love. If, on 
 jhe contrary, I believed our nature fettered to all its' 
 wretchedness of Head and Heart by an absolute and 
 innate necessity, at least by a necessity which no human 
 power, no efforts of reason or eloquence could remove or 
 lessen ; (no, nor even prepare the way for such removal or 
 diminution) I should then yield myself at once to the 
 admonitions of one of my Correspondents (unless indeed 
 it should better suit my humour to do nothing than 
 nothings, nihil quam nihili) and deem it even presumptu- 
 ous to aim at otner or higher object than that of amusing, 
 during some ten minutes in every week, a small portion 
 of the reading Public. Relaxed by these principles from 
 all moral obligation, and ambitious of procuring Pastime 
 
THE ERIEKD. f 
 
 and Self-oblivion for a Race, which could have nothing 
 noble to remember, nothing desirable to anticipate, I 
 might aspire even to the praise of the Critics and Dilet- 
 tanti of the higher circles of Society ; of some trusty 
 Guide of blind Fashion ; some pleasant Analyst of Taste, 
 as it exists both in the Palate and the Soul ; some living 
 Guage and Mete-wand of past and present Genius, But 
 alas ! my former studies would still have left a wrong 
 Bias ! If instead of perplexing my common sense with the 
 Flights of Plato, and of stiffening over the meditations of 
 the Imperial Stoic, I had been labouring to imbibe the gay 
 spirit of a Casti, or had employed my erudition, for the 
 benefit of the favoured Few, in elucidating the interest- 
 ing Deformities of ancient Greece and India, what might 
 I not have hoped from the Suffrage of those, who turn in 
 weariness from the Paradise Lost, because compared with 
 the prurient Heroes and grotesque Monsters of Italian 
 Romance, or even with the narrative dialogues of the 
 melodious Metastasio, that — " Adventurous Song, 
 
 « Which justifies the ways of God to Man," 
 
 has been found a poor Substitute for a Grimaldi, a most 
 inapt medicine for an occasional propensity to yawn ? For^ 
 as hath been decided, to fill up pleasantly the brief inter- 
 vals of fashionable pleasures, and above all to charm away 
 the dusky Gnome of Ennui, is the chief and appropriate 
 Business of the Poet and — the Novellist ! This duty un- 
 fulfilled, Apollo will have lavished his best gifts in vain ; 
 and Urania henceforth must be content to inspire Astrono- 
 mers alone, and leave the Sons of Verse to more amusive 
 Patronesses. 
 
 I must rely on my Readers' Indulgence for the par- 
 don of this long and, I more than fear, prolix introductory 
 explanation. I knew not by what means to avoid it with- 
 out the hazard of becoming unintelligible in my succeed- 
 ing Papers, dull where animation might justly be demand- 
 ed, and worse than all, dull to no purpose. The Musician 
 may tune his instrument in private, ere his audience have 
 yet assembled : the Architect conceals the Foundation of 
 his Building beneath the Superstructure. But an Author's 
 Harp must be tuned in the hearing of those, who are to 
 understand it's after harmonies ; the foundation stones of 
 his Edifice must lie open to common view, or his friends 
 will hesitate to trust themselves beneath the roof. I forr 
 
8 THE FRIEND. 
 
 see too, that some of my correspondents will quote my 
 own opinions against me in confirmation of their former 
 advice, and remind me that I have only in sterner lan- 
 guage re-asserted the old adage, 
 
 IUe sinistrorsum, hie dextrorsum, units utrique 
 Error, sed variis illudit partibus bmnes; 
 
 that the Will or Free Agency, by which I have endea- 
 voured to secure a retreat, must needs be deemed ineffi- 
 cient if error be universal ! that to amuse, though only to 
 amuse, our Visitors, is both Wisdom and Goodness, where 
 it is presumption to attempt their amendment. And 
 finally they will ask, by what right I affect to stand aloof 
 from the crowd, even were it prudent ; and with what 
 prudence, did I even possess the right ? — " One of the 
 later Schools of the Grecians (says Lord Bacon) is at a 
 stand to think what should be in it that men should love 
 Lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets ; 
 nor for Advantage, as with the merchant; but for the 
 Lie's sake. I cannot tell why, this same Truth is a 
 naked and open day-light, that doth not shew the Mas- 
 ques and Mummeries and Triumphs of the present World 
 half so stately and daintily, as Candle-lights. Truth may 
 perhaps come to the Price of a Pearl, that shevveth best 
 by day ; but it will not rise to the price of a Diamond or 
 Carbuncle, which sheweth best in varied lights. A mix- 
 ture of Lies doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt t 
 that if there were taken from mens' minds vain opinions, 
 flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, 
 and the like vinum Dajmonum (as a Father calleth poetry) 
 but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor 
 shrunken things, full of melancholy and Indisposition, 
 and unpleasing to themselves ? " 
 
 This formidable Objection, (which however grounds 
 itself on the false assumption, that I wage war with all 
 amusement unconditionally, with all delight from the 
 blandishments of style, all interest from the excitement of 
 Sympathy or Curiosity, when in truth I protest only against 
 the habit of seeking in books for an idle and barren amuse- 
 ment,) this objection of my friends brings to my recollec- 
 tion a fable or allegory,- which I read during my Freshman's 
 Term in Cambridge, in a modern Latin Poet : and if I 
 mistake not, in one of the philosophical Poems of B. Stay, 
 which are honoured with the prose commentary of the 
 
THE FRIEND. ' 9 
 
 illustrious Boecoviclu After the lapse of so many years, 
 indeed of nearly half my present Life, I retain no more^of 
 it than the bare outlines. ~ 
 
 It was toward the close of that golden age (the tra- 
 dition of which the self-dissatisfied Race of Men have every 
 where preserved and cherished) when Conscience, or the 
 effective Reason, acted in Man with the ease and unifor- 
 mity of Instinct ; when Labor was a sweet name for the 
 activity of sane Minds in healthful Bodies, and all enjoyed 
 in common the bounteous harvest produced, and gathered 
 in, by common effort ; when there existed in the Sexes, 
 and in the Individuals of each Sex, just variety enough. to 
 permit and call forth the gentle restlesness and final union 
 of chaste love and individual attachment, each seeking and 
 finding the beloved one by the natural affinity of their 
 Beings ; when the dread Sovereign of the Uiuverse was 
 known only as the universal Parent, no Altar but the pure 
 Heart, and Thanksgiving and grateful Love the sole Sacri- 
 fice — in this blest age of dignified Innocence one of their 
 honored Elders, whose absence they were beginning to 
 notice, entered with hurrying steps the place of their com- 
 mon assemblage at noon, and instantly attracted the gene- 
 ral attention and wonder by the perturbation of his ges- 
 tures, and by a strange Trouble both in his Eyes and over 
 his whole Countenance. After a short but deep Silence, 
 when the first Buz of varied Inquiry was becoming audible, 
 the old man moved toward a small eminence, and having 
 ascended it, he thus addressed the hushed and listening 
 Company. 
 
 "■ In the warmth of the approaching Mid-day as I was 
 reposing in the vast cavern, out of which, from its' north- 
 ern Portal, issues the River that winds through our vale, 
 a Voice powerful, yet not from its' loudness, suddenly 
 hailed me. Guided by my Ear 1 looked toward the sup- 
 posed place of the sound for some Form, from which it 
 had proceeded. I beheld nothing but the glimmering 
 walls of the cavern. Again, as I was turning round, the 
 same voice hailed me ; and whithersoever 1 turned my 
 face, thence did the voice seem to proceed. I stood still 
 therefore, and in reverence awaited its' continuance. 
 * Sojourner of Earth ! (these were its words) hasten to the 
 meeting of thy Brethren, and the words which thou now 
 nearest, the same do thou repeat unto them. On the 
 thirtieth morn from the morrow's sunrising, and during 
 
10 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the space of thrice three Days and Nights, a thick cloud 
 will cover the sky, and a heavy rain fall on the earth. 
 Go ye therefore, ere the thirtieth sun ariseth, retreat to 
 the Cavern of the River and there abide, till the Clouds 
 have passed away and the Rain be over and gone. For 
 know ye of a certainty that whomever that Rain wetteth, 
 on him, yea, on him and on his Children's Children will 
 fall— the spirit of Madness/' Yes! Madness was the 
 word of the voice: what this be, I know not ! But at the 
 sound of the word Trembling came upon me, and a Feel- 
 ing which I would not have had ; and I remained even as 
 ye beheld and now behold me/ 
 
 The old man ended, and retired. Confused mur- 
 murs succeeded, and wonder, and doubt. Day followed 
 day, and every day brought with it a diminution of the 
 awe impressed. They could attach no image, no remem- 
 bered sensations to the Threat. The ominous Mora 
 arrived, the Prophet had retired to the appointed Cavern, 
 and there remained alone during the space of the nine 
 Days and Nights. On the tenth, he emerged from his 
 place of Shelter, and sought his Friends and Brethren. 
 But alas '. how affrightful the change ! Instead of the 
 common Children of one great Family, working toward 
 the same aim by Reason even as the Bees in their hives 
 by Instinct, he looked and beheld, here a miserable wretch 
 watching over a heap of hard and unnutritious small 
 substances, which he had dug out of the earth, at the 
 cost of mangled limbs and exhausted faculties, and appear- 
 ing to worship it with greater earnestness, than the Youths 
 bad been accustomed to gaze at their chosen Virgins in 
 the first season of their choice. There he saw a former 
 Companion speeding on and panting after a Butterfly, or 
 a withered Leaf whirling onward in the breeze ; and an- 
 other with pale and distorted countenance following close 
 behind, and still stretching forth a dagger to stab his Pre- 
 cursor in the Back. In another place he observed a whole 
 Troop of his fellow-men famished, and in fetters, yet led 
 by one of their Brethren who had enslaved them, and 
 pressing furiously onwards in the hope of famishing and 
 enslaving another Troop moving in an opposite direction. 
 For the first time, the Prophet missed his accustomed pow- 
 er of distinguishing between his Dreams, and his waking 
 Perceptions. He stood gazing and motionless, when seve* 
 ral of the Race gathered around him, and enquired of each 
 
THE FRIEND. 11 
 
 othfer, Who is this Mao ? how strangely he looks ! how 
 wild !— a worthless Idler! exclaims one : assuredly, a very 
 dangerous madman ! cries a second. In short, from words 
 they proceeded to violence : till harrassed, endangered, 
 solitary in a world of forms like his own, without sym- 
 pathy, without object of Love, he at length espied in 
 some foss or furrow a quantity of the mad'ning water still 
 unevaporated, and uttering the last words of Reason, " It 
 is in vain to be sane in a World of Madmen," plunged 
 and rolled himself in the liquid poison, and came out as 
 mad and not more wretched than his neighbours and 
 acquaintance. 
 
 This tale or allegory seems to me to contain the ob- 
 jections to the practicability of my plan in all their 
 strength. Either, says the Sceptic, you are the Blind 
 offering to lead the Blind, or you are talking the language 
 of Sight to those who do not possess the sense of Seeing. 
 To such objections it would be amply sufficient, on my 
 system of faith, to answer, that we are not all blind, but 
 all subject to distempers of " the mental sight," differing 
 in kind and in degree ; that though all men are in error, 
 they are not all in the same error, nor at the same time ; 
 and that each therefore may possibly heal the other (for 
 the possibility of the cure is supposed in the free-agency) 
 even as two or more physicians, all diseased in their gene- 
 ral health yet under the immediate action of the disease 
 on different days, may remove or alleviate the complaints 
 of each other. But in respect to the entertainingness of 
 moral writings, if in entertainment be included whatever 
 delights the imagination or affects the generous passions, 
 so far from rejecting such a mean of persuading the human 
 soul, or of declaring it with Mr. Locke a mere imposture, 
 my very system compels me to defend not only the pro- 
 priety but the absolute necessity of adopting it, if we 
 really intend to render our fellow-creatures better or 
 wiser. 
 
 Previous to my ascent of Etna, as likewise of the 
 Brocken in North Germany, I remember to have amused 
 myself with examining the Album or Manuscript present- 
 ed to Travellers at the first stage of the Mountain, in which 
 on their return the Fore-runners had sometimes left their 
 experience, and more often disclosed or betrayed their own 
 characters. Something like this I have endeavoured to do 
 relatively to my great predecessors in periodical Literature, 
 
 
12 THE FRIEND. 
 
 from the Spectator to the Mirror, or whatever later work of 
 merit there may be. But the distinction between my 
 proposed plan and all and each of theirs' I must defer to a 
 future Essay. From all other works the Fhien d is suffici- 
 ently distinguished either by the very form and intervals of 
 its Publication, or by its avowed exclusion of the Events of 
 the Day, and of all personal Politics. 
 
 For a detail of the principal subjects, which I have pro- 
 posed to myself to treat in the course of this work, I must 
 refer to the Prospectus, printed at the end of this Sheet. 
 But I own, I am anxious to explain myself more fully on 
 the delicate subjects of Religion and Politics. Of the 
 former perhaps it may, for the present, be enough to say 
 that I have confidence in myself that I shall neither direct- 
 ly or indirectly attack its Doctrines or Mysteries, much 
 less attempt basely to undermine them by allusion, or tale, 
 or anecdote. What more I might dare promise of myself, 
 I reserve for another occasion. Concerning Politics, 
 however, I have many motives to declare my intentions 
 more explicitly. It is my object to refer men to princi- 
 ples in all things; in Literature, in theFine Arts, inMorals, 
 in Legislation, in Religion. Whatever therefore of a politi- 
 cal nature maybe reduced to general Principles, necessarily 
 indeed dependant on the circumstances of a nation internal 
 and external, yet not especially connected with this year 
 or the preceding — l his I do not exclude from my Scheme. 
 Thinking it a sort of Duty to place my Readers in full pos- 
 session both of my opinions and the only method in which 
 I can permit myself to recommend them, and aware too 
 of many calumnious accusations, as well as gross misappre- 
 hensions, of my political creed, I shall dedicate my early 
 numbers entirely to the views, which a British Subject in 
 the present state of his Country ought to entertain of its 
 actual and existing ^Constitution of Government. If I can 
 do no positive good, I may perhaps aid in preventing others 
 from doing harm. But all intentional allusions to particular 
 persons, all support of, or hostility to, particular parties or 
 factions, I now and for ever utterly disclaim. My Prin- 
 ciples command this Abstinence, my Tranquillity requires 
 it. 
 
 Tranquillity ! thou better Name 
 
 Than all the family of Fame ! 
 
 Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age 
 
 To low Intrigue, or factious Rage : 
 
THE FRIEND. 13 
 
 For ! dear Child of thoughtful Truth, 
 
 To thee I gave my early you,th, 
 
 And left the bark, and blest the stedfast shore, 
 
 Ere yet the Tempest rose and scar'd me with its' Roar. 
 
 Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, 
 
 On Him but seldom, Power divine, 
 
 Thy Spirit rests ! Satiety 
 
 And Sloth, poor Counterfeits of Thee, v 
 
 Mock the tir'd Worldling. Idle Hope 
 
 And dire Remembrance interlope, 
 
 And vex the fev'rish Slumbers of the Mind : 
 
 The Bubble floats before, the Spectre stalks behind ! 
 
 But me thy gentle Hand will lead, 
 
 At morning, through th' accustom' d Mead ; 
 
 And in the sultry Summer's Heat 
 
 Will build me up a mossy Seat ; 
 
 And when the Gust of Autumn crowds, 
 
 And breaks the busy moonlight Clouds, 
 
 Thou best the Thought canst raise, the Heart attune, 
 
 Light as the busy Clouds, calm as the gliding Moon. 
 
 The feeling Heart, the searching Soul, 
 
 To Thee I dedicate the whole ! 
 
 And while within myself I trace 
 
 The Greatness of some future Race, 
 
 Aloof with Hermit Eye 1 scan 
 
 The present Works of present Man — 
 
 A wild and dream-like trade of Blood and Guile 
 
 Too foolish for a Tear, too wicked for a Smile ! 
 
 But I have transgressed from a Rule, which I had in- 
 tended to have established for myself, that of never troub- 
 ling my Readers with my own Verses. 
 
 He June, Cammnm ! vos quoque, ite suaves, 
 Dukes Camtmce! Nam (fatebimur verumj 
 Dukes fuistis : et tamen meas chartas 
 Revisitote ; sed pudentur et raro. 
 
 Virgil : Catalect. vn. 
 
 I shall indeed very rarely and cautiously avail myself 
 oftliis privilege. For long and early Habits of exerting 
 my intellect in metrical composition have not so enslaved 
 me, but that for some years I have felt and deeply felt, 
 
14 THE FRIEND. 
 
 that the Poet's high Functions were not my proper assign- 
 ment ; that many may be worthy to listen to the strains 
 of Apollo, neighbours of the sacred choir, and able to dis- 
 criminate, and feel, and love its genuine harmonies : yet 
 not therefore called to receive the Harp in their own 
 hands, and join in the concert. I am content and gratified, 
 that Spenser, Shakespere, Milton, have not been born in 
 vain for me : and I feel it as a Blessing, that even among 
 my Contemporaries I know one at least, who has been 
 deemed worthy of the Gift ; who has received the Harp 
 with reverence, and struck it with the hand of power. 
 
 Let me be permitted to conclude this prefatory 
 Apology, or Catalogue raisonne of my future work, by ad- 
 dressing myself more particularly to my learned and criti- 
 cal Readers. And that I may win the more on them, let 
 me avail myself of the words of one, who was himself at 
 once a great Critic and a great Genius : 
 
 Sic opertet ad librum, presertim miscellanei generis, 
 legendum accedere lectorem, ut solet ad convivium conviva 
 chilis. Convivator annititur omnibus satisfacere : et tamen 
 si quid apponitur, quod hujus aut illius palato non respondeat, 
 et hie et ille urbane dissimulant, et alia fercula probant, 
 ne quid contristent convivatorem. Quis enim eum convivam 
 ferat, qui tantum hoc animo veniat ad mensam, ut car pens 
 quae apponuntur nee vescatur ipse, nee alios vesci sinat ? et 
 tamen his quoque reperias inciviliores, qui palam, qui sine 
 Jine damnent ac lacerent opus, q?iod nunquam legerint. Ast 
 hoc plusquam sycophanticum est damnare quod nescias. 
 
 Erasmus.: 
 
 PROSPECTUS 
 
 OS 
 
 THE FRIEND, 
 A WEEKLY ESSAY, Br S. T. COLERIDGE. 
 
 (Extracted from a Letter to a Correspondent.) 
 
 " It is not unknown to you, that I have employed almost the 
 whole of my Life in acquiring, or endeavouring to acquire, useful 
 Knowledge by Study, Reflection, Observation, and by cultivating 
 the Society of my Superiors in Intellect, both at Home and in foreign 
 Countries. You know too, that at different Periods of my Life I 
 
THE FRIEND. 15 
 
 have not only planned, but collected the Materials for, many Works, 
 on various and important Subjects : so many indeed, that the Num- 
 ber of my unrealized Schemes, and the Mass of my miscellaneous 
 Fragments, have often furnished my Friends with a Subject of Rail- 
 lery, and sometimes of Regret and Reproof. Waiving the Mention 
 of all private and accidental Hindrances, I am inclined to believe, 
 that this Want of Perseverance has been produced in the Main by 
 an Over-activity of Thought, modified by a constitutional Indolence, 
 which made it more pleasant to me to continue acquiring, than to 
 reduce what I had acquired to a regular Form. Add too, that al- 
 most daily throwing off my Notices or Reflections in desultory Frag- 
 ments, I was still tempted onward by an increasing Sense of the Im- 
 perfection of my Knowledge, and by the Conviction, that, in Order 
 fully to comprehend and develope any one Subject, it was necessary 
 that I should make myself Master of some other, which again as re- 
 gularly involved a third, and so on,;with an ever-widening Horizon. 
 Yet one Habit, formed during long Absences from those, with whom 
 I could converse with full Sympathy, has been of Advantage to me 
 — that of daily noting down, in my Memorandum or Common-place 
 Books, both Incidents and Observations ; "whatever had occurred to 
 me from without, and all the Flux and Reflux of my Mind within 
 itself. The Number of these Notices, and their Tendency, miscella- 
 neous as they were, to one common End ("quid sumus et quidfuturi 
 gignimur," what we are and what we are born to become ; and thus 
 from the End of our Being to deduce its proper Objects) first encoura- 
 ged me to undertake the Weekly Essay, of which you will consider 
 this Letter as the Propectus. 
 
 Not only did the plan seem to accord better than any other with 
 the Nature of my own Mind, both in its Strength and in its Weak- 
 ness ; but conscious that, in upholding some Principles both of Taste 
 and Philosophy, adopted by the great Men of Europe from the Mid- 
 dle of the fifteenth till toward the Close of the seventeenth Century, 
 I must run Counter to many Prejudices of many of my readers (for 
 old Faith is often modern Heresy) I perceived too in a periodical 
 Essay the most likely Means of winning, intead of forcing my Way.. 
 Supposing Truth on my Side, the Shock of the first Day might be 
 so far lessened by Reflections of the succeeding Days, as to procure 
 for my next Week's Essay a less hostile Reception, than it would 
 have met with, had it been only the next Chapter of a present Vo- 
 lume. I hoped to disarm the Mind of those Feelings, which pre- 
 clude Conviction by Contempt, and, as it were, fling the Door in the 
 Face of Reasoning by a Presumption of its Absurdity. A Motive too 
 for honourable Ambition was supplied by the Fact, that every peri- 
 odical Paper of the Kind now attempted, which had been conducted . 
 with Zeal and Ability, was not only well received at the Time, but 
 has become permanently, and in the best Sensetof the Word, popular. 
 By honorable Ambition I mean the strong Desire to be useful, aided 
 by the Wish to be generally acknowledged to have been so. As I 
 feel myself actuated in no ordinary Degree by this Desire, so the 
 Hope of realizing it appears less and less presumptuous to me, since I 
 
16 THE FRIEND. 
 
 have received from Men of highest Rank and established Character 
 in the Republic of Letters, not only strong Encouragements as to my 
 own Fitness for the Undertaking, but likewise Promises of Support 
 from their own Stores. 
 
 ,' The Object of "The Friend," briefly and generally expressed, 
 is — to uphold those Truths and those Merits, which are founded in 
 the nobler and permanent Parts of our Nature, against the Caprices 
 of Fashion, and such Pleasures, as either depend on transitory and 
 accidental Causes, or are pursued from less worthy Impulses. The 
 thief Subjects of my own Essays will be : 
 
 The true and sole Ground of Morality, or Virtue, as distinguished from 
 Prudence. 
 
 The Origin and Growth of moral Impulses, as distinguished from external 
 and immediate Motives. 
 
 The necessary Dependence of Taste on moral Impulses and Habits : and 
 the Nature of Taste (relatively to Judgement in general and to Genius) 
 defined, illustrated, and applied. Under this Head I comprize the Sub- 
 stance of the Lectures given, and intended to have been given, at the 
 Royal Institution, on the distinguished English Peets, in illustration of 
 the general Principles of Poetry ; together with Suggestions concerning 
 the Affinity of the Fine Arts to each other, and the Principles common 
 to them all: Architecture^ Gardening; Dress; Music; Painting; 
 Poetry. 
 
 The opening out of new Objects of just Admiration in our own Language; 
 and Information of the present State and past History of Swedish, 
 Danish, German, and Italian Literature (to which, but as supplied by 
 a Friend, 1 may add the Spanish, Portuguese and French) as far as the 
 same has not been already given to English Readers, or is not to be 
 found in common French Authors. 
 
 Characters met with in real Life : — Anecdotes and Results of my own Life 
 and Travels, &c. &c. as far as they are illustrative of general moral 
 Laws, and have no immediate Bearing on personal or immediate 
 Politics. 
 
 Education in its widest Sense, private and national. 
 
 Sources of Consolation to the afflicted in Misfortune, or Disease, or De- 
 jection of Mind, from the Exertion and right Application of the Reason, 
 the Imagination, and the moral Sense ; and new Sources of Enjoyment 
 opened out, or an Attempt (as an illustrious Friend once expressed 
 the Thought to me) to add Sunshine to Daylight, by making the 
 Happy more happy. In the words " Dejection of Mind" 1 refer par- 
 ticularly to Doubt or Disbelief of the moral Government of the 
 World, and the grounds and arguments for the religious Hopes of 
 Human Nature. 
 
 Orders for the Friend received by the Publisher, J. Brown, 
 Penrith; by Messrs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Pater- 
 noster Row; by Clement, Bookseller, opposite St. Clement's, 
 Strand; London. 
 
 Orders likewise, and all Communications, to be addressed to 
 %. T. Coleridge, Grasmere, Kendal. 
 
 Penrith : printed and published by J. Brown. 
 
THE FRIEND. 
 
 ii 
 
 No. 2. THURSDAY, June 8, 1S09. 
 
 « Whenever we improve, it is right to leave room for a further 
 improvement. It is right to consider, to look about us, to examine 
 the effect of what we have done. Then we can proceed with confi- 
 dence, because we can proceed with intelligence. Whereas in hot 
 reformations, in what men more zealous than considerate, call making 
 clear work, the whole is generally so crude, so harsh, so indigested ; 
 mixed with so much imprudence and so much injustice ; so contrary 
 to the whole course of human nature and human institutions, that the 
 very people who are most eager for it, are among the first to grow 
 disgusted at what they have done. Then some part of the abdicated 
 grievance is recalled from its exile in order to become a corrective of 
 the correction. Then the abuse assumes- all the credit and popu- 
 larity of a Reform. The very Idea of purity and disinterestedness 
 in Politics falls into disrepute, and is considered as a vision of hot 
 and inexperienced men ; and thus disorders become incurable, not 
 by the virulence of their own quality, but by the unapt and violent 
 nature of the remedies. " Burke's Speech " on presenting to the 
 House of Commons (on the Wth of February, 17 SO. J a plan for the 
 
 BETTER SECURITY OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 TO MY READERS. 
 
 Conscious that I am about to deliver my sentiments on 
 a subject of the utmost delicacy, I have selected the gene- 
 ral motto to all my political lucubrations from an Author- 
 ity equally respected by both parties. I have taken it 
 from an Orator, whose eloquence enables Englishmen to 
 repeat the names Of Demosthenes and Cicero without hu- 
 miliation ; from a Statesman, who has left to our Lan- 
 guage a bequest of Glory unrivalled and all our own, in 
 the keen-eyed yet far-sighted genius, with which he has 
 made the profoundest general principles of political wis- 
 dom, and even the recondite laws of human passions- bear 
 upon particular measures and passing events. While of 
 the Harangues of Pitt, Fox, and their elder compeers on 
 the most important occurrences, we retain a few unsatis- 
 factory fragments alone, the very Flies at d Weeds of 
 Burke shine to us through the purest amber, lmperish- 
 ably enshrined, and valuable from the precious material 
 
18 ■ 1 THE FRIEND. 
 
 of their embalment. I have extracted the passage from 
 that Burke whose latter exertions have rendered his 
 works venerable as oracular voices from the sepulchre of a 
 Patriarch, to the Upholders of the Government and Society 
 in their existing state and order ; but from a Speech de- 
 livered by him while he was the most beloved, the proud- 
 est name with the more anxious Friends of Liberty ; 
 while he was the Darling of those, who believing mankind 
 to have been improved are desirous to give to forms of 
 government a similar progression. 
 
 From the same anxiety I have been led to introduce 
 my opinions on this most hazardous subject by a preface 
 of a somewhat personal character. And though the title 
 of my address is general, yet, I own, I direct myself more 
 particularly to those among my readers, who from various 
 ^, printed, and unprinted calumnies have judged most un- 
 
 favourably of my political tenets ; and to those, whose 
 favour I have chanced to win in consequence of a similar, 
 "<Lq though not equal, mistake. To both I affirm, that the 
 
 opinions and arguments, I am about to detail, have been 
 the settled convictions of my mind for the last ten or 
 twelve years, with some brief, intervals of fluctuation, and 
 those only in lesser points, and known only to the Com- 
 panions of my Fire-side. From both and from all my 
 readers I solicit a gracious attention to the following ex- 
 • planations : first, on the congruity of the following num- 
 bers with the general Plan and Object of " The Friend ;" 
 and secondly, on the charge of arrogance or presumption 
 which may be adduced against the Author for the freedom, 
 with which in these numbers and in others that will follow 
 on other subjects, he presumes to dissent from men of 
 established reputation, or even to doubt of the justice 
 with which the public Laurel-crown, as symbolical of the 
 Jirst Class of Genius and Intellect, has been awarded to 
 sundry writers since the Revolution, and permitted to 
 wither around the brows of our elder Benefactors, from 
 Hooker to Sir P. Sidney, and from Sir P. Sidney to 
 Jeremy Taylor and Stillingfleet. 
 
 First then, as to the consistency of the subject of the 
 following Essay with the proposed Plan of my work, let 
 something be allowed to honest personal motives, a justi- 
 fiable solicitude to stand well with my Contemporaries in 
 those points, in which 1 have remained unreproached by 
 my own conscience. Des aliquid famse. A Reason of 
 
THE FRIEND. 19 
 
 far greater importance is derived from the well-grounded 
 Complaint of sober minds, concerning the mode by which 
 political opinions of greatest hazard have been, of late 
 years, so often propagated. This evil cannot be described 
 in more just and lively language than in the words of 
 Paley (p. 395 of the quarto edition of his Moral and Poli- 
 tical Philosophy) which, though by him applied to Infidel- 
 ity, hold equally of the turbulent errors of political 
 Heresy. They are " served up in every shape, that is 
 likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination ; in a 
 fable, a tale, a novel, a poem : in interspersed and broken 
 hints; remote and oblique surmises ; in books of Travels, 
 of Philosophy, of Natural History ; in a word, in any form, 
 rather than the right one, that of a professed and regular 
 disquisition." Now in claiming for " The Friend" a 
 fair chance of unsuspected admission into the families of 
 Christian Believers and quiet Subjects, I cannot but deem 
 it incumbent on me to accompany my introduction with a 
 full and fair statement of my own political system : not that 
 any considerable portion of my Essays will be devoted 10 
 politics in any shape, for rarely shall I recur to them ex- 
 cept as far as they may happen to be involved in some 
 point of private morality ; but that the Encouragers of 
 this Work may possess grounds of assurance, that no 
 tenets of a different tendency from these, I am preparing 
 to state, will be met in it. I would fain hope, that even 
 those persons whose political opinions I may run counter 
 to, will not be displeased at seeing the possible objections 
 to their creed calmly set forth by one, who equally with 
 themselves considers the love of true Liberty, as a part 
 both of Religion and Morality, as a necessary condition of 
 their general predominance, and ministring to the same 
 blessed Purposes. The developement of my religious 
 persuasions relatively to Religion in its great Essentials, 
 will occupy a following number, in which (and through- 
 out these Essays) my aim will be, seldom indeed to enter 
 the Temple of Revelation (much less of positive Institu- 
 tion) but to lead my Readers to its' Thresiihold, and to 
 remove the prejudices with which the august edifice may 
 have been contemplated from ill-chosen and unfriendly 
 points of view. 
 
 But independently of this motive, I deem the subject 
 of Politics, so treated as 1 intend to treat it, strictly con- 
 gruous with my general Plan. For it was and is my prime 
 
20 THE FRIEND. 
 
 object to refer men in all their actions, opinions, and even 
 enjoyments to an appropriate Rule, and to aid them with 
 all the means I possess, by the knowledge of the facts on 
 which such Rule grounds itself. The rules of political 
 prudence do indeed depend on local and temporary cir- 
 cumstances in a much greater degree than those of Moral- 
 ity or even those of Taste. Still however the circum- 
 stances being known, the deductions obey the same law, 
 and must be referred to the same arbiter. In a late sum- 
 mary reperusal of our more celebrated periodical Essays, 
 by the contemporaries of Addison and those of Johnson, 
 it appeared to me that the objects of 'the Writers were, 
 either to lead the reader from gross enjoyments and bois- 
 terous amusements, by gradually familiarizing them with 
 more quiet and refined pleasures ; or to make the habits of 
 domestic life and public demeanour more consistent with 
 decorum and good sense, by laughing away the lesser 
 follies, and freaks of self-vexation ; or to arm the yet vir- 
 tuous mind with horror of the direr crimes and vices, by 
 exemplifying their origin, progress, and results, in affect- 
 ing Tales and true or fictitious biography: or where (as in 
 the Rambler) it is intended to strike a yet deeper note, to 
 support the cause of Religion and Morality by eloquent 
 declamation and dogmatic precept, such as may with pro- 
 priety be addressed to those, who require to be awakened 
 rather than convinced, whose conduct is incongruous with 
 their own sober convictions ; in short, to practical not 
 speculative Heretics. Revered for eVer be the names of 
 these great and good men ! Immortal be their Fame ; 
 and mayXove and Honour and Docility of Heart in their 
 readers, constitute its' essentials ! Not without cruel in-, 
 justice should I be accused or suspected of a wish to 
 underrate their merits, because in journeying toward the 
 same end I have chosen a different road. Not wantonly 
 however have I ventured even on this variation. I have 
 decided on it in consequence of all the Observations which 
 I have made on my fellow-creatures, since I have been 
 able to observe in calmness on the present age, and to 
 compare its' phaenomena with the best indications, we 
 possess, of the character of the ages before us. 
 
 My time since earliest manhood has been pretty 
 equally divided between deep retirement (with little other 
 society than that of one family, and my Library) and the 
 occupations and intercourse of (comparatively at least) 
 
THE FRIEND. 21 
 
 public life both abroad and in the British Metropolis. But 
 in fact the deepest retirement, in which a well-educated 
 Englishman of active feelings, and no. misanthrope, can 
 live at present, supposes few of the disadvantages and 
 negations, which a similar place of residence would have 
 involved, a century past. Independent of the essential 
 knowledge to be derived from books, children, house- 
 mates, and neighbours, however few or humble ; yet 
 Newspapers ; their Advertisements, their Reports of the 
 Speeches in Parliament, in Law-courts, and in Public 
 Meetings; Reviews, Magazines, Obituaries; and (as 
 affording occasional commentaries on all these (the fre- 
 quency of Travelling, and the variety of character and 
 object in the Travellers ; and more than all, the diffusion 
 of opinions, the uniformity of Behaviour and Appearance, 
 and the telegraphic Spread and beacon-like Rapidity of 
 Fashion in things external and internal; have combined 
 to diminish, and often to render evanescent, the distinc- 
 tions between the enlightened Inhabitants of the great 
 city, and the scattered hamlet. From all the fads how- 
 ever, that have occurred as subjects of reflection within 
 the sphere of my experience, be they few or numerous, I 
 have fully persuaded my own mind, that formerly Men 
 
 WERE WORSE THAN THEIR PRINCIPLES, but that at 
 
 present the Principles are worse than the Men. 
 For the former half of the proposition I might amono- a 
 thousand other more serious and unpleasant proofs appeal 
 even to the Spectators and Tatlers. It would not be easy 
 perhaps to detect in them any great corruption or debase- 
 ment, of the main foundations of Truth and Goodness , yet 
 a man— I will not say of delicate mind and pure morals 
 but— ot common good manners, who means to read an 
 essay, which he has opened upon at hazard in these 
 Volumes, to a mixed company, will find it necessary to 
 take a previous survey of its contents. If stronger illustra- 
 tion be required, I would refer to one of Shadwell's 
 Comedies in connection with its Dedication to the Dutch- 
 ess of Newcastle, encouraged, as he says, by the high 
 delight W1 th which her Grace had listened to the Author's 
 private recitation of the Manuscript in her Closet. A 
 writer of the present Day, who should dare address such a 
 composition to a virtuous Matron of high rank,* would 
 secure general infamy, and run no small risk of Bridewell 
 and the Pillory. Why need 1 add the plays and poems of 
 
§2 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Dryden contrasted with his serious prefaces and declarations 
 of his own religious and moral opinions ? why the little 
 success, except among the heroes and heroines of fashion- 
 able Life, of the two or three living Writers of prurient 
 Love-odes (if I may be forgiven for thus profaning the 
 word, Love) and Novels at once terrific and libidinous. 
 These Gentlemen erred both in place and time, and have 
 understood the temper of their age and country as ill as 
 the precepts of that Bible, which, notwithstanding the 
 atrocious Blasphemies of one of them, the great majority 
 of their countrymen peruse with safety to their morals, if 
 not improvement. 
 
 The truth of the latter half of the proposition in its' 
 favourable part, is evidenced by the general anxiety on the 
 subject of Education, the solicitous attention paid to seve- 
 ral late works on its' general principles, and the unex- 
 ampled Sale of the very numerous large and small volumes 
 published for the use of Parents and Instructors, and for 
 the children given or intrusted to their Charge. The first 
 ten or twelve leaves of our old Almanac Books, and the 
 copper-plates of old Ladies' Magazines and similar publi- 
 cations, will afford in the fashions and head-dresses of our 
 Grandmothers, contrasted with the present simple orna- 
 ments of women in general, a less important but not less 
 striking elucidation of my meaning. The wide diffusion 
 of moral information, in no slight degree owing to the vo- 
 lumes of our popular Essayists, has undoubtedly been on 
 the whole beneficent. But above all, the recent events, 
 (say rather, tremendous explosions) the thunder and earth- 
 quakes and deluge of the political world, have forced 
 habits of greater though tfulness on the minds of men : par- 
 ticularly in our own Island, where the instruction has been 
 acquired without the stupifying influences of terror or 
 actual calamity. We have been compelled to acknow- 
 ledge (what our Fathers would have perhaps called it want 
 of liberality to assert) the close connection between private 
 libertinism and national subversion. To those familiar 
 with the state of morals and the ordinary subjects of after- 
 dinner conversation, at least among the young men, in 
 Oxford and Cambridge only twenty or twenty five years 
 back, I might with pleasure point out, in support of my 
 thesis, the present state of our two Universities, which has 
 rather superseded, than been produced by, any additional 
 vigilence or austerity of discipline. 
 
THE FRIEND. 93 
 
 The unwelcome remainder of the proposition, the 
 " feet of iron and clay," the unsteadiness,, or falsehood or 
 abasement of the Principles, which are taught and received 
 by the existing generation, it is the chief purpose and gene- 
 ral business of " The Friend" to examine, to evince and, 
 (as far as my own forces extend, increased by the contin- 
 gents which, I flatter myself, will be occasionally furnished 
 by abler patrons of the same Cause,) to remedy or alleviate. 
 That my efforts will effect little, I am fully conscious ; but 
 by no means admit, that little is to be effected. The 
 squire of low degree may announce the approach of puis- 
 sant Knight ; yea, the Giant may even condescend to lift 
 up the feeble Dwarf and permit it to blow the Horn of 
 Defiance on his Shoulders. 
 
 Principles therefore, their subordination, their con- 
 nection, and their application, in all the divisions of our 
 duties and of our pleasures — this is my Chapter of Con- 
 tents. May I not hope for a candid interpretation of my 
 motive, if I again recur to the possible apprehension, on 
 the part of my readers, that The Friend 
 
 « O'erlaid with Black, staid Wisdom's Hue" 
 
 with eye fixed in abstruse research and brow of perpetual 
 Wrinkle is to frown away the light-hearted Graces, and 
 " unreproved Pleasures" ; or invite his Guests to a din- 
 ner of herbs in a Hermit's Cell \ if I affirm, that my Plan 
 does not in itself exclude either impassioned style or in- 
 teresting Narrative, Tale, or Allegory, or Anecdote ; and 
 that the defect will originate in my Abilities not in my 
 Wishes or Efforts, If I fail to bring forward, 
 
 " due at my hour prepar'd 
 For dinner savory fruits, of taste to please 
 
 True appetite . — — - 
 
 In order, so contriv'd as not to mix 
 Tastes, not well join'd inelegant ; but bring 
 Taste after Taste upheld with kindliest Change." 
 
 Par. Lost. v. 
 
 I have said in my first Number, that my very system 
 compels me to make every fair appeal to the feelings, the 
 Imagination, and even the Fancy. If these are to be with- 
 held from the service of Truth, Virtue, and Happiness, to 
 what purpose were they given ? in whose service are they 
 retained ? I have indeed considered the disproportion of 
 human Passions to their ordinary Objects among the 
 strongest internal evidences of our future destination, and 
 
 
94 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the attempt to restore them to their rightful Claimants, the 
 most imperious Duty and the noblest Task of Genius. 
 The verbal enunciation of this Master Truth could scarcely 
 be new to me at any period of my Life since earliest 
 Youth ; but I well remember the particular time, when the 
 words first became more than words to me, when they in- 
 corporated with a living conviction, and took their place a- 
 mong the realities of my Being. On some wide Common or 
 open Heath, peopled with Ant-hills, during some one of 
 the grey cloudy days of late Autumn, many of my Read- 
 ers may have noticed the effect of a sudden and momen- 
 tary flash of Sunshine on all the countless little animals 
 within his view, aware too that the self-same influence was 
 darted co-instantaneously over all their swarming cities as 
 far as his eye could reach; may have observed, with what 
 a kindly force the Uleam stirs and quickens them all! and 
 will have experienced no unpleasurable shock of Feeling 
 in seeing myriads of myriads of living and sentient Beings 
 united at the same moment in one gay sensation, one 
 joyous activity ! But aweful indeed is the same appear- 
 ance in a multitude of rational Beings, our fellow-men, 
 in whom too the effect is produced not so much by the 
 external occasion as from the active quality of their own 
 thoughts. I had walked from Gottingen in the year 1799, 
 to witness the arrival of the Queen of Prussia, on her visit 
 to the Baron Von Hartzberg's Seat, five miles from the 
 University. The spacious Outer Court of the Palace was 
 crowded with men and women, a sea of Heads, with a num- 
 ber of children rising out of it from their Father's shoulders. 
 After a Buz of two hours' expectation, the avant-courier 
 rode at full speed into the Court. At the loud cracks of 
 his long whip and the trampling of his horses' hoofs, the 
 universal Shock and Thrill of Emotion — I have not lan- 
 guage to convey it — expressed as it was in such manifold 
 looks, gestures, and attitudes, yet with one and the same 
 feeling in the eyes of all ! Recovering from the first inevi- 
 table contagion of Sympathy, I involuntarily exclaimed, 
 though in a language to myself alone intelligible, " O 
 Man ! ever nobler than thy circumstances ! Spread but the 
 mist of obscure feeling over any form, and even a woman 
 incapable of blessing or of injury to thee, shall be welcomed 
 with an intensity of emotion adequate to the reception of 
 the Redeemer of the World !" 
 
 It has ever been my opinion, that an excessive solicitude 
 to avoid the use of our first personal pronoun more often 
 
THE FRIEND. 25 
 
 lias its' source in conscious selfishness than in true self- 
 oblivion. A quiet observer of human Follies may often 
 amuse or sadden his thoughts by detecting the perpetual 
 feeling of purest Egotism through a long masquerade of 
 Tu-isms and Ille-isms. Yet 1 can with strictest truth as- 
 sure my Readers that with a pleasure combined with a 
 sense of weariness 1 see the nigh approach of that point 
 of my labours, in which I can convey my opinions and the 
 workings of my heart without reminding the Reader ob- 
 trusively of myself. But the frequency, with which I 
 have spoken in my own person, recals my apprehensions 
 to the second danger, which it was my hope to guard a- 
 gainst ; the probable charge of Arrogance, or presump- 
 tion both for daring to dissent from the opinions of great 
 Authorities and, in my following numbers perhaps, from 
 the general opinion concerning the true value of certain 
 Authorities deemed great. The word, Presumption, I ) CL* 
 appropriate to the internal feeling, and Arrogance to the / 
 way and manner of outward by expressing ourselves. 
 
 As no man can rightfully be condemned without refer- 
 ence to some definite Law, by the knowledge of which he 
 might have avoided the given fault, it is necessary so to 
 define the constituent qualities and conditions of arro- 
 gance, that a reason may be assignable why we pronounce 
 one man guilty and acquit another. For merely to call 
 a person arrogant or most arrogant, can convict no one of 
 the vice except perhaps the accuser. I was once present, 
 when a young man who had left his Books and a Glass of 
 Water to join a convivial party, each of whom had nearly 
 finished his second bottle, was pronounced very drunk 
 by the whole party — " he looked so strange and pale !" 
 the predominant Vice often betrays itself to an Observer, 
 when it has deluded the Criminal's own consciousness, by 
 his proneness on all occasions to suspect or accuse others 
 of it. Now Arrogance, and Presumption, like all other 
 moral qualities, must be shewn by some act or conduct : 
 and this too an act that implies, if not an immediate con- 
 currence of the Will, yet some faulty constitution of the 
 Moral Habits. For all criminality supposes its' essentials 
 to have been within the power of the Agent. Either 
 therefore the facts adduced do of themselves convey the 
 whole proof of the charge, and the question rests on the 
 truth or accuracy with which they have been stated ; or 
 they acquire their character from the circumstances. I 
 have looked into a ponderous Review of the corpuscular 
 
26 THE VRIEND. 
 
 philosophy by a Sicilian Jesuit, in which the acrimonious 
 Father frequently expresses his doubt, whether he should 
 pronounce Boyle and Newton more impious than presump- 
 tuous, or more presumptuous than impious. They had both 
 attacked the reigning opinions on most important subjects, 
 opinions sanctioned by the greatest names of antiquity, 
 and by the general suffrage of their learned Contemporaries 
 or immediate Predecessors. Locke was assailed with a full 
 cry for his presumption in having deserted the philosophical 
 system at that time generally. received by the Universities 
 of Europe : and of late years Dr. Priestly bestowed the 
 epithets of arrogant and insolent on Reid, Beattie, &c. for 
 presuming to arraign certain opinions of Mr. Locke, him- 
 self repaid in kind by many of his own Countrymen for 
 his theological Novelties, it will scarcely be affirmed, 
 that these accusations were all of them just, or that any of 
 them were fit or courteous. Must we therefore say, that 
 in order to avow doubt or disbelief of a popular persuasion 
 without arrogance, it is required that the dissentient should 
 know himself to possess the genius, and foreknow that he 
 should acquire the reputation of Locke, Newton, Boyle, 
 or even of a Reid or a Beattie ? But as this knowledge 
 and prescience are impossible in the strict sense of the 
 words, and could mean no more than a strong inward con- 
 viction, it is manifest that such a Rule, if it were universally 
 established, would encourage the presumptuous, and con- 
 demn modest and humble minds alone to silence. And as 
 this silence could not acquit the Individual's own mind 
 of presumption unless it were accompanied by conscious 
 acquiescence. Modesty itself must become an inert qua- 
 lity, which even in private society never displays its 
 charms more unequivocally than in its' mode of reconciling 
 itself with sincerity and intellectual courage. 
 
 We must seek then elsewhere for the true marks, by 
 which presumption or arrogance may be detected, and on 
 which the charge may be grounded with little hazard of 
 mistake or injustice. And as I confine my present obser- 
 vations to literature, I deem such criteria neither difficult 
 to determine or to apply. The first mark, as it appears to 
 me, is a frequent bare assertion of opinions not generally 
 received, without condescending to prefix or annex the 
 facts and reasons on which such opinions were formed ; es- 
 pecially if this absence of logical courtesy is supplied by 
 contemptuous or abusive treatment of such as happen to 
 doubt of or oppose the decisive ipse dixi. But to assert, 
 
THE FRIEND. 27 
 
 wwever nakedly, that a passage in a lewd Novel descri fa- 
 ng the sacred Writings as more likely to pollute the 
 /oting and innocent mind than a Romance notorious for 
 ts indecency — to assert, I say, that such a passage argues 
 ?qual impudence and ignorance in its' Author, at the time 
 )f writing and publishing it — this is not arrogance ; al- 
 :hough to a vast majority of the decent part of our Coun- 
 trymen it would be superfluous as a Truism, if it were ex- 
 clusively an Author's business to convey or revive know- 
 ledge, and not sometime his duty to awaken the indigna-- 
 tion of his Reader by the expression of his own. 
 
 A second species of this unamiable quality, which has 
 been often distinguished by the name of Warburtonian 
 arrogance, betrays itself, not as in the former, by proud or 
 petulant omission of proof or argument, but by the habit 
 af ascribing weakness of intellect or want of taste and 
 sensibility, or hardness of heart, or corruption of moral 
 principle, to all who deny the truth of the doctrine, or 
 the sufficiency of evidence, or the fairness of the reason- 
 ing adduced in its' support. This is indeed not essentially 
 different from the first, but assumes a separate character 
 from its' accompaniments : for though both the doctrine 
 and its proofs may have been legitimately supplied by the 
 understanding, yet the bitterness of personal crimination 
 will resolve itself into naked assertion, and we are autho* 
 rized by experience, and entitled on the principle of self- 
 defence and by the law of fair Retaliation in attributing it 
 to a vicious temper arrogant from angry passions, or irritable 
 from arrogance. This learned arrogance admits of many 
 gradations, and is palliated or aggravated, accordingly as 
 the point in dispute has been more or less controverted, as 
 the reasoning bears a greater or smaller proportion to the 
 virulence of the personal detraction, and as the Person or 
 or Parties, who are the Objects of it, are more or less re- 
 spected, more or less worthy of respect*. 
 
 Lastly, it must be admitted as a just imputation of 
 presumption when an Individual obtrudes on the public 
 eye with all the high pretensions of originality, opinions 
 and observations, in regard to which he must plead wilful 
 
 _ • Had the Author of the Divine Legation of Moses more skilfully appro- 
 priated his coarse eloquence of Abuse, his customary assurances of the Ideotcy. 
 both in head and heart, of all his opponents ; if he had employed those vigorous 
 arguments of his own vehement Humour in the defence of Truth, acknow- 
 ledged and reverenced by learned men in general, or had confined them to the 
 names of Chubb, Woolston, and other precursors of Mr. Thomas Payne, we 
 would perhaps still characterize his mode of controversy by its' rude violence ; 
 
23 1HE FRIEND. 
 
 Ignorance in order to be acquited of dishonest Plagiarism. 
 On the same seat must the writer be placed, who in a 
 disquisition on any important subject proves, by his false- 
 hoods of Omission or positive Error, that he has neglected 
 to possess himself of the previous knowledge and needful 
 information, which such acquirements as could alone au- 
 thorize him to commence a public Instructor, and tlje 
 Industry which that character makes his iodispensible duty, 
 could not fail of procuring for him. If in addition to this 
 unfitness which every man possesses the means of ascer- 
 taining, his aim should be to unsettle a general belief 
 closely connected with public and private quiet ; and if his 
 language and manner be avowedly calculated for the illite- 
 rate (and perhaps licentious) part of his Countrymen ; dis- 
 gusting as his presumption must appear, it is yet lost or 
 evanescent in the close neighbourhood of his Guilt. That 
 Hobbes translated Homer in English Verse and published 
 his Translation, furnishes no positive evidence of his Self- 
 conceit, though it implies a great lack of Self-knowledge 
 and of acquaintance with the nature of Poetry. A strong 
 wish often imposes itself on the mind for an actual power: 
 the mistake is favoured by the innocent pleasure derived 
 from the exercise of versification, perhaps by the approba- 
 tion of Intimates ; and the Candidate asks from more im- 
 partial Readers that sentence, which Nature has not 
 enabled him to anticipate. But when the Philosopher of 
 Malmesbary waged war with Wallis and the fundamental 
 Truths of pure Geometry, every instance of his gross 
 ignorance and utter misconception of the very elements 
 of the Science he proposed to confute, furnished an un- 
 answerable fact in proof of his high presumption ; and the 
 confident and insulting language of the attack leaves the 
 
 but not so often have heard his name used even by those who have never read 
 his writings, as a proverbial expression of learned Arrogance. But when a 
 novel and doubtful Hypothesis of his own formation was. the Citadel to be 
 defended, and his mephetic hand-granados were thrown with the fury of law- 
 less despotism at the fair reputation of a Sykes and a Lardner, we not only 
 confirm the verdict of his independent contemporaries, but cease to wonder, 
 that arrogance should render men an object of contempt in many, and of 
 aversion in all instances, when it was capable of hurrying a Christian Teacher 
 of equal Talents and Learning into a slanderous vulgarity, which escapes our 
 disgust only when we see the writer's own reputation the sole victim. But 
 throughout his great work, and the pamphlets in which he supported it, he 
 always seems to write, as if he had deemed it a duty of decorum to publish his 
 fancies ■ on the Mosaic Law as the Law itself was delivered " in thunders and 
 lightnings" and had applied to his own Book instead of the sacred mount the 
 menace— There shall not a hand touch it but he shall surely be stoned or shot 
 throush . 
 
THE FRIEND. . 29 
 
 judicious reader in as little doubt of his gross arrogance- 
 An illiterate mechanic who mistaking some disturbance of 
 his nerves for a miraculous call, proceeds alone to convert 
 a tribe of Savages, whose language he can have no natural 
 means of acquiring, may have been misled by impulses 
 very different from those of high Self-opinion ; but the 
 illiterate Perpetrator of " the Age of Reason," must have 
 had his very Conscience stupified by the habitual intoxi- 
 cation of presumptuous arrogance, and his common-sense 
 over-clouded by the vapours from his Heart. 
 
 As long therefore as I obtrude no unsupported asser- 
 tions on my Readers ; and as long as I state my opinions 
 and the evidence which induced or compelled me to adopt 
 them, with calmness and that diffidence in myself, which 
 is by no means in compatible with a firm belief in thejust- 
 ness of the opinions themselves ; while I attack no man's 
 private life from any cause, and detract from no man's 
 honors in his public character, from the truth of his doc- 
 trines, or the merits of his compositions, without detailing 
 all my reasons and resting the result solely on the argu- 
 ments adduced; while I moreover explain fully the mo- 
 tives of duty, which influenced me in resolving to institute 
 such investigation ; while I confine all asperity of censure, 
 and all expressions of contempt, to gross violations of 
 Truth, Honor, and Decency, to the base Corrupter and 
 the detected Slanderer ; while I write on no subject, 
 which I have not studied with my best attention, on no 
 subject which my education and acquirements have in- 
 capacitated me from properly understanding ; and above 
 all while I approve myself, alike in praise and in blame, 
 in close reasoning and in impassioned declamation, a 
 steady Friend to the two best and surest Friends of all 
 men, Truth and Honesty ; I will not fear an accusa- 
 tion of either Presumption or Arrogance from the Good 
 and the Wise, I shall pity it from the Weak, and despise 
 it from the Wicked. 
 
 Note to line 16, page 18. 
 
 To cite one instance among many : while I was in Germany 
 for the purpose of finishing my education, whither I was enabled to 
 go by the munificence of my two honoured Patrons, whose names 
 must not be profaned on such an occasion ; and from which I return- 
 ed before the proposed time, literally (I know not whether a Hus- 
 band and Father ought to be ashamed of it) literally home-sick ; one 
 of the writers, concerned in the collection, inserted a note in the 
 
30 THE FRIEND. 
 
 " Beauties of the Anti-jacobin," which after having informed the 
 Public that I had been dishonoured at Cambridge for preachin 
 Deism (about the time, when I was deemed a perfect Bigot by the 
 reigning Philosophers and their proselytes for my youthful ardor in 
 defence of Christianity) concludes with these words : " Since this 
 time he (i. e. S. T. Coleridge) has left his native Country, com- 
 menced Citizen of the World, left his poor Children fatherless and 
 his Wife destitute. Ex his disce his friends — " but I dare not dese- 
 crate their names. Suffice'it to say, what may be said with severest 
 truth, that it is absolutely impossible to select from the whole empire 
 two men more exemplary in their domestic characters (both remark- 
 ably, and the one most awefully so) than the men, whose names 
 were here printed at full length. Can it be wondered at, that some 
 good men were not especially friendly to a Party, which encouraged 
 and openly rewarded the Authors of such atrocious calumnies ! 
 (" Oualis es, nescio ; sed per quales agis, scio et doleo.") Since this 
 time, the envenomed weapon has been turned against themselves by 
 one of their own agents. And it behoves those to consider, who 
 bring forward the Gougers of slander to attack their real or imagin- 
 ed Enemies, that Savages are capricious in proportion as they are 
 unprincipled : and when they have none else to attack, will turn 
 round and assail their Employers. For Attack is their vital Element ; 
 extract the venomous Sting, and the animal dies. 
 
 Again, will any man, who loves his Children and his Country, 
 be slow to pardon me, if not in the spirit of vanity but of natural 
 self-defence against yearly and monthly attacks on the very vitals of 
 my character as an honest man and a loyal Subject, I prove the utter 
 falsity of the charges by the only public means in my power, a cita- 
 tion from the last work published by me, in the close of the year 
 1798, and anterior to all the calumnies published to my dishonour. 
 No one lias charged me with seditious acts or conversationTlFIhave 
 f"k\. c**~ attempted to do harm, by my works must it have been effected. By 
 my works therefore must I be judged : if indeed one obscure volume 
 
 iof juvenile poems, and one slight verse pamphlet of twenty pages, 
 can without irony, be entitled works.) The poem was written during 
 the first alarm of Invasion, and left in the Press on my leaving my 
 country for Germany. So few copies were printed, and of these so 
 , iL few sold, that to the great majority of my readers they will be any 
 
 thing rather than a citation from a known publication but my 
 
 heart bears me witness, that I am aiming wholly at the moral confi- 
 dence of my Readers in my principles, as a man, not at their praises 
 of me, as a Poet ; to which character, in its' higher sense, I have 
 already resigned all pretensions. 
 
 -" Spare us yet awhile ! 
 
 ("u'f 
 
 Father and God, O spare us yet awhile. 
 O Jet not English Women speed their flight 
 Fainting beneath the burthen of their Babes, 
 Of the sweet Infants, who but yesterday 
 Smiled at the bosom ! Husbands, Brothers, all 
 
THE FRIEND. 31 
 
 Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms 
 Which grew up with you round the same fire-side, 
 And all who ever heard the Sahbath Bells 
 Without the Infidels' scorn ; make your selves, strong, 
 Stand forth, be men, repel an impious race, 
 Impious and false, a light yet cruel race 
 That laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth 
 With deeds of murder ! and still promising 
 Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free, 
 Poison Life's amities and cheat the heart 
 Of Faith and quiet Hope and all that soothes 
 And all that lifts the spirit ! Stand ye forth, 
 Render them back upon th' insulted ocean 
 And let them float as idly on its waves 
 As the vile sea-weed, which the mountain blast 
 Sweeps from our Shores ! And O ! may we return 
 Not in a drunken triumph, but with awe, 
 Repentant of the wrongs, with which we stung 
 So fierce a race to Frenzy. 
 
 I have told, 
 O men of England ! Brothers! I have told ■...-'? 
 
 Most bitter Truths but without bitterness. J a 
 
 Nor deem my zeal or factitious or mistimed : /j i ^'\ 
 
 For never can true Courage dwell with them 
 Who playing tricks with Conscience dare not look 
 At their own vices. We have been too long 
 Dupes of a deep delusion. Some, belike, 
 Restless in enmity, have thought all change 
 Involv'd in change of constituted power, 
 As if a Government were but a Robe 
 On which our Vice and Wretchedness were sewn 
 Like fancy-points and fringes, with the Robe 
 
 Pull'd off at pleasure 
 
 others, meantime, 
 
 Dote with a mad Idolatry ! and all 
 
 Who will not fall before their Images 
 
 And yield them worship, they are enemies 
 
 Even of their Country ! Suck have I been deem'd. 
 
 But O ! dear Britain ! O my Mother Isle ! 
 
 Needs must thou be a name most dear and holy 
 
 To me a Son, a Brother, and a Friend, 
 
 A Husband, and a Parent, who revere 
 
 All Bonds of natural Love, and find them all 
 
 Within the circle of thy rocks shores ! 
 
 O native Britain ! O my Mother Isle ! 
 
 How should'st thou be aught else but dear and holy 
 
 To me, who from thy seas and rocky shores, 
 
 Thy quiet fields, thy streams and wooded Hills 
 
 Have drunk in all my intellectual life, 
 
32 THE PRIES' D. 
 
 All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, 
 
 All adoration of the God in nature, 
 
 All lovely and all honorable things, 
 
 Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel 
 
 The joy and greatness of its' future Being ! J 
 
 There lives nor Form nor Feeling in my Soul * ° y v 
 
 Unborrowed from my Country. O divine / . 
 
 And beauteous Island ! thou hast been my sole .-' * y 
 
 And most magnificent Temple, in the which . •/'- \ . 
 
 I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs vlx 1 
 
 Loving the God, who made me. 
 
 Fears of Solitude, a Poem. 
 
 Most unaffected has "been my wonder, from what causes a man 
 who has published nothing with his name but a single forgotten vo- 
 lume of verses, thirteen years ago, and a poem of two hundred lines 
 a few years after, of which (to use the words of a witty writer) I made 
 the Public my Confidant and it kept the secret, should have excited 
 such long and implacable malignity. And anonymously I have only 
 contributed the foil of three or four small poems to the volume of a 
 superior mind, and sent a few Essays to a Newspaper in defence of all 
 that is dear, or abhorrence of what must be most detestable, to good 
 men and genuine Englishmen. With the exception of one solitary 
 sonnet, which in what mood written, and by what accident published, 
 personal delicacy forbids me to explain, which was rejected indig- 
 nantly from the second Edition of my Poems, and re-inserted in the 
 third in my absence and without my consent or knowledge, I may 
 safely defy my worst enemy to shew, in any of my few writings, the 
 least bias to Irreligion, Immorality, or Jacobinism : unless in the 
 latter word, be implied sentiments which have been avowed by men 
 who without recantation, direct or indirect, have been honored with 
 the highest responsible offices of Government. 
 
 This is the first time that I have attempted to counteract the 
 wanton calumnies of unknown and unprovoked persecutors. Living 
 in deep retirement, I have only become acquainted with the greater 
 part years after they had been published and individually forgotten. 
 But the general effect remained : and if my Readers knew the cruel 
 hindrances, which they have opposed to me, in the bringing about 
 the present undertaking, I have honorably erred in my notions of 
 human nature, if I should not be more than forgiven : especially if 
 the number of attacks on myself and on one still more and more 
 deservedly dear to me, should be more than equal to the number of 
 the lines, in which I have, for the first time, been tempted to defend 
 myself. \ 
 
 . , | 
 
 fEMRITH: POINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BV 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW; AND 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
-2 #*-~ 
 
 
 THIS FRIEND. 
 
 No. 3, THURSDAY, August 10, 1809. 
 
 ON THE COMMUNICATION OF TRUTH AND THE RIGHT- 
 FUL LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN CONNECTION 
 WITH IT. 
 
 In eodem pec tore nullum' est honestorum turpiumque consortium: 
 et cogitare optima simul et deterrima non magis est unius animi quam 
 ejusdem hominis bonum esse ac malum. Ouintilian. 
 
 There is no fellowship of Honor and Baseness in the same 
 breast ; and to combine the best and the worst designs is no more 
 possible in one mind, than it is for the same man to be at the same 
 instant virtuous and vicious. 
 
 Cognitio veritatis omnia falsa, si modo proferantur, etiam qucZ 
 prius inaudita erant, et dijudicare et subvertere idonea est. 
 
 AUGUSTINUS. 
 
 A knowledge of the truth is equal to the task both of discern- 
 ing and of confuting all false assertions and erroneous arguments, 
 though never before met with, if only they may freely be brought 
 forward. 
 
 Among the numerous artifices, by which austere truths 
 are to be softened down into palatable falsehoods, and 
 Virtue and Vice, like the Atoms of Epicurus, to receive 
 that insensible clinamen which is to make them meet each 
 other half way, I have an especial dislike to the expres- 
 sion, Pious Frauds. Piety indeed shrinks trom the very 
 phrase, as an attempt to mix poison with the cup of 
 Blessing : while the expediency of the measures which 
 this phrase was framed to recommend or palliate, appears 
 more and more suspicious, as the range of our experience 
 widens, and our acquaintance with the records of History 
 becomes more extensive and accurate. One of the most 
 seductive arguments of Infidelity grounds itself on the 
 numerous passages in the works of the Christian Fathers, 
 asserting the lawfulness of Deceit for a good purpose. 
 That the Fathers held almost without exception, " That 
 wholly without breach of duty it is allowed to the Teach- 
 ers and Pleads of the Christian Church to employ arti- 
 
34 THE FRIEND. 
 
 fices, to intermix falsehoods with truths, and especially to 
 deceive the enemies of the faith, provided only they 
 hereby serve the interests of Truth and the advantage of 
 mankind,*" is the unwilling confession of Ribof : (Pro- 
 gram de Oeconomia Patrum). St. Jerom, as is shewn bv 
 the citations of this learned Theologian, boldly attributes 
 this management ( falsitatem dispensutivam ) even to the 
 Apostles themselves. But why speak I of the advantage 
 given to the opponents of Christianity ? Alas ! to this 
 Doctrine chiefly, and to the practices derived from it, we 
 must attribute the utter corruption of the Religion itself 
 for so many ages, and even now over so large a portion 
 of the civilized world. By a system of accommodating 
 Truth to Falsehood, the Pastors of the Church gradually 
 changed the life and light of the Gospel into the very- 
 superstitions which they were commissioned to disperse, 
 and thus paganized Christianity in order to christen Pagan- 
 ism. At this very hour Europe groans and bleeds in con- 
 sequence. 
 
 So much in proof and exemplification of the probable 
 expediency of pious deception, as suggested by its known 
 aud recorded consequences. An honest man, however, 
 possesses a clearer light than that of History. He knows, 
 that by sacrificing the law of his reason to the maxims of 
 pretended Prudence, he purchases the sword with the 
 loss of the arm which is to wield it. The duties which 
 we owe to our own moral being, are the ground and con- 
 dition of all other duties; and to set our nature at strife 
 with itself for a good purpose, implies the same sort of 
 prudence, as a priest of Diana would have manifested, 
 who should have proposed to dig up the celebrated char- 
 coal foundations of the mighty Temple of Ephesus, in 
 order to furnish fuel for the burnt-offerings on its' Altars. 
 Truth, Virtue, and Happiness, may be distinguished 
 
 * Integrum omnino Doctoril/us et cwtus Christiani Antistitibus esse, ut dolos 
 Tersent, falsa veris intermisceant et imprimis religionis hostes fallant, dummodo 
 'ceritutis commodis et utilitati iitserviant. — I trust, 1 need not add, that the impu- 
 tation of such principles of action to the first inspired Propagators of Chris- 
 tianity, is founded on the gross misconstruction of those passages in the 
 writings of St. Paul, in which the necessity of employing different arguments 
 to men of different capacities and prejudices, is supposed and acceded to. 
 In other words, St. Paul strove to speak intelligibly, willingly sacrificed indif- 
 ferent things to matters of importance, and acted courteously as a man, in 
 order to win attention as an Apostle. A Traveller prefers for daily use the 
 coin of the nation through which he is passing, to bullion or the mintage 
 of his own country : and is this to justify a succeeding Traveller in the use of 
 counterfeit coin ? 
 
THE FRIEND. 35 
 
 from each other, but cannot be divided. They subsist by 
 a mutual co-inherence, which gives a shadow of divinity 
 even to our human nature. " Will ye speak deceitfully 
 for God?" is a searching Question, which most affect- 
 ingly represents the grief and impatience of an uncorrupt- 
 ed mind at perceiving a good cause defended by ill means : 
 and assuredly if any temptation can provoke a well- 
 regulated temper to intolerance, it is the shameless asser- 
 tion, that Truth and Falsehood are indifferent in their 
 own natures ; that the former is as often injurious (and 
 therefore criminal) as the latter, and the latter on many 
 occasions as beneficial (and consequently meritorious) as 
 the former. 
 
 These reflections were forced upon me by an accident 
 during a short visit at a neighbouring house, as 1 was 
 endeavouring to form some determinate principles of con- 
 duct in relation to my weekly labors — some rule which 
 might guide my judgment in the choice of my subjects 
 and in my manner of treating them, and secure me from 
 the disturbing forces of any ungentle moods of my own 
 temper (and from such who dare promise himself a per- 
 petual exemption !) as well as from the undue influence 
 of passing events I had fixed my eye, by chance, on 
 the page of a bulky pamphlet that lay open on the break- 
 fast table, mechanically, as it were, imitating and at the 
 same time preserving, the mind's attention to it's own 
 energies by a corresponding though idle stedfastness of 
 the outward organ. In an interval or relaxation of the 
 thought, as the mist gradually formed itself into letters 
 and words, one of the sentences made its' way to me, 
 and excited my curiosity by the boldness and strangeness 
 of its' contents. I immediately recognized the work it- 
 self, which I had often heard discussed for evil and for 
 good. I was therefore familiar with it's general character 
 and extensive circulation, although partly from the seclu- 
 sion in which 1 live, and my inability to purchase the 
 luxuries of transitory literature on my own account, and 
 partly too from the experience, that of all books I had 
 derived the least improvement from those that were con- 
 fined to the names and passions of my conlemporaries : 
 this was either the third or the fourth number which had 
 come within my perusal. In this however I read, not 
 only a distinct avowal of the doctrine stated in my last 
 paragraph, and which I had been accustomed to consider 
 
$6 THE FRIEND. 
 
 as an obsolete article in the creed of fanatical Antinomian- 
 isra, but this avowal conveyed in the language of menace 
 and intolerant contempt. I now look forward to the 
 perusal of the whole series of the work, as made a point 
 of duty to me by my knowledge of its' unusual influence 
 on the public opinion ; and in the mean time I feel it 
 incumbent on me, as a joint measure of prudence and of 
 honesty relatively to my own undertaking, to place im- 
 mediately before my Readers, in the fullest- and clearest 
 light, the whole question of moral obligation respecting 
 the communication of Truth, its' extent and conditions. 
 I would fain obviate all apprehensions either of my incau- 
 tion on thejone hand, or of any insincere reserve on the other, 
 by proving that the more strictly we adhere to the Letter 
 of the moral law in this respect, the more compleatly shall 
 we reconcile the law with prudence ; thus securing a 
 purity in the principle without mischief from the practice. 
 I would not, I could not dare, address my countrymen as 
 a Friend, if I might not justify the assumption of that 
 sacred title by more than mere veracity, by open-hearted- 
 ness. The meanest of men feels himself insulted by an 
 unsuccessful attempt to deceive him ; and hates and 
 despises the man who had attempted it. What place then 
 is left in the heart for Virtue to build on, if in any case 
 we may dare practice on others what we should feel as a 
 cruel and contemptuous Wrong in our own persons ? 
 Every parent possesses the opportunity of observing, how 
 deeply children resent theinjury of a delusion ; and if men 
 laugh at the falsehoods that were imposed on themselves 
 during their childhood, it is because they are not good and 
 wise enough to contemplate the Past in the Present, and 
 so to produce by a virtuous and thoughtful sensibility that 
 continuity in their self-consciousness, which Nature has 
 made the law of their animal Life*. Alas ! the pernicious 
 
 * Ingratitude, sensuality, and hardness of heart, all flow from this source. 
 Men are ungrateful to others only when they have ceased to look back on 
 their former selves with joy and tenderness. They exist in fragments. 
 Annihilated as to the Past, they are dead to the Future, or seek for the 
 proofs of it every where, only not (where alone they can be feund) in them- 
 selves. A contemporary poet has expiest and illustrated this sentiment with 
 equal fineness of thought and tenderness of feeling: 
 My heart leaps up when 1 behold 
 
 A rain-bow in the sky ! 
 So was it, when my life began ; 
 So is it now 1 am a man ; 
 So let it be, when I glow old, 
 Or let me die. 
 
THE FRIEND. 37 
 
 influence of this lax morality extends from the Nursery 
 and the School to the Cabinet and Senate. It is a com- 
 mon weakness with men in power, who have used dis- 
 simulation successfully, to form a passion for the use of 
 it, dupes to the love of duping ! A pride is flattered by 
 these lies. He who fancies that he must be perpetually 
 stooping down to the prejudices of his fellow-creatures, 
 is perpetually re-minding and re-assuring himself of his 
 own vast superiority to them. But no real greatness can 
 long co-exist with deceit. The whole faculties of man 
 must be exerted in order to noble energies ; and he who 
 is not earnestly sincere, lives in but half his being, self- 
 mutilated, self-paralysed. 
 
 The latter part of the proposition, which has drawn 
 me into this discussion, that I mean in which the morality 
 of intentional falsehood is asserted, may safely be trusted 
 to the reader's own moral sense. It will, however, be 
 found in it's proper nitch of Infamy, in some future num- 
 ber of The Friend, among other enormities in taste, 
 morals, and theology, with which our* literature con- 
 tinues to be outraged. The former sounds less offensively 
 at the first hearing, only because it hides its' deformity 
 in an equivocation, or double meaning of the word Truth. 
 What may be rightly affirmed of Truth, used as synoni- 
 mous with verbal accuracy, is transferred to it in its' 
 higher sense of veracity. By verbal truth we mean no 
 more than the correspondence of a given fact to given 
 words. In moral truth, we moreover involve the inten- 
 tion of the speaker, that his words should correspond to 
 his thoughts in the sense in which he expects them to be 
 
 Tim Child is Father of the Man, 
 And I would tsis/i mi) days to he 
 Bound each to each by natural piety. Wordsworth. 
 I am informed, tbat these very lines have been cited, a* a specimen of 
 despicable puerility. So much the worse for the citer. Not willingly in his 
 presence would I behold the Sun setting behind our mountains, or listen to 
 a tale of Distress or Virtue; I should be ashamed of the quiet tear on m? own 
 cheek. But let the Dead bury the Dead! The poet sang for the Living. 
 Of what value indeed, to a sane mind, are the Likings or Dislikings of one 
 man, grounded on the mere assertions of another ? Opinions formed from 
 opinions — what are they, but clouds sailing under clouds, which impress 
 shadows upon shadows ? 
 
 Fungum peile procul, jubeo ! nam quid mihi Fungo ? 
 Conveniunt stomacho uon minus ista suo. 
 I was always pleased with the motto placed under the figure of the Ros.- 
 mary in old Herbals: Sus, apage ! Haud tibi spiro. 
 
 * Is it a groundless apprehension, that the Patrons and Admirers of such 
 publications may receive the punishment of their indiscretion in the conduct 
 
$8 THE FHIEND. 
 
 understood by others : and in this latter import we are 
 always supposed to use the word, whenever we speak of 
 Truth absolutely, or as a possible subject of moral merit 
 or demerit. It is verbally true, that in the sacred Scrip- 
 tures it is written : " As is the good, so is the sinner, 
 and he that svveareth as he that feareth an oath. A man 
 hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to 
 drink, and to be merry. For there is one event unto alk 
 the living know they shall die, but the dead know not 
 any thing, neither have they any more a reward." But 
 he who should repeat these words, with this assurance, 
 to an ignorant man in the hour of his temptation, linger- 
 ing at the door of the ale-house, or hesitating as to the 
 testimony required of him in the Court of Justice, would, 
 spite of this verbal truth, be a Liar, and the Murderer of 
 his brother's Conscience. Veracity therefore, not mere 
 accuracy; to convey truth, not merely losayit; is the 
 point of Duty in Dispute : and the only difficulty in the 
 mind of an honest man arises from the doubt, whether 
 more than veracity (i. e. the truth and nothing but the 
 truth) is not demanded of him by the Law of Conscience ; 
 whether it does not exact Simplicity ; that is, the truth 
 only, and the whole truth. If we can solve this difficulty, 
 if we can determine the conditions under which the Law 
 of universal Reason commands the communication of 
 Truth independently of consequences altogether, we shall 
 then be enabled to judge whether there is any such pro- 
 of their Sons and Daughters ? The suspicion of Methodism must be expected 
 by every man of rank and fortune, who carries his examination respecting 
 the Books which are to lie on his Breakfast-table, farther than to their free- 
 <dom from gross verbal indecencies, and broad avowals of Atheism in the 
 Titie-page. For the existence of an intelligent first Cause may be ridiculed 
 in the notes of one poem, or placed doubtfully as one of two or three possible 
 hypotheses, in the very opening of another poem, and both be copsidered as 
 works of safe promiscuous reading " virginibus puerisque :" and this too by 
 many a Father of a family, who would hold himself highly culpable in per- 
 mitting his Child to form habits of familiar acquaintance with a person of 
 loose habits, and think it even criminal to receive into his house a private 
 Tutor without a previous inquiry concerning his opinions and principles, as 
 well as his manners and outward conduct. How little I am an enemy to free. 
 enquiry of the boldest kind, and where the Authors have differed the most 
 widely from my own convictions and the general faith of mankind, provided 
 only, the enquiry be conducted with that seriousness, which naturally accom- 
 panies the love of Truth, and that is evidently intended for the perusal of those 
 only, who may be presumed to be capable of weighing the arguments, I 
 shall 1 ave abundant occasion of proving, in the course of this work. 2uin 
 ipsa phllosophia talibus e disputationibus ■' non nisi bcncficiwm recipit. Nam si 
 tiera proponit homo ingeniosus veritatisque amans,, nova ad earn accessio fict : 
 sin falsa, refutations serum priores tanto magis stabilientur. Galilei Si/st. 
 fysm. p. 42. ' 
 
THE FRIEND. C9 
 
 babilit/ of evil consequences from such communication, 
 as can justify the assertion of its' occasional criminaiity, 
 as can perplex us in the conception, or disturb us in the 
 performance, of our duty. (The existence of a rule of 
 Right (recta regula) not derived from a calculation of 
 consequences, and even independent of any experimental 
 knowledge of its' practicability, but as an Idea co-essential 
 with the Reason of Man, and its' necessary product, I 
 have here intentionally assumed, in order that I may draw 
 the attention of my Readers to this important question, of 
 all questions indeed the most important, previous to the 
 regular solution which I hope to undertake hereafter. 
 
 The Conscience, or effective Reason, commands the 
 design of conveying an adequate notion of the thing spoken 
 of, when this is practicable : but at all events a right 
 notion, or none at all. A School-master is under 
 the necessity of teaching a certain Rule in simple arith- 
 metic empirically, (Do so and so, and the sum will always 
 prove true) the necessary truth of the Rule (i. e. that the 
 Rule having been adhered to, the sum must always prove 
 true) requiring a knowledge of the higher mathematics 
 for its' demonstration. He, however, conveys a right no- 
 tion, though he cannot convey the adequate one. 
 
 The moral law then permitting the one on the con- 
 dition that the other is impracticable, and binding us to 
 silence when neither is in our power, we must first 
 enquire: What is necessary to constitute, and what may 
 allowably accompany, a right thought inadequate notion ? 
 And secondly, what are the circumstances, from which 
 we may deduce the impracticability of conveying even a 
 right notion ; the presence or absence of which circum- 
 stances it therefore becomes our duty to ascertain ? In 
 answer to the first question, the Conscience demands: 
 1. That it should be, the wish and design of the mind to 
 convey the truth only; that if in addition to the negative 
 loss implied in its' inadequateness, the notion communi- 
 cated should lead to any positive error, the cause should 
 lie in the fault or defect of the Recipient, not of the 
 Communicator, whose paramount duty, whose inalien- 
 able right it is to preserve his own* Integrity, the integral 
 
 * The best and most forcible sense of a word is often that, which is con- 
 tained in its' Etymology. The Author of the Poems (the SyrwgogueJ fre- 
 quently affixed to Herbert's "Temple," gives the original "purport of the. 
 wqrd integrity, in the following Hues (fourth stanza of the 8th poem.) 
 
40 THE FRIEND. 
 
 character of his own moral Being. Self-respect ; trie 
 reverence which he owes to the presence of Humanity in 
 the person of his Neighbour ; the reverential upholding 
 of the Faith of Man in Man; Gratitude for the parties 
 lar act of Confidence ; and religious awe for the divine 
 purposes in the gift of Language ; are. Duties too sacred 
 and important to be sacrificed to the Guesses of an Indi- 
 vidual, concerning the advantages to be gained by the 
 breach of them. 2. It is further required, that the 
 supposed error shall not be such as will pervert or ma- 
 terially vitiate the imperfect truth, in communicating 
 "which we had unwillingly, though not perhaps unwit- 
 tingly, occasioned it. A Barbarian so instructed in the 
 Power and Intelligence of the Infinite Being as to be left 
 wholly ignorant of his moral attributes, would have ac- 
 quired none but erroneous notions even of the former. 
 At the very best, he would gain only a theory to satisfy 
 his curiosity with ; but more probably, would deduce the 
 belief of a Moloch or a Baal. (For the Idea of an irresis- 
 tible invisible Being naturally produces terror in the mind 
 of uninstructed and unprotected man, and with terror 
 there will be associated whatever had been accustomed to 
 excite it, as Anger, Vengeance, &c. ; as is proved by the 
 Mythology of all barbarous nations.) This must be the 
 case with all organized truths : the component parts derive 
 their significance from the Idea of the whole. Boling- 
 broke removed Love, Justice, and Choice, from Power 
 and Intellinence, and yet pretended to have left unimpair- 
 ed the conviction of a Deity. He might as consistently 
 have paralysed the optic nerve, and then excused himself 
 by affirming, that he had, however, not touched the eye. 
 
 The third condition of a right though inadequate no- 
 tion is, that the error occasioned be greatly outweighed 
 
 Next to Sincerity, remember still, 
 Thou nu;t resolve upon Integrity. 
 God will have all thou ha^t, thy mind, thy will, 
 Thy thoughts, thy words, thy works. 
 • And again, after some Verses on Constancy and Humility; the poem con- 
 cludes with— 
 
 He that desires to see 
 The face of Gcd, in his religion must 
 Sincere, entire, constant, and humble be. 
 Having mentioned the name of Hirbert, that model of a Man, a Gentle- 
 man, and a Clesgyman, let me add, that the (Juaintness of some of his 
 Thoughts (not of his Diction, than which nothing can be more pure, manly^ 
 and unaffected,) has blinded modern readers to the great general merit of his 
 Poems, which are for the most part excuisite in their kind. 
 
THE FRIEND. 41 
 
 by the importance of the truth communicated. The 
 rustic would have little reason to thank the philosopher, 
 who should give him true conceptions of the folly of 
 believing in Ghosts, Omens, Dreams, &c. at the price of 
 abandoning his faith in Providence and in the continued 
 existence of his fellow- creatures after their Death. The 
 teeth of the old Serpent planted by the Cadmuses of 
 French Literature, under Lewis XV. produced a plente- 
 ous crop of Philosophers and Truth-trumpeters of this 
 kind, in the reign of his Successor. They taught many 
 truths, historical, political, physiological, and ecclesiasti- 
 cal, and diffused their notions so widely, that the very 
 Ladies and Hair-dressers of Paris became fluent Encyclo- 
 paedists : and the sole price which their Scholars paid for 
 these treasures of new information, was to believe Chris- 
 tianity an imposture, the Scriptures a forgery, the worship 
 (if not the belief) of God superstition, Hell a Fable, 
 Heaven a Dream, our Life without Providence, and our 
 Death without Hope. They became as Gods as soon as 
 the fruit of this Upas Tree of Knowledge and Liberty had 
 opened their eyes to perceive that they were no more than 
 Beasts — somewhat more cunning perhaps, and abundantly 
 more mischievous. What can be conceived more natural 
 than the result, — that self-acknowledged Beasts should 
 first act, and next suffer themselves to be treated as 
 Beasts. We judge by comparison. To exclude the great 
 is to magnify the little The disbelief of essential Wisdom 
 and Goodness, necessarily prepares the Imagination for 
 the supremacy of Cunning with Malignity. Folly and 
 Vice have their appropriate Religions, as well as Virtue 
 and true- Knowledge : and in some way or other Fools 
 will dance round the golden Calf, and wicked men beat 
 their timbrels and kettle-drums 
 
 To Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood 
 
 Of human sacrifice and parent's tears. 
 
 My feelings have led me on, and in my illustration I 
 had almost lost from my view the subject to be illustrated. 
 One condition yet remains : that the error foreseen shall 
 not be of a kind to prevent or impede the after acquire- 
 ment of that knowledge which will remove it. Observe, 
 how graciously Nature instructs her human Children. 
 She cannot give us tue knowledge derived from sight 
 without occasioning us at first to mistake Images of 
 Reflection for Substances. But the very consequences of 
 
ti THE FRIEND. 
 
 the delusion lead inevitably to its' detection ; and out of 
 the ashes of the error rises a new flower of knowledge. 
 We not only see, but are enabled to discover by what 
 means we see. So too we are under the necessity, in 
 given circumstances, of mistaking a square for a round 
 object : but ere the mistake can have any practical con- 
 sequences, it is not only removed, but in its' removal 
 gives us the symbol of a new fact, that of distance. In a 
 similar train of thought, though more fancifully, I might 
 have elucidated the preceding Condition, and have referred 
 our hurrying Enlighteners and revolutionary Amputators 
 to the gentleness of Nature, in the Oak and the Beech, 
 the dry foliage of which she pushes off only by the pro- 
 pulsion of the new buds, that supply its' place. My 
 friends ! a cloathing even of withered Leaves is better 
 than bareness. 
 
 Having thus determined the nature and conditions of 
 a right notion, it remains to determine the circumstances 
 which tend to render the communication of it impractic- 
 able, and obliges us of course, to abstain from the attempt 
 —obliges us not to convey falsehood under the pretext of 
 saying truth. These circumstances, it is plain, must con- 
 sist either in natural or moral impediments. The former, 
 including the obvious gradations of constitutional insensi- 
 bility and derangement, preclude all temptation to mis- 
 conduct, as well as all probability of ill -consequences from 
 accidental oversight, on the part of the communicator. 
 Far otherwise is it with the impediments from moral 
 causes. These demand all the attention and forecast of 
 the genuine lovers of Truth in the matter, the manner, 
 and the time of their communications, public and private ; 
 and these are the ordinary materials of the vain and the 
 factious, determine them in the choice of their audiences 
 and of their arguments, and to each argument give powers 
 not its' own. They are distinguishable into two sources, 
 the streams from which, however, must often become 
 confluent, viz. hindrances from Ignorance (1 here use the 
 word in relation to the habits of reasoning as well as to 
 the previous knowledge requisite for the due comprehen- 
 sion of the subject) and hindrances from predominant 
 passions. Bold, warm, and earnest assertions, which gain 
 credit partly from that natural generosity of the human 
 heart which makes it an effort to doubt, and the habit 
 formed bv hourly acts of belief from infancy to age ; and 
 
THE FRIEND. 43 
 
 partly from the confidence which apparent Courage is 
 wont to inspire, and the contagion of animal enthusiasm ; 
 arguments built on passing events and deriving an undue 
 importance from the interest of the moment ; startling 
 particular facts ; the display of defects without the accom- 
 panying excellencies, or of excellencies without their 
 accompanying defects ; the concealment of the general 
 and ultimate result behind the scenery of local or immedi- 
 ate consequences ; statement of conditional truths to those 
 whose passions make them forget, that the conditions 
 under which alone the statement is true, are not present, 
 or even lead them to believe, that they are ; chains of 
 questions, especially of such questions as those best au- 
 thorized to propose are the slowest in proposing ; objec- 
 tions intelligible of themselves, the answers to which 
 
 require the comprehension of a system ; all these a 
 
 Demagogue might make use of, and in nothing deviate 
 from the verbal truth. From all these the law of Con- 
 science commands us to abstain, because such being the 
 ignorance and such the passions of the supposed Auditors, 
 we ought to deduce the impracticability of conveying not 
 only adequate, but even right, notions of our own convic- 
 tions : much less does it permit us to avail ourselves of 
 the causes of this impracticability in order to procure 
 nominal proselytes, each of whom will have a different, 
 and all a false, conception of those notions that were to be 
 conveyed for their truth's sake alone. Whatever is (or 
 but for some defect in our moral character would have 
 been) foreseen as preventing the conveyance of our 
 thoughts, makes the attempt an act of self-contradiction : 
 and whether the faulty cause exist in our choice of unfit 
 words or our choice of unfit auditors, the result is the 
 same and so is ihe guilt. We have voluntarily communi- 
 cated falsehood. 
 
 Thus (without reference to consequences, if only one 
 short digression be excepted) from the sole principle of 
 Self-consistence or moral Integrity, we have evolved the 
 clue of right Reason, which we are bound to follow in 
 the communication of Truth. Now then we appeal to 
 the judgment and experience of the Reader, whether he 
 who most faithfully adheres to the letter of the law of 
 conscience will not likewise act in strictest correspon- 
 dence to the maxims of prudence and sound policy. 1 am 
 at least unable to recollect a single instance, either in 
 
44 THE FRIEND. 
 
 History or in my personal Experience, of a preponderance 
 of injurious consequences from the publication of any 
 truth, under the observance of the moral conditions above 
 stated : much less can I even imagine any case, in which 
 Truth, as Truth, can be pernicious. But if the assertor 
 of the indiff'erency of Truth and Falsehood in their own 
 natures, attempt to justify his position by confining the 
 word truth, in the first instance, to the correspondence of 
 given words to given facts, without reference to the total 
 impression left by such words ; what is this more than to 
 assert, that articulated sounds are things of moral indiffer- 
 ency ? and that we may relate a fact accurately and 
 nevertheless deceive grossly and wickedly ? Blifil related 
 accurately Tom Jones's riotous joy during his Benefactor's 
 illness, only omitting that this joy was occasioned by the 
 Physician's having pronouneed him out of danger. Blifil 
 was not the less a Liar for being an accurate matter-of-fact 
 Liar. Tell-truths in the service of Falsehood we find 
 every where, of various names and various occupations, 
 from the elderly young women that discuss' the Love- 
 affairs of their friends and acquaintance at the village Tea- 
 tables, to the anonymous calumniators of literary merit in 
 Reviews, and the more daring Malignants, who dole 
 out Discontent, Innovation and Panic, in political Jour- 
 nals : and a most pernicious Race of Liars they are ! 
 But whoever doubted it ? Why should our moral feel- 
 ings be shocked, and the holiest words with all their vener- 
 able associations be profaned, in order to bring forth a 
 Truism ? Bi?:t thus it is for the most part with the vend- 
 ers of startling paradoxes. .In the sense in which they 
 are to gain for their Author the character of a bold and 
 original Thinker, they' are false even to absurdity ; and the 
 sense in which they are true and harmless, conveys so 
 mere a Truism, that it even borders. on Nonsense. How 
 often have we heard " The Rights of Man — hurra ! 
 
 The Sovereignty of the People — hurra ! " 
 
 roared out by men who, if called upon in another place 
 and before another audience, to explain themselves, 
 would give to the words a meaning, in which the most 
 monarchical of their political opponents would admit them 
 to be true, but which would contain nothing new, or 
 Strange, or stimulant, nothing to flatter the pride or kindle 
 the passions of the Populace. To leave a general con- 
 fused impression of something great, and to rely on the 
 
THE FRIEND. 45 
 
 indolence of men's understandings and the activity of 
 tlieir passions, for their resting in this impression, is the 
 old artifice of public Mountebanks, which, like stratagems 
 in war, are never the less successful for having succeeded 
 a thousand times before. 
 
 But how will these Rules apply to the most important 
 mode of communication ? To that, in which one man may 
 utter his thoughts to myriads of men at the same time, 
 and to myriads of myriads at various times and through 
 successions of generations ? How do they apply to Authors, 
 whose foreknowledge assuredly does not inform them who, 
 or how many, or of what description their Readers will be? 
 How do these Rules apply to Books, which once publish- 
 ed, are as likely to fall in the way of the Incompetent as 
 of the Judicious, and will be fortunate indeed if they are 
 not many times looked at through the thick mists of igno- 
 rance, or amid the glare of prejudice and passion? — We 
 answer in the first place, that this is not universally true. 
 Relations of certain pretended miracles performed a few 
 years ago, at Holywell, in consequence of Prayers to the 
 Virgin Mary, on female servants, and these Relations mo- 
 ralized by the old Roman Catholic arguments without the 
 old Protestant answers, have to my knowledge been sold 
 by travelling Pedlars in villages and farm-houses, not onlv 
 in a form which placed them within the reach of the nar- 
 rowest means, but sold at a price less than their prime 
 cost, and doubtless, to be thrown in occasionally as the 
 make-xoeight of a bargain of Pins and Stay-tape. Shall I 
 be told, that the publishers and reverend Authorizers of 
 these base and vulgar delusions had exerted no choice as 
 to the Purchasers and Readers ? But waiving this, or 
 rather having first pointed it out, as an important excep- 
 tion, we further reply : that if the Author have clearly 
 and rightly established in his own mind the class of 
 Readers, to which he means to address his communica- 
 tions ; and if both in this choice, and in the particulars of 
 the manner and matter of his work, he conscientiously 
 observes all the conditions which Reason and Conscience 
 have been shewn to dictate, in relation to those for whom 
 the work was designed ; he will, in most instances, have 
 effected his design and realized the desired circumscription. 
 The posthumous work of Spinoza ( Ethica ordine geometrico 
 demonstrata) may, indeed, accidentally fall into the hands 
 of an incompetent reader. But (not to mention, that it is 
 
46 THE FRIEND. 
 
 written in a dead language) it will be entirely harmless, 
 because it must needs be utterly unintelligible. I venture 
 to assert, that the whole first book, Ue Deo, might be read 
 in a literal English Translation to any congregation in the 
 kingdom, and that no Individual, who had not been 
 habituated to the strictness and most laborious processes of 
 Reasoning, would even suspect its' orthodoxy or piety, 
 however heavily the few who listened would complain of 
 its' Obscurity and want of Interest. This, it may be ob- 
 jected, is an extreme case. But. it is not so for the present 
 purpose. We are speaking of the probability of injurious 
 consequences from the communication of Truth. This 
 I have denied, if the right means have been adopted, and 
 the necessary conditions adhered to, for its' actual com- 
 munication. Now the Truths conveyed in a book are 
 either evident of themselves, or such as require a train of 
 deductions in proof: and the latter will be either such as 
 are authorized and generally received, or such as are in 
 opposition to received and authorized opinions, or lastly, 
 truths presented for the appropriate test of examination, 
 and still under trial (adhuc sub lite). Of this latter class I 
 affirm, that no instance can be brought of a preponderance 
 of ill-consequences, or even of an equi-librium of advantage 
 and injury, in which the understanding alone has been 
 appealed to, by results fairly deduced from just premises, 
 in terms strictly appropriate. Alas ! legitimate reasoning 
 is impossible without severe thinking, and thinking is 
 neither an easy nor an amusing employment. The reader, 
 who would follow a close reasoner to the summit and 
 absolute principle of any one important subject, has chosen 
 a Chamois-hunter for his Guide. Our Guide will, indeed, 
 take us the shortest way, will save us many a wearisome 
 and perilous wandering, and warn us of many a mock road 
 that had formerly led himself to the brink of chasms and 
 precipices, or at best in an idle circle to the spot from 
 whence he started ; but he cannot cary us on his shoul- 
 ders ; we must strain our own sinews, as he has strained 
 his; and make firm footing on the smooth rock for our- 
 selves, by the blood of toil from our own feet. Examine 
 the journals of our humane and zealous Missionaries in 
 Hindostan. How often and how feelingly do they de- 
 scribe the difficulty of making the simplest chain of reason- 
 ing intelligible to the ordinary natives : the rapid exhaus- 
 tion of their whole power of attention, and with what pain 
 
f 
 THE FRIEND. 47 
 
 and distressful effort it is exerted, while it lasts. Yet it 
 is among this class, that the hideous practices of self- 
 torture chiefly, indeed almost exclusively, prevail. O if 
 Folly were no easier than Wisdom, it being often so very 
 much more grievous, how certainly might not these miser- 
 able men be converted to Christianity ? But alas ! to 
 swing by hooks passed through the back, or to walk on 
 shoes with nails of iron pointed upward on the soles, all 
 this is so much less difficult, demands so very inferior an 
 exertion of the Will than to think, and by thought to gain 
 Knowledge and Tranquillity ! 
 
 It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion of 
 the advantages of Truth and knowledge. They see, they 
 acknowledge, those advantages in the conduct, the immu- 
 nities, and the superior powers, of the Possessors. Were 
 these attainable by Pilgrimages the most toilsome, or 
 Penances the most painful, we should assuredly have as 
 many Pilgrims and as many Self-tormentors in the service 
 of true Religion and Virtue, as now exist under the 
 tyranny of Papal or Brahman Superstition. This Inefficacy 
 of legitimate Reason, from the want of fit objects, this its' 
 relative Weakness and how narrow at all times its imme- 
 diate sphere of action must be, is proved to us by the 
 Impostures of all professions. What, I pray, is their 
 fortress, the rock which is both their quarry and their 
 foundation, from which and on which they are built ? 
 The desire of arriving at the end without the effort of 
 thought and will, which are the appointed means. 
 Let us look backward three or four centuries. Then 
 as now the great mass of mankind were governed by the 
 three main wishes, the wish for vigor of body, including 
 the absence of painful feelings : for wealth, or the power 
 of procuring the external conditions of bodily enjoyment : 
 these during life — and security from pain and continuance 
 of happiness after death. Then, as now, men were de- 
 sirous to attain them by some easier means than those of 
 Temperance, Industry, and strict Justice. They gladly 
 therefore applied to the Priest, who could ensure them 
 happiness hereafter without the performance of their 
 Duties here ; to the Lawyer, who could make money a 
 substitute for a right cause ; to the Physician, whose 
 medicines promised to take the sting out of the tail of 
 their sensual indulgencies, and let them fondle and play 
 with Vice, as with a charmed Serpent ; to the Alchemist, 
 
4S THE FRIEND. 
 
 whose gold-tincture would enrich them without Toil or 
 Economy ; and to the Astrologer, from whom they could 
 purchase foresight without Knowledge or reflection. The 
 established Professions were, without exception, no other 
 than licenced modes of Witchcraft ; the Wizards, who 
 would now find their due reward in Bridewell, and their 
 "'appropriate honors in the Pillory, sate then on episcopal 
 thrones, candidates for Saintship, and already canonized in 
 the belief of their deluded Contemporaries ; while the one 
 or two real Teachers and Discoverers of Truth were ex- 
 posed to the hazard of Fire and Faggot, a Dungeon the 
 best Shrine that was vouchsafed to a Roger Bacon and a 
 Galileo ! It is not so in our times. Heaven be praised, 
 that in. this respect at least we are, if not better, yet better 
 off than our Forefathers. But to what, and to whom 
 (under Providence) do we owe the Improvement ? To 
 any radical change in the moral affections of mankind in 
 general ? Perhaps the great majority of men are now 
 fully conscious, that they are born with the god-like 
 faculty of Reason, and that it is the business of Life to 
 develope and apply it ? The Jacob's Ladder of Truth, 
 let down from Heaven, with all its' numerous Rounds, is 
 now the common High-way, on which we are content to 
 toil upward to the Objects of our Desires ? We are 
 ashamed of expecting the end without the means ? In 
 order to answer these questions in the affirmative, I must 
 have forgotten the Animal Magnetists ; the proselytes of 
 Brothers, and of Joanna Southcot ; and some hundred 
 thousand Fanatics less original in their creeds, but not a 
 whit more rational in their expectations ! I must forget 
 the infamous Empirics, whose Advertisements pollute and 
 disgrace all our Newspapers, and almost paper the walls 
 of our Cities ; and the vending of whose poisons and 
 poisonous Drams (with shame and anguish be it spoken) 
 supports a shop in every market-town ! I must forget 
 that other opprobrium of the Nation, that Mother-vice, the 
 Lottery ! 1 must forget, that a numerous class plead Pru- 
 dence for keeping their fellow-men ignorant and incapable 
 of intellectual enjoyments, and the Revenue for upholding 
 such Temptations as men so ignorant will not withstand 
 
 PENRITH : PPJNTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN ; AND SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
THE F11EIB. 
 
 No. 4, THURSDAY, September 7, 1809- 
 
 yes ! that even Senators and Officers of State hold ) -' 
 forth the Revenue as a sufficient plea for upholding at 
 every fiftieth door throughout the Kingdom, Temptations^" 
 to the most pernicious Vices, which fill the Land with 
 mourning, and fit the labouring classes for Sedition and 
 religious Fanaticism ! Above all, 1 must forget the first 
 years of the French Revolution, and the Millions through- 
 out Europe who confidently expected the best and 
 choicest Results of Knowledge and Virtue, namely, Li- 
 berty and universal Peace, from the votes of a tumultuous 
 Assembly — that is, from the mechanical agitation of the 
 air in a large Room at Paris — and ihis too in the most 
 light, unthinking, sensual, and profligate of the European 
 Nations, a Nation, the very phrases of whose language 
 are so composed, that they can scarcely speak without 
 lying ! — No ! Let us not deceive ourselves. Like the 
 man, who used to pull off his Hat with great demonstra- 
 tion of Respect whenever he spoke of himself, we are fond 
 of styling our own the enlightened age : though as Jortin, 
 I think, has wittily remarked, the golden age would be 
 more appropriate. But in spite of our ^reat scientific 
 Discoveries, for which Praise be given to whom the 
 Praise is due, and in spite of that general indifference to 
 all the Truths and all the Principles of Truth, which be- 
 longing to our permanent being, do not lie within the 
 sphere of our senses, (which indifference makes Tolera- 
 tion so easy a Virtue with us, and constitutes nine-tenths 
 of our pretended Illumination) it still remains the character 
 of the mass of mankind to seek for the attainment of their 
 necessary Ends by any Means rather than the appointed 
 ones ; and for this cause only, that the latter imply the 
 exertion of the Reason and the Will. But of all things 
 this demands the longest apprenticeship, even an appren- 
 ticeship from Infancy; which is generally neglected, be- 
 cause an excellence, that may and should belong to all 
 men, is expected to come to every man of its' own 
 accord. 
 
£0 THE FRIEND. 
 
 To whom then do we owe our ameliorated condition ? 
 To the successive Few in every age (more indeed in one 
 generation than in another, but relatively to the mass of 
 Mankind always few) who by the intensity and perman- 
 ence of their action have compensated for the limited 
 sphere, within which it is at any one time intelligible ; 
 and whose good deeds Posterity reverence in their results, 
 though the mode in which we repair the inevitable Waste 
 of Time, and the Style of our Additions too generally 
 furnish a sad proof, how little we understand the Prin- 
 ciples. I appeal to the Histories of the Jewish, the 
 Grecian, and the Roman Republics, to the Records of the 
 Christian Church, to the History of Europe from the Treaty 
 of Westphalia (1648). What do they contain but accounts 
 of noble Structures raised by the Wisdom of the Few, and 
 gradually undermined by the Ignorance and Profligacy of 
 the Many ? If therefore the Deficiency of good, which 
 every way surrounds us, originate in the general unfitness 
 and aversion of Men to the process of Thought, that is, 
 to continuous Reasoning, it must surely be absurd to ap- 
 prehend a preponderance of evil from works which cannot 
 act at all except as far as they call the reasoning faculties 
 into full co-exertion with them. 
 
 Still, however, there are Truths so self-evident or so 
 immediately and palpably deduced from those that are, or 
 are acknowledged for such, that they are at once intel- 
 ligible to all men, who possess the common advantages of 
 the social state : although by sophistry, by evil habits, by 
 the neglect, false persuasions, and impostures of an apos- 
 tate Priesthood joined in one conspiracy with the violence 
 of tyrannical Governors, the understandings of men may 
 become so darkened and their Consciences so lethargic, 
 that there may arise a necessity of their republication, and 
 this too with a voice of loud alarm, and impassioned 
 Warning. Such were the Doctrines proclaimed by the 
 first Christians to the Pagan World ; such were the 
 Lightnings flashed by WicklifF, Huss, Luther, Calvin, 
 Zuinglius, Latimer, &c. across the Papal darkness ; and 
 such in our own times the agitating Truths, with which 
 Thomas Clarkson, and his excellent Confederates, the 
 Quakers, fought and conquered the legalized Banditti of 
 Men-stealers. the numerous and powerful Perpetrators 
 and Advocates of Rapine, Murder, and (of blacker guilt 
 than either) Slavery. Truths of this kind being indis- 
 
THE FRIEND. 51 
 
 pensible to Man, considered as a moral being, are above 
 all expedience, all accidental consequences : for as sure 
 as God is holy, and Man immortal, there can be no evil 
 SO great as the Ignorance or Disregard of them. It is the 
 very madness of mock-prudence to oppose the removal of 
 a poisoned Dish on account of the pleasant sauces or 
 nutritious viands which would be lost with it : the dish 
 contains destruction to that, for which alone we ought to 
 wish the palate to be gratified, or the body to be nourish- 
 ed. The sole condition, therefore, imposed on us by the 
 Law of Conscience in these cases is, that we employ no 
 unwOrthy and heterogeneous means to realize the neces- 
 sary end, that we entrust the event wholly to the full and 
 adequate promulgation of the Truth, and to those gene- 
 rous affections which the constitution of our moral nature 
 has linked to the full perception of it. Yet Evil may, 
 nay it will be occasioned. Weak men may take offence, 
 and wicked men avail themselves of it; though we must 
 not attribute to the Promulgation or to the truth promul- 
 gated all the Evil, of which wicked men predetermined, 
 like the Wolf in the fable, to create some occasion, may 
 chuse to make it the pretext. But that there ever was or 
 ever can be a preponderance of Evil, I defy either the His- 
 torian to instance or the Philosopher to prove. " Let * 
 it fly away, all that Chaff" of light Faith that can fly off* at 
 any breath of Temptation ; the cieaner will the true Grain 
 be stored up in the Granary of the Lord, " we are entitled 
 to say with Tertullian : and to exclaim with heroic Luther, 
 " Scandal § and offence ! Talk not to me of Scandal and 
 Offence. Need breaks through Stone-walls, and recks 
 not of Scandal. It is my duty to spare weak Consciences 
 as far as it may be done without hazard of my Soul. 
 Where not, I must take counsel for my Soul, though half 
 or the whole World should be scandalized thereby. 
 
 Luther felt and preached and wrote and acted, as 
 beseemed a Luther to feel and utter and act. The truths, 
 which had been outraged, he re-proclaimed in the spirit of 
 outraged Truth, at the behest of his Conscience and in the 
 service of the God of Truth. He did his duty, come 
 
 Ayolent quantum volent palese levis fidei quocunque afflatu tentationum- 
 «o purior massa frumenti in horrea domini reponetur. Tertullian. 
 
 § Aergernisehin, Aergernissher! Noth brichi Eisen, undhat kein Aerger- 
 Jiiss. Ich soil der schwachen Gewissen schonen so fern es ohne Gefahr meiner 
 Seelen geschehn mag. Wo nicht, so soil ich meiner Seelen rathen, es argere 
 sich daran die ganze oder halbe Welt. 
 
52 THE FRIEND. 
 
 good, come evil ! and made no question, on which side the 
 preponderance would be. In the one Scale there was 
 Gold, and the Impress thereon the Image and Superscrip- 
 tion of the Universal Sovereign. In all the wide and ever 
 widening commerce of mind with mind throughout the 
 world, it is Treason to refuse it. Can this have a Counter- 
 weight ? The other Scale indeed might have seemed full 
 up to the very balance-yard ; but of what worth and sub- 
 stance were its' contents ? Were they capable of being 
 counted or weighed against the former ? The Conscience 
 indeed is already violated when to moral good or evil we 
 oppose things possessing no moral interest : and even if the 
 Conscience could waive this her preventive Veto, yet 
 before we could consider the twofold Results in the rela- 
 tions of Loss and Gain, it must be known whether their 
 kind is the same or equivalent. They must first be valued 
 and then they may be weighed or counted, if they are 
 worth it. But in the particular case at present before us, 
 the Loss is contingent, and alien ; the Gain essential and 
 the Tree's own natural produce. The Gain is permanent, 
 and spreads through all times and places ; the Loss but 
 temporary and, owing its' very being to Vice or Igno- 
 rance, vanishes at the approach of Knowledge and moral 
 Improvement. The Gain reaches all good men, belongs 
 to all that love Light and desire an increase of Light : to 
 all and of all times, who thank Heaven for the gracious 
 Dawn, and expect the Noon-day ; who welcome the first 
 gleams of Spring, and sow their fields in confident Faith 
 of the ripening Summer and the rewarding Harvest-tide! 
 But the Loss is confined to the unenlightened and the 
 prejudiced — say rather, to the weak and the prejudiced 
 of a single generation. The prejudices of one age are con- 
 demned even by the prejudiced of the succeeding ages: 
 for endless are the modes of Folly, and the Fool joins 
 with the Wise in passing sentence on all modes but 
 his own. Who cried out with greater Horror against the 
 Murderers of the Prophets, than those who likewise cried 
 out, Crucify him ! Crucify him ! — The Truth-haters of 
 every future generation will call the Truth-haters of the 
 preceding ages by their true names : for even these the 
 Stream of Time carries onward. In fine, Truth considered 
 in itself and in the effects natural to it, may be conceived 
 hs a gentle Spring or Water-source, warm from the genial 
 iarth, and breathing up into the Snow drift that is piled 
 
THE FRIEND. 53 
 
 over and around its' outlet. It turns the obstacle into 
 its' own form and character, and as it makes its' way 
 increases its' stream. And should it be arrested in its 
 course by a chilling season, it suffers delay, not loss, and 
 waits only for a change in the wind to awaken and again 
 roll onwards. 
 
 / sempliei pastori 
 Sul Vesolo nevoso 
 Fatti curvi e canuti, 
 D' alto stupor son mutt 
 Mirando alfonte ombroso 
 II Po conpochi umori ; 
 Poscia udendo gli onori 
 Dell' urna angusta e stretta, 
 Che 'I Adda, eke 7 Tesino 
 SovercMa in suo cammino, 
 Che ampio al mar s' qffretta, 
 Che si spuma, e si sicotia, 
 Che gli si da corona ! * 
 
 CHIABRERA. 
 
 Such are the good, that is, the natural Consequences 
 of the promulgation to all of Truths which all are bound 
 to know and to make known. The evils occasioned by it, 
 with few and rare exceptions, have their origin in the 
 attempts to suppress or pervert it ; in the fury and vio- 
 lence of Imposture attacked or undermined in her strong- 
 holds, or in the extravagances of Ignorance and Credulity 
 roused from their lethargy, and angry at the medicinal 
 disturbance — awakening not yet broad awake, and thus 
 blending the monsters of uneasy dreams with the real 
 objects, on which the drowsy eye had alternately half- 
 opened and closed, again half-opened and again closed. 
 This Re-action of Deceit and Superstition, with all the 
 trouble and tumult incident, I would compare to a- Fire 
 which bursts forth from some stifled and fermenting Mass 
 on the first admission of Light and Air. It roars and 
 blazes, and converts the already spoilt or damaged Stuff 
 
 * Literal Translation. " The simple Shepherds grown bent and hoary- 
 headed on the snowy Vesolo, are mute with deep astonishment, gazing in the 
 o'ershadowed fountain on the Po with his scanty waters; then hearing of the 
 Honors of his confined and narrow Urn, how he receives as a Sovereign the 
 Adda and the Tesino in his course, how ample he hastens on to the Sea, 
 how he foams, how mighty his Voice, and that to Him the Crown is assigned." 
 
 N. B. I give literal translations of my poetic as well as prose Quotations, 
 because the propriety of their introduction often depends on the exact sense 
 and order of the words : which it is impossible always to retain in a metrical 
 Version. 
 
$& THE FPIEND. 
 
 with all the straw and straw-like matter near it, first intQ 
 flame and the next moment into ashes. The Fire dies? 
 iaway, the ashes are scattered on all the winds, and what 
 began in Worthlessness ends in Nothingness. Such are 
 the evil, that is, the casual consequences of the same pro- 
 
 mulgation. 
 
 It argues a narrow or corrupt nature to lose the gene- 
 ral and lasting consequences of rare and virtuous Energy, 
 in the brief accidents, which accompanied its' first move- 
 ments — to set lightly by the emancipation of the Human 
 Reason from a legion of Devils, in our complaints and 
 lamentations over the loss of a herd of swine ! The Cran- 
 mers, Hampdens, and .Sidneys: the Counsellors of our 
 Elizabeth, and the Friends of our pther great Deliverer, 
 the third William, — is it in vain, that these have been our 
 Countrymen ? Are we not the Heirs of their good deeds? 
 And what are noble Deeds but noble Truths realized ? 
 As Protestants, as Englishmen, as the Inheritors of so 
 ample an estate of Might and Right, an estate so strongly 
 fenced, so richly planted, by the sinewy arms and daunt- 
 less hearts of our Forefathers, we of all others have good 
 cause to trust in the Truth, yea, to follow its' pillar of 
 fire through the Darkness and the Desart, even though 
 its Light should but suffice to make us certain of its' 
 own presence. If there be elsewhere men jealous of the 
 Light, who prophecy an excess of Evil over good from its' 
 manifestation, we are entitled to ask them, on what ex- 
 perience they ground their Bodings ? Our own Country 
 bears no traces, our own history contains no records, to 
 justify them. From the great aeras of national illumina- 
 tion we date the commencement of our main national 
 Advantages. The Tangle of Delusions, which stifled and 
 distorted the growing Tree, have been torn away ; the 
 parasite Weeds, that fed on its* very roots, have been 
 plucked up with a salutaiy violence. To us there remain 
 biily quiet duties, the constant care, the gradual improve- 
 ment, the cautious unhazardous labors of the industrious 
 though contented Gardener — to prune, to engraft, and 
 one by one to remove from its' leaves and fresh shoots, 
 the Mug and the Caterpillar. But far be it from us to 
 undervalue with light and senseless detraction the con- 
 scientious Hardihood of our Predecessors, or even to con- 
 demn in them that vehemence, to which the Blessings, it 
 won for us, leave us now neither temptation or pretext. 
 
THE FRIEND. S5 
 
 That the very terms, with which the Bigot or the Hire- 
 ling would blacken the first Publishers of political and 
 religious Truth, are, and deserve to be, hateful to us, we 
 owe to the effects of its' publication. We ante-date the 
 feelings in order to criminate the authors of our tranquil- 
 lity, opulence, and security. But let us be aware. 
 Effects will not, indeed, immediately disappear with their 
 causes ; but neither can they long continue without them. 
 If by the reception of Truth in the spirit of Truth, we 
 became what we are; only by the retention of it in the 
 same spirit, can we remain what we are. The narrow seas 
 that form our boundaries, what were they in times of old ? 
 The convenient High-way for Danish and Norman Pi- 
 rates. What are they now ? Still but " a Span of 
 Waters "—Yet 
 
 Even so doth God protect us, if we be 
 Virtuous and Wise. Winds blow and Waters roll, 
 Strength to the Brave, and Power and Deity : 
 Yet in themselves are nothing ? One Decree 
 Spake laws to them, and said that by the Soul 
 Only the Nations shall be great and free. 
 
 Thus far then I have been conducting a cause be- 
 tween an Individual and his own mind. Proceeding on 
 the conviction, that to Man is entrusted the nature, not 
 the result of his actions, 1 have presupposed no calcula- 
 tions. I have presumed no foresight. Introduce no 
 
 contradiction into thy own consciousness. Acting or 
 abstaining from action, delivering or withholding thy 
 thoughts, whatsoever thou dost, do it in singleness of heart. 
 In all things therefore let thy Means correspond to thy 
 Purpose, and let thy Purpose be one with the Purport. 
 — —To this Principle I have referred the supposed Indi- 
 vidual, and from this Principle solely I have deduced each 
 particular of his Conduct. As far, therefore, as the Court 
 of Conscience extends, (and in this Court alone I have 
 been pleading hitherto) I have won the cause. It has 
 been decided, that there is no just ground for apprehend- 
 ing Mischief from Truth communicated conscientiously) 
 (i. e. with a strict observance of all the conditions requir- 
 ed by the Conscience) that what is not so communicated, 
 is Falsehood, and to the Falsehood, not to the Truthj 
 must the consequences be attributed. 
 
 Another and altogether different cause remains now 
 
56 THE FRIEND, 
 
 to be pleaded; a different Cause, and in a different Court. 
 The parties concerned are no longer the well-meaning 
 Individual and his Conscience, but the Citizen and the 
 State — the Citizen, who may be a fanatic as probably as a 
 philosopher, and the State, which concerns itself with the 
 Conscience only as far as it appears in the Action, or still, 
 more accurately, in the Fact ; and which must determine 
 the nature of the fact not only by a rule of Right formed 
 from the modification of particular by general conse- 
 quences, and thus reducing the freedom of each citizen 
 to the common measure in which it hecomes compatible 
 with the freedom of all; but likewise by the relation, 
 which the Fact bears to its' own instinctive principle of 
 Self-preservation. For every Depositary of the supreme 
 Power must presume itself rightful : and as the source of 
 law, not legally to be endangered. A form of govern- 
 ment may indeed, in reality, be most pernicious to the 
 governed, and the highest moral honour may await the 
 patriot who risks his life in order by its' subversion to 
 introduce a better and juster Constitution ; but it would 
 be ahsurd to blame the Law, by which his Life is declared 
 forfeit. It were to expect, that by an involved contra- 
 diction, the Law should allow itself not to be Law, by- 
 allowing the State, of which it is a part, not to be a State. 
 For as Hooker has well observed, the law of men's actions: 
 is one, if they be respected only as men ; and another, 
 when they are considered as parts of a body politic. 
 
 But though every Government subsisting in law (for 
 pure lawless Despotism grounding itself wholly on terror 
 precludes al! consideration of Duty) though every govern- 
 ment subsisting in Law must, and ought to, regard itself 
 as the Life of the Body Politic, of which it is the Head, 
 and consequently must punish every attempt against 
 itself as an act of Assault or Murder, i. e. Sedition 01; 
 Treason ; yet still it ought so to secure the Life as not to 
 prevent the conditions of its' tiro wth, and of that Adap- 
 tation to Circumstances, without which its' very Life be- 
 comes insecure. In the application, therefore, of these 
 principles to the public communication of Opinions by 
 the most efficient means, the Press — we have to decide, 
 whether consistently with them there should be any 
 Liberty of the Press ; and if this be answered in the 
 affirmative, what shall be declared Abuses of that Liberty, 
 apd made punishable as such ; and in what way the 
 
THE FRIEND, 57 
 
 General Law shall be applied to each particular case. 
 
 First then, should there be any Liberty of the Press ? 
 We will not here mean, whether it should be permitted 
 to print books at all ; (for our Essay has little chance of 
 being read in Turkey, and in any other part of Europe it 
 cannot he supposed questionable) but whether by the 
 appointment of a Censorship the Government should 
 take upon itself the responsibility of each particular pub- 
 lication. In Governments purely monarchical (i. e. oli- 
 garchies under one head) the Balance of the Advantage 
 and disadvantage from this Monopoly of the Press will 
 undoubtedly be affected by the general state of informa- 
 tion ; though after reading Milton's " Speech for the 
 Liberty of unlicensed Printing*" we shall probably be 
 inclined to believe, that the best argument in favour of 
 Licensing, &c. under am/ constitution is that, which sup- 
 posing the Ruler to have a different Interest from that of 
 his Country, and even from himself as a reasonable and 
 moral Creature, grounds itself on the incompatibility of 
 Knowledge with Folly, Oppression, and Degradation, 
 What our prophetic Harrington said of religious, applies 
 equally to literary Toleration, " If it be said that in 
 France there is Liberty of Conscience in part, it is also 
 plain that while the Hierarchy is standing, this Liberty 
 is falling, and that if on the contrary, it comes to pull 
 down the Hierarchy, it pulls down that Monarchy also; 
 wherefore the Monarchy or Hierarchy will be beforehand 
 with it, if they see their true Interest." On the other 
 hand, there is no slight danger from general ignorance: 
 and the only choice, which Providence has graciously 
 left to a vicious Government, is either to fall by the 
 People, if they are suffered to become enlightened, or 
 with them, if they are kept enslaved and ignorant. 
 
 The nature of our Constitution, since the Revolution, 
 the state of our literature, and the wide diffusion, if not 
 of intellectual yet, of literary power, and the almost uni- 
 versal Interest in the productions of literature, have set 
 the question at rest relatively to the British Press. How- 
 ever great the advantages of previous examination might 
 
 * II y a un voile qui doit toujour couvrir tout ce que Ton peut dire et 
 tout ce qu 'on peut croire du Droit des peuptes et de celui des princes, qui ue 
 s'accordent jamais si bien ensemble que dans le silence. 
 
 Mem. du Card, de Rets. 
 
 How severe a satire where it can be justly applied ! how false and calum- 
 nious if meant as a general maxim ! 
 
58 THE FRIEND. 
 
 be under other circumstances, in this Country it would 
 be both impracticable and inefficient. I need only sug- 
 gest in broken sentences — the prodigious number of 
 Licensers that would be requisite — the variety of their 
 attainments, and (inasmuch as the scheme must be made 
 consistent with our religious freedom) the ludicrous 
 variety of their principles and creeds — their number being 
 so great, and each appointed Censor being himself a man 
 of Letters, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? — If these numer- 
 ous Licensers hold their offices for Life, and independent 
 of the Ministry pro tempore, a new, heterogeneous, and 
 alarming Power is introduced, which can never be assimi- 
 lated to the constitutional powers already existing: — if 
 they are removeable at pleasure, that which is heretical 
 and seditious in 1 S09, may become orthodox and loyal in 
 1810 — and what man, whose attainments and moral 
 respectability gave him even an endurable claim to this 
 aweful Trust, would accept a situation at once so invidious 
 and so precarious ? And what institution can retain any 
 useful influence in so free a nation, when its' abuses 
 have made it contemptible ? — Lastly, and which of itself 
 would suffice to justify the rejection of such a plan — 
 unless all proportion between crime and punishment were 
 abandoned, what penalties could the Law attach to the 
 assumption of a Liberty, which it had denied, more severe 
 than those which it now attaches to the abuse of the 
 Liberty, which it grants ? In all those instances at least, 
 which it would be most the inclination — perhaps the duly 
 > — of the State to prevent, namely, in seditious and incen- 
 •thary publications (whether actually such, or only such as 
 the existing Government chose so to denominate, makes 
 no difference in the argument) the Publisher, who hazards 
 the punishment now assigned to seditious publications, 
 would assuredly hazard the penalties of unlicensed ones, 
 especially as the very Practice of Licensing would natur- 
 ally diminish the attention to the contents of the Works 
 published, the chance of impunity therefore be so much 
 greater, and the artifice of prefixing an unauthorized 
 License so likely to escape Detection. It is a fact, that 
 in many of the former German States in which Literature 
 flourished, notwithstanding the establishment of Censors 
 or Licensers, three fourths of the Books printed were un- 
 licensed — even those, the contents of which were un= 
 objectionable, and where the sole motive for evading the 
 
THE FRIEND. 59 
 
 law must have been either the pride and delicacy of the 
 Author, or the Indolence of the Bookseller — so difficult 
 was the detection, so various the means of evasion, and 
 worse than all, from the nature of the law and the affront 
 it offers to the pride of human nature, such was the merit 
 attached to the Breach of it — a merit commencing perhaps 
 with Luther's Bible, and other prohibited works of similar 
 great minds, published with no dissimilar purpose, and 
 thence by many an intermediate link of association finally 
 connected with Books, of the very titles of which a good 
 man would wish to remain ignorant. The interdictory 
 Catalogues of the Roman Hierarchy always present to my 
 fancy the muster-rolls of the two hostile armies of Michael 
 and of Satan printed promiscuously, or extracted at hap- 
 hazard, save only that the extracts from the former appear 
 somewhat the more numerous. And yet even in Naples, 
 and in Rome itself, whatever difficulty occurs in procur- 
 ing any article catalogued in these formidable Folios must 
 arise either from the scarcity of the work itself, or the 
 absence of all interest in it : assuredly there is no difficulty 
 in procuring from the most respectable Booksellers, the 
 vilest provocatives to the basest crimes, though intermixed 
 with gross lampoons on the Heads of the Church, the 
 religious orders, and on religion itself. The Stranger is 
 invited into an inner room, and the loathsome wares pre- 
 sented to him with most significant Looks and Gestures, 
 implying the hazard, and the necessity of secrecy. A 
 respectable English Bookseller would deem himself insult- 
 ed, if such works were even inquired after at his Shop. 
 
 We have therefore abundant reason to conclude, that 
 the Law of England has done well and wisely in proceed- 
 ing on the principle so clearly worded by Milton : that 
 a Book should be as freely admitted into the world as any? 
 other Birth ; and if it prove a monster, who denies but 
 that it may justly be burnt and sunk into the sea. We 
 have reason then, I repeat, to rest satisfied with our 
 Laws, which no more prevent a book from coming into 
 the world unlicensed, lest it should prove a Libel, than a 
 Traveller from passing unquestioned through our Turn- 
 pike gates, because it is possible he may be a Highway- 
 man. Innocence is presumed in both cases. The publi- 
 cation is a part of the offence, and its' necessary condition. 
 Words are moral Acts, and words deliberately made pub- 
 lic, the Law considers in the same light as any other cog- 
 
60 THE FRIEND. 
 
 nizable overt act. Here however a difficulty presents it* 
 self. Theft, Robbery, Murder, and the like, are easily 
 defined : the degrees and circumstances likewise of these 
 and similar actions are definite, and constitute specific 
 offences, described and punishable each under its' own 
 name. We have only to prove the fact and indentify the 
 offender. The Intention too, in so great a majority of 
 cases, is clearly implied in the action, that the Law can 
 safely adopt it as its' universal maxim, that the proof of 
 the malice is included in the proof of the fact, especially 
 as the few occasional exceptions have their remedy pro- 
 vided in the prerogative of the supreme Magisrate. But 
 in the case of Libel, the degree makes the kind, the cir- 
 cumstances constitute the criminality; and both degrees 
 and circumstances, like the ascending Shades of Color or 
 the shooting Hues of a Dove's Neck, die away into each 
 other, incapable of definition or outline. The eye of the 
 understanding, indeed, sees the determinate difference in 
 each individual case, but Language is most often inade- 
 quate to express what the eye perceives, much less can a 
 general statute anticipate and pre-define it. Again : in 
 other overt-acts a charge disproved leaves the Defendant 
 either guilty of a different fault, or at best simply blame- 
 less. A man havjng killed a fellow-citizen is acquitted of 
 Murder— the act was Manslaughter only, or it was justi- 
 fiable Homicide. But when we reverse the iniquitous 
 sentence passed on Algernon Sidney, during our perusal 
 of his work on Government ; at the moment we deny it 
 to have been a traitrous Libel, our beating Hearts declare 
 jt to have been a benefaction to our Country, and under the 
 circumstances of those times, the performance of an heioic 
 Duty. From this cause therefore, as well as fr»m a 
 JLibel's being a thing made up of degrees and circum- 
 stances (and these too discriminating offence from merit 
 by such dim and ambulant boundaries) the Intention of 
 the agent, wherever it can be independently or inclusively 
 ascertained, must be allowed a great share in determining 
 the character of the action, unless the Law is not only to 
 be divorced from* moral Justice, but to wage open hos- 
 tility against it. 
 
 Add too, that Laws in doubtful points are to be inter- 
 
 * According to the old adage: you are net bung for stealing a Horse, but 
 that Horses may not be stolen. To what extent this is true, we shall have oc- 
 casion to examine hereafter. 
 
THE FRIEND. 61 
 
 preted according to the design of the Legislator, where 
 this can be certainly inferred. But the Laws of England, 
 which owe their own present Supremacy and Absolute- 
 ness to the good sense and generous dispositions diffused 
 by the Press, more, far more, than to any other single 
 cause, must needs be presumed favourable to its' general 
 influence, and even in the penalties attached to its' abuse 
 we must suppose the Legislature to have been actuated 
 by the desire of preserving its' essential privileges. The 
 Press is indifferently the passive Instrument of Evil * and 
 of Good: yet the average result from Henry the 8th to 
 the first Charles, was such a diffusion of religious Light as 
 first redeemed and afterwards saved this Nation from the 
 spiritual and moral death of Popery ; and in the following 
 period it is to the Press that we owe the gradual ascen- 
 dancy of those wise political maxims, which casting phi- 
 losophic truth in the moulds of national laws, customs, 
 and existing orders of society, subverted the Tyranny 
 without suspending the Government, and at length com- 
 pleted the mild and salutary Revolution, by the establish- 
 
 * There is some Good, however, even in its' Evil. " Good and Evil, we 
 know in the field of this world, grow up together almost inseparably : and 
 the knowledge of Good is so intervolved and interwoven with the knowledge 
 of Evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that 
 these confused seeds which were imposed or. Psyche as an incessant labour to 
 
 cull out and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. As, therefore the 
 
 state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to chuse, what continence to 
 forbear, without the knowledge of Evil ? He that can apprehend and con- 
 sider Vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures and yet abstain, and yet 
 distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true way- 
 faring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, that never 
 
 sallies out and sees her Adversary that which is but a youngling in the 
 
 contemplation of Evil, and knows not the utmost that Vice promises to her 
 
 followers, and rejects it, is but a blank Virtue, not a pure. Since, therefore, 
 
 the knowledge and survey of Vice is in this world so necessary to theconstitut- 
 ing of human Virtue, and the scanning of Error to the confirmation of Truth, 
 how can we nv>re safely and with less danger, scout into the regions of Sin 
 and Falsity, than by reading all manner of Tractates, and hearing all manner 
 of reason r" Milton's Speech for the Liberty of unlicenced Printing. Again — 
 but, indeed the whole Treatise is one Strain of moral wisdom and political 
 prudence — "Why should we then affect a rigorcontrary to the manner of God 
 and of Nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which Books, freely per- 
 mitted, are both to the trial of Virtue and the exercise of Truth ? It would be 
 better done to learn, that the Law must needs be frivolous, which goes to re- 
 strain things uncertainly and yet equally working to good and to evil. And 
 were 1 the Chuser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many 
 times as much the forcible hindrance of evil-doing. For God sure esteems 
 the growth and completion of one virtuous person, more than the restraint 
 of ten vicious." — Be it however observed, that nothing in these remarks 
 countervenes the duty and necessity of choice and watchfulness on the part 
 of Parents and Instructors. It isprsttily said bv one of the Fathers, that even 
 in the Scriptures there are parts where the Elephant must swim, as well as 
 others which the Lamb mav ford. 
 
61 THE FRIEND. 
 
 ment of the House of Brunswick. To what must we' 
 attribute this vast over-balance of Good in the general 
 effects of the Press, but to the Over-balance of virtuous 
 Intention in those who employed the Press ? The Law, 
 therefore, will not refuse to manifest good Intention 
 a certain weight even in cases of apparent error, lest 
 it should discourage and scare away those, to whose 
 efforts we owe the comparative infrequency and weak- 
 ness of Error on the whole. The Law may however, nay, 
 it must demand, that the external Proofs of the Author's 
 honest Intentions should be supported by the general 
 style and matter of his work, by the circumstances and 
 mode of it's publication, &c. A passage, which in a 
 grave and regular disquisition would be blameless, might 
 become highly libellous and justly punishable if it were 
 applied to present measures or persons for immediate 
 purposes, in a cheap and popular tracts I have seldom 
 felt greater indignation than at finding in a large manu- 
 factory a sixpenny pamphlet, containing a selection of 
 inflammatory paragraphs from the prose-writings of Mil- 
 ton, without a hint given of the time, occasion, state of 
 government, &c. under which they were written— not a 
 hint, that the freedom, which we now enjoy, exceeds all 
 that Milton dared hope for, or deemed practicable ; and 
 that his political creed sternly excluded the populace, 
 and indeed the majority of the population, from all pre- 
 tensions to political power. If the manifest bad inten- 
 tion would constitute this publication a seditious Libel, 
 a good intention equally manifest can not justly be denied 
 its' share of influence in producing a contrary verdict. 
 
 Kere then is the difficulty. From the very nature of 
 a Libel it is impossible so to define it, but that the most 
 meritorious works will be found included in the descrip- 
 tion. Not from any defect or undue severity in the par- 
 ticular Statute, but from the very nature of the offence to 
 be guarded against, a work recommending Reform by the 
 only rational mode of recommendation, by the detection 
 and exposure of corruption, abuse, or incapacity, might, 
 though it should breathe the best and most unadulterated 
 English feelings, be brought within the definition of Libel 
 equally with the vilest incendiary Brochure, that ever 
 aimed at leading and misleading the Multitude. Not a 
 Paragraph in the Morning Post during the Peace of Amiens, 
 (or rather the experimental Truce so. called) though to the 
 
THE FRIEND. 63 
 
 immortal honour of the then Editor, that Newspaper was 
 the chief secondary means of producing the unexampled 
 national unanimity, with which the war re-commenced 
 and has since been continued — not a Paragraph warning 
 the Nation, as need was and most imperious Duty com- 
 manded, of the perilous designs and unsleeping ambition 
 of our neighbour the Mimic and Caricaturist of Charle- 
 magne * but was a punishable Libel. The Statute of 
 Libel is a vast Aviary, which incages the awakening Cock 
 and the Geese whose alarum preserved the Capitol, no less 
 
 ■ — ■ — ■ — ■ — ■ — -^— ~— ~* 
 
 * Charlemagne outre. This phrase will call to miud the assumption of the 
 iron crown of Italy — the imperial coronation with the presence and authori ty 
 of the Holy Father — the imperial robe embroidered with bees in order to mark 
 the successor of Pepin — the late revocation of Charlemagne's grants to the 
 Pope, &c. The following extract will place the Usurper's close imitation of 
 Charlemagne in a newerand more interesting light. I have translated it from 
 a voluminous German work which, it is probable, few if any of my Readers 
 will possess the opportunity of consulting (Michaellgnaz Schmidt's History of 
 the Germans : the conclusion of the second chapter of the third Book, from 
 Charles the Great to Conrade the first.) But the passage itself contains so 
 much matter for political anticipation and well-grounded hope, as well as for 
 amusing comparison, that I feel no apprehension of my Readers being disatis- 
 fied with the length of the illustration. Let me, however, preface it with one 
 remark. That Charlemagne, for the greater part, created tor himself the 
 means of which he availed himself; that his very education was his own work, 
 and that unlike Peter the Great, he could find no assistants out of his own 
 realm; that the unconquerable Courage and heroic Dispositions of the Na- 
 tious, he conquered, supplied a proof positive of real superiority, indeed the 
 sole positive proof ef intellectual Power in a Warrior: for how can we mea- 
 sure force but by the resistance to it ? But all was prepared for Buonaparte. 
 Europe weakened in the very heart of all human strength, namely, in moral 
 and religious Principle, and at the same time accidently destitute of any one 
 great or commanding mind : the French People, on the other hand, still rest- 
 less from revolutionary Fanaticism ; their civic Enthusiasm already passed 
 into military Passion and the Ambition of Conquest ; and alike by disgust, 
 terror, and characteristic unfitness for Freedom, ripe for the reception of a 
 Despotism. Add too, that the main obstacles to an unlimited System of 
 Conquest and the pursuit of universal Monarchy had been cleared away for 
 him by his Pioneers the Jacobins , viz. the influence of the great Land-holders, 
 of the privileged and of the commercial Classes. Even the naval successes of 
 Great Britain, by destroying the Trade, rendering useless the Colonies, and 
 almost annihilating the Navy of France, were in some respects subservient to 
 his designs by concentrating the Powers of the French Empire in its Armies, 
 and supplying them out of the wrecks of all other Employments, save that of 
 Agriculture. France had already approximated to the (formidable state so 
 prophetieally described by Sir James Stuart, in his Political Economy, in 
 which the Population should consist chiefly of Soldiers and Peasantry : at 
 least the Interests of no other classes were regarded. The great merit of Bouna- 
 parte has been that of a skilful Steersman, who with his Boat in the most 
 violent storm still keeps himself on the summit of the waves, which nut he, 
 but the winds had raised. I will now proceed to my translation. 
 
 That Charles was an Hero, his Exploits bear evi dence. The subjugation 
 of the Lombards, protected as they were by the Alps, by Fortresses and forti- 
 fied Towns, by numerous Armies, and by a great Name ; of the Saxons, secu- 
 red by their savage Resoluteness, by an untamable love of Fredom, by their 
 desart Plains and enormous Fsrests, and by their own Poverty; the humbling 
 
r 
 
 64 
 
 THE FRIEND. 
 
 than the babbling Magpye and ominous Screech-ovvt. 
 And yet will we avoid this seeming injustice, we throw 
 down all Fence and Bulwark of public Decency and pub- 
 lic Opinion ; political Calumnj- will soon join hands with 
 private Slander ; and every Principle, every Feeling, that 
 binds the Citizen to his Country and the Spirit to its' 
 Creator, will be undermined — not by reasoning, for from 
 that there is no Danger ; but — by the mere habit of hear- 
 ing them reviled and scoffed at with impunity. Were we 
 to contemplate the Evils, of a rank and unweeded Press 
 only in its effect on the Manners of a People, and on the 
 general tone of Thought and Conversation, the greater 
 love we bore to Literature and to all the means and instru- 
 ments of human Improvement, with the greater earnest- 
 ness should we solicit the interference of Law : the more 
 anxiously should we wish for some Ithuriel Spear, that 
 
 of the Dukes of Bavaria, Aquitania, Bretagne, and Gascqny;! proud of their 
 ancestry as well as of their ample domaini ; the almost enure* extirpation of 
 the Avars, so long the tenor of Europe; are assuiedly works which demand- 
 ed a courage and a firmness of mind, such as Charles only possessed. 
 
 How great his reputation was, and this too beyond the limits of Europe, 
 is proved by the Embassies sent to him out of Persia, Palestine, Mauritania, 
 and even from the Caliphs of Bagdad. If at the present day an Embassy 
 from the Black or Caspian Sea comes to a prince on the Baltic, it is not to be 
 ■wondered at, since such are now the political relations of the fourquarters of 
 the World, that a blow which is given to any one of them is felt more or less 
 by all the othtrs. Whereas in the times of Charlemagne, the Inhabitants in 
 one of the known parts of the World scarcely knew what was going 6n in the 
 rest. Nothing but the extraordinary, all-piercing report of Charles's Exploits 
 could bring this to pass. His greatness, which set the World hi Astonishment, 
 was likewise, without doubt, that which begot in the Pope and the Romans 
 the first idea of the re-establishment of their Empire. 
 
 Is it true, that a number of things united to make Charles a great Man- 
 favourable circumstances of time, a nation already disciplined to warlike 
 habits, a long life, and the consequent acquisition of experience, such as no 
 one possessed in his whole Kealm Mill, however, the principal means of his 
 greatness Charles found in himself. His great mind was capable of extending 
 its attention to the greatest multiplicity of affairs. In the middle of Saxony 
 he thought on Italy and Spain, and at Rome he made provisions for Saxony, 
 Bavaria, and Pannonia. He gave audience to the Ambassadors of the Greek 
 Emperor and other Potentates, and himself audited 'he accounts of his own 
 Farms, where every thing was entered even to the number of the Eggs. Busy 
 as his mind was, his body was not less in one continued sta'e of motion. 
 Charles would see into every thing himself, and do every thing himself, as far 
 as his powers extended: and even this it was too, which gave to his under- 
 takings such a force and energy. 
 
 i^f 
 
 \ PENRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY" J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
THE FRIEND. 
 
 No. 5, THURSDAY, September 14, 1809. 
 
 might remove from the ear of the Public, and expose in 
 their own fiendish shape those Reptiles, which inspiring 
 venom and forging illusions us theif list, 
 
 -thence raise, 
 
 At least distemper'd discontented thoughts, 
 Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires. 
 
 Paradise JLost, 
 
 The comparison of the English with the Anglo- 
 American Newspapers, will best evince the difference be- 
 tween a lawless Press (lawless at least in practice and by 
 connivance) and a Press at once protected and restrained 
 by Law. 
 
 But with all this the government of Charles was the government of a Con- 
 queror, that is splendid abroad and fearfully oppressive at home. What a 
 grievance must it not have been for the People that Charles for forty years 
 together dragged them now to the Elbe, then to the Ebro, after this to the Po, 
 and from thence back again to the Elbe, and this not to check an invading 
 Enemy, but to make conquests which little profited the French Nation ! This 
 must prove too much, at length, for a hired Soldier • how much more for Cons- 
 cripts, who did not live only to fight, but who were Fathers of Families, Citizens, 
 and Proprietors? But above all, is it to be wondered at, that a Nation like the 
 French, should suffer themselves to be used as Charles used them. But the 
 People no longer possessed any considerable share of influence. All depended 
 on the great Chieftains, who gave their willing suffrage for endless Wars, by 
 wfiich they were always sure to win. They found the best opportunity, under 
 such circumstances, to make themselves great and mighty at the expence of 
 the Freeman resident within the circle of their baionial Courts; and when 
 Conquests were made, it was far more for their advantage than that of the 
 Monarchy. In the conquered Provinces there was a necessity for Dukes, Vas- 
 sal Kings, and different high offices : all this fell to their share. 
 
 I would not say this if we did not possess incontrovertible original docu- 
 ments of those times, which prove clearly to us that Charles's government 
 was an unhappy one for the People, and that this great Man, by his actions, 
 laboured to the direct subversion of his first principles. It was his first pretest 
 to establish a greater equality among the members of his vast community, 
 and to make all free and equal Subjects under a common 'Sovereign. And 
 from the necessity occasioned by continual War, the exact contrary took: 
 place. Nothing gives us a better notion of the interior state of the French 
 Monarchy, than the third capitular of the year 811. (compare -with this the 
 four or- five quarto vols, of the present French Conscript Code). All is full of 
 complaint, the Bishops and Earls clamouring against the Freeholders, an4 
 these in their turn against the Bishops and JEarls. A»d in truth the Free- 
 
6$ THE FRIEND. 
 
 How then shall we solve this Problem ? Its Solution 
 is to be found in that spirit which, like the universal men- 
 struum sought for by the old Alchemists, can blend and 
 harmonize the most discordant Elements — it is to be found 
 in the spirit of a rational Freedom diffused and become 
 national, in the consequent influence and controul of pub- 
 lic opinion, and in its' most precious organ, the Jury. It 
 is to be found, wherever Juries are sufficiently enlightened 
 to perceive the difference, and to comprehend the origin 
 and necessity of the difference, between Libels and other 
 criminal overt-acts, and are sufficiently independent to act 
 upon the conviction, that in a charge of Libel the Degree, 
 the Circumstances, and the Intention, constitute (not 
 merely modi/}/), the offence, give it its' Being, and deter- 
 mine its' legal name. The words " maliciously and ad- 
 visedly," must here have a force of their own, and a proof 
 of their own. They will consequently consider the written 
 Law as a blank power provided for the punishment of the 
 Offender, not as a light by which, they are to determine 
 and discriminate the offence. -The understanding and 
 Conscience of the Jury are the Judges, in ioto : the statute 
 a blank conge d' elire. The Statute is the Clay and those 
 
 holders had no small reason to be discontented and to resist, as far as they 
 oared, even the Imperial Levies. A Dependant must be content to follow hi's 
 Lord without further questioning; : for he was paid for it. But a free Citizen, 
 who lived wholly on his ownproperty, might reasonably object to suffer him- 
 self to be dragged about in all quarters of the World, at the fancies of his 
 Lord: especially as there was so much injustice intermixed. Those who gave 
 , up their properties entirely, or in part, of their own. accord, were left undis- 
 turbed at home, while those, who refused to do this, were forced so often into 
 service, that at length, becoming impoverished, they were compelled by want 
 to give up, or dispose of their free tenures to the Bishops or Earls fit -would 
 
 ■ require no great ingenuity to discover parallels, or at least, equivalent hardships to 
 
 ■ these, in the treatment of, and regKltlions concerning, the reluctant Conscripts. 
 
 . There is, I understand, an interesting article on this Subject in a late Number of 
 the Edinburgh Review, which J regret, that I have not had an opportunity of 
 perusing. J 
 
 It almost surpasses belief to what a height, at length, the aversion to War 
 lose in the French Nation, from the multitude of the Campaigns and the 
 • grievances connected with them. The national vanity was now satiated by 
 the frequences of Victories: and the Plunder which fell to the lot of Indivi- 
 duals, made but a poor compensat' for the Losses and Burthens sustained 
 by their Families at home. Some, in order to become exempt from military 
 service, sought for meniaL employments in the Establishments of the Bishops, 
 Abbots, Abbesses, and Earls. Others made over their ffce property to be- 
 come tenants at will of such Lords as from their Age, or other circumstances, 
 they thought would be called to no further military services. Others, even 
 privately took away the life of their Mothers, Aunts, or other of their Rela- 
 tives, in order that ho family Residents might remain through whom their 
 ' Names might be known, and themselves traced; others -voluntarily made 
 ■ islavesof themselves, ia order thus torcndertbemsclvesiucapableof themilitary ; 
 rank. 
 
THE FRIEND. 67 
 
 the Potter's wheel. Shame fall on that Man, who shall 
 labour to confound what reason and nature have put 
 asunder, and who at once, as far as in him lies, would 
 render the Press ineffectual and the Law odious ; would 
 lock up the main river, the Thames,, of our intellectual 
 commerce : would throw a bar across the stream, that 
 must render its' navigation dangerous or partial, using as 
 his materials the very banks, that were intended to deepen 
 its' channel and guard against its' inundations! Shame 
 fall on him, and a participation in the infamy of those, 
 who .misled an English Jury to the murder of Algernon 
 Sidney: ! 
 
 But though the virtuous intention of the Writer must 
 be allowed a certain influence in facilitating his acquittal, 
 the degree of his moral guilt is not the true index or 
 mete-wand of his Condemnation. For Juries do not sit 
 in a Court of Conscience, but of Law ; they are not the 
 Representatives of Religion, but the Guardians of external 
 tranquillity. The leading Principle, the Pole Star, of the 
 judgement in its' decision concerning the libellous nature 
 of a published Writing, is its' more or less remote connec- 
 tion with after overt-acts, as the cause or occasion of the 
 same. Thus the Publication of actual Facts may be and 
 most often will be criminal and libellous, when directed 
 against private Characters, not only, because the charge 
 will reach the minds of many \yho cannot be competent 
 judges of the truth or falsehood of facts to which them- 
 selves were not .witnesses, against a Man whom they do 
 not know, or at best know imperfectly ; but because such, 
 a Publication is of itself a very serious overt-act, by which 
 the Author without authority and without trial, has in- 
 flicted punishment on a fellow subject, himself being 
 Witness and Jury, Judge and Executioner. Of such 
 Publications there can be no legal justification, though 
 the wrong may be palliated by the circumstance that the 
 injurious charges are not only true but. wholly out of the 
 reach of the Law. But in Libels on the Government 
 there are two things to be balanced against each other, 
 iirst the incomparably greater mischief of the overt-acts 
 supposing them actually occasioned by the Libel— (as 
 for instance the subversion of Government and Property, 
 if the Principles taught by Thomas Paine had been 
 realized, or if even an attempt had been made to realize 
 them, by the many thousands of his Readers) ; and second, 
 
68 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the very great improbability that such effects will be 
 produced by such Writings. Government concerns all 
 generally, and no one in particular. The facts are com- 
 monly as well known to the Readers, as to the Writer : 
 and falsehood therefore easily detected. It is proved, 
 likewise, by experience, that the frequency of open 
 political discussion, with all its' blamable indiscretions, 
 indisposes a Nation to overt acts of practical sedition or 
 conspiracy. They talk ill, said Charles the fifth of his 
 Belgian Provinces, but they suffer so much the better for 
 it. His Successor thought differently : he determined to 
 be Master of their Words, and Opinions, as well as of 
 their Actions, and in consequence lost one half of those 
 Provinces, and retained the other half at an expence of 
 strength and treasure greater than the original worth of 
 the whole. An enlightened Jury, therefore, will require 
 proofs of some more than ordinary malignity of intention, 
 as furnished by the style, price, mode of circulation, and 
 so forth ; or of punishable indiscretion arising out of the 
 state of the times, as of dearth for instance, or of whatever 
 other calamity is likely to render the lower Classes tur- 
 bulent and apt to be alienated from the Government of 
 their Country. For the absence of a right disposition of 
 mind must be considered both in Law and in Morals, as 
 nearly equivalent to the presence of a wrong disposition. 
 Under such circumstances the legal Paradox, that a Libel 
 may be the more a Libel for being true, becomes strictly 
 just, and as such ought to be acted upon. Concerning 
 the right of punishing by Law the Authors of heretical 
 or deistical Writings, I reserve my remarks for a future 
 Number, in which I hope to state the grounds and limits 
 of Toleration more accurately than they seem to me to 
 have been hitherto traced. 
 
 I have thus endeavoured, with an anxiety which may 
 perhaps have misled me into prolixity, to detail and 
 ground the conditions under which the communication of 
 Truth is commanded or forbidden to us as Individuals, by 
 our Conscience ; and those too, under which it is permis- 
 sible by the Law which controls our Conduct as Members 
 of the State. But is the Subject of sufficient importance 
 to deserve so minute an examination ? O that my Readers 
 would look round the World, as it now is, and make to 
 themselves a faithful Catalogue of its' many Miseries! 
 From what do these proceed, and on what do they depend 
 
THE FRIEND. 69 
 
 for their, continuance ? Assuredly for the greater part ou 
 the actions of Men, and those again on the want of a vital 
 Principle of virtuous action. We live by Faith. The 
 essence of Virtue subsists in the. Principle. And the 
 Reality of this, as well as its' Importance, is believed by 
 all Men in Fact, few as there may be who, bring the 
 Truth forward into the light of distinct Consciousness. 
 Yet all Men feel, and at times acknowledge to themselves, 
 the true cause of their misery. There is no man so base, 
 but that at some time or other, and in some way or other, 
 he admits that he is not what he ought to be, though by 
 a curious art of self-delusion, by an effort to keep at 
 peace with himself as long and as much as possible, he 
 will throw off the blame from the amenable part of his 
 nature, his moral principle, to that which is independent 
 of his will, namely, the degree of his intellectual faculties. 
 Hence, for once that a man exclaims, how dishonest 1 am, 
 on what base and unworthy motives I act, we may hear 
 a hundred times, what a Fool I am ! curse on my Folly ?* 
 and the like. 
 
 Yet even this implies an obscure sentiment, that with 
 clearer conceptions in the understanding, the Principle of 
 Action would become purer in the Will. Thanks to the 
 image of our Maker not wholly obliterated from any 
 human Soul, we dare not purchase an exemption from 
 guilt by an excuse, which would place our amelioration 
 out of our own power. Thus the very man, who will 
 abuse himself for a fool but not for a Villain, would 
 rather, spite of the usual professions to the contrary, be 
 condemned as a Rogue by other men, than be acquitted 
 as a Blockhead. But be this as it may, out of himself, 
 however, he sees plainly the true cause of our common 
 complaints. Doubtless, there seem many physical causes 
 of Distress, of Disease, of Poverty, and of Desolation — 
 Tempests, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, wild or venomous 
 Animals, barren soils, uncertain or tyrannous Climates, 
 pestilential Swamps, and Death in the very Air we 
 breathe. Yet when do we hear the general wretchedness 
 of Mankind attributed lo these ? In Iceland, the Earth 
 opened and sent forth three or more vast Rivers of Fire. 
 
 * We do not consider as exceptions the thousands that abuse them.-elves 
 by rote in Lip-penitence, or the wild ravings of Fanaticism : for these Persons, 
 at the very time they speak so vehemently of the wickedness and rottenness 
 of their hearts, are then commonly the warmest in their own good opinion, 
 covered round and comfortable in the Wrap-rascal of self-hypocrisy. 
 
70 THE FRIEND. 
 
 The smoke and vapour from them dimmed the Light of 
 Heaven through all Europe, for Months ; even at Cadiz, 
 the Sun and Moon, for several weeks, seemed turned to 
 Blood. What was the amount of the injury to the human 
 Race ? Sixty men were destroyed, and of these the 
 greater part in consequence of their own imprudence. 
 Natural Calamities that do indeed spread devastation 
 wide (for instance the Marsh Fever), are almost without 
 exception, voices of Nature in her all-intelligible language 
 —do this ! or Cease to do that i By the mere absence 
 of one Superstition, and of the Sloth engendered by it, 
 the Plague would cease to exist throughout Asia and 
 Africa. Pronounce meditatively the name of Jenner, 
 and ask what might we not hope, what need we deem 
 unattainable, if all the time, the effort, the skill, which 
 we waste in making ourselves miserable through vice, and 
 vicious through misery, were embodied and marshalled 
 to a systematic War against the existing Evils of Nature ? 
 No, " It is a wicked World!" this is so generally the 
 Solution, that this very Wickedness is assigned by selfish 
 men, as their excuse for doing nothing to render it better, 
 and for opposing those who would make the attempt. 
 What have not Clarkson, Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, 
 and the Society of the Friends, effected for the Honor, and, 
 if we believe in a retributive Providence, for the con- 
 tinuance of the Prosperity of the English Nation, imper- 
 fectly as the intellectual and moral faculties of the People 
 at large are developed at present ? What may not be 
 effected, if the recent discover}' of the means of educating 
 Nations (freed, however, from the vile sophistications and 
 mutilations of ignorant Mountebanks), shall have been 
 applied to its' fwll extent ? Would I frame to myself the 
 most inspiratirtg representation of future Bliss, which my 
 mind is capable of comprehending,. it would be embodied 
 to me iu the idea of Bell receiving, at some distant period, 
 the appropriate reward of his earthly ' Labours, when 
 thousands and ten thousands of glorified Spirits, whose 
 leason and conscience had, through Ms efforts, been 
 unfolded, shall sing the song Of their own Redemption, 
 and pouring forth Praises "to God and to their Saviour, 
 shall repeat his " new Name" in Heaven, give thanks for 
 his earthly Virtues, as the chosen Instruments of Divine 
 Mercy to themselves, and not seldom perhaps, turn their 
 eyes toward him, as from the Sun to its* image in the 
 
THE FRIESD. 71 
 
 Fountain, with secondary gratitude and the permitted 
 utterance of a human love! Were but a hundred men 
 to combine a deep conviction that virtuous Habits may 
 be formed by the very means by which knowledge is com- 
 municated, that men may be made better, not only in con- 
 sequence, but by the mode and in the process, of in- 
 struction : were but an hundred men to combine that 
 clear conviction of this, which I myself at this moment 
 feel, even as I feel the certainty of my being, with the 
 perseverance of a Claekson or a Bell, the promises of 
 ancient prophecy would disclose themselves to our Faith, 
 even as when a noble Castle hidden from us by an inter- 
 vening mist, discovers itself by its' reflection in the tran- 
 quil Lake, on the opposite shore of which we stand 
 gazing. What an awful Duty, what a Nurse of all other, 
 the fairest Virtues, does not hope become! We are bad 
 ourselves, because we despair of the goodness of others. 
 
 If then it be a Truth, attested alike by common feel- 
 ing and common sense, that the greater part of human 
 Misery depends directly on human Vices and the remain- 
 der indirectly, by what means can we act on Men so as 
 to remove or preclude these Vices and purify their prin- 
 ciple of moral election ? The question is not, by what 
 means each man is to alter his own character- — in order 
 to this, all the means prescribed and all the aidances 
 given by Religion, may be necessary for him. Vain, of 
 themselves, may be 
 
 ■the sayings of the wise 
 
 In ancient and in modern books inroll'd 
 
 « 
 
 Unless he feel within 
 Some source of consolation from above, 
 Secret refreshings, that repair his strength, 
 And fainting spirits uphold. 
 
 -. . Sampson Agonistes. 
 
 This i«s not the question. Virtue would not be Vir- 
 tue, could it be given by one fellow-creature to another. 
 To make wseof all the means and appliances in our power 
 to the actual attainment of Rectitude, is the abstract of 
 the Duty which we owe t ourselves: to supply those 
 means as far as we can, comprizes our Duty to others. 
 The question then is, what are these me .ns ? Can they 
 be any other than the communication of knowledge, and 
 
72 THE F&IEND. 
 
 the remdval of those Evils and Impediments which pre« 
 Vent its' reception ? It may not be in our power to com- 
 bine both, but it is in the power of every man to contrir 
 bute to the former, who is sufficiently informed to feel 
 that it is his Duty. If it be said, that we should endeavour 
 not so much to remove Ignorance, as to make the Igno- 
 rant religious : Religion herself, through her sacred 
 Oracles, answers for me, that all effective Faith pre-, 
 supposes Knowledge and individual Conviction. If the 
 mere acquiescence in Truth, uncomprehended and uti- 
 fathomed, were sufficient, few indeed would be the* 
 vicious and the miserable, in this Country at least, where 
 speculative Infidelity is, Heaven be praised, confined to a 
 small number. Like bodily deformity, there is one 
 instance here and another there ; but three in one place 
 are already an undue proportion. It is highly worthy of 
 observation, that the inspired Writings received by Chris- 
 tians are distinguishable from all other Books pretending 
 to Inspiration, from the Scriptures of the Bramins, and 
 even from the Koran, in their strong and frequent recom- 
 mendations of Truth. 1 do not here mean Veracity, 
 which cannot but be enforced in every Code which 
 appeals to the religious Principle of Man ; but Know- 
 ledge. This is not only extolled as the Crown and 
 Honor of a Man, but to seek after it is again and again 
 commanded us as one of our most sacred Duties. Yea, 
 the very perfection and final bliss of the glorified spirit is 
 represented by the Apostle as a plain aspect, or intuitive 
 beholding of Truth in its' eternal and immutable Source. 
 Not. that Knowledge can of itself do all! The Light of 
 Religion is not that of the Moon, light without heat ; but 
 neither is its' warmth that of the Stove, warmth without 
 light. Religion is the Sun, whose warmth indeed swells, 
 and stirs, and actuates the Life of Nature, but who at the 
 same time beholds all the growth of Life with a master- 
 eye, makes all objects glorious on which he looks, and by 
 that Glory visible to all others. 
 
 But though Knowledge be not the only, yet that it 
 is an indispensable and most effectual Agent in the direc- 
 tion of our actions, one consideration will convince us. 
 It is an undoubted Fact of human nature, that the sense of 
 impossibility quenches all will. Sense of utter inaptitude 
 does the same. The man shuns the beautiful Flame, 
 which is eagerly grasped at by the Infant. The sense of 
 
THE FRIEND. 73 
 
 * disproportion of certain after harm to present gratifica- 
 tion, produces effects almost equally uniform: though 
 almost perishing with thirst, we should dash to the earth 
 a goblet of Wine in which we had seen a Poison infused, 
 though the Poison were without taste or odour, or even 
 added to the pleasures of both. Are not all our Vices 
 equally inapt to the universal end of human actions, the 
 Satisfaction of the agent ? Are not their pleasures equally 
 disproportionate to the after harm ? Yet many a Maiden, 
 who will not grasp at the fire, will yet purchase a wreath 
 of Diamonds at the price of her health, her honor, nay 
 (and she herself knows it at the moment of her choice), at 
 the sacrifice of her Peace and Happiness. The Sot would 
 reject the poisoned Cup, yet the trembling hand with 
 which he raises his daily or hourly draught to his lips, 
 has not left him ignorant that this too is altogether a 
 Poison. I know, it will be objected, that the conse- 
 quences foreseen are less immediate ; that they are dif- 
 fused over a larger space of time ; and that the slave of 
 Vice hopes where no hope is. This, however, only re- 
 moves the question one step further : for why should the 
 distance or diffusion of known consequences produce so 
 great a difference ? Why are men the dupes of the pre- 
 sent moment? Evidently because the conceptions are 
 indistinct in the one case, and vivid in the other; because 
 all confused conceptions render us restless ; and because 
 Restlessness can drive us to Vices that promise no enjoy- 
 ment, no not even the cessation of that Restlessness. 
 This is indeed the dread Punishment attached by Nature 
 to habitual Vice, that its' Impulses wax as its' Motives 
 wane. No object, not even the light of a solitary Taper 
 in the far distance, tempts the benighted Mind from before; 
 but its' own restlessness dogs it from behind, as with the 
 iron goad of Destiny. What then is or can be the pre- 
 ventive, the remedy, the counteraction, but the habitua- 
 tion of the Intellect to clear, distinct, and adequate con- 
 ceptions concerning all things that are the possible objects 
 of clear conception, and thus to reserve the deep feelings 
 which belong,* as by a natural right to those obscure 
 
 * I have not expressed myself as clearly as I could wish. But the truth 
 of the assertion, that deep feeling has a tendency to combine with obscure 
 ideas in preference to distinct and clear notions, is proved in every Methodist 
 meeting, and by the history of religious sects in general. The odium theolo- 
 gicum.or hatred excited by difference of faith, is even proverbial: and it is 
 the common complaint of philosophers and philosophic Historians, that the 
 
74 THE FBIEXp. 
 
 Ideas that are necessary, to the moral perfection of th§ 
 human being, notwithstanding, yea, even in consequence, 
 of their obscurity — to reserve these feelings, 1 repeat for 
 objects, which their very sublimity renders indefinite, no 
 less than their indefiuiteness renders them sublime : Being, 
 Form, Life, the Reason, the Law of Conscience, Freedom, 
 Immortality, God ! To connect with the objects of our 
 senses the obscure notions and consequent vivid feelings, 
 which are due only to our Ideas of immaterial and perma- 
 nent Things, is profanation relatively to the heart, and 
 superstition in the understanding. It is in this sense, 
 that the philosophic Apostle calls Covetousness Idoltary. 
 Could we emancipate ourselves from the bedimming influ- 
 ences of Custom, and the transforming witchcraft of early 
 associations, we should see as numerous Tribes of Fetish- 
 Worshippers in the streets of London and Paris, as we 
 hear of on the Coasts of Africa. 
 
 I am fully aware, that what I am writing and have 
 written (in these latter paragraphs at least) will expose me 
 to the Censure of some, as bewildering myself and Read- 
 ers with Metaphysics ; to the Ridicule of others as a 
 School-boy declaimer on old and worn-out Truisms or 
 exploded Fancies ; and to the Objection of most as ob- 
 scure. The last real or supposed defect requires and will 
 receive a particular answer in a following Number, pre- 
 paratory to the disquisition on the elements of our moral 
 and intellectual faculties. Of the two former, I shall take 
 the present opportunity of declaring my sentiments : es- 
 pecially as I have already received a hint that my " idol, 
 Milton, has represented Metaphysics as the subjects 
 which the bad Spirits in Hell delight in discussing." 
 And truly, if 1 had exerted my subtlety and invention in 
 persuading myself and others that we are but living ma- 
 chines, and that (as one of the late followers of Hobbes 
 and Hartley has expressed the system) the Assassin and 
 his Dagger are equally fit objects of moral esteem and 
 abhorrence ; or if with a Writer of wider influence and 
 higher authority, 1 had reduced ah Virtue to a selfish 
 prudence eked out by Superstition (for assuredly, a creed 
 
 passions of the Disputants are commonly violent in proportion to the subtlety 
 and obscurity of the Questions in Dispute. Nor is this fact confined to 
 professional Theljgians : for whole nations have displayed the same agita- 
 tions, and have sacrificed national policy to the more powerful Interest a£ 
 a controverted Obscurity.-' ... 
 
tME FHIENB. 75 
 
 Which takes its' central point in conscious selfishness, 
 whatever be the forms or names that act on the selfish 
 passion, a Ghost or a Constable, can have but a distant 
 relationship to that Religion, which places its' Essence in 
 our loving our Neighbour as ourselves, and God above all) 
 I know not, by what arguments I could repel the sarcasm. 
 But what are my Metaphysics, but the referring of the 
 Mind to its 5 own Consciousness for Truths indispensible 
 to its' own Happiness ? To what purposes do I, or am I 
 about, to employ them ? To perplex our clearest notions 
 and living moral instincts? To deaden the feelings of 
 Will and free Power, to extinguish the Light of Love and 
 of Conscience, to make myself and others Worth-less, 
 Soul-less, God-less? No! To expose the Folly and the 
 Legerdemain of those who have thus abused the blessed 
 machine of Language ; to support all old and venerable 
 Truths ; and by them to support, to kindle, to project 
 the Spirit; to make the Reason spread Light over our 
 Feelings, to make our Feelings, with their vital warmth, 
 actualize our Reason ; — these are my objects, these are 
 my subjects, and are these the Metaphysics which the 
 bad Spirits in Hell delight in ? 
 
 But how shall I avert, the scorn of those Critics who 
 laugh at the oldness of my Topics, Lvil and Good, 
 Necessity and Arbitrement, Immortality and the ultimate 
 Aim ? By what shall 1 regain their favour ? My Themes 
 must be new, a French Constitution ; a Balloon ; a change 
 of Ministry ; a fresh batch of Kings on the Continent, or 
 of Peers in our happier Island ; or who had the best of it 
 of two parliamentary Gladiators, and whose Speech, on 
 the subject of Europe bleeding at a thousand wounds, or 
 our own Country struggling for herself and all human 
 nature, was cheered by the greatest number of Laughs, 
 loud Laughs, and veru loud Laughs : (which, carefully 
 marked by italics, form most conspicuous and strange 
 parentheses in the Newspaper Reports). Or if I must be 
 philosophical, the last chemical discoveries, provided I do 
 not trouble my Reader with the Principle which gives 
 them their highest Interest, and the character of intellec- 
 tual grandeur to the Discoverer ; or the last shower of 
 stones, and that they were supposed, by certain Philoso- 
 phers, to have been projected from some Volcano in the 
 Moon, taking care, however, not to add any of the cramp 
 reasons for this Opinion ! Something new, however, it 
 
76 THE FRIEND. 
 
 must be, quite new and quite out of themselves: for what- 
 ever is within them, whatever is deep within them, must 
 be as old as the first dawn of human Reason. But to find 
 no contradiction in the union of old and new, to contem- 
 plate the ancient of days with feelings as fresh as if 
 they then sprang forth at his own fiat, this characterizes 
 the minds that feel the Riddle of the World, and may 
 help to unravel it ! To carry on the feelings of Child- 
 hood into the powers of Manhood, to combine the Child's 
 sense of wonder and novelty with the Appearances which 
 every day for perhaps forty years had rendered familiar, 
 
 With Sun and Moon and Stars throughout the year, 
 And Man and Woman 
 
 this is the character and privilege of Genius, and one of 
 the marks which distinguish Genius from Talents. And 
 so to represent familiar objects as to awaken the minds 
 of others to a like freshness of sensation concerning them 
 (that constant accompaniment of mental, no less than of 
 bodily convalescence) — to the same modest questioning of 
 a self-discovered and intelligent ignorance, which, like 
 the deep and massy Foundations of a Roman Bridge, 
 forms half of the whole Structure fprudens interrogatio 
 dimidium sciendas, says Lord Bacon) — this is the prime 
 merit of Genius, and its' most unequivocal mode of mani- 
 festation. Who has not, a thousand times, seen it snow 
 upon water ? Who has not seen it with a new feeling, 
 since he has read Burns's comparison of sensual pleasure 
 
 To snow that falls upon a river, 
 
 A moment white — then gone for ever ! 
 
 In Philosophy equally as in Poetry, Genius produces 
 the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues the 
 stalest and most admitted Truths from the Impotence 
 caused by the very circumstances of their universal ad- 
 mission. Extremes meet — a proverb, by the bye, to 
 collect and explain all the instances and exemplifications 
 of which, would employ a Life. Truths, of all others the 
 most awful and mysterious, yet being at the same time of 
 universal interest, are too often considered as so true 
 that they lose all the powers of Truth, and lie bed- 
 ridden in the Dormitory of the Soul, side by side with 
 the mast despised a,nd exploded Errors. 
 
THE FRIEND. 77 
 
 But as the Class of Critics whose contempt I have 
 anticipated, commonly consider themselves as Men of 
 the World, instead of hazarding additional sneers by ap- 
 pealing to the Authorities of recluse Philosophers (tor 
 such in spite of all History, the men who have dis- 
 tinguished themselves by profound thought, afe generally 
 deemed, from Plato and Aristotle to Tully, and from 
 Bacon to Berkeley), I will refer them to the Darling of 
 the polished Court of Augustus, to the Man, whose 
 Works have been in all ages deemed the models of good 
 sense, and are still the pocket-companion of those who 
 pride themselves on uniting the Scholar with the Gentle- 
 man. This accomplished Man of the World has given 
 us an account of the Subjects of Conversation between 
 himself and the illustrious Statesmen who governed, and 
 the brightest Luminaries who then adorned the Empire 
 of the civilized World : 
 
 Sermo oritur non de villis domibusve alienis 
 Nee, male, nee ne lepus saltet. Sed quod magis ad nos 
 Pertinet, et nescire malum est, agitamits : atrumne 
 Divitiis homines, an sint virtute beati ? 
 Et quo sit natura boni ? summumque quid eius ? 
 
 Horat. Serm. L. II. Sat. 6. v. 71 * 
 
 Berkeley indeed asserts, and is supported in his As- 
 sertion by the great Statesmen, Lord Bacon and Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, that without an habitual interest in these 
 Subjects, a Man may be a dexterous Intriguer, but 
 never can be a Statesman. Would to Heaven that the 
 Verdict to be passed on my Labours depended on those 
 who least needed them! The Water Lilly in the midst 
 of Waters lifts up its' broad Leaves, and expands its' 
 Petals at the first pattering of the Shower, and rejoices 
 in the Rain with a quicker Sympathy, than the parched 
 Shrub in the Sandy Desart. 
 
 God created Man in his own Image. To be the Image 
 of his own Eternity created he Man ! Of Eternity and 
 Self-existence what other Likeness is possible in a finite 
 
 LITERAL TRANSLATION. 
 
 * Conversation arises not concerning the Country Seats or Families of 
 Strangers, nor whether the dancing Kare performed welt or ill. But we 
 discuss what more nearly concerns us, and which it is an Evil not to know: 
 whether Men are made happy by Riches or by Virtue? And in what consists 
 the nature of Good ? and what is the ultimate or supreme Good r fi. e. tie 
 Suwmum BonumJ. 
 
7$ THE FRIEND. 
 
 Being, but Immortality and moral Self-determination ! In 
 addition to Sensation, Perception, and practical Jud°-e* 
 ment (instinctive or acquirable) concerning the notices 
 furnished by the organs of Perception, all which in kind 
 at least, the Dog possesses in common with his Master ; 
 in addition to these, God gave us Reason, and with 
 Reason he gave us reflective Self-consciousness; gave 
 us Principles, distinguished from the maxims and gene- 
 ralizations of outward Experience by their absolute and 
 essential Universality and Necessity ; and above all, by 
 superadding to Reason the mysterious faculty of Free 
 Will and consequent personal Amenability, he gave us 
 CoNSCiENCE-^-that Law of Conscience, which in the 
 power, and as the indwelling Word, of an holy and 
 omnipotent Legislator commands us— from among the 
 numerous Ideas mathematical and philosophical, which 
 the Reason* by the necessity of its' own excellence 
 
 * The following paragraphs in this reprinted Copy I have tran- 
 splanted from the Text to the Notes, in order that they may be read 
 or passed over ad libitum. They are addressed to the Few. among 
 my Readers, who have directed their attention to psychological 
 analysis : from the Rest I entreat that same toleration, which, if 
 they are purchasers of new books, they must have been in the ha- 
 bit of giving to wide margins and empty spaces •, which are called 
 Fat, I believe, by the Printers, whether in consideration of the 
 Good of the Trade in general and their own relief and profit in par- 
 ticular, or (ex opposito, as the Grammarians say) from the contrary 
 effect on the Readers Information, ut mons a non movenda, I am 
 unable to decide. 
 
 Chrisippus, in one of his stoical Aphorisms (preserved by Cicero 
 in his Dialogue de nat. deor. lib. 2. sect. 160.) says : Nature has 
 given to the Hog a soul instead of salt, in order to keep it from 
 putrifying. This holds equally true of Man considered as an ani- 
 mal. Modern Physiologists have substituted the words vital; power 
 (vis vitcej for that of soul, and not without good reason ; for from 
 the effect we may fairly deduce the inherence of a power producing 
 it, but are not entitled to hypostasis this power (that is, to affirm 
 it to be an individual substance) any more than the Steam in the Steam 
 Engine, the power of Gravitation in the Watch* or the magnetic Influ- 
 ence in the Loadstone. If the Machine consists of Parts mutually de- 
 pendant, as in the Thrre--piece or theHogj we cannot dispart with- 
 out destroying it : if otherwise, as in a mass of Loadstone and in 
 the Polypus, the power is equally divisible with the substance, The 
 most approved Definition of a living Substance is, that its' vitality 
 consists in the susceptibility of being acted upon by external stimu- 
 lants joined to the necessity of re-action ; and in, the due balance 
 of this action and re-action, the healthy state of Life consists. We 
 
THE FRIEND. 79 
 
 creates for itself, unconditionally commands us to attribute 
 Reality, and actual Existence, to those Ideas and to those 
 only, without which the Conscience itself would be base- 
 less and contradictory, to the Ideas of Soul, of Free Will, 
 of Immortality, and of God ! 
 
 must, however, further add the power of acquiring Habits, arid 
 Facilities by repetition. This being the general idea of Life, is 
 common to all living Beings ; but taken exclusively, it designates 
 the lowest Class, Plants and Plant Animals. An addition to the 
 mechanism gives locomotion. A still costlier and more complex 
 apparatus diversly organizes the impression sreceived from the exter- 
 nal powers that fall promiscuously on the whole surface. The light 
 shines on the whole face, but it receives form and relation only in 
 the Eyes. In them it is cfrganized. To these Organs of sense we 
 suppose (by analogy from our own experience) "sensation attached, 
 and these sensuous impressions acting on other parts of the Machine, 
 framed for other stimulants included in the Machine itself, namely, 
 the Organs of Appetite ; and these again working on the instru- 
 . ments of locomotion, and on those by which the external substances 
 (corresponding to the sensuous impressions) can be acted upon, (the 
 Mouth, Teeth, Talons, &c.) constitute our whole idea of the perfect 
 Animal. More than this Des Cartes denied to all other Animals 
 but Man, and to Man himself as an animal : (for that this truly 
 great Man considered Animals insensible, or rather insejlsitive, 
 Machines, though commonly asserted, and that in Books of highest 
 authority, is an error ; and the charge was repelled with disdain by 
 himself, in. a Letter to Dr. Henry More, which, if I "mistake 1101," is 
 annexed to the small Edition of More's Ethics.) 
 
 The strict analogy, however between certain actions of "sundry 
 Animals and those of Mankind, forces upon us the "belief, "that they 
 possess some share of a higher faculty : which, however closely uni- 
 ted with Life in one person, can yet never he educed Out of the mere 
 idea of vital power. Indeed if we allow any force to the universal 
 opinion, and almost instinct, concerning the difference between 
 Plants and Animals, we must hold even sensation as a fresh power 
 added to the Vis Vita;, unless we would make an end of Philosophy, 
 by comprizing all things in each thing, and thus denying that any 
 one Power of the Universe can be affirmed to be itself and nofc 
 another. However tihs may be, the Understanding or regulative 
 faculty is manifestly distinct from Life and Sensation^ its' function 
 being to take up the passive affections of the Sense into distinct 
 Thoughts and Judgements, according to its' own essential forms, 
 These Forms however, as they are first awakened by impressions 
 from the Senses, so have they no Substance or Meaning unless in 
 their application to Objects of the Senses ; and if we would remove 
 from them, by careful Abstraction,allthe influences and intermixtures 
 of a yet far higher Faculty (Self-consciousness for instance), it would 
 ise difficult, if at all possible, to distinguish its' Functions from those 
 
80 THE FRIEND. 
 
 To God, as the Reality -of-- the Conscience and the 
 Source of all Obligation ; to. Free Will, as the power of 
 the human being to maintain the Obedience, which 
 God through the Conscience has commanded, agaisnt all 
 the might of Nature ; and to the immortality of the 
 Soul, as a State in which the weal and woe of man 
 shall be proportioned to his moral Worth. - >^ .--• 
 
 "t^Y *,t- of Instinct, of which it would be no inapt Definition that it is a 
 the particular from the universal. The few Readers, for whom this 
 
 t 
 
 >i^i more or less limited Understanding without Self-conciousness, 
 
 and without comprehension — that is, without the power of concluding 
 
 
 note is intended, will observe, that the word, understanding, may 
 be used in two meanings, a wider and a narrower. In the first, it 
 means the active power of the Soul, thought, as opposed torts' 
 passive or merely recipient, property, the sense: (N. B. not the 
 Senses, but that quality of the Soul which receive impressions from 
 the Senses, even as the Senses receive impressions from objects out 
 of us,) so defined, it includes the Reason. In its' narrower meaning, . 
 the Understanding is used for the faculty, by which we form 
 distinct notions of Things and immediate, positive judgements (ex. 
 gr. Gold is a Body) in distinction from Reason or the faculty by 
 which we form necessary conclusions, or mediate Judgements (ex. gr. 
 Gold being a material Substance must be extended.) If the Reader ' 
 will put up with scholastic Latinity, he may thus word the compo- 
 nent faculties of the animal triplex; Vis sensitiva percipit, Vis, 
 regulatrix cowcipit, vis rationalis comprehendit : prima imprimitwr . 
 per sensus ; secunda impressiones multifarias in notiones individuas 
 coadunat, pas autem notiones regulis secundum analogiam subnectit, 
 i. e. experienliam format ; tertia et notiones individuas, et regulas 
 experimentales, Principiis absolutis, seu Legibus necessariis sub- 
 jungit et subjugat, et inde de rebus, quas reales esse experientia 
 jam monstratum est, ipsaultro demonstrans, quomodo sint possibiles, 
 scientiam Tacit. Ratio, seu vis scientifica, est possibilitatis, vel essen- 
 tia rerum, p?r leges earum constitutivas, Intellectio. In its' nar- 
 rower sense, I assert, that the Understanding, or experiential 
 faculty thus distinguished from the Reason, or sciential power, 
 has no appropriate Object, but the material World in Relation to 
 our worldly Interests. The far-sighted Prudence of Man, and the 
 more narrow, but at the same time far more certain and effectual, 
 Cunning of the Fox, are both no other than a nobler Substitute 
 for Salt, in order that tlie Hog may not putrify before its' destined 
 hour. J 
 
 PENRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN ; AND SOLD »V 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. P ATERNOST ER ROW, AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 901, STRANP, LONBON. 
 
THE FRIEND. 
 
 " 
 
 No. 6, THURSDAY, September 21, 1809. 
 
 With this Faith all Nature, 
 
 all the mighty "World 
 Of Eye and Ear ■ 
 
 presents itself to us, now as the aggregated Material of 
 Duty, and now as a Vision of the Most High revealing to 
 us the mode, and time, and particular instance of applying 
 and realizing that universal Rule, pre-established in the , 
 Heart * of our Reason !/Jf this be regarded as the ' ' A 
 dream of an Enthusiast, by such as 
 
 deem themselves most free, i 
 
 When they within this gross and visible sphere 
 
 Chain down the winged soul, scoffing ascent, 
 
 Proud in their meanness , 
 
 by such as pronounce every man out of his Senses who 
 has not lost his Reason ; even these may find some weight 
 in the historical Fact that form persons, who had previously 
 strengthened their Intellects and Feelings by the contem- 
 plation of those Principles of Duty the actions correspon- 
 dent to which involve one half of their Consequences, and 
 have Omnipotence, as the Pledge for the remainder — that 
 chiefly from those have been derived the surest and most ge- 
 neral Maxims of Prudence, and with these that hardihood 
 which completes the undertaking, ere the contemptuous 
 Calculator (who has left nothing omitted in his scheme of 
 
 . >^ • I earnestly entreat the Reader not to be dissatisfied either with himself 
 ' or with the Author, if he should not at once understand the preceding para- 
 graph; but rather to consider it as a mere annunciation of a magnificent 
 Theme, the different parts of which arc to be demonstrated and developed, 
 explained, illustrated, and exemplified in the progress of the Work. 1 like 
 wise entreat him to peruse with attention ami with candour, the weighty Ex- 
 tract from the judicious 'Iooker, prefixed as the Motto to the ninth Number 
 of the Friend. In works of Reasoning, as distinguished from narration of 
 Events or statements of Facts ; but more particularly in Works, the object of 
 which is to make us better acquainted with our owu nature, a Writer, whose 
 meaning is every where comprehended as quickly as his sentences can be read, 
 may indeed have produced an amusing Composition, nay, by awakening and re- 
 euli veiling our recollections, a useful one ; outmost assuredly he will not have 
 added either to thestock of our Knowledge, or to the vigour of our Intellect. 
 For how can we gather strength, but by exercise ? How can a truth, new to us, ' 
 
 be made our own without examination and self-questioning — any new truth, I 
 mean, that relates to the properties of the mind, and its' various faculties and \ 
 affections ! But whatever demands effort, requires time. Ignorance seldom 
 i-eultf into knowledge, but passes into it through an intermediate state of ob- 
 scurity, even as Night into Day through Twilight. 
 
 
82 THE FRIEND. 
 
 probabilities, except the might of the human mind) has 
 finished his pretended proof of its impossibility. Though I 
 have in this and the preceding Numbers quoted more fre- 
 quently and copiously than I shall permit myself to do in fu- 
 ture (yet I trust, such passages as will be original To a great 
 majority of my Readers, either from the scarceness of the 
 works, or from the Language in which they are written) L 
 cannot deny myself the gratification of supporting this con- 
 nection of practical Heroism with previous- Habits of phi- 
 losophic Thought, by a singularly appropriate passage from 
 an Author whose Works can he called rare only from their 
 hieing, 1 fear, rarely read, however commonly talked of. it 
 is the instance of Xenophon as stated by Lord Bacon, who 
 would himself furnish an equal instance, if there could be 
 found an equal Commentator. 
 
 " It is of Xenophon the Philosopher, who went from 
 Socrates's School into Asia, in the Expedition of Cyrus 
 the younger, against King Artaxerxes,. This Xenophon, 
 at that time, was very young, and never had seen the wars 
 before; neither had any command in the army, but only 
 followed the. war as a Volunteer, for the Love and Con- 
 versation of Proxenus, his Friend. He was present when 
 Falinus came in message from' the great King to the Gre- 
 cians, after that Cyrus Was slain in the Field, and they,, 
 a handful of men, left to themselves in the midst of thfi 
 King's territories, cut off from their Country by many 
 navigable Rivers, and many hundred miles. The Message 
 imported, that they should deliver up their arms and sub- 
 mit themselves to the King's mercy. To which message,, 
 before answer vyas made, divers of the. Army conferred 
 familiarly with Falinus,, and amongst the rest Xenophon 
 happened to say : Why, Falinus ! we have now but these 
 two things left, our Arms and our Virtue ; and if we yield 
 \ip our arms, how shall we make use of- our Virtue ? 
 AVhereto Falinus, smiling on him, said, ' If l'ben'ot de- 
 ceived, Young Gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I 
 believe, you study pbiloisophy, and it is pretty that you 
 say ; but you are much abused, if you think your Virtue 
 can withstand the King's Power.' Here was- the Scorn : 
 the Wonder followed — which was, that this young Scholar 
 or Philosopher, after all the Cs^taiiiS; wen; mothered in 
 parly, by treason, conducted rhose ten. thousand foot, 
 through the heart of all the King's high Countries from 
 Babylon to Grecia, in safety, in despight of all the King's; 
 Forces, to the Astonishment of the World, and the encour- 
 agement of the ..Grecians, in times succeeding, to make in- 
 vasion upon the Kings of- Persia ; as was after purposed by 
 
THE FRIEND. 
 
 S3 
 
 Jason the Thessalian, attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, 
 and atehieved by Alexander the Macedonian, all upon the 
 ground of the act of that young Scholar J' 
 
 Often have I reflected with aw6 on the great and difc» 
 proportionate power, which an individual of no extraor- 
 dinary talents or attainments may exert, by merely throw* 
 ing off all restraint of Conscience. What then rtliist not b* 
 the power, where an Individual, of consummate wicked^ 
 ness, can organise into the unity and rapidity of an indi* 
 vidua) will, all the natural and artificial forces of a populous 
 and wicked nation ? And could we bring within the field 
 of imagination, the devastation effected in the moral worlds 
 by the violent removal of old customs, familiar sympathies, 
 willing reverences, and habits of subordination almost na- 
 turalized into instinct ; of the mild influences of reputa-» 
 tion,and the other ordinary props and aidances of our in- 
 firm Virtue, or at least if Virtue be too high a name, of oar 
 well-doing ; and above all, if we could give form and body 
 to all the effects produced on tile Principles and Dispo- 
 sitions of Nations by the infectious feelings of Insecurity", 
 and the soul-sickening Sense of Unsteadiness in the whole 
 Edifice of civil Society i fbe horr««? af. Battle, thmigb the 
 miseries of a whole War were brought together before our 
 eyes in one disastrous Field, would present but a tame 
 Tragedy in comparison. .Nay, it would eyeo. present a " 
 sight of comfort and of elevation,, if this Field <rf" Carnage 
 were the sign and result of a national Resolve, of a general 
 Will, so to die, that neither Deluge nor Fire should take 
 away the name of Country from their Graves, rather 
 than to tread Ibe same clods of Earth, no longer a Coun- 
 try, and themselves alive in nature, but dead kr infemy. 
 What is Greece at this present moment ? It is the Coun- 
 try of tbe Heroes from Codrus to Philopg&Hien ; and so 
 it would be, tl>ough oil the Sands of Africa siaould cover 
 it's Corn Fields and Olive Gardens, and not a Flower were 
 left ob Hybla for a Bee to murmur in. 
 
 If then the power with which. Wickedness can invest 
 the huin*» being be thus tremendous, greatly does it be- 
 hove us to enquire into its Source and Causes. So doing 
 we shall quickly discover that it is not Vice, as Vice, which 
 is thus mighty ; but systematic Vice ! Vice self-consistent 
 and entire ; Crime corresponding to Crime ; Villainy en- 
 trenched and barricadoed by Villainy ; this k the condi- 
 tion and main consistuent of it's power. The abandon- 
 ment of all Principle of Right enables the Soul to ehuse 
 and act upon a Principle of Wrong, and to subordinate to 
 this one Principle all the various Vices of Human nauw. 
 
 
84 THE FRIEND. 
 
 For it is a mournful Truth, that as Devastation is incom- 
 parably an easier work than Production, so all it's means 
 and instruments may be more easily arranged into a 
 Scheme and System. Even as in a Siege every Building 
 and Garden, which the faithful Governor must destroy, as 
 impeding the defensive means of the Garrison, or furnishing 
 means of Offence to the Besieger, occasions a Wound in 
 feelings which Virtue herself has fostered : and Virtue, 
 because it is Virtue, loses per force part of her energy in 
 the reluctance, with which she proceeds to a business so 
 repugnant to her wishes, as a choice of Evils. But He, 
 who has once said with his whole heart, Evil be thou my 
 Good ! has removed a world of Obstacles by the very de- 
 cision, that he will have no Obstacles but those of force 
 and brute matter. The road of Justice 
 
 *< Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines 
 " Honouring the holy bounds of property !" 
 
 But the path of the Lightening is straight : " and straight 
 the fearful Path 
 
 " Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid, 
 
 " Shatt'ring that it may reach, aud shatt'ring what it reaches." 
 
 Happily for Mankind, however, the obstacles which a 
 consistent evil mind no longer finds in itself, it tintls in 
 its own unsuitableness to Human nature. A limit is fix- 
 ed to its power : but within that limit, both as to the ex- 
 tent and duration of its influence, there is little hope of 
 checking it's career, if giant and united V T ices are opposed 
 only by mixed and scattered Virtues : and those too, pro- 
 bably, from the want of some combining Principle, which 
 assigns to each it's due Place and Rank, at civil War with 
 themselves, or at best perplexing and counteracting each 
 *tther. Even in the present Hour of Peril, do we not too of- 
 teu hear even good men declaiming on the horrors and crimes 
 of War^ and softening or staggering the minds of their Bre- 
 thren by details of individual wretchedness ? thus under 
 pretence of avoiding Blood, withdrawing the will from the 
 defence of the very source of those blessings without which 
 the blood would flow idly in our veins ! thus lest a few 
 should fall on the"Bulwarks in glory, preparing us to give 
 up the whole State to baseness, and the children of free 
 Ancestors to become Slaves, and the Fathers of Slaves! 
 
 Machiavelli has well Observed, " Sono di tre genera- 
 zione Cgrvelli : I' uno intende per se ; I' altro intende quanta 
 da altri gli e mostro; U terzo non intende n! per se stesso 
 ne per demostrazione d' altri." '■' There are Brains of three 
 races. The one understands of itself ; the other under- 
 
THE PRIKKD. 85 
 
 stands as much as is shewn it by others ; the third neither 
 •understands of itself nor what is shewn it by others." :.'l 
 -should have no hesitation in placing that Man in the 
 third Class of Brains, for whom the History of the last 
 twenty years hasnbt : «upplied a copious comment on the 
 preceding Text. The widest maxims of Prudence are 
 like Arms without Hearts, disjoined from those Feelings 
 which flow forth from Principle as from a fountain : and 
 so little are even the genuine maxims of Expedience likely 
 to be perceived or acted upon by those who have been ha- 
 bituated to admit nothing higher than Expedience, that I 
 dare hazard the assertion, that in the whole Chapter of 
 Contents of European Ruin, every Article might be. un- 
 answerably deduced from the neglect of some maxim that 
 had been repeatedly laid down, demonstrated, and enfor- 
 ced with a host of illustrations, in some one or other of 
 the Works of Machiavelli, Bacon, or Harrington. Indeed 
 I can remember no one Event of importance which was 
 not distinctly foretold, and this not by a lucky Prize 
 drawn among a thousand Blanks out of the Lottery Wheel 
 of Conjecture, but legitimately deduced as certain Con- 
 sequences from established Premises. It would be a 
 melancholy, but a very profitable employment, for some 
 vigorous Mind, intimately acquainted with the recent His- 
 tory of Europe, to collect the weightiest Aphorisms of Ma- 
 chiavelli alone, and illustrating by appropriate Facts the 
 breach or observation of each, to render less mysterious the 
 present triumph of lawless Violence. The apt Motto to 
 such a Work would be, " The Children of Darkness are 
 wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light.'* 
 
 I see, however, one favourable symptom in the minds 
 of men at present. The notion of our measureless supe- 
 riority in Good Sense to our Ancestors* is somewhat less 
 fashionable, than at the commencement of the French Re- 
 volution : we hear less of the jargon of this enlightened Age. 
 After ha vine: fatigued itself as Performer or Spectator of 
 the giddy Figure-dance of political changes, Europe has 
 seen the shallow foundations of its self-complacent Faith 
 give way ; and we have now more reason to apprehend 
 the stupor of Despondence, than the extravagances of idle 
 Hope and unprincipled Self-confidence. So grievously 
 deceived by the showy mock theories of confident mock 
 Thinkers, there seems a tendency in the public mind to 
 shun all Thought, and to expect help from any quarter 
 rather than from Seriousness and Reflection : As if some 
 invisible Power would think for us, when we gave up the 
 pretence of thinking for ourselves. But in the first place, 
 
§6 T||S FRIEND. 
 
 did those, who opposed the theories of Innovators, conduct 
 their mthmretie Opposition with more Wisdom or to a 
 happier reiult ? And secondly, are Societies now con- 
 structed on Principles fco Few and so simple, that we could, 
 even if we wished it, act as. jt w#re by Instinct, like our 
 distant forefathers in tlie infancy of States J Doubtless, to 
 apt is nobler than to think ; but as the old man doth not 
 become a Child by means of his second Childishness, as 
 little can a Nation exempt itself from the necessity of 
 thinking, which has once learnt to think. Miserable is 
 tlje delusion of the present mad Reali?er of mad Dre-aras,. 
 if he believe that he can transform the Nation* of Europe 
 into the unreasoning Hordes, c-f a Babylonian or Taftar 
 Empire, or even reduce the Age to the Simplicity, (so- 
 desirable for Tyrants) of those Times, when the Sword 
 and the Plough were the sole Implements of human Skill. 
 Thoaf are Epochs i$ the History of a People which having 
 been, ean never. mere recur. Extirpate all Civiligatioa 
 and all its Arts by the Sword, trample down all ancient Jn- 
 StitutioftSj, ftigbts, Distinctions, and Privileges, drag us 
 backward, to our old Barbarism, as Beasts to the Den of 
 Caeu^'Hrde^m you that thus you will re«create the un«x- 
 anaini,»g and boisterous youth of the World, when the 
 sole questions were- — " What is to be conquered? and 
 who is the most famous Leader 1 
 
 Of shall I rather address myself to those, who think 
 that as the P<?ace of Nations has been disturbed by the dif- 
 fusion of knowledge-,, fajsely so called, and by the ex- 
 citemcrit of Hopes that could not be gratified ; that this 
 Peape may be re-established by excluding the People 
 fiS>)B& all Knowledge, all Thought, and all prospect of 
 Amelfotfatioi* } O never, never ! Reflection, and stirrings 
 of Mind, with all their Restlessness and all their Imper- 
 fections and Errors, are come into the World. The Powers 
 that awaken and foster the Spirit of Curiosity and Investi- 
 gation, are to be found in every Village ; Books are in 
 every Coitage. The Infant's cries are hushed with prt- 
 ti#-4-Bwks ; and the Child sheds his first bitter Tears 
 OVe* the Pages which will reader it impossible for him, 
 whf?n a Man, to be treated or governed as a Child:. The 
 Caijse of crtj< disquietude must be the means of our Tran- 
 quility : only by the Fire,, which has burnt us, can we be 
 enjightened. to avoid a repetition of the Calamity. 
 
 In an Age in which afti&cial knowledge is received 
 alrapisj: at the Birth, IntfelJect a**l Thought alone can be 
 our- Upholder and Judge. jLet Cbe importance of this 
 Truth procure pardon ffrr its repetjjti©H<.. Only by means 
 
THE FRIESD. 87 
 
 *f Seriousness awl Meditation and the free infliction of 
 Censure in the spirit ©f Love, can the true Philanthropist 
 <tf the present Time, curb-in himself and his Contempora- 
 ries ; only by these can he aid in preventing the Kvils 
 which threaten us, not from the terrors of an Enemy so 
 much as from our fears of our own Thoughts, and our 
 aversion to afl the toils of Reflection ? For all must now 
 be taught in sport — Science, Morality, yea, Religion itself. 
 And yet few now sport from the actual impulse of a be- 
 lieving Fancy and in a happy Delusion. Of the most 
 influencive Class, at least, of ouf literary Guides, (the 
 anonymous Authors of our periodical Publications) the 
 most part assume this Character from Cowardice or Malice, 
 till having begun with studied ignorance and a premidita- 
 ted levity, they at length realize the Lie, and end indeed 
 in a pitiable destitution of all intellectual power. 
 
 To many I shall appear to speak insolently, because 
 the Public (for that is the phrase which has succeeded 
 to ** The Tows," of the Wits of the reign of Charles 
 the second) —the Public is at present accustomed to find 
 itself appealed to as the infallible Judge, and each Reader 
 complimented with excellencies, which if he really pos- 
 sessed, to what purpose is he a Reader, unless, perhaps, 
 to remind himself of his own superiority ! I confess that 
 I think widely different. 1 have not a deeper Convic- 
 tion on earth, than that the Principles both of Taste, 
 Morals, and Religion, which are taught in the commonest 
 Books of recent Composition, are false, injurious, and de- 
 basing. If these sentiments should be just, the conse- 
 quences must be so important, that every well-educated 
 Man, who professes them in sincerity, deserves a patient 
 hearing. He may fairly appeal even to those whose per- 
 suasions are most opposed to his own, in the words of the 
 Philosopher of Nola ; " Ad 1st k<ee qiueso vos, quahacun- 
 qiie primo videmrtnr aspccfti, adtendite, nt qui vofiis, fprsan 
 insanire videar, saltern quibus insaniam ratipnibus cogiws- 
 calis." What I feel deeply, freely will I utter. Truth is 
 not Detraction : and assuredly we do not hate him, to 
 whom we tell the Truth. But with whomsoever we play 
 the Deceiver and Flatterer, him at the bottom we despise. 
 We are, indeed, under a necessity to conceive a vileness 
 in him, in order to diminish the sense of the wrong we 
 have committed, by the worthlessness of the object. 
 
 Through no excess of confidence in the strength of 
 my talents, but with the deepest assurance of the justice 
 of my cause, I bid defiance to all the Flatterers of the 
 Folly and foolish Self-opinion -of the half-instructed Mary ; 
 
y 
 
 $8 THE FRIEND. 
 
 to ail who fill the air with festal explosions and false fire* 
 sent up against the lightenings of Heaven, in order that 
 the People may neither distinguish the warning Flash nor 
 hear the threatening Thunder ! Do we not stand alone 
 in the World? ; 
 
 Another year !— another deadly blow I 
 
 Another mighty Empire overthrown ! 
 
 And we are left, or shall be left, alone ; 
 
 The last that dares to struggle with the Foe. 
 
 Tis well ! from this day forward we shall know 
 
 That in ourselves our safety must be sought ; 
 
 That by our own right hands it must be wrought ; 
 
 That we must stand unprop'd or be laid low. 
 
 O Dastard ! whom such foretaste doth not cheer ! 
 
 "We shall exult, if They, who rule the land, 
 
 Be Men who hold its many blessings dear, 
 
 Wise, upright, valiant ; not a venal Band, 
 
 Who are to judge of danger which they fear, 
 
 And honour, which they do not understand. 
 
 ___ , Wordsworth. 
 
 Hole to page 80. 
 
 * Anima sapiens (says Giordano Bruno, and let the sublime Piety of the 
 Passage excuse some intermixture of Error, or rather let the word*, as they 
 well may. be interpreted in a safe sense) Anima sapiens non timet mortem, imtno 
 i I interdum illam ultra appetit, Mi ultra occurrit. Manet quippe substantiam omnem 
 
 J pro Duratione Eternitas, pro Loco hnmensitas, pro Actu\ Omniformitas. Non terem 
 •igitufi cc fulilem, atqui gravissimani pcrfectoque Ilomine dignissimam Contempia- 
 tiouis Partem persequimur ubi divinitatis, yaturaquc splendorem, fusionevi, tt 
 eommunicationem, von in Cibo, Potu, et ignobiliore quadam materia cum atlonito- 
 rum seculo pcrqturimus ; sed in august a Umnipotentis Regia, in immenso mtheris 
 spacio, in infinita naturae geminai omnia Jientis et omnia facient is potemia, unde tot 
 astrorum,mwic!qrum inquam et vuminum,uni altissimo concineiitium a tque saltan! ium 
 absque rtumero atque fine juxta propositos ubique fines atque irdines, contcmplamur. 
 Hie ex visibilium ailerno, immenso et innumerabili effectu, sempiterua immensa ilta 
 Majeslas atque bonitas intellecta conspicitur, proque sua dignitate innumerabiliu/n 
 Deorum fmundorum dicoj adsistentia, concinentia, et gloria, ipsius enarratione, 
 mtmo ad ocitlos expressa condone glorificatur. Cui Immenso men-sum non quadra- 
 bit Domicilium atque Templum—ad cujus Mqjestatis ptenitudinem agnoicendam 
 atque percolendam, vumcrabilium ministorum null us essel ordo. Eiaigitur adomni- 
 formis Deiomniformcm Imaginem covjectemus oculos, vivvm et magnum itiius ad- 
 mireniar simulacrum ! — Hmc miraculum Magnum a Triwiegisto appeliabatur Ho- 
 mo, qui in Deum transeai quasi ipse sit Deus, qui count ur omnia fieri sicut Deus 
 est omnia ; adolijectum sine fine, ubique tamea finiendo, conteudit, sicut infinitus est 
 lieux, immensw, ubique totus. 
 
 Translation. A wise Spirit does no( fear death, nay, sometimes, fas in 
 - eases of voluntary martyrdom) seeks and goes forth to meet it, of its' own accord. 
 For there awaits all actual Beings, for Duration an Eternity, for Place' Im- 
 mensity, for Action Omniformity. We pursue, therefore, a species of Con- 
 templation not light or futile, but the weightiest and most worthy pf an ac- 
 complished Man, while we examine and seek for tiie splendor, the interfusion, 
 and communication of the Divinity and of Nature, not in Meats or Drink, or 
 any yet igitobler matter, witb the Kate of the Thunder-stricken ; ( i, e. minds 
 stunned and stupified by superstitious fears. Bituso fere alludes, doubtless, to 
 the gross absurdities of Transubttanliation J , but in the August palace of the 
 Omnipotent, in the illimitable etheriat space, in the infinite power, that 
 creates all things, and is the abiding Being of all things. fJ have thought my- 
 self allowed thus to render the less cautious expressions of the original, because the 
 i ery same Latin words are to be found in the writings- if Joannes Scot us Erigenq, 
 vho leas doubtless a sincere Christian ; and equiiala.-t phrases occur in the mystic 
 
 
 I 
 
 ¥ h-i 
 
 it' ' 
 
THE FRIEXD. 89 
 
 theology of one at least, if not more, of the early Greek Fathers. It is most un- 
 charitable to accuse a Writer of pantheism for a few overcharged Sentences : es- 
 pecially as the Writer may have thought himself authorized by certain texts of St. 
 John and St. Paul. J 
 
 There we may contemplate the Host of Stars, of Worlds and their guardian 
 Deities (i. t. presiding Angels J numbers without number, each in its' appoint- 
 ed sphere, singing together, and dancing in adoration of the One Most High. 
 Thus from the perpetual, immense, and innumerable goings on of the visible 
 World, that sempiternal and absolutely infinite Majesty is intellectually- 
 beheld, and is glorified according to his Glory, by the attendance, and choral 
 symphonies, of innumerable gods, who utter forth the glory of their ineffable 
 Creator in the expressive Language of Vision'. To him illimitable, a limited 
 Temple will not correspond — to the acknowledgment and due worship of the 
 Plenitude of his Majesty there would be no proportion in any numerable 
 Army of Ministrant Spirits. Let us then cast our Eyes upon the omniform 
 Image of the Attributes of the all-creating Supreme, nor aamit any represen- 
 tation of his Excellency but the living Universe, which he has created ! — 
 Thence was Man entitled by Trismegistus, " the great Miracle," inasmuch as 
 he has been made capable 6t entering into Union with God, as if he were 
 himself a divine nature; tries to become all things, even as in God all things 
 are; and in limitless progression of limited States of Being, urges onward to 
 the ultimate Aim, even as God is simultaneously infinite, and every where All' 
 
 I purpose hereafter, to give an account of the Life of Giordano Bruno, 
 the Friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and who was burnt under pretence of 
 Atheism, at Rome, in the year 1600 j and of his WorTcs, which are perhaps the 
 scarcest Books ever printed. They are singularly interesting as portraits of a 
 vigorous mind struggling after truth, amid many prejudices, which from The 
 state of the Roman Church, in which he was born, have a claim to much 
 Indulgence. One of them (entitled Ember Week) is. curious for it's lively 
 accounts of the rude state of London, at that time, both as to the Streets and 
 the manners of the Citizens. The most industrious Historians of Speculative 
 Philosophy, have not been able to procure more than a few of his Works. 
 Accidentally 1 have been more fortunate in this respect,, than those who 
 have written hitherto on the unhappy Philosopher of Noia : as out of eleven 
 works, the titles of which are preserved to us, I have had an opportunity tff 
 perusing six. I was told, when in Germany, that there is a complete collection 
 of them in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. If so, it is unique. 
 
 As I wish to commence the important Subject of— The Principles o( politi- 
 cal Justice with a separate Number of The Fkiend, and shall at the same 
 time comply with the wishes communicated to me by one of my female Rea- 
 ders, who writes as the representative of many others: I shall conclude this 
 Number with the following Fragment, or the third and fourth parts of a Tale 
 consisting of six. The two last parts may be given heareafter, if the present 
 should appear to have afforded pleasure, and to have answered the purpose of 
 a relief and amusement to my Readers. The story, as it is contained in the 
 first and second parts, is as follows: Edward a young' farmer, meets at the 
 bouse of Ellen, her bosom-friend, Mafv, and commences an acquaintance, 
 which ends in a mutual attachment. With her consent, and by the advice of 
 their common friend, Ellen, he announces his hopes and intentions to Mary's 
 Mother, a widow-woman bordering on her fortieth year, and from constant 
 Health, the possession uf a competent property, and from having had no other 
 children but Mary and another Daughter (the Father died in their infancy) 
 retaining, for the grea'er part, her personal attractions and comeliness of 
 appearance; but a woman cf low education and violent temper.' 
 
 The answer which she at once returned to Edward's'applieafion, was re- 
 markahlc — " Well, Kdward! you are a handsome voting fellow: and you 
 shall have my Daughter. From His time all their Wooing passed under the 
 Mother's Eyes: and in fine, site became herself enamoured of her future Son 
 in law, and practised every art, both of endearment and of calumny, to transfer 
 his aflections from her daughter to herself. (The outlines of "the Tale are 
 positive Facts, and qf no very distant date, though the author Tias purpo.'ely 
 altered. (he namesand the scene of action, as well as invented the characters 
 of the parties and the detail of the Incidents.) Edward, however, though 
 perplexed by her strange detractions from her daughter's good qualities, vet 
 iu the iunocenc? of hi* own heart still mistaking' her eVicrcasing fondness "for 
 
90 THIS IT? I FAD. 
 
 , * . ■ ■ • 
 
 motherly aflection; she at length, overcome by her miserable passion, eficr 
 much abuse of Mary's Temper and moral tendencies, extfaim«d with violent 
 emotion — O Edward ! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you — she has not a 
 heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love you ! Marry me, Edward ! 
 and 1 will this very day settle all my property on you. ■ T he Lover's ey«s 
 were now opened : and thus taken by surprize, whether from the effect of the 
 horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on bis nervous system, or 
 that at the first moment he lost the sense of the guilt of the proposal in the 
 feeling of it's straiigeness and absurdity, he flung her from him and burst into a 
 lit of Laughter. Irritated by this almost to frenzy, the Woman fell on her- 
 knees, and in 3 loud voice, that approached to a Scream, she prayed fora 
 (torse both on him and on ber own Child. Mary happened to be in the room 
 itirectly above them, heard Edward's Laugh, and her Mother'* blasphemous 
 Prayer, and fainted away— He hearing the fall, ran up stairs, and taking her 
 in his arm?, carried ber off to Ellen's Home ; and after some fruitless attempts 
 on her part, toward a reconciliation with her Mother, she was married to lum 
 — And heic the third part of the Tale begins. 
 
 I was not lead to chuse this story from any partiality to tragic, much less, to 
 monstrous events (though at the time that I composed the verses, somewhat 
 more than twelve years ago, I was less averse tosuch subjects than at present), 
 butfrojn finding in it a striking proof of the possible effect on the imagination, 
 from an Idea violently and suddenly imprest on it. I bad been reading Bryan 
 Edward's account of the effects of the Oby "Witchcraft on the Negroes in *be 
 West Indies, 3nd Hearne's deeply interesting Anecdotes of similar workings on 
 the imagination of the Copper Indians : (those of my Readers, who have it in 
 their power, will be well repaid for the trouble of referring to those Works, for 
 the passages alluded to) and I conceived the design of shewing, that iastances 
 of this kind are not peculiar to savage or barbarous tribes, and of iUustr*ti»g 
 the mode in which the mind is affected in these cases, and the progress and 
 symptoms of the morbid action on the fancy from the beginning. 
 
 The Tale is supposed to be narrated by an old .Sexton, in a country Church- 
 yard to a Traveller, whose curiosity had been awakened by the appearance of 
 three Graves, close by each other, to two only of which there were Grave- 
 stones. On the first of these was the Name and Dates, as usual : on the 
 second no name, but only a Date, and the Words : The Mercy of God is 
 infinite. 
 
 The language was intended to be dramatic, that is, suited to the narrator 
 a-ml the metre 10 correspond to the homeliness of the Diction : and for this 
 reatnn, 1 Itere present it not as the Fragment of a I'uem, but of a Tale in the 
 common ballad metre. 
 
 
 I* A 
 
 THE THREE GRAVES, 
 
 A SEXTON'S TALE. 
 
 
 V 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 The Grapes upon the vicar's wall 
 
 W«re ripe as they could be ; 
 And yellow leaves in sun and wind 
 
 "Were falling from the tree. ' 
 On the hedge-elms in the narrow lane ' 
 
 Still swung the spikes of Corn : 
 Dear Lord! it seems but yesterday — 
 
 Young Edward's marriage-morn. 
 Up thro' that wood behind the Church 
 
 There leads from Edward's door 
 A mossy Track, all over-bough'd 
 
 Per half a mile or more. 
 
THE FRIEND. 91 
 
 And from their House-door by that Trade 
 
 The Bride and Bride-groom went : 
 Sweet Mary, tho' she was not gay, 
 
 Seem'd chearful and content. 
 But when they to the Church-yard came, 
 
 I've heard poor Mary say, 
 As soon as she stepp'd into the Sun, 
 
 Her heart — it died away. 
 And when the Vicar join'd their hands, 
 
 Her limbs did creep and freeze ; 
 But when he pray'd, she thought she saw 
 
 Her mother on her knees. 
 And o'er the Church-path they return'd— 
 
 I saw poor Mary's back 
 Just as she stepp'd beneath the boughs 
 
 Into the mossy track. 
 Her feet upon the mossy track 
 
 The Manied Maiden set : 
 That moment — I have heard her say- 
 She wish'd she could forget. 
 The shade o'er-flushed her limbs with heat- 
 Then came a chill like Death : 
 And when the merry Bells rang out, 
 
 They seem'd to stop her Breath. 
 Beneath the foulest Mother's curse 
 
 No child could ever thrive : 
 A Mother is a Mother still ; 
 
 The holiest thing alive. 
 So five Months pass'd : the Mother still 
 
 "Would never heal the strife ; 
 But Edward was a loving Man 
 
 And Mary a fond wife. 
 f* My Sister may not visit us, 
 
 " My Mother says her, nay : 
 " O Edward ! you are all to me, 
 «« I wish for your sake, I could be 
 " More lifesome and more gay. 
 " I'm dull and sad ! indeed, indeed 
 
 " I know, I have no reason ! 
 ♦ f Perhaps I'm not well in health, 
 
 " And 'tis a gloomy season," 
 "Twas a drizzly Time — no ice, no snow ! 
 
 And on the few fine days 
 She stirr'd not out lest she might meet 
 
 Her Mother in the ways. 
 But Ellen, spite of miry ways 
 
 And weather dank and dreary, 
 Trudg'd every day to. Edward's house 
 
 And made them, all more cheary. 
 O ! Ellen was a faithful Friend, 
 
 More dear than any Sister 1 
 As chearful too, as singing Lark j 
 And she ne'er left them till 'twas dark, 
 And then they always miss'd her. 
 
93 -nit: friend. 
 
 And now Ash-wednesday came — that day 
 
 But few to Church repair : 
 For on that day you know, we read 
 
 The Commination prayer. 
 Our late old Vicar, a kind Man, 
 
 Once, Sir ! he said to me, 
 He wish'd that service was clean out 
 
 Of our good Liturgy. 
 The Mother walk'd into the Church- 
 To Ellen's seat she went : 
 Tho' Ellen always kept her Church 
 
 All Church-days during Lent. 
 And gentle Ellen welcom'd her 
 
 With courteous looks and mild : 
 Thought she " what if her heart should melt 
 
 And all be reconcil'd!" 
 The Day was scarcely like a Day — 
 
 The Clouds were black outright : 
 And many a night with half a moon 
 
 I've seen the Church more light. 
 The wind was wild ; against the Glass 
 
 The rain did beat and bicker ; 
 The Church-tower singing over head — ■ 
 
 You could not hear the Vicar ! 
 And then and there the Mother knelt 
 
 And audily she cried — 
 «« O may a clinging curse consume, 
 
 " This woman by my side ! 
 " O hear me, hear me, Lord in Heaven, 
 
 " Altho' thou take my life — 
 « O curse this woman at whose house 
 
 " Young Edward woo'd his wife. 
 « By night and day, in bed and bower, 
 
 " O let her cursed be !" 
 So having pray'd steady and slow, 
 
 She rose up from her knee ; 
 And left the Church, nor e'er again 
 
 The Church-door entered she. 
 I saw poor Ellen kneeling still, 
 
 So pale ! I guess'd not why : 
 When she stood up, there plainly was 
 
 A Trouble in her Eye. 
 And when the Prayers were done, we all 
 
 Came round and ask'd her, why : 
 Giddy she seem'd and, sure, there was, 
 
 A Trouble in her eye. 
 But ere she from the Church-door stepp'd, 
 
 She smil'd and told us why : 
 " It was a wicked Woman's curse, 
 
 " Quoth she, and what care I ?" 
 She smil'd and smil'd, and pass'd it off 
 
 Ere from the door she stepp'd — • 
 
THE FRIEND. 93 
 
 But all agree it would have been 
 
 Much better, had she wept. 
 And if her heart was not at ease, 
 
 This was her constant cry — : 
 « It was a wicked woman's curse — 
 
 " God's good ! and what care I ?" 
 There was a Hurry in her Looks, 
 
 Her struggles she redoubled : 
 " It was a wicked Woman's curse, 
 
 " And why should I be troubled ?" 
 These tears will come ! I dandled her, 
 
 When 'twas the merest fairy ! — 
 Good creature ! — and she hid it all — 
 
 She told it not to Mary. 
 But Mary heard the Tale — her arms 
 
 Round Ellen's neck she threw : 
 « O Ellen, Ellen ! She curs'd me, 
 
 " And now she has curs'd you!" 
 I saw young Edward by himself 
 
 Stalk fast adown the lea : 
 He snatch'd a stick from every Fence, 
 
 A twig from every Tree. 
 He snapt them still with hand or knee, 
 
 And then away they flew ! 
 As if with his uneasy Limbs 
 He knew not what to do ! 
 You see, good Sir ! that single Hill ? 
 
 This Farm lies underneath : 
 He heard it there — he heard it all, 
 
 And only gnash'd his teeth. 
 Now Ellen was a darling Love 
 
 In all his joys and cares ; 
 And Ellen's name and Mary's name 
 Fast link'd they both together came, 
 
 Whene'er he said his Prayers. 
 And in the Moment of his Prayers 
 
 He lov'd them both alike : 
 Yea, both sweet names with one sweet joy 
 
 Upon his heart did strike. 
 He reach'd his home, and by his looks 
 
 They saw his inward strife ; 
 And they clung round him with their arms. 
 
 Both Ellen and his Wife. 
 And Mary could not check her tears, 
 
 So on his breast she bow'd, 
 Then frenzy melted into grief 
 
 And Edward wept aloud. 
 Dear EUea did not weep af all, 
 
 But closelier she did cling j 
 And turn'd her face, and look'd as if 
 She saw some frighful Thing ! 
 
9* THE FRIEND. 
 
 THE THREE GRAVES, 
 
 A SEXTON'S TALE. 
 
 PAETXV. 
 
 To see a man tread over Graves 
 
 I hold it no good mark : 
 Tis wicked in the Sun and Moon, 
 
 And bad luck in the dark. 
 You see that Grave ? The Lord he gives, 
 
 The Lord he takes away! 
 O Sir ! the Child of my old Age 
 
 Lies there, as cold as clay. 
 Except that Grave, you scarce see one 
 
 That was not dug by me : 
 I'd rather dance upon them all 
 
 Than tread upon these Three ? 
 « Aye Sexton ! 'tis a touching Tale— 
 
 You, Sir ! are but a Lad : 
 This month I'm in my seventieth year 
 
 And still it makes me sad. 
 And Mary's Sister told k me 
 
 For three good hours and more ; 
 Tho' I had heard it in the main 
 
 From Edward's self before. 
 Well, it pass'd off — the gentle EHefl 
 
 Did well-nigh dote on Mary ; 
 And she went oft'ner than before, 
 And Mary lov'd her more and more j 
 
 She manag'd all the' Dairy. 
 To market She on Market Days, 
 
 To church on Sundays came : 
 All seem'd the same — aH seem'd so, Sir* 
 
 But all was not the same. 
 Had Ellen lest her mirth? O no f 
 
 But she was seldom chearful ; 
 And Edward look'd as if he. thought 
 
 That Ellen's mirth was fearful. 
 When by herself she to herself 
 
 Must sing some mernr rhyme — 
 She could not now be gjad for &c*rs 
 
 Yet silent all the time. 
 And when she spoth'd her friend!, t£ro" all 
 
 Her soothing words 'twas, plain 
 She had a sore grief of her Own, 
 
 A Haunting in her brain. 
 And oft she said, •* I'mrfof grown thin"!** 
 
 And then her wrist she spanafd j 
 And once when Mary was <to«8lc2sT, 
 
 She took her by the hand", 
 And gaz'd upon her, and at first 
 
 She gently press'd her hand, 
 
THE FRIEND. 9.5 
 
 Then harder, till her grasp at length 
 
 Did gripe like a convulsion : 
 «« Alas !" said she~~" we ne'er can be 
 
 « Made happy by compulsion." 
 And once her both arms suddenly 
 
 Round Mary's neck she flung : 
 And her heart panted, and she felt 
 
 The words upon her tongue. 
 She felt them coming, but no power 
 
 Had she the words to smother ; 
 And with a kind of shriek she cried, 
 
 « O Christ ! you're like your Mother !— 
 So gentle Ellen now no more 
 
 Could make this sad house cheary ; 
 And Mary's melancholy ways 
 
 Drove Edward wild and weary. 
 Lingering he rais'd his latch at eye 
 
 Tho' tir'd in heart and limb: 
 He lov'd no other place, and yet 
 
 Home was no home to Him. 
 One evening he took up a book 
 
 And nothing in it read ; 
 Then flung it down, and groaning cried, 
 
 « O Heaven ! that I were dead f 
 Mary look'd up into his face, 
 
 And nothing to him said; 
 She try'd to smile, and on his, arm 
 
 Mournfully lean'd he* head ! 
 And he burst into tears, and fell 
 
 Upon his knees in. prayer v 
 " Her heart is broke— O God } my Grief— 
 
 " It is too great to. bear f " 
 'Twas such a foggy time as makes 
 
 Old Sexton's Sir ? like me, 
 Rest on their spades to. cough ; the Spring 
 
 "Was late uncommonly. 
 And then the hot days, all at once 
 
 They came, one knew not how : 
 You look'd about fox shade, when scarce 
 
 A Leaf was on a Bough. 
 It happen'd then — 'twas, to the bower 
 
 A furlong up the wood — 
 Perhaps you know the pJaoe, and yet 
 
 I scarce know how you should — 
 No path leads thither : 'tis, not nigh 
 
 To any pasture plot ; 
 But cluster'd near the chattering brook 
 
 Some Hollies matk tbe spot. 
 Those Hollies, of themselves, a shape 
 
 As of an arbour took ; 
 A close round Arbour, and it stands 
 
 Not three strides from the Brook. 
 Within this Arbour, which was still 
 
 With scarlet berries hung, 
 
96 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Were these three Friends, one Sunday Morn, 
 
 Just as the first bell rung— 
 Tis sweet to hear a brook : 'tis sweet 
 
 To hear the Sabbath Bell ! 
 Tis sweet to hear them both at once 
 
 Deep in a woody Dell. 
 His Limbs along the moss, his head 
 
 Upon a mossy heap, 
 With shut-up senses Edward lay : 
 That Brook, e'en on a working-day, 
 
 Might chatter one to sleep. 
 And he had pass'd a restless night 
 
 And was not well in health ! 
 The Women sate down by his side 
 
 And talk'd as 'twere by stealth. 
 « The Sun peeps through the close thick Leaves, 
 
 « See, dearest Ellen ! see— 
 «* Tis in the Leaves ! a little Sun, 
 
 « No bigger than your ee. 
 « A tiny Sun ! and it has got 
 
 " A perfect glory too : 
 « Ten thousand threads and hairs of light 
 « Make up a glory gay and bright 
 
 " Round that small orb so blue." 
 And then they argued of those Rays 
 
 What colour they might be : 
 Says this, « they're mostly green ! says that, 
 
 « They're amber-like to me." 
 So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts 
 
 Were troubling Edward's rest ; 
 But soon they heard his hard quick pants 
 
 And the thumping in his breast: 
 A mother too"! these self-same words 
 
 Did Edward mutter plain ; 
 His face was drawn back on itself 
 
 With horror and huge pain. 
 Both groan'd at once, for both knew well 
 
 What thoughts were in his mind r 
 When he wak'd up, and star l d like one 
 
 That hath been just struck blind. 
 He sate upright; and ere the Dream 
 
 Had had time to depart, 
 « O God, forgive me ! (he exclaim'd) 
 
 " I have torn out her heart!" 
 Then Ellen shriek'd, and forthwith burst 
 
 Into ungentle laughter ; 
 And Mary shiver'd, where she sate 
 
 And never she smil'd after! 
 
 i 
 
 PENRITH: PRINTHD AND PUBLISHED BV J 8IOWN AV'DSOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATMNOSTEK IIO», aSD 
 
 CI.EMEHT, -'0!. S.TRAND, LONDON. 
 

 71. 
 
 TMM_ FMIMM1D. \ ■ x 
 
 1 hL /y/< 
 
 Na 7. THURSDAY, September 28, 1809, 
 
 Dum PoLitrci sa'piuscule hominibus magis instdfantur quam con* 
 iulunt, potius callidi quam sapienles; Tueorktici e contrario se rem 
 divinamfacere et sapiential culmen attingere credunt, quando humanam 
 naturam, qua; nullibi est, multis modi! laudare, el earn, qua; re verd 
 cs<, dicfis lacessere noriint. iJnde factum est, ut nunqitam Politicam 
 conceperint qua; possit ad usum revocari ; sed qua; in Utopia vel in Mo 
 poetarum aureo swculo, ubi scilicet minime necesse erat, institui potu. 
 inset. At mihi plane persuadeo,- Experientiam omnia civitatum gener 
 ra, qua; concipi possunt ut homines concorditer vivant, et simul madia* 
 quibus multitudo dirigi, sett quibus intra certos limites contineri dcbeat t 
 ostendiste : ita ut non credam, nos posse aliquid, quod ub cxperienta 
 toive praxi non abhorreal, cngitatione dc hac re assequi, quod nondum 
 expertum compertumque sit. 
 
 Cum igitur animum ad Politicam applicuerim, nihil quod novum 
 vel inauditum est; sed lantum ea qua; cum praxi optime conveniunt, 
 ccrtu et indubitata ratipne demonstrure aut ex ipsa hitmanie naturie 
 condilione dedubere, intendi. Et ut ea qua ad hanc scieutiam spec/ant, 
 eadem unimi libertaie, qua res maihematicas solemus, inquirerem, 
 fiedulo curavi humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque detes. 
 tari; sed intelligerd Kc.c.ad imperii securitatcm refert quo animo 
 homines inducuntur ad res rente odministrandum, modo res recte 
 administrentur. Animi enim liberlas, seu fortitudo, privata virtus 
 est; at imperii virtus securitas. Spinoza op. Post. p. 267. 
 
 TRAXSt ATioir. 
 
 "While the mere practical Statesman too dfteh rather plots against 
 mankind, than consults their interest, crafty not wise; the mere Theo- 
 rists, on the other hand, imagine that they are employed in a gloriou.4 
 -work, and believe themselves at the very summit of earthly Wisdom, 
 when they are able, in set and varied language, to extol that Human 
 Nature, which exists no where (except indeed in their own fancy) and 
 to accuse and vilify our nature as it really is. Hence it has happened, 
 that these men have never conceived a practicable scheme of civil policy, 
 but at best such forms of government only, as might have been instituted 
 in Utopia, or during the golden age of the Poets : that is to say, forms 
 of Government excellently adapted for those who need no government 
 at all. But I am fully persuaded, that experience has already brought 
 to light all conceivable sorts of political Institutions under which human 
 Society can be maintained in concord, and likewise the chief means 
 of directing the multitude, or retaining them within given boun- 
 daries: so that I can hardly believe, that on this subject the deepest 
 
98 the Friend. 
 
 Research would arrive at any result not abhorrent from experience ancl 
 practice, which has not been already tried and proved. 
 
 When, therefore, I applied my self to the study of political Economy, 
 I proposed to myself nothing original or strange as the fruits of my 
 reflections; but simply to demonstrate from plain and undoubted 
 principles, or to deduce from the very condition and necessities of 
 human nature, those plans and maxims which square the best with 
 practice. And that in all things which- relate^to this province, I might 
 conduct my investigations with the same freedom of intellect with which 
 we proceed in questions of pure science, I sedulously disciplined my 
 mind neither to laugh at, or bewail, or detest, the actions of men; but to 
 understand them. For to the safety of the state it is not of necessary 
 importance, what motives iuduce men to administer public Affairs right., 
 ly, provided only that public Affairs be rightly administered. For 1 
 moral Strength, or freedom from the selfish Passions, is the virtue of 
 Individuals 5 but Security is the Virtue of a State. 
 
 ESSAY IV. ' 
 
 On the principles of political philosophy. 
 
 All the different philosophical Systems of political 
 Justice, all the Theories on the rightful Origin of Govern- 
 ment, are reducible in the end to three Classes, corre- 
 spondent to the three different points of view, in which 
 the Human Being itself maybe contemplated. The first 
 denies all truth and distinct meaning to the words, 
 Right and Duty, and affirming that the human mind 
 consists of nothing but manifold modifications of passive 
 sensation, considers Men as the highest sort of Animals 
 indeed, but at the same time the most wretched; inas- 
 much as their defenceless nature forces them into 
 Society, while such is the multiplicity of Wants engen- 
 dered by the social state, that the Wishes of one are sure 
 to be in contradiction with those of some other. The 
 Assertors of this System consequently ascribe the Origin 
 land continuance of Government to Fear, or the power of 
 the Stronger, aided by the force of Custom. This is the 
 System of Hobbes. Its Statement is its Confutation. 
 It is, indeed, in the literal sense of the w ox A preposterous : 
 for Fear presupposes Conquest, and Conquest a previous 
 union and » agreement between the Conquerors. A vast 
 Empire may perhaps be governed by Fear ; at least the 
 idea is not absolutely inconceivable, under circumstances 
 
THE FRIEND. 99 
 
 which prevent the consciousness of a common Strength. 
 A million of men united by mutual confidence and free 
 intercourse of Thoughts, form one power, and this is as 
 much a Real Thing as a Steam Engine; but a million of 
 insulated Individuals is only an abstraftion of the mind, 
 and but one told so many times over without addition, as 
 an Ideot would tell the Clock at noon-^-one, one, one, 
 &c. But when, in the first Instances, the Descendants! 
 of one Family joined together to attack those of another 
 Family, it is impossible that their Chief or Leader should 
 have appeared to them stronger than all the rest together : 
 they must therefore have chosen him, and this as for par- 
 ticular purposes, so doubtless under particular Conditions, 
 expressed or understood. Such we know to be the case 
 with the North American Tribes at present; such, we 
 are informed by History, was the case with our own 
 remote Ancestors. Therefore, even on the System of 
 those who, in contempt of the oldest and most authentic 
 records, consider the savage as the first and natural State 
 of Man, Governmet must have originated in Choice and 
 an Agreement. The apparent Exceptions in Africa and 
 Asia are, if possible, still more subversive of this System; 
 for they will be found to have originated in religious 
 Imposture, and the first Chiefs to have secured a willing 
 and enthusiastic Obedience to themselves, as Delegates 
 of the Deity. 
 
 But the whole Theory is baseless. We are told by 
 History, we learn from our experience, we know from 
 our own Hearts, that fear of itself is utterly incapable of 
 producing any regular, continuous and calculable effeft, 
 even on an Individual; and that the Fear, which does 
 aft systematically upon the mind, always presupposes a 
 sense of Duty, as its Cause. The most cowardly of the 
 European Nations, the Neapolitans and Sicilians, those 
 among whom the fear of Death exercises the most 
 tyrannous influence relatively to their own persons, are 
 the very men who least fear to take away the life of a 
 Fellow-citizen by poison or assassination; while in Great 
 Britain a Tyrant, who has abused the Power, which a vast 
 property has given him, to oppress a whole Neighbour- 
 hood, can walk in safety unarmed, and unattended, amid 
 a hundred men, each of whom feels his heart burn with* 
 rage and indignation at the sight of him. "It was this 
 Man who broke my Father's heart-—." or, [' it is through 
 
 1 
 
lOO THE FRIEND. 
 
 Him that my Children are clad in rags, and Cry for tile 
 Food which I am no longer able to provide for them/' 
 And yet they dare not touch a hair of his head ! Whence 
 does this arise ? Is it from a cowardice of sensibility that 
 makes the injured man shudder at the thought of shed- 
 ding blood ? or from a cowardice of selfishness which 
 makes him afraid of hazarding his own Life ? Neither the 
 one or the other ! The Field of Talavera, as the moS 
 accent of an hundred equal proofs, has borne witness. 
 
 That ' : bring a Briton fra his hill, 
 
 Say, such is Royal George's will, 
 
 And there's the foe. 
 He has nae thought but how to kill 
 
 Twa at a blow. 
 
 Nae cauld, faint-hearted doublings tease Mm 5 
 Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees hisi; 
 Wi' bloody hand, a welcome gies him ; 
 
 And when he fa's 
 His latest draught ©' breathin leaves him 
 
 In faint huzzas." 
 
 Whence then arises the difference of feeling in the 
 former case ? To what does the Oppressor owe his 
 safety ? To the spirit-quelling thought : the Laws of 
 God and of my Country have made his Life sacred! I 
 dare not touch a hair of his Head! — " 'Tis Conscience 
 that makes Cowards of us all," — but oh ' it is Conscience 
 too which makes Heroes of us all. 
 
 A truly great Man, (the best and greatest public 
 character that I had ever the opportunity of making my- 
 self acquainted with) on assuming the command of a 
 Man of War, found a mutinous Crew, more than one 
 half of them uneducated Irishmen, and of the remainder 
 no small portion had become Sailors by compromise of 
 punishment. What terror could effect by severity and 
 frequency of acts of discipline, had been already effected ; 
 and what was this effect ? Something like that of a Polar 
 Winter on a Flask of Brandy : the furious Spirit concen- 
 tered itself with tenfold strength at the heart; open 
 violence was changed into secret plots and conspiracies ; 
 and the consequent orderliness of the Crew, as far as 
 they were orderly, was but the brooding of a Tempest. 
 The new Commander instantly commenced a System of 
 Discipline as near as possible to that of ordinary Law— 
 
THE FRIEND. -101 
 
 at much as possible, he avoided, in his own person, the 
 appearance or any will or arbitrary power to vary, or to 
 remit, Punishment. The Rules to be observed were 
 affixed to a conspicuous part of the Ship, with the par- 
 ticular penalties for the breach of each particular rule; 
 and care was taken that every Individual of the Ship 
 should know and understand this Code. With a single 
 exception in the case of mutinous behaviour, a space of 
 twenty four hours was appointed between the first Charge 
 and the second hearing of the Cause, at which time the 
 accused Person was permitted and required to bring for- 
 ward whatever he thought conducive to his Defence or 
 Palliation. If, as was commonly the case (for the Officers 
 well knew that the Commander would seriously resent in 
 them all caprice of will, and by no means permit to others 
 what he denied to himself) ifnoanswer could be returned 
 to the three questions — Did you not commit the act ? 
 Did you not know that it was in contempt of such a 
 Rule, and in defiance of such a Punishment ? And was it 
 not wholly in your own power to have obeyed the one 
 and avoided the other ? — the Sentence was then passed 
 with the greatest solemnity, and another but shorter space 
 of time was again interposed between it and its actual 
 execution. During this space the feelings of the Com- 
 mander, as a Man, were so well blended with his inflexi- 
 bility, as the organ of the Law; and how muchhe suffer- 
 ed previous to and during the execution of the Sentence, 
 was so well known to the Crew, that it became a com- 
 mon saying with them, when a Sailor was about to be 
 punished, " The Captain takes it more to heart than the 
 Fellow himself." But whenever the Commander per- 
 ceived any trait of pride in the Offender, or the germs of 
 any noble Feeling, he lost no opportunity of saying — "It 
 is not the pain that you are about to suffer which grieves 
 me ! you are none of you, I trust, such Cowards as to turn 
 faint-hearted at the thought of that ! but that, being a 
 Man, and one who is to fight for his King and Country, 
 you should have made it necessary to treat you as a vici- 
 ous Beast, it is this that grieves toe." 
 
 I have been assured, both by a Gentleman who was 
 a Lieutenant on board that Ship at the time when the 
 heroism of its Captain, aided by his characteristic calm- 
 ness and forseight, greatly influenced the decision ol the 
 most glorious Battle recorded in the annals of our naval 
 
i02 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Glory; and very recently by a grey-headed Sailor, who 
 did not even know my Name, or could have suspected 
 that I was previously acquainted with the circumstances 
 — I have been assured, 1 say, that the success of this plan 
 was such as astonished the oldest Officers, and convinced 
 the most incredulous. Ruffians, who like the' old Buc- 
 caneers, had been used to inflict torture on themselves 
 for sport, or in order to harden themselves beforehand, 
 were tamed and overpowered, how or why they them- 
 selves knew not. From the fiercest Spirits were heard 
 the most earnest entreaties for the forgiveness of their 
 Commander, not before the Punishment, for it was too 
 well known that then they would have been to no pur- 
 pose, but days after it, when the bodily pain was remem- 
 bered but as a dream. An invisible Power it was, that quel- 
 led them, a Power, which was therefore irresistible, because 
 it took away the very will of resisting ? It was the awe- 
 ful power of L a w, acting on natures pre T configured to its 
 influences. A Faculty was appealed to in the Offender's 
 own being; a Faculty and a Presence, of which he had 
 not been previously made aware — but it answered to the 
 appeal ! its real Existence therefore could not be doubted, 
 or its reply rendered inaudible ! and the very struggle of 
 the wilder Passions to keep uppermost, counteracted its 
 own purpose, by wasting in internal contest that Energy, 
 which before had acted in its entireness on external resist- 
 ance or provocation. Strength may be met with strength j 
 the Power of inflicting pain may be baffled by the Pride 
 of endurance; the eye of Rage may be answered by the 
 stare of Defiance, or the downcast look of dark and 
 revengeful Resolve; and with all this there is an outward 
 and determined object to which the mind can attach its 
 passions and purposes, and bury its own disquietudes in 
 the full occupation of the Senses. But who dares Strugs 
 gle with an invisible Combatant ? with an Enemy which 
 exists and makes us know its existence — but where it is, 
 we ask in vain ? — 'No space contains it— rTime promises 
 no control over it- — it has no ear for my threats — it has no 
 substance, that my hands can grasp, or my weapons fine* 
 %'ulnerable— it commands and cannot be commanded — i 
 acts and is insusceptable of my re-action — the more 
 strive to subdue it, the more am I compelled to think o 
 it — and the more I think of it, the more do I find it to 
 possess a_r«ality out of myself, and not to be a phantom, 
 
THE FRIEND. IO3 
 
 of my own imagination; that all, but the most abandoned 
 men, acknowledge its authority, and that the whole 
 strength and majesty of my Country are pledged to sup- 
 port it; and yet that for me its power is the same with 
 that of my own permanent Self, and that all the Choice, 
 which is permitted to me, consists in having it for my 
 Guardian Angel or my avenging Fiend! This is the 
 Spirit of Law! the Lute of Amphion, the Harp of 
 Orpheus! This is the true necessity, which compels 
 man into the social State, now and always, by a still- 
 beginning, never-ceasing force of moral Cohesion. 
 
 Thus is Man to be governed, and thus only can he be 
 governed. For from his Creation the objefts of his Senses 
 were to become his Subjects, and the Task allotted to 
 him was to subdue the visible World within the sphere 
 of action circumscribed by those Senses, as far as they 
 could act in concert. What the Eye beholds the Hand 
 strives to reach; what it reaches, it conquers and makes 
 the instrument of further conquest. We dan be subdued 
 by that alone which is analogous in Kind to that by 
 which we subdue, namely, by the invisible powers of 
 our Nature, whose immediate presence is disclosed to our 
 inner sense, and only as the Symbols and Language of 
 which all shapes and modifications of matter become for- 
 midable to us. 
 
 A Machine continues to move by the force which 
 first set it in motion. If, therefore, the smallest number 
 in any State, properly so called, hold together through 
 the influence of any Fear that is antecedent to the sense 
 of Duty, it is evident that the State itself could 'not have 
 commenced through animal Fear. We hear, indeed, of 
 conquests; but how does History represent these? Al- 
 most without exception as the substitution of qne set of 
 Governors for another; and so far is the Conqueror from 
 relying on Fear alone to secure the obedience of the Con- 
 quered, that his first step is to demand an Oath of fealty 
 from them, by which he would impose upon them the 
 belief, that they become SubjeBs: for who would think 
 of administering an Oath to a Gang of Slaves ? But what 
 can make the difference between Slave and Subjeft, if 
 not the existence of an implied Contract in the one ease, 
 and not in the other ? . And to what purpose would a 
 Contract serve if, however it might be entered into through 
 Fear, it were deemed binding only in consequence of 
 
lty. THE FR1EHD. 
 
 Fear? To repeat my former illusteration-— where Fear 
 alone is relied on, as in a Slave Ship, the chains that bind 
 the poor Viftims must be material chains: for these only 
 can aft upon feelings which have their source wholly in 
 the material Organization. Hobbes has said, that Laws 
 without the Sword are bat bits of Parchment. How far 
 this is true, every honest Man's heart will best tell him, 
 if he will content himself with asking his own Heart, and 
 not falsify the answer by his notions concerning the 
 Hearts of other men. But were it true, still the fair 
 answer would be — Well! but without the Laws the 
 Sword is but a piece of Iron. The wretched Tyrant, 
 who disgraces the present Age and Human Nature itself, 
 has exhausted the whole magazine of animal Terror, in 
 order to consplidate his truly satanic Government. But 
 look at the new French Catechism, and in it read the mis, 
 givings of the Monster's Mind, as to the sufficiency of 
 Terror alone ! The System, which I have been confuting, 
 is indeed so inconsistent with the Fafts revealed to us by 
 our own mind, and so utterly unsupported by any Fafts 
 of History, that I should be censurable in wasting my own 
 time and my Reader's patience, by the exposure of its. 
 falsehood, but that the Arguments adduced have a value 
 of themselves iudependent of their present application. 
 .Else it would have been an ample and^ satisfactory reply 
 to an Assertor of this bestial Theory-^Government is a 
 thing which relates to Men, and what you say applies 
 Only to Beasts. 
 
 Before I proceed to the second of the three Systems, 
 let me remove a possible misunderstanding that may have 
 arisen from the use of the word Contraft : as if I had 
 asserted, that the whole Duty of Obedience to Governors 
 is derived from, and dependent on, the Fafl, of an original 
 Contraft. I freely admit, that to make this the Cause 
 and Origin of political Obligation, is not only a dangerous 
 but an absurd Theory; for what could give moral forge 
 to the Contraft? The same sense of Duty which binds 
 us to keep it, must have preexisted as impelling us to 
 make it, Foff what man in his senses would regard the 
 faithful observation of a contract entered into to plunder 
 a Neighbour's House, but as a treble Crime ? First the/ 
 aft, which is a crime of itself; — secondly, the entering 
 into a Contraft which it is a crime to observe, and yet a 
 weakening o§ one of the main Pillars of human Con.- 
 
THE FRIEND. 105 
 
 fidence not to observe, and thus voluntarliy placing our- 
 selves under the necessity of chusing between two evils; 
 . — and thirdly, the crime of chusing the greater of the two 
 evils, by the unlawful observance of an unlawful Promise. 
 But in my sense, the word Contract is merely synonimous 
 with the sense of Duty acting in a specific direction and 
 determining our moral relations, as members of a body- 
 politic. If I have referred to a supposed origin of Governs 
 ment, it has been in courtesy to a common notion: for I 
 myself regard the supposition as no more than a means of 
 simplifying to our Apprehension the ever-continuing 
 causes of social union, even as the Conservation of the 
 World may be represented as an act of Continued Crea-* 
 tion. For, what if an original Contract had really been 
 entered into, and formally recorded ? Still it could do 
 no more than bind the contracting parties to aft for the 
 general good in the best manner, that the existing rela- 
 tions among themselves, (state of property, religion, &c.) 
 on the one hand, and the external circumstances on the 
 other (ambitious or barbarous Neighbours, &c.) required 
 or permitted. In after times it could be appealed to only 
 for the general principle, and no more, than the ideal 
 Contract, could it affect a question of ways and means. 
 As each particular Age brings with it its own exigencies, 
 so must it rely on its own prudence for the specific mea- 
 sures by which they aro to be encountered. 
 
 Nevertheless, it assuredly cannot be denied, that an 
 original (in reality, rather an ever-originating) Contract is 
 a very natural and significant mode of expressing the 
 reciprocal duties of Subject and Sovereign, when we con- 
 sider the utility of a real and formal State Contract, the 
 Bill of Rights for instance, as a sort of Est demonstratum 
 jn politics; and the contempt lavished on this notion, 
 though sufficiently compatible with the Tenets of a 
 Hume, may well surprise us in the Writings of a Protes- 
 tant Clergyman, who surely owed some respect to a mode 
 of thinking which God himself had authorized by his own 
 example, in the establishment of the Jewish Constitution. 
 In this instance there was no necessity for deducing the 
 will of God from the tendency of the laws to the genera^ 
 Happiness : his will was expressly declared. Neverthe- 
 less, it seemed good to the divine Wisdom, that there 
 should be a covenant, an original contract, between him- 
 self as Sovereign, and the Hebrew Nation as Subjects. 
 
106 THE FRIEND. 
 
 This, I admit, was a written and formal Contract.; but the 
 Relations of Mankind, as members of a Body Spiritual, or 
 religious Commonwealth, to the Saviour, asits'Heador 
 Regent — is not this too styled a Covenant, though it 
 would be absurd to ask for the material Instrument that 
 contained it, or the time when it was signed or voted by 
 the members of the Church collectively. * 
 
 With this explanation, the assertion of an original 
 (still better, of a perpetual) Contract is rescued from all 
 rational objection; and however speciously it may be 
 Hrged, that History can scarcely produce a single exam- 
 ple of a State dating.its primary Establishment from a free 
 and mutual Covenant, the answer is ready : if there be 
 any difference between a Government and a band of 
 Robbers, an act. of consent must be supposed on the part 
 of the People governed. Le plus Fort n'est jamais assez 
 fort pour etre toujoursle maitre, s'il ne transforme sa force 
 
 en droit et l'obeissance en devoir. Rousseau . Viribus 
 
 parantur provinciae, jure retinentur. Igitur #ra/eidgau- 
 dium, quippe Germani vidti magis, quamdomiti. Fior. 
 XV. 1*. 
 
 The second System corresponds to the second point 
 of view under which the Human Being may be consider- 
 ed,, namely, as an animal gifted with. Understanding, or 
 the faculty of suiting Measures to Circumstances. Ac- 
 cording to this Theory, every Institution of national 
 origin needs no other Justification than a proof, that 
 rander the particular circumstances it is expedient. 
 Having in my former Numbers expressed myself (so at 
 least I am conscious I shall have appeared to do to many 
 Persons) with comparative slight of the Understanding 
 considered as the sole Guide of human Conduct, and even 
 with something like contempt and reprobation of the 
 maxims of Expedience, when represented as the only 
 steady Light of the Conscience, and the absolute Foun- 
 dation of all Morality; I shall perhaps seem guilty of an 
 inconsistency, in declaring myself an Adherent of this 
 seeond System, a zealous Advocate for deriving the origin 
 
 It is perhaps to be regretted, that the words, old and new Testament, they 
 SaTing lost the sense intended by the Translators of the Bible, have not been chang- 
 ed; into the old and new Covenant. We cannot too carefully keep in sight a no- 
 tion, which appeared to the primitive Church the fittest and most scriptural moiU 
 9$ representing the sum of the Contents of the saxred Writings. 
 
THE FRIEND. lOf 
 
 of all Government from human Prudence, and of deeming 
 that to he just which Experience has proved to be expe- 
 dient. From this charge of inconsistancy * I shall best 
 exculpate myself by the full statement of the third 
 System, and by the exposition of its Grounds and Con- 
 sequences. 
 
 The third and last System then denies all rightful 
 origin to Governments, except as far as they are derivable 
 
 * Distinct notions do not suppose different things. When we make a threefold 
 distinction in human nature, we are fully aware, that it is a distinction not a divi- 
 sion, and that in every act of mind the Man unites the properties of Sense, Under- 
 standing, and Reason. Nevertheless, it is of great practical importance, that these 
 distinctions should be made and understood, the ignorance or perversion of them 
 being alike injurious; as the first French Constitution has most lamentably proved. 
 It was fashion in the profligate times of Charles the second, to laugh at the Presby- 
 terians, fop distinguishing between the Person and the King; while intact they 
 were rediculiiig the most venerable maxims of English Law; —(The King never dies 
 — The King can do no wrong, &c.) and subverting the principles of genuine Loyalty, 
 in order to prepare the minds of the People for Despotism. 
 
 Under the term Sense, I comprise whatever is passive in our being, without any 
 reference to the questions of Materialism or Immaterialism ; all that Wan is in 
 common with animals, in kind at least — his sensations, and impressions whether of 
 his outward senses, or the inner sense of Imagination. This in the language of the 
 Schools, was called tile vis receptiva, or recipient property of the sou), from the 
 original constitution of which we perceive and imagine all things under the forms of 
 Space and Time. By the Understanding, I mean the faculty of thinking and 
 forming judgments on the notices furnished by the Sense, according to certain rules 
 existing in itself, which rules constitute its distinct nature. By the pure Reason, 
 1 mean the power by which we become possessed of Principle, (the eternal Verities 
 of Plato and Descartes) and of Ideas, (N. B. not images) as the ideas of a point, a 
 line, a circle, in Mathematics; and of Justice, Holiness, Free-Will, &c. in Morals. 
 Hence in works of pure Science the Definitions of necessity precede the Reasoning, 
 in other works they more aptly form the Conclusion. I am not asking my Readers 
 to admit the truth of these distinctions at present, but only to understand my words 
 in the same sense in which I «s<- them. 
 
 To many of my Readers it will, I trust, be some recommendation of these distinc- 
 tions, that they are more than once expressed, and every where supposed, in the 
 writings of St. Paul. I have no hesitation in undertaking to prove, that every 
 Heresy which has disquieted the Christian Church, from Tritheism to Socinianism, 
 has originated in and supported itself by, arguments rendered plausible only by the 
 confusion of these faculties, and thus demanding for the Objects of one, a sort of 
 evidence appropriated to those of another faculty. — These disquisitions have the 
 misfortune of being in ill-report, as dry and unsatisfactory; but I hope, in the 
 course of the work, (o gain them a better character — and if elucidations of their 
 practical importance from the most momentous events of History, can render them. 
 Interesting, to give them that interest at least. Besides, there is surely some good 
 in the knowledge of Truth, as Truth — (we were not made to live by Bread alone) 
 and in the strengthening of the intellect. It is an excellent Remark of Scaliger's^ 
 " Harum indagatio Subtilitatum, etsi non est utilis ad machinas farinarias conficiendas, 
 exuitanimumtameninscitanubigineacuitqueadalia." Scalig. Exerc. 307. ii 3. i. e. 
 The investigation of these Subtleties, though it is of no use to the construction of 
 machines to grind corn with, yet clears the mind from the rust of Ignorance, an* 
 sharpens it for other thingi. 
 
IQ& THE FRIEND. 
 
 from Principles contained in the Reason of Man, and 
 judges all the relations of men in Society by the Laws of 
 moral necessity, according to ideas (I hear use the word 
 in its highest and primitive sense, and as nearly synoni. 
 mous with the modern- word ideal) according to arche- 
 typal ideas co-essential with the Reason, and the con- 
 sciousness of which is the sign and necessary product of 
 its full development. The following then is the funda- 
 mental Principle of this Theory : Nothing is to be 
 deemed rightful in civil Society, or to be tolerated as. 
 such, but what is capable of being demonstrated out of 
 the original Laws of the pure Reason. Of course, as 
 there is but one System of Geometry, so according to this 
 Theory there can be but one Constitution and one System 
 ©f Legislation, and this consists in the freedom, which is 
 the common Right of all Men, under the controul of that 
 moral necessity, which is the common Duty of all men. 
 Whatever is not every where necessary, is no where right. 
 On this assumption the whole Theory is built. To state 
 it nakedly is to confute it satisfactorily. So at least it 
 should seem ! But in how winning and specious a man- 
 ner this system may be represented even to minds of the 
 loftiest order, it undisciplined and unhumbled by prac- 
 tical Experience, has been proved by the general impas- 
 sioned admiration and momentous effects of Rousseau's 
 Da Control Social, and the writings of the French Econo- 
 mists, or as they more appropriately entitled themselves, 
 Physiocratie Philosophers : and in how tempting and 
 dangerous a manner it may be represented to the Popu-. 
 Iace T has been made too evident in our own Country by 
 the temporary effects of Paine's Rights of Man. - Rela- 
 tively, however, to this latter Work it should be observed, 
 that it is not a legitimate Offspring of any one Theory, 
 but a confusion ot the immorality of the first System with 
 the misapplied universal Principles of the last : and in 
 this union, or rather lawless alternation, consists the 
 essence of Jacobinism, as far as Jacobinism is any thing 
 but a term of abuse, or has any meaning of its own distinct 
 from Democracy and Sedition, 
 
 A Constitution equally suited to China and America, 
 or to Russia and Great Britain, must surely be equally un- 
 fit for both, and deserve as little respect in political, as 
 as a Quack's panacaea in medical Practice. Yet there are 
 
THE FRIES©. IO9 
 
 mrce Weighty motives for a distinct exposition oY this* 
 Theory, and of the ground on which its' pretentions are 
 bottomed : and I dare affirm, that for the same reasons there 
 are few subjects which in the present state of the World 
 have a fairer claim to the attention of every serious English- 
 man, who is likely, directly or indirectly, as Partisan or as 
 Opponent, to interest himself in schemes of Reform. 
 
 The first motive is derived from the propensity of 
 mankind to mistake the feelings of disappointment, dis- 
 gust, and abhorrence occasioned by tj^ unhappy effects 
 or accompaniments of a particular System for an insight 
 into the falsehood of its Principles which alone can secure 
 its permanent rejection. For by a wise ordinance of Na- 
 ture our feelings have no abiding-place in our memory, 
 nay the more vivid they are in the moment of their ex- 
 istence the more dim and difficult (0 be remembered do 
 they make the thoughts which accompanied them. Those 
 of my Readers who at any time of their life have been in 
 the habit of reading Novels may easily convince themselves 
 of this Truth by comparing their recollections of those 
 Stories, which most excited their curiosity and even pain- 
 fully affected their feelings, with their recollections of the 
 calm and, meditative pathos of Shakespcre and Milton 
 Hence it is that human experience, like the Stern ligfa 
 of a Ship at Sea, illumines only the path which we have 
 passed over. The horror of the Peasants' War in Germa 
 ny, and the direful effects of the Anabaptist Tenets, which 
 were only nominally different from those of Jacobinism 
 by the substitution of religious for philosophical jargon, 
 struck all Europe for a time with affright. Yet little 
 more than a Century was sufficient to obliterate all effec- 
 tive memory of those events: the same Principles budded 
 forth anew and produced the same fruits from theimprison- 
 ment of Charles the first to the Restoration of his Son. 
 In the succeeding Generations, to the follies and vices of 
 the European Courts, and to the oppresive privileges of 
 the Nobility, were again transferred those feelings of dis- 
 
 • M " Metaphysics"' are the science which determines what can, and what can 
 not, be known of Being and the Laws of Being, a priori (that is from those neces- 
 sities of the mind or forms of thinking, which, though first revealed to us by experi- 
 ence, must yet have pre-existed in order to make experience itself possible, even as 
 the eye must exist previous to any particular act of seeing, though by sight only can 
 we know that we have e\c B )— so might the philosophy of Rousseau and his follow* 
 ers not inaptly be entitled, MeTAroLiTics, and tha Doctors of this School, Metaj 
 jjffliticiaii". 
 
 2 
 
HO THE FRIEND. 
 
 gust and hatred, which for a brief while the Multitude 
 had attached to the Crimes and Extravagances of political 
 and religious Fanaticism : and the same principles aided 
 by circumstances and dressed out in the ostentatious garb 
 of a fashionable Philosophy, once more rose trium phant, 
 and effected the French Revolution. That Man has re- 
 flected little on ; Human Nature who does not perceive 
 that the detestable maxims and correspondent crimes of 
 the existing French Despotism, have already dimmed the 
 recollections of the. democratic phrenzy in the minds of 
 men; by little and little, have drawn off to other objects 
 the electric force of the feelings, which had massed and 
 upheld those recollections ; and that a favourable concur- 
 rence of Occasions is alone wanting to awaken the Thun- 
 der and precipitate the Lightening from the opposite quar- 
 ter of the political Heaven. The true origin of Human 
 Events is so little susceptible of that kind of evidence 
 which can compel our Belief even against our Will; and 
 so many are the disturbing forces which modify the motion 
 given by the first projection ; and every Age has, or 
 imagines it has, its own circumstances which render past 
 experience no longer applicable to the present case; that 
 there will never be wanting answers, and explanations, and 
 specious flatteries of hope. I well remember, that when 
 the Examplesof former Jacobins, Julius Cassar, Cromwell, 
 &c. were adduced in France and Englandatthe commence- 
 ment of the French Consulate, it was rediculed as pedan- 
 try and pedants' ignorance, to fear a repetition of such 
 Usurpation at the close of the enlightened eighteenth Century, 
 Those who possess the M&niteurs of that date will find 
 set proofs, that such results were little less than impossible, 
 and that it was an insult to so philosophical an Age, and 
 so enlightened a Nation, to dare direct the public eye 
 towards them as Lights of admonition and warning. 
 
 It is a common foible with official Statesmen, and with 
 those who deem themselves honoured by their acquaint- 
 ance, to attribute great national Events to the influence of 
 particular Persons, to the errors of one man and to the 
 intrigues of another, to any possible spark of a particular 
 occasion, rather than to the true cau»e, the predominant 
 State of public Opinion. I have known Men who, with 
 most significant nods, and the civil contempt of pitying half 
 smiles, have declared the natural explanation of the French 
 Revolution, to be the mere fancies of Garretteers, and then 
 
THE FRIEND. lii 
 
 ivith the solemnity of Cabinet Ministers, have proceed- 
 ed to explain the whole by — anecdotes. It is so stimu- 
 lant to the pride of a vulgar mind, to be persuaded that it 
 knows what few others know, and that it is the important 
 depositary of a sort of State Secret, by communicating 
 which it confers an obligation on others ! But I have 
 likewise met with men of intelligence, who at the com- 
 mencement of the Revolution were travelling on foot 
 through the French Provinces, and they bear witness, that 
 in the remotest Villages, every tongue was employed in. 
 echoing and enforcing the Doctrines of the Parisian 
 Journalists, that the public Highways were crowded with 
 Enthusiasts, some shouting the Watch-words of the Revo- 
 lution, others disputing on the most abstract Principles of 
 the universal Constitution, which they fully believed, that 
 all the Nations of the Earth were shortly to adopt ; the 
 most ignorant among them confident of his fitness for the 
 highest duties of a Legislator; and all prepared to shed 
 their blood in the defence of the inalienable Sovereignty 
 of the self-governed People. The more abstract the 
 notions were, with the closer affinity did they combine with 
 the most fervent feelings and all the immediate impulses 
 to action. The Lord Chancellor Bacon lived in an Age of 
 Court intrigues, and was familiarly acquainted with all the 
 secrets of personal influence. He, if any Man, was quali- 
 fied to take the guage and measurement of their compara- 
 tive power, and he has told us, that there is one and but one 
 infallible source of political prophesy, theknowledge of the 
 predominant Opinions and the speculative Principles of men 
 in general between the age of twenty and thirty. Sir Philip 
 Sidney, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, the paramount 
 Gentleman of Europe, the Nephew, and (as far as a good 
 Man could be) the Confidante of the intriguing and dark- 
 minded Earl of Leicester, was so deeply convinced that the 
 Principles diffused through the majority of a Nation are the 
 true Oracles from whence Statesmen are to learn wisdom, 
 and that " when the People speak loudly it is from their 
 being strongly possessed either by the Godhead or the Dae- 
 mon," that in the Revolution of the Netherlands he consi- 
 dered the universal adoption of one set of Principles, as a 
 proof of the divine Presence. " If her Majesty/' says he 
 " were the fountain; I would fear, considering what^I 
 daily find, that we should wax dry. But she is but a means 
 which God useth." But if my Readers wish to see the 
 Question of the efficacy of Principles and popular Opinions 
 
212 THE FRIEND, 
 
 for evil and for good proved and illustrated with an elo» 
 quenee worthy of the Subject, I can refer them with the 
 hardiest anticipation of their thanks, to the late Work "con- 
 cerning the Relations of Great Britain, Spain,and Portugal, 
 by nay honoured Friend William Wordsworth* quern quoties 
 lego, non verba mihi videor audire, sedtonitrua! 
 
 * I consider this reference to, and strong recommendation of the Work above 
 nentioned, not as a voluntary tribute of admiration, but as an act of mere justice 
 both to myself and to the Readers of The Friend. My mm heart bears me wiM 
 «ess, that I am actuated by the deepest sense of the truth of the Principles, which 
 it has been and still more will be my endeavour to enforce, and of their paramount 
 importance to the Well-being of Society at the present juncture: and that the duty 
 of making the attempt, and the hope of not wholly failing in it, are, far more than 
 the wish for the doubtful good of literary reputation or any yet meaner object, my 
 great and ruling Motives. Mr. Wordsworth I deem a fellow-labourer in the same 
 vineyard, actuated by the same motives and teaching the same principles, but with 
 far greater powers of mind, and an eloquence more adequate to the importance and 
 majesty of the Cause. I am strengthened too by the knowledge, that I am not un- 
 authorized by the sympathy of many wise and good men, and men acknowledged 
 as such by the Public, in my admiration of his Pamphlet. — Neque enim debet operi*- 
 bus ejus obesse, quodvivit. An si inter eos, quos nunquam vidimus, Jloruisset, non 
 soTum libros ejus, verum etiam imagines conquireremus, ejusdem nunc honor prtesentis, 
 *t gratia quasi satietale languesceff At hoe pravuni,malignumque est, non admirari 
 liominem admiratione etignissimum, quiavidere, complecti, nee lau dare tantum,veruni 
 elfam amare contingit. Plin. Epist Lib. I. 
 
 It is hardly possible for a man of ingenuous mind to act under the fear that it 
 shall be suspected by honest Men of the vileness of praising a Work to the Public, 
 merely because he happens to be personally acqainted with the Author. That this is so> 
 commonly donein Reviews, furnishes only an additional proof of themorbid hardness 
 produced iu the moral sense by the habit of writing anonymous criticisms, especially 
 under the further disguise of a pretended Board or Association of Critics, each man 
 expressing himself, to use the words of Andrew Marvel, as a synodical individunm. 
 With regard however, to the probability of the Judgement being Warped by par- 
 tiality, I can only say that I judge of all Works indifferently by certain fixed rules 
 previously formed in my mind with all the power and vigilance of my Judgement j 
 and that I should certainly of the two apply them with greater rigour to the pro- 
 duction of a Friend than that of a Person indifferent to ine. These Canons of criti- 
 cism with the grounds on which each of them have been established, I shall lay be- 
 fore my Readers, preparatory to an analysis according to principles, of the merits 
 and demerits of the ancient and modern English Poets. But wherever I find in any 
 Work all the conditions of excellence in its kind, it is not the accident of the Au- 
 thors being my Contemporary or even my Friend, or the sneers of bad-hearted Men, 
 that shall prevent me from speaking of it, as in my inmost convictions, I deem it 
 Reserves. 
 
 no, friend! 
 
 Though it be now the Fashion to commend, 
 
 As men of strong minds, those alone who can 
 
 Censure with judgement, no such piece of man 
 
 Makes up my spirit: wbere desert does live, 
 
 There will I plant my wonder, and there give 
 
 My best endeavours to build up his glory, 
 
 That truly merits! 
 
 Recommendatory Verses to one of the old Playf. 
 
 SSIndal: printed by m. & r. brantiiwaite; published and sold by 
 
 mr. brown, penrith ; and messrs. longman a sb 
 
 co. paternoster p.owj london. 
 
THE FRIEND. 
 
 No. 8, THURSDAY, October 5, 1809, 
 
 ( Continued from page W2.) 
 
 That erroneous political notions (they having become 
 general and a part of the popular creed), have practical 
 consequences, and these, of course, of a most fearful 
 nature, is a Truth as certain as historic evidence can make 
 it: and that when the feelings excited by these Calami- 
 ties have passed away, and the interest in them has been 
 displaced by more recent events, the same Errors are 
 likely to be started afresh, pregnant with the same 
 Calamities, is an evil rooted in Human Nature in the 
 present state of general information, for which we have 
 hitherto found no adequate remedy. (It may, perhaps 
 in the scheme of Providence, be proper and conducive to 
 its ends, that no adequate remedy should exist : for the 
 folly of men is the wisdom of God). But if there be any 
 means, if not of preventing yet of palliating the disease, 
 and in the more favoured nations, of checking its progress 
 at the first symptoms ; and if these means are to be at all 
 compatible with the civil and intellectual Freedom of 
 Mankind, they are to be found only in an intelligible and 
 thorough exposure of the error and, through that discovery, 
 of the source, from which it derives its speciousness and 
 powers of influence on the human mind. This therefore 
 is my first motive for undertaking the disquisition. 
 
 The second is, that though the French Code of revolu- 
 tionary Principles, is now generally rejected as a System, 
 yetevery where in the speeches and writings, of the Eng- 
 lish Reformers, nay, not seldom in those of their Oppo- 
 nents, I find certain maxims asserted or appealed to, 
 which are not tenable, except as constituent parts of that 
 System. Many of the most specious arguments in proof 
 of the imperfection and injustice of the present Constitu- 
 tion of our Legislature will be found, on closer examina- 
 tion, to presuppose the truth of certain Principles, from 
 which the Adducers of these arguments loudly profess 
 theis dissent. But in political changes no permanence 
 

 ■M 
 
 114 THE FRIEND. 
 
 can be hoped for in the edifice, without consistency in 
 the Foundation. 
 
 The third motive is, that by detecting the true source 
 of the influence of these Principles, we shall at the same 
 time discover their natural place and object : and that in 
 themselves they are not only Truths, but most important 
 and sublime Truths ; aud that their falsehood and their 
 danger consist altogether in their misapplication. Thus 
 the dignity of Human Nature will be secured, and at the 
 same time a lesson of Humility taught to each Individual, 
 when we are made to see that the universal necessary 
 Laws, and pure Ideas of Reason, were given us, not for 
 purpose of flattering our Pride and enabling us to become 
 national Legislators ; but that by an energy of continued 
 self conquest, we might establish a free and yet absolute 
 Government in our own Spirits. 
 
 ESSAY V. 
 
 The Intelligence, which produces or controls human 
 actions and occurrences, is often represented by the 
 Mystics under the name and notion of the supreme 
 Harmonist. I do not myself approve of these metaphors : 
 they seem to imply a restlessness to understand that 
 which is not among the appointed objects of our com- 
 prehension or discursive faculty. But certainly there is 
 one excellence in good music, to which, without mysti- 
 cism, we may find or make an analogy in the records of 
 History. 1 allude to that sense of recognition, which 
 accompanies our sense of novelty in the most original 
 passages of a great composer. If we listen to a Sym- 
 phony of Cimarosa, the present strain still seems not 
 only to recal, but almost to renew, some past movement, 
 another and yet the same ! Each present movement 
 bringing back, as it were, and embodying the Spirit of 
 some melody that had gone before, anticipates and seems 
 trying to overtake something that is to come : and the 
 Musician has reached the summit of his art, when having 
 thus modified the Present by the Past, he at the same 
 time weds the Past in the Present to some prepared and 
 corresponsive Future. The Auditor's thoughts and feel- 
 ings move under the same influence : retrospection 
 blends with anticipation, and Hope and Memory (a 
 female Janus) become one Power svith a double Aspect. 
 
THE FRIEND. 113 
 
 A similar effect the Reader may produce for himself in 
 the pages of History, if he will be content to substitute 
 an intellectual complacency for pleasurable sensation. 
 The Events and Characters of one Age, like the Strains 
 in Music, recal those of another, and the variety by which 
 each is individualized, not only gives a charm and poig- 
 nancy to the resemblance, but likewise renders the whole 
 more intelligible. Meantime ample room is afforded for 
 the exercise both of the Judgement and the Fancy, in 
 distinguishing cases of real resemblance from those of 
 intentional imitation, the analogies of Nature., revolving 
 upon herself, from the masquerade Figures of Cunning 
 and Vanity. 
 
 It is not from identity of opinions, or from similar^ 
 of events and outward actions, that a real resemblance in 
 the radical character can be deduced. On the contrary, 
 Men of great and stirring Powers, who are destined to 
 mould the Age in which they are born, must first mould 
 themselves upon it. Mahomet born twelve Centuries 
 later, and in the heart of Europe, would not have been a 
 false Prophet ; nor would a false Prophet of the present 
 Generation have been a Mahomet in the sixth Century. 
 I have myself, therefore, derived the deepest interest from 
 the comparison of Men, whose Characters at the first 
 view appear widely dissimilar, who yet have produced 
 similar effects on their different Ages, and this by the 
 exertion of powers which on examination will be found 
 far more alike, than the altered drapery and costume 
 would have led us to suspect. Of the Heirs of Fame 
 few are more respected by me, though for very different 
 qualities, than Erasmus and Luther : scarcely any one 
 has a larger Bhare of my aversion than Voltaire; and even 
 of the better-hearted Rousseau 1 was never more than a 
 very lukewarm admirer. 1 should perhaps too rudely 
 affront the general opinion, if I avowed my whole Creed 
 concerning the proportions of real Talent between the 
 two Purifiers of revealed Religion, now neglected as 
 obsolete, and the two modern Conspirators against its' 
 authority, Avho are still the Alpha and Omega of Conti- 
 nental Genius. Yet when I abstract the questions of evil 
 and good, and measure only the effects produced and the 
 mode of producing- them, I have repeatedly found the 
 idea of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Robespierre, recal in a 
 •imilar cluster and connection that of Erasmus, Luther, 
 pnd Munster. 
 
116 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the Works of Erasmus* 
 and who know the influence of his Wit, as the Pioneer of 
 the Reformation ; and who likewise know, that by hig 
 Wit, added to the vast variety of knowledge communi- 
 cated in his Works, he had won over by anticipation so" 
 large a part of the polite and lettered World to the 
 Protestant Party, will be at no loss in discovering the 
 intended counterpart in the Life and Writings of the 
 veteran Frenchman. They will see, indeed, that the 
 knowledge of the one was solid through its whole extent* 
 and that of the other extensive at a cheap rate, by its 
 superficiality ; that the Wit of the one is always bottomed 
 on sound sense, peoples and enriches the mind of the 
 Reader with an endless variety of distinct images and 
 living interests ; and that his broadest laughter is every 
 where translatable into grave and weighty truth : while 
 the wit of the Frenchman, without imagery, without 
 character, and without that pathos which gives the magic 
 charm to genuine humour, consists, when it is most 
 perfect, in happy turns of phrase, but far too often in 
 fantastic incidents, outrages of the pure imagination, and 
 the poor low trick of combining the ridiculous with the 
 venerable, where he, who does not laugh, abhors. 
 Neither will they have forgotten, that the object of the 
 one was to drive the Thieves and Mummers out of the 
 Temple, while the other was propelling a worse. Banditti, 
 first to profane and pillage, and ultimately to raze it. 
 Yet not the less will they perceive, that the effects remain 
 parallel, the circumstances analagous, and the instruments 
 the same. In each case the effects extended over Europe, 
 were attested and augmented by the praise and patronage 
 of thrones and dignities, and are not to be explained but 
 by extraordinary industry and a life of Literature; in 
 both instances the circumstances were supplied by an Age 
 of Hopes and Promises — the Age of Erasmus restless 
 from the first vernal influences of real knowledge, that of 
 Voltaire from the hectic of imagined superiority : in the 
 ^voluminous Works of both, the instruments employed are 
 chiefly those of wit and amusive erudition, and alike in 
 "both the Errors and Evils (real or imputed) in Religion 
 and Politics, are the objects of the Battery. And here 
 we must stop. The two Men were essentially different. 
 Exchange mutually their dates and spheres of action, yet 
 Voltaire, had he been teil-fold a Voltaire, could not have 
 tnade up an Erasmus; and Erasmus must have emptied 
 
THE FRJEKD. 117 
 
 himself of half his greatness and all his goodness, to have 
 become a Voltaire. 
 
 Shall we succeed better or worse with the next pair, 
 in this our new Dance of Death, or rather of the Shadows 
 which we have brought forth— two by two — from the 
 historic Ark ? In our first couple we have at least 
 secured an honourable retreat, and though we failed as to 
 the Agents, we have maintained a fair analogy in the 
 Actions and the Objects. But the heroic Luther, a 
 Giant awaking in his strength ! and the crazy Rousseau, 
 the Dreamer of love-sick Tales, and the Spinner of specu- 
 lative Cobwebs ; shy of light as the Mole, but as quick- 
 eared too for every whisper of the public opinion ; the 
 Teacher of stoic Pride in his Principles, yet the victim of 
 morbid Vanity in his Feelings and Conduct ! from what 
 point of Likeness can we commence the Comparison be- 
 tween a Luther and a Rousseau ? And truly had 1 beeri 
 seeking for Characters that, taken as they really existed, 
 closely resemble each other, and this too to our first ap- 
 prehensions, and according to the common rules of bio- 
 graphical comparison, I could scarcely have made a more 
 unlucky choice : unless"" I had desired that my Parallel 
 of the German " Son of Thunder" and the Visionary of 
 Geneva, should sit on the same bench with honest 
 Fluellin's of Alexander the Great and Harry of Mon- 
 mouth. Still, however, the same analogy would hold as 
 in my former instance : the effects produced on their 
 several Ages by Luther and Rousseau, were commensu- 
 rate with each other, and were produced in both cases by 
 ■(what their Contemporaries felt as) serious and vehement 
 eloquence, and an elevated tone of moral feeling : and 
 Luther, not less than Rowsseau, was actuated by an al- 
 most superstitious hatred of Superstition, and a turbulent 
 prejudice against Prejudices. In the relation too which 
 their Writings severally bore to those of Erasmus and Vol- 
 taire, and the way in which the latter co-operated with 
 them to the same general end, each finding its' own class 
 of Admirers and Proselytes, the Parallel is complete. 
 I cannot, however, rest here ! Spite of the apparent in- 
 congruities, I am disposed to plead for a resemblance in 
 the Men themselves, for that similarity in their radical 
 natures, which I abandoned all pretence and desire of 
 shewing in the instances of Voltaire and Erasmus. But 
 then my Readers must think of Luther not as he really 
 was, but as he might have been, if he had been born in 
 
118 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the Age and under the Circumstances of the S\vis3 Phi- 
 losopher. For this purpose I must strip. him of many 
 advantages which he derived from his own Times, and 
 must contemplate him in his natural weaknesses as well 
 as in his original strength. Each referred all things to his 
 own Ideal. The Ideal was indeed widely different in the 
 one and in the other: and this was not the least of 
 Luther's man) r advantages, or (to use a favourite phrase 
 of his own) not one of his least favours of preventing 
 Grace. Happily for him he had derived his standard 
 from a common measure already received by the Good 
 and Wise : I mean the inspired Writings, the Study of 
 which Erasmus had previously restored among the Learn- 
 ed. To know what we are in sympathy with others, 
 moderates our feelings as well as strengthens our con- 
 victions: and for the mind, which opposes itself to the 
 faith of the multitude, it is more especially desirable, that 
 there should exist an object out of itself, on which it may 
 fix its attention, and thus balance its own energies." 
 
 Rousseau, on the contrary, in the inauspicious Spirit 
 of his Age and Birth-place,* had slipped the Cable of his 
 Faith, and steered by the Compass of unaided Reason, 
 ignorant of the hidden Currents that were bearing him 
 out of his Course, and too proud to consult the faithful 
 Charts prized and held sacred by his Forefathers. But 
 the strange influences of his bodily temperament on his 
 understanding ; his constitutional Melancholy pampered 
 into a morbid excess by solitude ; his wild Dreams of 
 suspicion ; his hypochondriacal Fancies of hosts of con- 
 spirators all leagued against him and his cause, and 
 headed by some arch-enemy, to whose machinations he 
 attributed every trifling mishap (all as much the creatures 
 of his imagination, as if instead of Men he had conceived 
 them to be infernal Spirits and Beings preternatural) — • 
 these, or at least the predisposition to them, existed in 
 the ground-work of his Nature: they were parts of 
 Rousseau himself. And what corresponding in kind to 
 these, not to speak of degree, can we detect in the 
 Character of his supposed Parallel ? This difficulty will 
 ■ -— ^— — — — — — — — — — ^ — , — '"^ 
 
 * Infidelity was 10 common in Geneva about that Time, that Voltaire ia 
 one of his Letters exults, that in this, Calvin's own City, some half dozei 
 only of the most ignorant believed in Christianity under any form. This 
 'was, no doubt, one of Voltaire's usual lies of exaggeration : it is not however 
 to be denied, that here, and throughout Switzerland, he and the dark Master 
 in whoie lerviee fee employed himself, had ample ground* of triumph. 
 
iHK FRIEHD. 119 
 
 suggest itself at the first thought, to those who derive all 
 their knowledge of Luther from the meagre biography 
 met within " The Lives of eminent Reformers," or even 
 from the ecclesiastical Histories of Mosheim or Milner : 
 for a Life of Luther, in extent and style of execution 
 proportioned to the grandeur and interest of the Subject, 
 a Life of the Man Luther, as well as of Luther the Theo- 
 logian, is still a desideratum in English Literature, though 
 perhaps there is no Subject for which so many unused 
 materials are extant, both printed and in manuscript.* 
 
 Whoever has sojourned in Eisenach, will assuredly 
 have visited the \ Warteburg, interesting by so many 
 historical Associations, which stands on a high rock, 
 about two miles to the south from the City Gate. To 
 this Castle Luther was taken on his return from the 
 imperial Diet, where Charles the fifth had pronounced 
 the ban upon him, and limited his safe convoy to one and 
 twenty days. On the last but one of these days, as he 
 was on his way to Waltershausen (a town in the dutchy 
 of Saxe Gotha, a few leagues to the south east of Eisenach) 
 he was stopped in a hollow behind the Castle Altenstein, 
 and carried to the Warteburg. The Elector of Saxony, 
 who could not have refused to deliver up Luther, as one 
 put in the ban by the Emperor and the Diet, had ordered 
 John of Berleptsch, the Governor of the Warteburg, and 
 Burckhardt von Hundt, the Governor of Altenstein, to 
 take Luther to one or the other of these Castles, without 
 acquainting him which; in order that he might be able, 
 with safe conscience, to declare, that he did not know 
 where Luther was. Accordingly they took him to the 
 Warteburg, under the name of the Chevalier (Hitter) 
 George. 
 
 To this friendly Imprisonment the Reformation owes 
 many~of Luther's most important labours. In this Place 
 he wrote his Works against auricular Confession, against 
 
 * The affectionate respect in which I hold the name of Dr. Jortin (one of 
 the many illustrious Nurslings of the College to which 1 deem it no small 
 honour to have belonged— Jesus, Cambridge) renders it painful to me to 
 assert, that the above remark holds almost equally true of a Life of Erasmus. 
 But every Scholar well read in the Writings of Erasmus and his illustrious 
 Contemporaries, must have discovered, that Jortin had neither collected 
 sufficient, nor the best, materials for his Work : and (perhaps from that very 
 cause) he grew weary of his task, before he had made a full use of the scanty 
 materials which be had collected. 
 
 t Durck fuge durch Dcuotshland, die Nicdtrland* und Frmkrcich : xm« 
 Thai, p. 126. 
 
,20 THE FRIEND, 
 
 Jacob Lalronum, the tract on the abuse of Masses, that 
 against clerical and monastic Vows, composed his Expo-, 
 sition of the 22, 27, and 68 Psalms, finished his Declara- 
 tion of the Magnificat, began to write his Church 
 Homilies, and translated the New Testament. Here tun, 
 and during this time, he is said to have hurled his ink- 
 stand at the Devil, the black spot from which yet remains 
 on the stone wall of the room he studied in ; which, 
 surely, no one will have visited the Warteburg without 
 having had pointed out to him by the good Catholic who. 
 is, or at least some few years ago was, the Warden of the 
 Castle. He must have been either a very supercilious or 
 a very incurious Traveller if he did not, for the gratifica-i 
 tion of his Guide at least, inform himself by means of 
 his Penknife, that the said marvellous blot bids defiance 
 to all the toils of the scrubbing Brush, and is to remain a 
 sign for ever ; and with this advantage over most of its 
 kindred, that being capable of a double interpretation, it 
 is equally flattering to the Protestant and the Papist, and 
 js regarded by the wonder-loving Zealots of both Parties, 
 with equal Faith. 
 
 Whether the great Man ever did throw his inkstand 
 at his Satanic Majesty, whether he ever boasted of the 
 Exploit, and himself declared the dark blotch on his, 
 Study Wall in the Warteburg, to be the result and relict 
 of this Author-like hand-grenado (happily for mankind 
 he used his ink-stand at other times to better purpose, 
 and with more effective hostility against the Arch-fiend), 
 I leave to my Readers own Judgement; on condition, 
 however, that he has previously perused Luther's Table 
 Talk, and other Writings of the same stamp, of some of 
 his most illustrious Contemporaries, which contain facts 
 still more strange and whimsical, related by themselves 
 and of themselves, and accompanied with solemn protes- 
 tations of the Truth of their statements. Luther's Table 
 Talk, which to a truly philosophic mind, will not be less 
 interesting than Rousseau's Confessions, I have not 
 myself the means of consulting at present, and cannot 
 therefore say, whether this ink-pot Adventure is, or is 
 not, told or referred to in it; but many considerations 
 incline me to give credit to the Story. 
 
 Luther's unremitting literary Labour and his seden- 
 tary mode of Life, during his confinement in the Warte- 
 burg, where he was treated with the greatest kindness, 
 and enjoyed every liberty consistent with his own safety, 
 
THE FRIEND. 121 
 
 had begun to undermine his former unusually strong 
 heal tli. He suffered many and most distressing effects of 
 indigestion and a deranged state of the digestive Organs, 
 Melauchthon, whom he had desired to consult the 
 Physicians at Erfurth, sent him some de-obstruent 
 medicines, and the advice to take regular and severe 
 Exercise. At first he followed the advice, sate and 
 laboured less, and spent whole days in the Chase; but 
 like' the younger Pliny, he strove in vain to form a taste 
 for this favourite Amusement of the '' Gods of the Earth," 
 as appears from a passage in his Letter to George Spala- 
 tin, which I translate for an additional reason : to prove 
 to the Admirers of Rousseau (who perhaps will not be 
 less affronted by this biographical Parallel, than the. 
 zealous Lutherans will be offended) that if my comparison 
 should turn out groundless on the whole, the failure will 
 not have arisen either from the want of sensibility in our 
 great Reformer, or of angry aversion to those in high 
 Places, whom he regarded as the Oppressors of their 
 rightful equals. " I have been," he writes, " employed 
 for two days in the sports of the field, and was willing 
 myself to taste this bitter-sweet amusement of the great 
 Heroes : we have caught two Hares, and one brace of 
 poor little Partridges. An employment this which does 
 not ill suit quiet leisurely folks : for even in the midst of 
 the Ferrets and Dogs, I have had theological Fancies. 
 But as much pleasure as the general appearance of the 
 Scene and the mere looking-on occasioned me, even so 
 much it pitied me to think of the mystery and emblem 
 which lies beneath it. For what does this symbol signify, 
 but that the Devil, through his godless Huntsman and 
 Dogs, the Bishops and Theologians to wit, doth privily 
 chase and catch the innocent poor little Beasts ? Ah ! the 
 simple and credulous souls came thereby far too plain 
 before my eyes. Thereto comes a yet more frightful 
 mystery : as at my earnest entreaty we had saved alive 
 one poor little Hare, and 1 had concealed it in the sleeve 
 of my great coat, and had strolled off a short distance 
 from it, the Dogs in the mean time found the poor 
 Hare. Such too, is the fury of the Pope with Satan, 
 that he destroys even the souls that had been saved, and 
 troubles himself little about my pains and entreaties. Of 
 such hunting then I have had enough/' In another 
 passage he tells his Correspondent, " you know it is hard 
 to be a Prince, and not in some degree a Robber, and 
 
122 THE FRIEND. . 
 
 the greater a Prince the more a Robber." Of our 
 'Henry the eight he says, " I must answer the grim Liorf 
 that passes himself off for King of England. The igno- 
 rance in the Book is such as one naturally expects from a 
 King; but the bitterness and impudent falsehood is quite 
 leonine." And in his circular letter to the Princes, on 
 occasion of the Peasant's War, he uses a language so in- 
 flammatory, and holds forth a doctrine which borders so 
 near on the holy right of Insurrection, that it may as well 
 remain untranslated. 
 
 Had Luther been himself a Prince, he could not have 
 desired better treatment than he received during his eight 
 months stay in the Warteburg; and in consequence of a 
 more luxurious diet than he had been accustomed to, he 
 was plagued with temptations both from the " Flesh and 
 the Devil." It is evident from his Letters* that he 
 suffered under great irritability of his nervous System* 
 the commou effect of deranged Digestion in men of 
 sedentary habits, who are at the same time intense 
 thinkers: and this irritability added to, and revivifying 
 the impressions made upon him in early life, and fostered 
 by the theological Systems of his Manhood, is abundantly 
 sufficient to explain all his Apparitions and all his nightly 
 combats with evil Spirits. 1 see nothing improbable in « 
 the supposition, that in one of those unconscious half 
 sleeps, or rather those rapid alternations of the sleeping 
 with the half-waking state, which is the true witching time, 
 
 « V the season 
 
 Wherein the spirits hold their wont to walk", 
 
 the fruitful matrix of Ghosts — I see nothing improbable', 
 that in some one of those momentary Slumbers, into 
 which the suspension of all Thought in the perplexity of 
 intense thinking so often passes ; Luther should have had 
 a full view of the Room in which he was sitting, of his 
 writing Table and all the Implements of Study, as they 
 really existed, and at the same time a brain-image of the 
 Devil, vivid enough to have acquired apparent Outness, 
 and a distance regulated by the proportion of its distinct- 
 
 * I can scarcely conceive a more delightful Volume than might be mad* 
 from Luther's Letters, especially from those that were written from the 
 Warteburg, if they were translated iu the simple, sinewy, idiomatic, hearty 
 mother- tongue of the original. A difficult task 1 admit — and scarcely 
 possible for anvman, however great his Talents in other respects, whose 
 ftrourite reading has not lain among the English Writers from Edward the 
 •iith to Charles the first. 
 
THE FRIEND. 1?3 
 
 ness to that of the objects really impressed on the outward 
 senses. 2. j\ 
 
 If this Christian Hercules, this heroic Cleanser of the -^ ^ 
 Augean Stable of Apostacy, had been born and educated 
 in the present or the preceding Generation, he would, 
 doubtless, have held himself for a Man of Genius and 
 original Power. But with this faith alone he would 
 scarcely have removed the Mountains which he did re- 
 move. The Darkness and Superstition of the Age, which 
 required such a Reformer, had moulded his mind for the 
 reception of ideas concerning himself, better suited to 
 inspire the strength and enthusiasm necessary for the 
 task of Reformation, ideas more in sympathy with the 
 spirits whom he was to influence. He deemed himself 
 gifted with supernatural influxes, an especial Servant of 
 Heaven, a chosen Warrior, fighting as the General of a 
 small but faithful troop, against an Army of evil Beings 
 headed by the Prince of the Air. These were no meta- 
 phorical Beings in his Apprehension. He was a Poet 
 indeed, as great a Poet as ever lived in any Age or 
 Country; but his poetic images were so vivid, that they 
 mastered the Poet's own mind ! He was possessed with 
 them, as with substances distinct from himself: Luther 
 did not write, he acted Poems. The Bible was a spiritual 
 indeed but not a ^figurative Armoury in his belief: it was 
 the magazine of his warlike stores, and from thence he 
 was to arm himself, and supply both Shield and Sword, 
 and Javelin, to the Elect. Methinks I see him sitting, 
 the heroic Student, in his Chamber in the Warteburg, 
 with his midnight Lamp before him, seen by the late 
 Traveller in the distant Plain of Bischofsroda, as a Star on 
 the Mountain ! Below it lies the Hebrew Bible open, on 
 which he gazes, his brow pressing on his palm, brooding 
 over some obscure Text, which he desires to make plain 
 to the simple Boor and to the humble Artizan, and to 
 transfer its' whole force into their own natural and living 
 Tongue. And he himself does not understand it ! Thick 
 Darkness lies on the original Text : he counts the Let- 
 ters, he calls up the Roots of each separate Word, and 
 questions them as the familiar Spirits of an Oracle. la 
 vain ! thick Darkness continues to cover it ! not a ray 
 of meaning dawns through it. With sullen and angry 
 Hope he reaches for the Vulgate, his old and sworn 
 enemy, the treacherous confederate of the Roman Anti- 
 
1§4 THE FRIEND. 
 
 christ, which he so gladly, when he can, rebukes for 
 idolatrous Falsehoods, that had dared place 
 
 « Within the sanctuary itself their shrines, 
 Abominations !" 
 
 Now — O thought* of humiliation — he must entreat its aid. 
 See! there has the sly Spirit of Apostacy worked-in a 
 phrase, which favours the doctrine of Purgatory, the 
 intercession of Saints, or the efficacy of Prayers for the 
 Dead. And what is worst of all, the interpretation is 
 plausible. The original Hebrew might be forced into 
 this meaning : and no other meaning seems to lie in it, 
 none to hover above it in the heights of Allegory, none to 
 lurk beneath it even in the depths of Cabala ! This is 
 the work of the Tempter ! it is a cloud of Darkness con- 
 jured up between the truth of the sacred Letters and the 
 eyes of his Understanding, by the malice of the Evil One, 
 and for a trial of his Faith ! Must he then at length con- 
 fess, must he subscribe the name of Luther to an Expo- 
 sition which consecrates a Weapon for the hand of the 
 idolatrous Hierarchy ? Never ! never ! 
 
 There still remains one auxiliary in reserve, the trans- 
 lation of the Seventy. The Alexandrine Greeks, anterior 
 to the Church itself, could intend no support to its corrup- 
 tions — the Septuagent will have profaned the Altar of 
 Truth with no incense for the Nostrils of the universal 
 Bishop to snuff up. And here again his hopes are baffled ! 
 Exactly at this perplexed Passage had the Greek Trans- 
 lator given his Understanding a Holiday, and made his 
 Pen supply its place. O honoured Luther! as easily 
 mightest thou convert the whole City of Rome, with the 
 Pope and the conclave of Cardinals inclusive, as strike a 
 spark of Light from the Words, and not hing-but- Words, of 
 the Alexandrine Version. Disappointed, despondent, en- 
 raged, ceasing to think, yet continuing his brain on the 
 stretch, in solicitation of a thought ; and gradually giving 
 himself up to angry Fancies, to recollections of past per- 
 secutions, to uneasy Fears, and inward Defiances, and 
 floating Images of the evil Being, their supposed personal 
 Author ; he sinks, without perceiving it, into a Trance of 
 Slumber: during which his brain retains its' waking ener- 
 gies, excepting that what would have been mere Thoughts 
 before, now (the action and counterweight of his outward 
 senses and their impressions being withdrawn) shape and 
 condense themselves into Things, into Realities! Repeat- 
 
THt FRIEND* 12S 
 
 rdly half-wakening, and his eyelids as often re-closing, the 
 objects which really surround him from the place and 
 scenery of" his Dream. All at once he sees the Arch-fiend 
 coming forth on the Wall of the Room, from the very spot 
 perhaps, on which his Eyes had been fixed vacantly during 
 the perplexed moments of his former Meditation : the 
 Ink-stand, which he had at the same time been using, 
 becomes associated with it : and in that struggle of Rage, 
 which in these distempered Dreams almost constantly pre- 
 cedes the helpless Terror by the pain of which we are finally 
 awakened, he imagines that he hurls it at the Intruder, or 
 not improbably in the first instant of awakening, while 
 yet both his imagination and his eyes are possessed by the 
 Dream, he actually hurls it ! Some weeks after, perhaps, 
 during which interval he had often mused on the incident, 
 undetermined whether to deem it a Visitation of Satan to 
 him in the body or out of the body, he discovers for the 
 first time the dark spot on his Wall, and receives it as a 
 sign and pledge vouchsafed to him of the Event having 
 actually taken place. 
 
 Such was Luther under the influences of the Age and 
 Country in and for which he was born. Conceive him a 
 Citizen of Geneva, and a Contemporary of Voltaire : sup- 
 pose the French Language his Mother-tongue, and the 
 political and moral Philosophy of English Free-thinkers 
 re-modelled by Parisian Fort Esprits, to have been the 
 objects of his Study ; — conceive this change of Circum- 
 stances, and Luther will no longer dream of Fiends or of 
 Antichrist — but will he have no Dreams in their place > 
 His melancholy will have changed its' Drapery; but will 
 it find no new Costume wherewith to cloath itself? His 
 impetuous temperament, his deep-working mind, his busy 
 and vivid Imagination — would they not have been a trouble 
 to him in a World, where nothing was to be altered, 
 where nothing was to obey his Power, to cease to be that 
 which it had been, in order to realize his pre-conceptions of 
 what ought to be ? His Sensibility, which found Objects 
 for itself, and shadows of human suffering in the harmless 
 Brute, and even the Flowers which he trod upon — 
 might it not naturally, in an unspiritualized Age, have 
 wept, and trembled, and dissolved, over scenes of earthly 
 Passion, and the struggles of Love with Duty ? His Pity, 
 that so easily passed into Rage, would it not have found in 
 the inequalities of Mankind, in the oppressions of Govern- 
 ments and the miseries of the governed, an entire instead 
 
 
126 THE FRIEND. 
 
 of a divided Object ? And might not a perfect Constitu- 
 tion, a Government of pure Reason, a renovation of the 
 social Contract, have easily supplied the place of the reign 
 of Christ in the new Jerusalem, of the restoration of the 
 visible Church, and the Union of all Men by one Faith 
 in one Charity ? Henceforward then, we will conceive 
 his Reason employed in building up anew the Edifice of 
 earthly Society, and his Imagination as pledging itself for 
 the possible realization of the Structure. We will lose 
 the great Reformer, who was born in an Age which needed 
 him, in the Philosopher of Geneva, who was doomed to 
 misapply his energies to materials the properties of which 
 he misunderstood, and happy only that he did not live to 
 witness the direful effects of his System. 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF THE PARAGRAPH, P. 192 AND 123. 
 
 I will endeavour to make my meaning in p. 122 — 123 
 qJt more clear to those of my Readers, who are fortunate 
 
 * enough to find it obscure in consequence of their own 
 good health and unshattered nerves. The Window of my 
 Library at Keswick is opposite to the Fire-place, and looks 
 out on the very large Garden that occupies the whole slope 
 of the Hill on which the House stands. Consequently, 
 the rays of Light transmitted through the Glass, (i. e. the 
 Rays from the Garden, the opposite Mountains, and the 
 Bridge, River, Lake, and Vale interjacent) and the rays 
 reflected from it, (of the Fire-place, &c.) enter the eye at 
 the same moment. At the coming on of Evening, it was 
 my frequent amusement to watch the image or reflection 
 of the Fire, that seemed burning in the bushes or between 
 the trees in different parts of the Garden or the Fields 
 beyond it, according as there was more or less Light ; 
 and which still arranged itself among the real objects of 
 Vision, with a distance and magnitude proportioned to 
 its greater or less faintness. For still as the darkness 
 increased, the Image of the Fire lessened and grew nearer 
 and more distinct ; till the twilight had deepened into per- 
 fect night, when all outward objects being excluded, the 
 window became a perfect Looking-glass : save only that 
 my Books on the side shelves of the Room were lettered, 
 as it were, on their Backs with Stars, more or fewer as the 
 sky was more or less clouded (the rays of the stars being 
 at that time the only ones transmitted.) Now substitute 
 the Thantom from Luther's braiu for the Images of reflected 
 
 ■ 
 
THE FRIEND." 127 
 
 light (the Fire for instance) and the Forms of his room 
 and its furniture for the transmitted rays, and you have a 
 fair resemblance of an Apparition, and a just conception 
 of the manner in which it is seen together with real 
 objects. As 1 shall devote some future Numbers to the 
 Subject of Dreams, Visions, Ghosts, Witchcraft, &c. in 
 which I shall first give, and then endeavour to explain 
 the most interesting and best attested fact of each, which 
 has come within my knowledge, cither from Books or 
 from personal Testimony, 1 defer till then the explanation 
 of the mode in which our Thoughts, in states of morbid 
 Slumber, become at times perfectly dramatic (for in cer- 
 tain sorts of dreams the dullest Wight becomes a Shakes- 
 peare) and by what Law the form of the Vision appears 
 to talk to us its own thoughts in a voice as audible as the 
 shape is visible ; and this too oftentimes in connected 
 trains, and sometimes even with a concentration of Power 
 which may easily impose on the soundest judgements, 
 uninstructed in the Optics and Acoustics of the inner 
 sense, for Revelations and gifts of Prescience. I will 
 only remark, in aid of the present case, that it would 
 appear incredible to Persons not accustomed to these 
 subtle notices of self observation, what small and remote 
 resemblances, what mere hints of likeness from some real 
 external object, (especially if the shape be aided by colour) 
 will suffice to make a vivid thought consubstantiate with 
 the real object, and derive from it an outward percepti- 
 bility. Even when we are broad awake, if we are in 
 anxious expectation, how often will not the most con- 
 fused sounds of nature be heard by us as articulate 
 sounds ? for instance, the babbling of a brook will appear 
 for a moment, the voice of a Friend, for whom we are 
 waiting, calling out our own names, &c. A short medi- 
 tation, therefore, on this Law of the imagination, that a 
 Likeness in part tends to become a likeness of the whole, 
 will make it not only conceivable but probable, that the 
 Inkstand itself, and the dark-coloured Stone on the Wall, 
 which Luther perhaps had never till then noticed, might 
 have a considerable influence in the production of the 
 Fiend, and of the hostile act with which his obtrusive 
 visit was repelled. 
 
 A Lady once asked me if I believed in Ghosts and 
 Apparitions, I answered with truth and simplicity : No, 
 Madam ! I have seen far too many myself. I have indeed 
 a whole memorandum Book filled with records of these 
 
 V 
 
128 THE FRIENfii 
 
 Phaenomena, many of them interesting as fadts and data 
 for Psychology, and affording some valuable materials for a. 
 Theory of Perception and its dependence on the memory 
 and Imagination. " In omnem actum Perceptionis ima- 
 ginatio influit efficienter." Wolfe. But He is no more, 
 who would have realized this idea : who had already es- 
 tablished the foundations and the law of the Theory ; and 
 for whom I had so often found a pleasure and a comfort, 
 even during the wretched "and restless nights of sickness, 
 in watching and instantly recording these experiences of 
 the world within us, of the " gemina natura, quae fit et fa- 
 cit, et creat et creatur !" He is gone, my Friend ! my muni- 
 ficient Co-patron, and not less the Benefactor of my Intel- 
 lect ! — He, who beyond all other men known to me, added 
 a fine and ever-wakeful Sense of Beauty to the most patient 
 Accuracy in experimental Philosophy and the profouhder 
 researches of metaphysical Science ; he who united all the 
 play and spring of Fancy with the subtlest Discrimination 
 and an inexorable Judgement ; and who controlled an al- 
 most painful exquisiteness of Taste by a Warmth of Heart, 
 •which in the practical relations of Life made allowances 
 for faults as quick as the moral taste detected them ; a 
 Warmth of Heart, which was indeed noble and pre-eminent, 
 for alas ! the genial feelings of Health contributed no spark 
 toward it ! Of these qualities 1 may speak, for they be- 
 longed to all mankind.-^The higher virtues, that were 
 blessings to his Friends, and the still higher that resided 
 in and for his own Soul, are themes for the energies of So- 
 litude, for the awfulness of Prayer ! — virtues exercised in 
 the barrenness and desolation of his animal being ; while 
 lie thirsted with the full stream at his lips, and yet with 
 unwearied goodness poured out to all around him, like the 
 Master of a feast among hiskindred in the day of his own 
 gladness ! Were it but for the remembrance of him alone 
 and of his lot here below, the disbelief of a future state 
 would sadden the earth around me, and blight the very 
 
 grass in the Field. 
 
 
 
 J / 
 
 PENRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN, AND SOLD BT 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AMS 
 Y fiLSJiSNT,801 ? STRAND, LONDON* 
 
 : 
 
 -- 
 
 ■ 
 
% 
 
 : THE FRI1ENB; 
 
 !N T o. 9, THURSDAY, October 12, 1S09. 
 
 Albeit therefore, much of that we are to speak in this present 
 Cause, may seem to a number perhaps tedious, perhaps obscure, 
 dark and intricate, (for many talk of the Truth, which never 
 sounded the depth from whence it springeth: arid therefore, when 
 they are led thereunto, they are soon weary, as men drawn from 
 those beaten paths wherewith they have been inured;) yet this may 
 not so far prevail, as to cut off that which the matter itself requireth, 
 howsoever the nice humour of some be therewith pleased or no. 
 They unto whom we shall seem tedious, are in no wise injured by 
 us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they 
 are not willing to endure. And if any complain of obscurity, they 
 must consider, that in these matters it cometh no otherwise to pass, 
 than in sundry the works both of Art, and also of Nature, where 
 that which hath greatest force in the very things we see, is, not- 
 withstanding, itself oftentimes not seen. The stateliness of Houses, 
 the goodliness of Trees, when we behold them, delighteth the eye : 
 but that Foundation which beareth up the one, that Root which 
 ministereth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of 
 the Earth concealed ; and if there be occasion at any time to search 
 into it, such labour is then more necessary than pleasant, both to 
 them which undertake it and for the lookers on. In like manner, 
 the use and benefit of good Laws, all that live under them, may 
 enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original 
 causes from whence they have sprung, be unknown, as to the 
 greatest part of men they are. But when they who withdraw 
 their obedience, pretend that the Laws which they should obey are 
 corrupt and vicious : for better examination of their quality, it 
 behoveth the very Foundation and Root, the highest Weil-Spring 
 and Fountain of them to be discovered. Which because we are 
 not oftentimes accustomed to do, when we do it, the pains we take 
 are more needful a great deal than acceptable, and the Matters 
 which we handle, seem by reason of newness, (till the mind grow 
 better acquainted with them) dark, intricate, and unfamiliar. For 
 as much help whereof, as may be in this case, I have endeavoured 
 throughout the Body of this whole Discourse, that every former 
 part might give strength to all that follow, and every latter bring 
 some light to all before : so that if the judgements of men do but 
 hold themselves in suspense, as touching these first more general 
 Meditations, till in order they have perused the rest that ensue ; 
 ■what may seem dark at the first, will afterwards be found more 
 plain, even as the latter particular decisions will appear, I doubt not, 
 more strong when the other have been read before.— Hooker's 
 Ecclesiast. Polity. 
 
192 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Compromise of Greatness with Meanness ; a Compromise 
 of Comprehension with Narrowness ; a Compromise of the 
 Philosopher (who armed with the twofold knowledge of 
 History and the Laws of Spirit, as with a Telescope, 
 looked far around and into the far Distance) with the 
 mere Men of Business, or with yet coarser Intellects, 
 who handled a Truth, which they were required to 
 receive, as they would handle an Ox, which they were 
 desired to purchase. But why need I repeat what has 
 been already said in so happy a manner by Goldsmith, of 
 this great Man : 
 
 " "Who, born for the universe narrow'd his mind, 
 And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 
 Tho' fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat, 
 To persuade Tommy Townshend to give him a vote ; 
 Who too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
 And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining." 
 
 And if in consequence it was his fate to " cut blocks with 
 a razor," I may be permitted to add, that in respect of 
 Truth though not of Genius, the Weapon was injured by 
 'the misapplication. 
 
 The Friend, however, acts and will continue to act 
 under the belief, that the whole Truth is the best antidote 
 to Falsehoods which are dangerous chiefly because they 
 are half-truths : and that an erroneous System is best con- 
 futed, not by an abuse of Theory in general, nor by an 
 absurd opposition of Theory to Practice, but by a detec- 
 tion of the Errors in the particular Theory. For the 
 meanest of men has his Theory : and to think at all is to 
 theorize. With these convictions 1 proceed immediately 
 to the System of the Economists and to the Principles on 
 "which it is constructed, and from which it must derive 
 all its strength. 
 
 The System commences with an undeniable Truth, 
 and an important deduction therefrom equally undeniable. 
 All voluntary Actions, say they, having for their Objects 
 Good or Evil, are moral Actions. But all morality is 
 grounded in the Reason. Every Man is born with the 
 faculty of Reason : and whatever is without it, be the 
 Shape what it may, is hot a Man or Person, but a 
 Thing. Hence the sacred Principle, recognized by all 
 Laws human and divine, the Principle indeed, which is 
 the ground-work of all Law and Justice, that a Person can 
 
THE FRIEND. 133 
 
 never become a Thing, nor be treated as sueh without 
 wrong. But the distinction between Person and Thing 
 consists herein, that the latter may rightfully be used, 
 altogether and merely, as a Means; but the former must 
 always be included in the End, and form a part of the 
 finaf Cause. We plant the Tree and we cut it down, we 
 breed the Sheep and we kill it, wholly as means to our 
 own ends. The Wood-cutter and the Hind are likewise 
 employed as Means, but on an agreement of reciprocal 
 advantage, which includes them as well as their Em- 
 ployer in the end. Again : as the faculty of Reason 
 implies Free-agency, Morality (i. e. the dictate of Reason) 
 gives to every rational Being the right of acting as a free 
 agent, and of finally determining his conduct by- his own 
 Will, according to his own Conscience : and this right is 
 inalienable except by guilt, which is an act of Self-, 
 forfeiture, and the Consequences therefore to be con- 
 sidered as the Criminal's own moral election,. In respect 
 of their Reason * all Men are equal. The measure of the 
 Understanding and of all other Faculties of Man, is differ- 
 
 *1 1 
 
 ent in different Persons: but Reason is not susceptible 
 of degree. For since it merely decides whether any given 
 thought or action is or is not in contradiction with the 
 rest, there can be no reason better, or more reason, than 
 another. 
 
 Reason ! best and holiest gift of Heaven and bond 
 of union with the Giver! The high Title bv which the 
 Majesty of Man claims precedence above aH other living- 
 Creatures ! Mysterious Faculty, the Mother of Con- 
 science, of Language, of Tears, and of Smiles ! Calm 
 and incorruptible Legislator of the Sour, without whom 
 all its' other Powers would " meet in mere oppugnancy." 
 Sole Principle of Permanence amid endless Change ! in a 
 World of discordant Appetites and imagined Self-interests 
 the one only common Measure ! which taken away, 
 
 " Force should be right ; or, rather right and wrong 
 
 (Between whose endless jar justice- resides) 
 
 Should lose their names and so should justice too. 
 
 Then every thing includes itself in power, 
 
 Power into will, will into appetite ; 
 
 And appetite, an universal wolf, 
 
 So doubly seconded with will and power, 
 
 Must make perforce an universal prey !" 
 
 * See this position fully explained, and the sophistry -grounded on it detect- 
 ed and exposed, at the conclusion of the 21st No. of Tke Friend, 
 
134 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Thrice blessed faculty of Reason ! all other Gifts, though 
 goodly and of celestial origin, Health, Strength, Talents, 
 all the powers and all the means of Enjoyment, seem 
 dispensed by Chance or sullen Caprice — thou^ alone, 
 more than even the Sunshine, more than the common 
 Air, art given to all Men, and to every Man alike! To 
 thee, who being one art the same in all,-' we owe the 
 privilege, that of all we can become one, a living zvhole I 
 that we have a Count&y^ . Who then shall dare pre- 
 scribe a Law of moral Act'mn for any rational' Being, 
 ■which does not flow immediately from that Reason, 
 ■which is the Fountain of all Morality ? Or how without 
 breach of Conscience can we limit or coerce the Powers 
 of a Free- A gent, except by coincidence with that Law 
 in his own Mind, which is at once the Cause, the Con- 
 dition, and the Measure, of his Free-agency ? Man must 
 be free; or to what purpose was he made a Spirit of 
 Reason, and not a Machine of Instinct ? Man must 
 obey ; or wherefore has hp a Conscience ? The Powers, 
 which create this difficulty, contain its solution likewise : 
 for their Service is perfect Freedom. And whatever Law 
 o.r System of Law compels any other service, disennobles 
 our Nature, leagues itself with the Animal against the 
 Godlike, kills in us the very Principle of joyous Well- 
 doing, and fights against Humanity. 
 
 By the Application of these Principles to the social- 
 State there arises the following System, which as far as 
 respects its' first grounds is developed the most fully by 
 J. J. Rousseau in his Work Du contrat social. If then 
 no Individual possesses the Right of prescribing any 
 thing to another Individual, the rule of which is not 
 contained in their common Reason, Society, which is but 
 an aggregate of Individuals, can communicate this Right 
 to no one. It cannot possibly make that rightful which 
 the higher and inviolable Law of Human Nature declares 
 contradictory and unjust. But concerning Right and 
 Wrong the Reason of each and every Man is the compe- 
 tent Judge: for how else could he be an amenable 
 Being, or the proper Subject of an:/ Law ? This Reason, 
 therefore, in any one Man cannot even in. the social state 
 be rightfully subjugated to the Reason of any other. 
 Neither an Individual, nor yet the whole Multitude. 
 whicli constitutes the State, can possess the Right of 
 compelling him to do any thing, of which it cannot be 
 
THE FRIEND, 135 
 
 demonstrated that his own Reason must join in pre- 
 scribing it. If therefore Society is to be under a rightful 
 constitution of Government, and one that can impose on 
 rational Beings a true and moral Obligation to obey it, it 
 must be framed on such Principles that every Individual 
 follows his own Reason while he obeys the Laws of the 
 Constitution, and performs the Will of the State while he 
 follows the Dictates of his own Reason. This is expressly 
 asserted by Rousseau, who states the problem of a perfect 
 Constitution of Government in the following Words : 
 Trouver une forme d' Association — par laqielle chacun 
 s unissant a* tons, nobeisse pourtant qu a. lui meme, el reste 
 aussi libre qu auparava?it. i. e. To find a form of Society 
 according to which each one uniting with the whole shall 
 yet obey himself only and remain as free as before. This 
 right of the Individual to retain his whole natural Inde- 
 pendence, even in the social State, is absolutely inalien- 
 able. He cannot possibly concede or compromise it :■ 
 for this very Right is one of his most sacred Duties. He 
 would sin against himself, and commit high treason 
 against the Reason which the Almighty Creator has 
 given him, if he dared ahandon its' exclusive right to. 
 govern his actions. 
 
 Laws obligatory on the Conscience, can only there* 
 fore proceed from that Reason which remains always one 
 and the same, whether it speaks through this or that 
 Person : like the voice of an external Ventriloquist, it is 
 indifferent from whose lips it appears to come, if only it 
 be audible. The Individuals indeed are subject to Errors 
 and Passions, and each Man has his own defects. But 
 when Men are assembled in Person or by real Represen- 
 tatives, the actions and re-actions of individual Self-love 
 balance each other ; errors are neutralized by opposite 
 errors ; and the Winds rushing from all quarters at once 
 with equal force, produce for the time a deep Calm, 
 during which the general Will arising from the general 
 Reason displays itself. " It is fittest," says Burke him- 
 self, (see his Note on his Motion relative to the Speech 
 from the Throne, Vol. II. Page 647- 4to Edit.) « It is 
 fittest that sovereign Authority should be exercised where 
 it is most likely to be attended with the most effectual 
 correctives. These correctives are furnished by the 
 nature and course of parliamentary proceedings, and by 
 the infinitely diversified Characters who compose the two 
 
13-fc THE FRIEND. 
 
 Thrice blessed faculty of Reason ! all otlier Gifts, tlioucii 
 goodly and of celestial origin, Health, Strength, Talents, 
 all the powers and all the means of Enjoyment, seem 
 dispensed by Chance or sulle-.n Caprice — thou, alone, 
 more than even the Sunshine, more than the .fcotnraon 
 Air, art given to all Men, and to every Man alike ! To 
 thee, who being one art the same in all, we owe the 
 privilege, that of all we can become one, a Jiving-- whole't 
 that we have a Country 1 Who then shall dare pre- 
 scribe a Law of moral Action for any rational/ Being, 
 which does not flow immediately from that Reason, 
 which is the Fountain of all Morality ? Or how without 
 breach of Conscience can we limit or coerce the Powers 
 of a Free- A gent, except by coincidence with that Law 
 in his own Mind, which is at once the Cause, the Con- 
 dition, and the Measure, of his Free-agency? Man must 
 be free; or to what purpose was he made a Spirit of 
 Reason, ami not a Machine of Instinct ? Man must 
 obey ; or wherefore has he a Conscience ? The Powers, 
 which create this difficulty, contain its solution likewise : 
 for their Service is perfect Freedom. And whatever Law 
 o.r System of Law compels any other service, disennobles 
 our Nature, leagues itself with the Animal against the 
 Godlike, kills in us the very Principle of joyous Well- 
 doing, and fights against Humanity. 
 
 By the Application of these Principles to the social- 
 State there arises the following System, which as far as 
 respects its' first grounds is developed the most fully by 
 J. J. Rousseau in his Work Du contrat social. If then 
 no Individual possesses the Right of prescribing any 
 thing to another Individual, the rule of which is not 
 contained in their common Reason, Society, which is but 
 an aggregate of Individuals, can communicate this Right 
 to no one. It cannot possibly make that rightful which 
 the higher and inviolable Law of Human Nature declares 
 contradictory and unjust. But concerning Right and 
 "Wrong the Reason of each and every Man is the compe- 
 tent Judge: for how else could he be an amenable 
 Being, or the proper Subject of an;/ Law ? This Reason, 
 therefore, in any one Man cannot even in the social state 
 be rightfully subjugated to the Reason of any other. 
 Neither an Individual, nor yet the whole Multitude, 
 which constitutes the State, can possess the Right of 
 compelling him to do any thing, of which it cannot be 
 
THE FRIEND, 135 
 
 demonstrated that his own Reason must join in pre- 
 scribing it. If therefore Society is to be under a rightful 
 constitution of Government, and one that can impose on 
 rational Beings a true and moral Obligation to obey it, it 
 must be framed on such Principles that every Individual 
 follows his own Reason while he obeys the Laws of the 
 Constitution, and performs the Will of the State while he 
 follows the Dictates of his own Reason. This is expressly 
 asserted by Rousseau, who states the problem of a perfect 
 Constitution of Government in the following Words : 
 Trouver une forme d' Association — par laqaelle chacun 
 s'unissant a' tous, riobeisse pourtant qu a lui meme, et reste 
 aussi libre qu auparavatit. i. e. To find a form of Society 
 according to which each one uniting with the whole shaU 
 yet obey himself only and remain as free as before. This 
 right of the Individual to retain his whole natural Inde- 
 pendence, even in the social State, is absolutely inalien- 
 able. He cannot possibly concede or compromise it : 
 for this very Right is one of his most sacred Duties. He 
 would sin against himself, and commit high treason 
 against the Reason which the Almighty Creator has 
 given him, if he dared ahandon its' exclusive right to, 
 govern his actions. 
 
 Laws obligatory on the Conscience, can only there* 
 fore proceed from that Reason which remains always on© 
 and the same, whether it speaks through this or that 
 Person : like the voice of an external Ventriloquist, it is 
 indifferent from whose lips it appears to come, if only it 
 be audible. The Individuals indeed are subject to Errors 
 and Passions, and each Man has his own defects. But 
 when Men are assembled in Person or by real Represen- 
 tatives, the actions and re-actions of individual Self-love 
 balance each other ; errors are neutralized by opposite 
 errors ; and the Winds rushing from all quarters at once 
 with equal force, produce for the time a deep Calm, 
 during which the general Will arising from the general 
 Reason displays itself. " It is fittest," says Burke himr 
 self, (see his Note on his Motion relative to the Speech 
 from the Throne, Vol. II. Page 647- 4to Edit.) " It is 
 fittest that sovereign Authority should be exercised where 
 it is most likely to be attended with the most effectual 
 correctives. These correctives are furnished by the 
 nature and course of parliamentary proceedings, and by 
 the infinitely diversified Characters, who compose the two. 
 
$36 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Houses. The fulness, the freedom, and publicity of dis^ 
 cussion, leave it easy to distinguish what are. acts of 
 power, and what the determinations ut equity and reason. 
 There Prejudice corrects Prejudice, and the different 
 asperities of party zeal mitigate and neutralize each 
 other." 
 
 This, however, as my Readers will have already de- 
 tected, is no longer a demonstrable deduction from Reason. 
 It is a mere probability, against which other probabilities 
 may be weighed : as the lust of Authority, the contagious, 
 nature of Enthusiasm, and other of the acute or chronic' 
 diseases of deliberative Assemblies. But which of tiiese 
 results is the more probable, the correction or the con- 
 tagion of Evil, must depend on Circumstancs and grounds 
 of Expediency: and thus we already find ourselves be- 
 yond the magic Circle of the pure Reason, and within 
 the Sphere of the Understanding and the Prudence. Of 
 this important fact Rousseau was by no means unaware 
 in his Theory, though with gross inconsistency he takes 
 no notice of it in his Application <>f the Theory to 
 Practice. He admits the possibility, he is compelled by 
 History to allow even the probability, that the most 
 numerous popular Assemblies, nay even whole Nations 
 may at times be hurried away by the same Passions, and 
 under the dominion of a common Error. This Will of all 
 is then of no more value, than the Humours of any one 
 Individual : and must therefore be sacredly distinguished 
 from the pure Will which flows from universal Reason. 
 To this point then 1 entreat the Reader's particular atten- 
 tion : for in, this distinction, established by Rousseau 
 himself, between the Volonie de Tous and the Volonie 
 generate (i. e. between the collective Will, and a casual 
 over-balauce of Wills) the Falsehood or Nothingness of 
 the whole System becomes manifest. For hence it fol- 
 lows, as an inevitable Consequence, that all which is said 
 in the Contract social 'of that sovereign Will, to which the 
 right of universal Legislation appertains, applies to no 
 one Human Being, to no Society or Assemblage of Human 
 Beings, and least of all to the mixed Multitude that makes 
 up the People : but entirely and exclusively to Reason 
 itself, which, it is true, dwells in every Man potentially, 
 but actually and in perfect purity is found in no Man and 
 in no body of Men. This distinction the later Disciples of 
 Rousseau chose completely to forget and, (a far more 
 
THE FRIEND. 13/ 
 
 melancholy case!) the Constituent Legislators of France 
 forgot it likewise. \Vith a wretched parrotry they wrote 
 and harangued without ceasing of the Volnnie generule — 
 the inalienable sovereign/!/ of the People : and by these 
 high-sounding phrases led on the vain, ignorant, and 
 intoxicated Populace to wild excesses and wilder expec- 
 tations, which entailing on them the bitterness of dis- 
 appointment, cleared the way for military Despotism, for 
 the satanic Government of Horror under the Jacobins, and 
 of Terror under tlie Corsican. 
 
 Luther lived long enough to see the consequences of 
 the Doctrines into which indignant Pity and abstract 
 ideas of Right had hurried him — to see, to retract and to 
 oppose them. If the same had been the lot of Rousseau, 
 I doubt not, that his conduct would have been the same. 
 In his whole bystem there is beyond controversy much 
 that is true and well reasoned, if only its' application be 
 not extended farther than the nature of the case permits. 
 But then we shall find that little or nothing is won by it 
 for the institutions of Society; and least of all for the 
 constitution of Governments, the Theory of which it was 
 his wish to ground on it. Apply his Principles to any 
 case, in which the sacred and inviolable Laws of Morality 
 are immediately interested, all becomes just and pertinent. 
 No Power on Earth can oblige me to act against my 
 Conscience. No Magistrate, no Monarch, no Legisla- 
 ture, can without Tyranny compel me to do any thing 
 which the acknowledged Laws of God have forbidden me 
 to do. So act that thou mayestbe able, without involving 
 any contradiction, to will that the Maxim of thy Conduct 
 should be the Law of all intelligent Beings — is the one 
 universal and sufficient Principle and Guide of Morabtv. 
 And why ? Because the object of Morality is not the 
 outward act, but the internal Maxim of our Actions. 
 And so far it is infallible. But with what shew of Reason 
 can we pretend, from a Principle by which we are to 
 determine the purity of our motives, to deduce the form 
 and matter of a rightful Government, the main office of 
 which is to regulate the outward Actions of particular 
 Bodies of Men, according to their particular Circum- 
 stances > Can we hope better of Constitutions framed 
 by ourselves, than of that which was given by Almighty 
 Wisdom itself? The Laws of the Hebrew Common- 
 wealth, which flowed from the pure Reason, remain and 
 
138 THE FRIEND, 
 
 are immutable ; but the Regulations dictated by Pru- 
 dence, though by the Divine Prudence, and though given 
 in thunder from the Mount, have passed away; and 
 while they lasted, were binding only for that one State 
 whose particular Circumstances rendered them expe- 
 dient. 
 
 Rousseau indeed asserts, that there is an inalienable 
 sovereignty inherent in every human being possessed of 
 Reason : and from this the Framers of the Constitution 
 of 1791 deduce, that the People itself is its' own sole 
 rightful Legislator, and at most dare only recede so far 
 from its right as to delegate to chosen Deputies the 
 Power of representing and declaring the general Will. 
 But this is wholly without proof; for it has already been 
 fully shewn, that according to the Principle out of which 
 this consequence is attempted to be drawn, it is not the 
 actual Man, but the abstract Reason alone, that is the 
 sovereign and rightful Lawgiver. The confusion of two 
 things so different is so gross an Error, that the Con-, 
 stituent Assembly could scarce proceed a step in their 
 Declaration of Rights, without some glaring inconsistency. 
 Children are excluded from all political Power — are they 
 not human beings in whom the faculty of Reason resides ? 
 Yes ? but in them the faculty is not yet adequately 
 developed. But are not gross Ignorance, inveterate 
 Superstition, and the habitual Tyranny of Passion and 
 Sensuality, equal Preventives of the developement, 
 equal impediments to the rightful exercise of the Reason, 
 as Childhood and early Youth ? Who would not rely on 
 the judgement of a well-educated English Lad, bred in a 
 virtuous and enlightened Family, in preference to that of 
 a brutal Russian, who believes that he can scourge his 
 wooden Idol into good humour, or attributes to himself 
 the merit of perpetual Prayer, when he has fastened the 
 Petitions, which his Priest has written for him, on the 
 wings of a Windmill ? Again : Women are likewise 
 excluded — a full half, and that assuredly the most inno- 
 cent, the most amiable half, of the whole human Race, is. 
 excluded, and this too by a Constitution which boasts to 
 have no other foundations but those of universal Reason ! 
 Is Reason then an affair of Sex ? No ! But Women are 
 commonly in a state of dependence, and are not likely to 
 exercise their Reason with freedom. Well ! and does 
 not this ground of exclusion apply with equal or greater 
 
THE FRIEND. 139 
 
 force to the Poor, to the Infirm, to "Men in embarrassed 
 Circumstances, to all short in whose maintenance, be it 
 scanty or be it ample, depends on the Will of others ? 
 How far are we to go ? Where must we stop? What 
 Classes should we admit? Whom must we disfranchise ? 
 The objects, concerning whom* we are to determine these 
 Questions, are all Human Beings and differenced from 
 each other by degrees only, these degrees too oftentimes 
 ■hanging. Yet the Principle on which the whole System 
 rests is, that Reason is not susceptible of degree. Nothing 
 therefore, which subsists wholly in degrees, the changes 
 of which do not obey any necessary Law, can be Subjects 
 of pure Science, or deteiminable by mere Reason. For 
 these things we must rely on our Understandings, enlight- 
 ened by past experience and immediate Observation, and 
 determining our choice by comparisons of Expedi- 
 ency. 
 
 It is therefore altogether 3 mistaken notion, that the 
 Theory which would deduce the social Rights of Man 
 and the sole rightful form of Government from prin* 
 ciples of Reason, involves a necessary preference of the 
 democratic, or even the representative, Constitutions. 
 Accordingly, several of the French Economists, although 
 Devotees of Rousseau and the physiocratic System, and 
 assuredly not the least respectable of their Party either 
 in Morals or in Intellect ; and these too Men, who lived 
 and wrote under the unlimited Monarchy of France, and 
 who were therefore well acquainted with the evils con- 
 nected with that System ; did yet declare themselves for a 
 pure Monarchy in preference to the aristocratic, the 
 popular, or the mixed form. These Men argued, that no 
 other Laws being allowable but those which are demon- 
 strably just, and founded in the simplest ideas of Reason, 
 and of which every Man's Reason is the competent judge, 
 it is indifferent whether one Man, or one or more Assem- 
 blies of men, give form and publicity to them. For being 
 matters of pure and simple Science, they require no 
 experience in order to see their Truth, and among an 
 enlightened People, by whom this System had been once 
 solemnly adopted, no Sovereign would dare to make other 
 Laws than those of Reasou. They further contend, that 
 if the People were not enlightened, a purely popular 
 Government could not co-exist with this System of abso- 
 lute Justice : and if it were adequately enlightened, the 
 
140 THE FRIEND, 
 
 influence of public Opinion would supply the place of 
 formal Representation, while the form of the Government 
 would be in harmony with the unity and simplicily of 
 its Principles. This they entitle le Despotisme legal sons 
 l' Empire fie I' Evidence. (The best statement of the 
 Theory thus modified, may be found in Mercier cfe la 
 Riviere, V ordre nuturel et essentiel des societes politiques.) 
 From the proofs adduced in the preceding paragraph, to 
 which many others might be added, 1 have no hesitation 
 in affirming that this latter Party are the more consistent 
 Reasoners. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that the influence of these 
 Writings contributed greatly, not indeed to raise the 
 present Emperor, but certainly to reconcile a numerous 
 class of Politicians to his unlimited Authority: and as 
 far as his lawless Passion for War and Conquest allows him 
 to govern according to any Principles, he favours those of 
 the physiocratic Philosophers. His early education must 
 have given him a predilection for a Theory conducted 
 throughout with mathematical precision ; its very sim- 
 plicity promised the readiest and most commodious 
 Machine for Despotism, for it moulds a Nation into as 
 calculable a Power as an Army ; while the stern and 
 seeming greatness of the whole and its mock-elevatiotw 
 above human feelings, flattered his Pride, hardened his 
 Conscience, and aided the efforts of Self-delusion. 
 Reason is the sole Sovereign, the only rightful Legisla- 
 tor: but Reason to acton Man must be impersonated. 
 The Providence which had so marvellously raised and 
 supported him, had marked him out for the Representa- 
 tive of Reason, and had armed him with irresistible force, 
 in order to realize its Laws. In Him therefore Might 
 becomes Right, and his Cause and that of Destiny (or» 
 as the Wretch now chuses to word it, exchanging blind 
 Nonsense for staring Blasphemy) his Cause and the 
 Cause of God are one and the same. Excellent Postulate- 
 for a Choleric and self-willed Tyrant ! What avails the 
 impoverishment of a few thousand Merchants and Manu- 
 facturers ? What even the general Wretchedness of mil- 
 lions of perishable men, for a short generation ? Should 
 these stand, in the way of the chosen Conqueror, the. 
 " Innovator Mundi, el Stupor Sceculorum," or prevent a 
 constitution of Things, which erected on intellectual and; 
 
THE FRIEND. 141 
 
 perfect foundations, growelh not old," but like the eternal 
 Justice, of which it is the living Image, 
 
 -" may despise 
 
 « The strokes of Fate and see the World's last hour !" 
 
 For Justice, austere unrelenting Justice, is every where 
 held up as the one Thing needful : and the only Duty of 
 the Citizen, in fulfill rig Which he obeys all the Laws, is not 
 to encroach on another's sphere of Action. The greatest 
 possible Happiness of a People is not, according to this 
 System, the object of a Governor ; but to preserve the 
 Freedom of all by coercing within the requisite bounds 
 the Freedom of each. Whatever a Government does 
 more than this, comes of Evil : and its'. best employment 
 is the repeal of Laws and Regulations, not the Establish- 
 ment of them. Each Man is the best judge of his own 
 Happiness, and to himself must it therefore be entrusted. 
 Remove all the interferences of positive Statues, all 
 Monopoly, all Bounties, all Prohibitions, and all Encou- 
 ragements of Importation and Exportation, of particular 
 growth and particular manufactures : let the Revenues of 
 the State be taken at once from the Produce of the Soil • 
 and all things will then find their level, all irregularities 
 will correct each other, and an indestructible Cycle of 
 harmonious motions take place in the moral equally as in 
 the natural World. The business of the Governor is to 
 watch incessdntly, that the Stale shall remain composed 
 of Individuals acting as Individuals, by which alone the 
 Freedom of all can be secured. Its Duty is to take care* 
 that itself remain the sole collective power, and that all 
 the Citizens should enjoy the same Rights, and without 
 distinction be subject to the same Duties. 
 
 Splendid Promises ! Can any thing appear more 
 equitable than the last Proposition, the equality of Rights 
 and Duties? Can anything be conceived more simple 
 in the idea? But the execution — ? let the four or five 
 quarto Volumes of the Conscript Code be the Comment ! 
 But as briefly as possible 1 shall prove, that this System^ 
 as an exclusive Total, is under any form impracticable ; 
 and that if it were realized, and as far as it were realized, 
 it would necessarily lead to general Barbarism and the 
 most grinding Oppression ; and that the final result of a 
 general attempt to introduce it, must be a military Des- 
 potism inconsistent with the Peace and Safety of Man- 
 
 i 
 
142 THE FE1EXD. 
 
 kind. That Reason should be our Guide and Governor 
 is an undeniable Truth, and all our notion of Ricrht and 
 Wrong is built thereon : for the whole moral Nature of 
 Man originated and subsists in his Reason. From Reason 
 alone can we derive the Principles which our Understand- 
 ings are to apply, the Ideal to which by means of our 
 Understandings we: should endeavour to approximate. 
 This however gives no proof, that Reason alone ought to 
 govern and direct human beings, either as Individuals 
 or as States. It ought not to do this, because it cannot; 
 The Laws of Reason are unable to satisfy the first con- 
 ditions of Human Society. We will admit that the 
 shortest Code of Law is the best, and that the Citizen 
 finds himself most at ease where the Government least 
 intermeddles with his affairs, and confines its efforts to 
 the preservation of public tranquillity — we will suffer 
 this to pass at present undisputed, though the examples 
 of England, and before the late Events, of Holland and 
 Switzerland, (surely the three happiest Nations of the 
 World) to which perhaps we might add the major part of 
 the former German free Towns, furnish stubborn facts in 
 presumption of the contrary — yet still the proof is wanting 
 that the first and most general applications and exertions 
 of the power of Man can be definitely regulated by Reason 
 unaided by the positive and conventional Laws in the for- 
 mation of which the Understanding must be our Guide, and 
 which become just because they happen to be expedient. 
 
 The chief object, for which Men first formed them- 
 selves into a State was not the protection of their Lives 
 but of their Property : For where the nature of the Soil 
 and Climate precludes all Property but personal, and per- 
 mits that only in its simplest forms, as in Greenland, men 
 remain in the domestic State and form Neighbourhoods, 
 but not Governments. And in North America the Chiefs 
 appear to exercise Government in those Tribes only which 
 possess individual landed Property : among the rest the 
 Chief is their General only, and Government is exercised 
 only in Families by the Fathers of Families. But where 
 individual landed Property exists, there must be inequality 
 of Property : the nature of the Earth and the nature of 
 the Mind unite to make the contrary impossible. But to 
 suppose the Land the Property of the State and the La- 
 bour and the Produce to be equally divided among all the 
 Members of the State* involves mere than one contradic* 
 
THE FRIENO. 143 
 
 tion ': for it could not subsist without gross injustice, ex- 
 cept where the Reason of all and of each was absolute Mas- 
 ter of the selfish passions, of Sloth, Envy, &c. ; and yet 
 the same State would preclude the greater part of the 
 means, by which the Reason of man is developed. In 
 whatever State of Society you would place it, from the 
 most savage to the most refined, it would be found equally 
 unjust and impossible ; and were there a race of Men, a 
 Country, and a Climate, that permitted such an order of 
 things, the same Causes would render all Government 
 superfluous. To Property, therefore, and to its inequali- 
 ties, all human Laws directly or indirectly relate, which 
 would not be equally Laws in the state of Nature. Now 
 it is impossible to deduce the Right of Property from pure 
 Reason. The utmost which Reason could give, would 
 be a property in the forms of things, as far as the forms 
 were produced by individual Power. In the matter it 
 could give no Properly. We regard Angels and glorified 
 Spirits as Beings of pure Reason : and who ever thought 
 of Property in Heaven ? Even the simplest and most mo- 
 ral form of it, namely Marriage, (we know from the high* 
 est authority,) is excluded from the state of pure Reason. 
 Rousseau himself expressly admits, that Property cannot 
 be deduced from the Laws of Reason and Nature ; and 
 he ought therefore to have admitted at the same time, 
 that his whole Theory was a thing of Air* In the most 
 respectable point of view he Could regard his System as 
 analagous only to Geometry. (If indeed it be purely 
 scientific, how could it be otherwise ?) Geometry holds 
 forth an Ideal, which can never be fully realized in Na- 
 ture, even because it is Nature : because Bodies are more 
 than extension, and to pure extension of space only the 
 mathematical Theorems wholly correspond. In the same 
 manner the moral Laws of the intellectual World, as far 
 as they are deducible from pure Intellect, are never per* 
 fectly applicable to our mixed and sensitive Nature, be- 
 cause Man is something besides reason ; because his 
 Reason never acts by itself* but must cloath itself in the 
 Substance of individual Understanding and specific Incli- 
 nation, in order to become a Reality and an Object of Con- 
 sciousness and Experience* It will be seen hereafter 
 that together with this, the Key r stone of the Arch, the 
 greater part and the most specious of the popular Argu- 
 ments in favour of universal Suffrage fall in and are 
 
> 
 
 144 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Jrushed. I will mention one only at present. Major Carr.- 
 wright, in his deduction of the Rights of the Subject from 
 Principles " not susceptible of proof, being self-evident — if 
 one of which be violated all are shaken," affirms (Prin- 
 ciple 9^th; though the greater part indeed are moral Ap- 
 horisms, or blank Assertions, not scientific Principles) 
 " that a Power which ought never to be used ought never 
 to exist." Agiiin he affirms that " Laws to bind all must 
 be assented to by all, and consequently every Man even 
 the poorest, has an equal Right to Suffrage:" and this 
 for an additional reason, because " all without exception 
 are capable of feeling Happiness, or Misery, accordingly as 
 they are well or ill governed." But are they not then 
 capable of feeling Happiness or Misery, according as 
 they door do not possess the means of a comfortable Sub- 
 sistence ? and who is the Judge, what is a comfortable 
 Subsistence, but the Man himself? Might not.then; on 
 the same or equivalent Principles a Leveller, construct a 
 Right to equal Property ? The Inhabitants of this Coun- 
 try without Property form, doubtless, a great majority: 
 each of these has a Right to a Suffrage, and the richest Man 
 to no more : and the object of this Suffrage is, that each 
 Individual may secure himself a true efficient Represen- 
 tative of his Will. Here then is a legal power of abolish- 
 ing or equalizing Property: and according to himself, a 
 Power which ought never to be used ought not to exist. 
 
 Therefore, unless he carries his System to the whole 
 length of common Labour and common Possession, a 
 Right to universal Suffrage, cannot exist ; but if not to" 
 universal Suffrage, there can exist no natural right to Suf- 
 frage at all. In whatever way he would obviate this ob- 
 jection, he must admit Expedience founded on Experience 
 and particular Circumstances, which will vary in every 
 different Nation and in the same Nation at different times, 
 as the Maxim of all Legislation and the Ground of all 
 legislative Power. For his universal Principles, as far aS 
 they are Principles and universal, necessarily suppose uni- 
 form and perfect Subjects, which are to be found in the 
 Ideas of pure Geometry and (I trust) in the Realities of 
 Heaven, but never, never; in Creatures of 'Flesh and 
 Blood. 
 
 y 
 
 PENRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN, AND SOL'D *TT 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 901, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
 J 
 
THE PRIEMB. 
 
 sf/ ~ 
 
 No. 10, THURSDAY, October 19, 1809. 
 
 " And it was no wonder if some good and innocent Men, 
 especially such as He (Lightfoot) who was generally more con- 
 cerned about what was done in Judea many Centuries ago, than 
 what was transacted in his own time in his own Country — it is no 
 wonder if some such were for a while borne away to the approval 
 of Opinions which they after more sedate Reflection disowned. 
 Yet his Innocency from any self-interest or design, together with 
 his Learning, secured him from the extravagancies of Demagogues, 
 the People's Oracles." Lightfoot's Works, Publishers Preface to 
 the Reader. 
 
 ESSAY VII. 
 
 OX THE ERRORS OF PARTY SPIRIT: OR EXTREMES 
 
 MEET. 
 
 I have never seetj Major Cartvvright much less enjoy 
 the honour of his acquaintance ; but I know enough of 
 his Character from the testimony or' others and from his 
 ovvn Writings, to respect his Talents, and revere the 
 purity of his Motives.. I am fully persuaded, that there 
 are few better Men, few more fervent or disinterested 
 Adherents of their Country or the Laws of their Country, 
 of whatsoever things are lovelv, of whatsoever things are 
 honourable ! It would give me great pain, should I be 
 supposed to have introduced disrespectfully a Name, which 
 from my early youth I never heard mentioned without a 
 feeling of affectionate Admiration. 1 have indeed quoted 
 from this venerable Patriot, as from the most respectable 
 English Advocate for the Theory, which derives the 
 rights of Government, and the duties of Obedience to it, 
 exclusively from principles of pure Reason. It was of 
 consequence to my Cause, that I should not be thought 
 to have been waging War against a Straw-Image pf my 
 own setting up, or eyen against a foreign Ido) that had 
 neither Worshippers nor Advocates in our own Country: 
 and it was not less my object to keep my discussion aloof 
 from those Passions, which more unpopular Names might 
 have excited. I therefore introduced the name of Cart- 
 wright, as I had previously done that of Luther, in order 
 
146 THE FRIEND. 
 
 to give every fair advantage to a Theory, which I thought 
 it of importance to confute ; and as an instance, that 
 though the system might be made tempting to the Vulgar, 
 yet that, taken unmixed and entire, it was chiefly fasci- 
 nating for lofty and imaginative Spirits, who mistook their 
 own virtues and powers for the average character of Men 
 in general. 
 
 Neither by fair statements nor by fair reasoning, should 
 I ever give offence to Major Cartwright himself, nor to 
 his judicious Friends. If I am in danger of offending 
 them, it must arise from one or other of two Causes : 
 either that I have falsely represented his Principles, or his 
 Motives and the tendency of his Writings. In the Book 
 from which I quoted ( " The Peoples Barrier against un- 
 due influence, &c." the only one of Major Cartwrights 
 which I possess) I am conscious that there are six founda- 
 tions stated of constitutional Government. Therefore, it 
 may be urged, the Author cannot be justly classed with 
 those, who deduce our social Rights and correlative 
 Duties exclusively from -Principles of pure Reason, or 
 unavoidable conclusions from such. My answer is ready. 
 Of these six foundations three are but different words for 
 one and the same, viz. the Law of Reason, the Law of 
 God, and first Principles : and the three that remain can- 
 not be taken as different, inasmuch as they are afterwards 
 affirmed to be of no validity except as far as they are 
 evidently deduced from the former; that is, from the 
 Principles implanted by God in the universal Reason 
 of Man. These three latter foundations are, the general 
 customs of the Realm, pai-ticnlar customs, and acts of 
 Parliament. It might be supposed that the Author had 
 not used his terms in the precise and single sense, in 
 which they are defined in my former Essay : and that 
 self-evident Principles may be meant to include the dic- 
 tates of manifest Expedience, the Inductions of the Un- 
 derstanding as well as the Prescripts of the pure Reason. 
 But no ! Major Cartwright has guarded against the 
 possibility of this interpretation, and has expressed him- 
 self as decisively, and with as much warmth, against 
 founding Governments on grounds of Expedience, as the 
 Editor of the Friend has done against founding Morality 
 on the same. Euclid himself could not have defined his 
 words more sternly within the limit of pure Science ; for 
 instance, see the 1st. 2d, 3d. and 4th. primary Rules. 
 
 nn- 
 
±HE FRIEND. 14? 
 
 *• A Principle is a manifest and simple proposition com- 
 prehending a certain Truth. Principles are the proof of 
 every thing : but are not susceptible of external proof, 
 being self evident. If one Principle be violated, all are 
 shaken. Against him, who denies Principles, all dispute 
 is useless, and reason unintelligible, or disallowed, so far 
 as he denies them. The Laws of Nature are immutable/* 
 Neither could Rousseau himself (or his Predecessors, the 
 fifth Monarchy Men) have more nakedly or emphatically 
 identified the foundations of Government in the concrete 
 with those of religion and morality in the abstract : see 
 Major Cartwright's Primary Rules from 31 to 39, and 
 from 44 to S3. In these it is affirmed : that the legisla- 
 tive Rights of every Citizen are inherent in his nature; 
 that being natural Rights they must be equal in all men ; 
 that a natural right is that right which a Citizen claims 
 as being a Man, and that it hath no other foundation but 
 his Personality or Reason : That Property can neither 
 encrease or modify any legislative Right ; that every one 
 Man shall have one Vote however poor, and for any one 
 Man, however rich, to have any more than one Vote, is 
 against natural Justice, and an evil Measure ; that it is 
 better for a Nation to endure all adversities, than to 
 assent to one evil Measure ; that Jo be free is to be 
 governed by Laws, to which we have ourselves assented, 
 either in Person or by a Representative, for whose elec- 
 tion we have actually voted : that all not having a right 
 of Suffrage are Slaves, and that a vast majority of the 
 People of Great Britain are Slaves ! To prove the total 
 coincidence of Major Cartwright's Theory with that which 
 I have stated (and I trust confuted) in the preceding 
 Number, it only remains for me to prove, that the former, 
 equally with the latter, confounds the sufficiency of the 
 Conscience to make every Person a moral and amenable 
 Being, with the sufficiency of Judgement and Experience 
 requisite to the exercise of political Right. A single 
 quotation will place this out of a}l doubt, which from its 
 Jength I shall insert in a Note.* 
 
 * " But the equality (observe Major Cartwright is here speaking of the 
 ■natural right to universal Suffrage, and consequently of the universal right of 
 eligibility, as well as of election, independent of Character or Property) — ihe 
 equality and dignity of human nature in all men, whether rich or poor, is 
 placed in the highest point of view by St. Paul, when he reprehends the 
 Corinthian Believers for their litigations one with another, in the Courts of 
 Law where Unbelievers presided; and as an argument of Me competency of ail 
 
148 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Great stress, indeed, is laid on the authority of our 
 ancient Laws, both in this and the other Works of our 
 patriotic Author ; and whatever his System may be, it is 
 impossible not to feel, that the Author himself possesses 
 the heart of a genuine Englishman. But still his System 
 can neither be changed nor modified by these appeals : 
 for among the primary maxims, which form the ground- 
 work of it, we are informed not only that Law in the 
 abstract is the perfection of Reason ; but that the Law of 
 God and the Law of the Land are all one ! What ? The 
 Statutes against Witches ? Or those bloody Statutes 
 against Papists, the abolition of which gave rise to the 
 infamous Riots in 1780 ? Or (in the Author's own 
 opinion) the Statutes of Disfranchisement and for making 
 Parliaments septennial? — Nay! but (Principle 28) " an 
 unjust Law is no Law :" and (P. 22.) against the Law of 
 Reason neither prescription, statute, nor custom, may 
 prevail; and if any such be brought against it, they be 
 not prescriptions, statute, nor customs, but things void: 
 and (P. 29.) What the Parliament doth shall be holden 
 for nought, whensoever it shall enact that which is con- 
 trary to a natural Right!" We dare not suspect a grave 
 Writer of such egregious trifling, as to mean no more by 
 these assertions, than that what is wrong is not right . 
 
 Men to judge for themselves, he alludes to that elevation in the Kingdom of 
 Heaven which is promised to every man who shall be virtuous, or in the 
 language of that time, a Saint. Do ye not know, says he, « that the Saints 
 shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye 
 unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not'that veshall judge 
 the Angels ? How much more things that pertain 'to this Life ?" If after such 
 authorities, such manifestations of truth as these, any Christian threugh 
 those prejudices, which are the effects of long habits of "injustice and oppres- 
 sion, and teach us to ■ despise the pour, shall still think it right to exclude that 
 part of the commonalty, consisting of ' Tradesmen, Artificers, and Labourers,' 
 or any of them from voting in elections of members to SErve in parliament, i 
 roust sincerely lament such a persuasion as a misfortune both to himself and 
 his Country. And if any man, (not having given himself the trouble to 
 ■consider whether or not the Scripture bean authority, but who, nevertheless, 
 i« a friend to the rights of mankind) upon grounds of mere prudence, policv, 
 ox expediency, shall think il advisable to go against the whole current of our 
 Constitutional and law maxims, by which it is self-evident that every man, as 
 fceinga. man, created free, born to freedom, ana, without it, a Tmiko, a 
 Slave, a Beast ; and shall contend for drawing a line of exclusion at free- 
 holders of forty pounds a ve?r, or forty shillings a year, or householders, or pot- 
 iou'ers, so that all who are below that line shai! not have a vote in the election 
 of a legislative Guardian, — which is taking from a citizen the power even of 
 self-preservation,— such a man, I venture to sav, is bolder than he who 
 ■wrestled with the Angel; for he wrestles with Cod himself, who established 
 those principles in the eternal lavs of nature, netej- tp be violated by any of hi 
 Creatures." P. 23— 34- 
 
THE FRIEND, 149 
 
 and if more than this be meant, it must be that the Sub- 
 ject is not bound to obey any act of Parliament, which 
 according to his conviction entrenches on a Principle of 
 natural Right ; which natural Rights are, as we have 
 aeen, not confined to the Man in his individual capacity, 
 but are made to confer universal legislative privileges on 
 every Subject of every State, and of the extent of which 
 every man is competent to judge, who is competent to be 
 the object of Law at all, i. e. every man who has not lost 
 his Reason. 
 
 In the statement of his Principles therefore, I have 
 not misrepresented Major Cartwright. Have I then en- 
 deavoured to connect public odium with his honoured 
 name, by arraigning his Motives, or the Tendency of his 
 Writings ? The tendency of his Writings, in my inmost 
 Conscience I believe to be perfectly harmless, and I dare 
 cite them in confirmation of the opinions which it was 
 the object of my 3d. and 4th. Numbers to establish, and 
 as an additional proof, that no good Man communicating 
 what he believes to be the Truth for the sake of Truth, 
 and according to the rules of Conscience, will be found 
 to have acted injuriously to the peace or interests of 
 Society. The venerable State-Moralist (for this is his 
 true character, and in this Title is conveyed the whole 
 Error of his System) is incapable of aiding his arguments 
 by the poignant condiment of personal slander, incapable 
 of appealing to the envy of the Multitude by bitter decla- 
 mation against the follies and oppressions of the higher 
 Classes ! He would shrink with horror from the thought 
 of adding a false and unnatural influence to the cause of 
 Truth and Justice, by details of present Calamity or im- 
 mediate Suffering, fitted to excite the fury of the Multi- 
 tude, or by promises of turning the current of the public 
 Revenue into the channels * of individual Distress and 
 Poverty, so as to bribe the Populace by selfish hopes 1 It 
 does not belong to Men of his Character to delude the 
 uninstructed into the belief, that their shortest way of 
 obtaining the good things of this Life, is to commence 
 busy Politicians, in&tead of remaining industrious Labour- 
 ers. He knows, and acts on the Knowledge, that it is the 
 
 * I had written a Note on this most interesting Subject, which insensibly 
 grew under rny pen to the length of a full Essay, and will form the next 
 Number of the Friend, UDder the title of Vulgar Errors concerning 
 taxes and taxation. 
 
15(J SHE FRIENJ?. 
 
 duty of the enlightened Philanthropist to plead for the 
 poor and ignorant, not to them. 
 
 No !— From Works written and published under the 
 control of austere Principles, and at the impulse of a lofty 
 and generous enthusiasm, from Works rendered attractive 
 only by the fervor of sincerity, and imposing only by the 
 Majesty of Plain Dealing, no danger will be apprehended 
 by a wise Man, no offence received by a good Man. I 
 could almost venture to warrant our Patriot's publications 
 innoxious, from the single circumstance of their perfect 
 freedom from personal themes in this age of personal- 
 ity* this age of literary and political Gossiping, when the 
 meanest Insects are worshipped with a sort of Egyptian 
 Superstition, if only the brainless head be atoned for by 
 the sting of personal malignity in the tail ; when the most 
 vapid Satires have become the objects of a keen public 
 Interest purely from the number of contemporary charac- 
 ters named in the patch : work Notes (which possess, how- 
 ever, the comparative merit of being more poetical than 
 the Text), and because, to increase the stimulus, the 
 Author has sagaciously left his own name for whispers and 
 conjectures !— In an Age, whert even Serrnons are pub- 
 lished with a double Appendix stuffed with names — in a 
 Generation so transformed from the characteristic reserve 
 of Britons, that from the ephemeral Sheet of a London 
 Newspaper to the everlasting Scotch Professorial Quarto, 
 almost every Publication exhibits or flatters the epidemic 
 Distemper ; that the very " Last years Rebuses" in the 
 Lady's Diary, are answered in a serious Elegy " On my 
 Father s Death," with the name and habitat of the elegiac 
 CEdipus subscribed ;— and " other ingenious solutions were 
 likewise given" to the said Rebuses— not, as heretofore, 
 by Crito, Philander, A B, X Y, &c. but by fifty or sixty 
 plain English Sirnames at full length, with their several 
 places of abode ! In an Age, when a bashful Philalethes 
 or Phileleutheros is as rare on the title-pages and among 
 the signatures of our Magazines^ as a real name used to be 
 in the days of pur shy and notice-shunning Grandfathers ! 
 When (more exquisite than all) I see an Epic Poem 
 (Spirits of Maro and Maeonides, make ready to welcome 
 your new Compeer !) advertised with the special recom- 
 mendation, that the said Epic Poem contains more than a 
 hundred names of living Persons! No — if Works as ab- 
 horrent, as those of Major Cartwright, from all unworthy 
 
THE FRIEND. 151 
 
 provocatives to the vanity, the envy, and the selfish 
 passions of mankind, could acquire a sufficient influence 
 on the public mind to be mischievous, the plans proposed 
 in his pamphlets would cease to be altogether visionary : 
 though even then they could not ground their claims to 
 actual adoption on self-evident Principles of pure Reason, 
 but on the happy accident of the Virtue and Good Sense 
 of that Public, for whose Suffrages they were presented. 
 (Indeed with Major Cartwright's Plans 1 have no quarrel; 
 but with the Principles, on which he grounds the obliga- 
 tions to adopt them.) 
 
 But I must not sacrifice Truth to my reverence for 
 individual purity of Intention. The tendency of one 
 good Man's Writings is altogether a different thing from 
 the tendency of the System itself, when seasoned and 
 served up for the unreasoning Multitude, as it has been 
 by Men whose names I would not honour by writing them 
 in the same sentence with Major Cartwright's. For this 
 System has two sides, and holds out very different attrac- 
 tions to its Admirers that advance towards it from differ- 
 ent points of the Compass. It possesses qualities, that 
 can scarcely fail of winning over to its banners a numer- 
 ous Host of shallow heads and restless tempers, Men who 
 without Learning (or, as one of my Friends has forcibly 
 expressed it, " strong Book*mindedness") live as Alms- 
 folks on the opinions of their Contemporaries, and who, 
 (well pleased to exchange the humility of regret for the 
 3elf-complacent feelings of contempt) reconcile themselves 
 to the sans-culotterie of their ignorance, by scoffing at the 
 useless Fox-brush of Pedantry.* The attachment of 
 this numerous Class is owing neither to the solidity and 
 depth of foundation in this Theory, or to the strict cohe- 
 rence of its arguments ; and still Jess to any genuine 
 reverence for Humanity in the abstract. The physio- 
 cratic System promises to deduce all things and every 
 
 * " He (Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk) knowing that Learning hath no 
 Enemy but Ignorance, did suspect always the want of it in those Men who 
 derided the habit of it in others : like the Fox in the Fable, who being with- 
 out a Tail, would persuade others to cut of theirs as a burthen. But he liked 
 well the Philosopher's division of Men into three ranks — some who knew good 
 and were willing to teach others ; these he sa'<d were like Gods among Men — 
 others who though they knew not much yet were willing to learn ; these he 
 said were like Men among Beasts— and some who knew not good and yet 
 despised such as should teach them; these he esteemed as Beasts among 
 Me»." Lloyd's State Worthies, p. 33. 
 
152 i&E FRIEND. 
 
 thing relative to Law and Government, with mathematical 
 exactness and certainty, from a few individual and self- 
 evident Principles. But who so dull, as not to be 
 capable of apprehending a simple self-evident Principle, 
 and of following a short demonstration ? By this System 
 (the System as its Admirers were wont to call it, even 
 as they named the Writer who first applied it in systematic 
 detail to the whole constitution and administration of 
 civil Policy, (D Quesnoy, to wit) le Docteur or, the 
 Teacher ;) by this System the observation of Times, 
 Places, relative Bearings, History, national Custom* and 
 Character, is rendered superfluous : all, in short which 
 according to the common notion makes the attainment of 
 legislative Prudence a work of difficulty and long-con- 
 tinued effort, even for the acutest and most comprehensive 
 minds. The cautious Balancing of comparative Advan- 
 tages, the painful calculation of forces and cotinter-forces, 
 the preparation of Circumstances, the lynx-eyed Watch- 
 ing for Opportunities, are all superseded ; and by the 
 magic Oracles of certain axioms and definitions it is 
 revealed, how the World with all its concerns should be 
 mechanized, and then let go on of itself. All the positive 
 Institutions and Regulations, which the Prudence of our 
 Ancestors had, provided, are declared to be erroneous or 
 interested Perversions of the natural Relations of Man ; 
 and the whole is delivered over to the faculty, which all 
 Men possess equally, i. e. the common sense or universal 
 Reason. " The science of Politics, it is said, is but the 
 application of the common Sense, which every Mail pos- 
 sesses, to a subject in which every Man is concerned." 
 To be a Musician, an Orator, a Painter, a Poet, an 
 Architect, or even to be a good Mechanist, presupposes 
 Genius ; to be an excellent Artizan or Mechanic, requires 
 more than an average degree of Talent ; but to be a 
 Legislator requires nothing but common Sense. The com- 
 monest human intellect therefore Suffices for a perfect 
 insight into the whole Science of civil Polity, and qualifies 
 the Possessor to sit in Judgement on the Constitution 
 and Administration of his own Country, and of all other 
 Nations. Thi$ must needs be agreeable Tidings to the 
 great mass of Mankind. There is no Subject, which 
 Men in general like better to harangue on, than Politics : 
 none, the deciding on which more flatters the sense of 
 self-importance. For as to what Doctor Johnson calls 
 
±HE FRIEND* 1.5$ 
 
 plebeian envy, I do not believe that the mass of men are 
 justly chargeable with it in their 1 political feelings; not 
 only because envy is seldom excited except by definite 
 and individual objects, but still more because it is a pain- 
 ful Passion, and not likely to co-exist with the high 
 delight and self-complacency with which the harangues 
 on States and Statesmen, Princes and Generals, are made 
 and listened to in Ale-house Circles or promiscuous 
 public meetings. A certain portion of this is not merely 
 desirable, but necessary in a free Country. Heaven 
 forbid ! that the most ignorant of my Countrymen should 
 be deprived of a Subject so well fitted to 
 
 " impart 
 
 An hour's importance to the poor Man's heart !" 
 
 But a System which not only flatters the pride and vanity 
 of men, but which in so plausible and intelligible a man- 
 ner persuades them, not that this is wrong and that that 
 ought to have been managed otherwise ; or that Mr. X. 
 is worth a hundred of Mr Y., as a Minister or Parliament 
 Man, &c. &c. ; but that all is wrong and mistaken, nay, 
 all most unjust and wicked, and that every man is com- 
 petent, and in contempt of all rank and property, on the 
 mere title of his Personality, possesses the Right, and is 
 under the most solemn moral obligation, to give a helping 
 hand toward overthrowing it : this confusion of political 
 with religious claims, this transfer of the rights of Religion 
 disjoined from the austere duties of Self-denial, with 
 which religious rights exercised in their proper sphere 
 cannot fail to be accompanied, and not only disjoined 
 from Self-restraint, but united with the indulgence of 
 those Passions (Self-will, love of Power, &c.) which it is 
 the principal aim and hardest task of Religion to correct 
 and restrain^-this, 1 say, is altogether different from the 
 Village Politics of Yore, and may be pronounced alarming 
 and of dangerous tendency by the boldest Advocates of 
 Reform not less consistently, than by the most timid 
 Eschewers of popular Disturbance. 
 
 Still, however, the System had its golden side for the 
 noblest minds : and I should act the part of a Coward, if 
 I disguised my Convictions, that the Errors of the Aris- 
 tocratic Party were full as gross, and far less excusable. 
 Instead of contenting themselves with opposing the real 
 blessings of English Law to the splendid promises of un 
 
15* THE FRIEN15. 
 
 tried Theory, too large a part of those, who called them- 
 selves Anti-Jacobins, did all in their power to suspend 
 those blessings ; and thus furnished new arguments to the 
 Advocates of Innovation, when they should have been 
 answering the old ones. The most prudent, as well as 
 the most honest mode of defending the existing arrange- 
 ments, would have been^to have candidly admitted what 
 could not with truth be denied, and then to have shewn 
 that, though the things complained of were Evils, they 
 were necessary Evils ; or if they were removeable, yet that 
 the consequences of the heroic medicines recommended by 
 the Revolutionists would be far more dreadful than the 
 Disease. Now either the one or the other point, by the 
 double aid of History, and a sound Philosophy, they might 
 have established with a certainty little short of demonstra- 
 tion, and with such colours and illustrations as would have 
 taken strong hold of the very feelings which had attached 
 to the democratic System all the good and valuable men 
 of the Party. But instead of this they precluded the pos- 
 sibility of being listened to even by the gentlest and most 
 ingenuous among the Friends of the French Revolution, 
 denying or attempting to palliate facts, that were equally 
 notorious and unjustifiable, and supplying the lack of 
 Brain by an overflow of Gall. While they lamented with 
 tragic outcries the injured Monarch and the exiled Noble, 
 they displayed the most disgusting insensibility to the 
 privations, sufferings, and manifold oppressions, of the 
 great mass of the continental Population, and a blindness 
 or callousness still more offensive to the crimes * and un- 
 utterable abominations of their oppressors. Not only was 
 the Bastile justified, but the Spanish Inquisition itself— 
 and this in a pamphlet passionately extolled and indus- 
 triously circulated by the adherents of the then Ministry. 
 Thus, and by their infatuated panegyrics on the former 
 state of France, they played into the hands of their worst 
 and most dangerous Antagonists. For these appeared to 
 talk only the same language as the A nti -jacobins them- 
 selves used, when they confounded the condition of the 
 English and French Peasantry, and quoted the authorities 
 of Milton, Sidney, and their immortal Compeers, as ap- 
 
 * I do not mean the Sovereigns, but the old Nobility of both Germany 
 and France. The extravagantly false and flattering picture, which Bukks. 
 gave of the French Nobility and Hierarchy, has always appeared to me the 
 greatest defect of his, in so many respects invaluable Work. 
 
t«E FRIEND. \55 
 
 plicable to present times and the existing Government. 
 For if the vilest calumnies of obsolete Bigots were applied 
 against these great Men by the one Party, with equal 
 plausibility might their authorities be adduced, and their 
 arguments for increasing the power of the People be re» 
 applied to the existing Government, by the other. If 
 the most disgusting forms of Despotism were spoken of by 
 the one in the same respectful language as the executive 
 Power of our own Country, what wonder if the irritated 
 Partizans of the other were able to impose on the Popu- 
 lace the converse of the Proposition, and confounded the 
 executive branch of the English Sovereignty with the 
 Despotisms of less happy Lands ? The first duty of a wise 
 Advocate is to convince his Opponents, that he under- 
 stands their Arguments and sympathizes with their just 
 Feelings. But instead of this, these pretended Constitu- 
 tionalists recurred to the language of insult, and to mea- 
 sures of persecution. In order to oppose Jacobinism they 
 imitated it in its worst features ; in personal slander, in 
 illegal violence, and even in the thirst for Blood. They 
 justified the corruptions of the State in the same spirit of 
 Sophistry, by the same vague arguments of general Reason, 
 and the same disregard of ancient Ordinances and estab- 
 lished Opinions, with which the State itself had been 
 attacked by the Jacobins. The Wages of state-dependence 
 were represented as sacred as the Property won by In- 
 dustry or derived from a long line of Ancestors. 
 
 It was indeed evident to thinking men, that both par- 
 ties were playing the same game with different Counters. 
 If the Jacobins ran wild with the Rights of Man, and the 
 abstract Sovereignly of the People, their Antagonists flew 
 off as extravagantly from the sober good sense of our Fore- 
 fathers and idolized as pure an abstraction in the Rights 
 of Sovereigns,. Nor was this confined to Sovereigns. 
 They defended the exemptions and privileges of all privi- 
 leged Orders on the presumption of their inalienable Right 
 to them, however inexpedient they might have been found, 
 as universally and abstractly as if these privileges had 
 been decreed by the supreme Wisdom instead of being the 
 Offspring of Chance or Violence, or the inventions of hu- 
 man prudence. Thus while they deemed themselves de- 
 fending, they were in reality blackening and degrading, 
 the uninjurious and useful privileges of our English No- 
 bility, which (thank Heaven !) rest on nobler and securer 
 
156 THE FRIEXO. 
 
 grounds. Thus too the necessity of compensations f'of 
 dethroned Princes was affirmed as familiarly, as if King- 
 doms had been private Estates : and no more disapproba- 
 tion was expressed at the transfer of five or ten millions of 
 men from one Proprietor to another, than of as many score 
 head of Cattle. This most degrading and superannuated 
 Supeistition (or rather this Ghost of a defunct Absurdity 
 raised by the Necromancy of the violent re-action which 
 the Extreme of one System is so apt to occasion in the 
 Adherents of its Opposite) was more than once allowed to 
 regulate our measures in the conduct of a War, on which 
 the Independence of the British Empire and the progres- 
 sive Civilization of all Mankind depended. I could men- 
 tion Possessions of paramount and indispensiblelmportance 
 to first-rate national Interests, the nominal Sovereign of 
 which had delivered up all bis Sea-ports and Strong-holds 
 to the French, and maintained a French Army in his Do- 
 minions — consequently, had by the law of Nations made 
 bis Territories French Dependencies-^-which Possessions 
 were not to be touched, though the natural Inhabitants 
 were eager to place themselves under our permanent pro- 
 tection—and why ? — They were the Property of the King 
 of ! All the grandeur and majesty of the Law of Na- 
 tions, which taught our Ancestors to distinguish between 
 a European Sovereign and the miserable Despot's of orien- 
 tal Barbarism, and to consider the former as the representa- 
 tive of the Nation Which he governed, and as inextrica- 
 bly connected with its fortunes as Sovereign, were merged 
 in the basest personality. Instead of the interest of mighty 
 Nations, it seemed as if a mere Law-syit were carrying 
 on between John Doe and Richard Roe — the happiness 
 of millions was light in the balance, weighed against a 
 theatric Conipassion for one Individual and his Family, 
 who (L speak frpm facts, that I myself know) if they fear- 
 ed the French more, hated us worse. Though the Re-> 
 storation of good sense commenced during the Interval of 
 the Peace of Amiens, yet it was not till the Spanish 'In- 
 surrection that Englishmen of all Parties recurred in tot* 
 to the old English Principles, and spoke of their Ilamp- 
 dens, Sidneys, and Miltons, with the old enthusiasm. Du- 
 ring the last War, an Acquaintance of mine (least pf all 
 Men a political Zealot) had christened a Vessel whjch he 
 had just built — The Liberty ; and was seriously admo- 
 nished by his aristocratic Friends to change itforso e 
 
THE FRIEND. 157 
 
 other name. What ? replied the Owner very innocently 
 —should I call it The Freedom ? That (it was replied) 
 would he far better, as people might then think only of 
 Freedom of Trade; whereas Liberty has & Jacobinical 
 sound with it ! Alas ! (and this is an observation of Sir J. 
 Denham and of Burke) is there then no medium between 
 an Ague-fit and a Frenzy-fever ? 
 
 1 have said that to withstand the arguments of the law- 
 less, the Anti-jacobins proposed to suspend the Law, and 
 by the interposition of a particular Statute to eclipse the 
 blessed light of the universal Sun, that Spies and Informers 
 might tyrannize and escape in the ominous darkness. 
 Oh ! if these mistaken Men intoxicated with the alarm, 
 and bewildered with the panic of Property, which they 
 themselves were the chief Agents in exciting, had ever 
 lived in a Country, where there was indeed a general dis- 
 position to change and Rebellion ! Had they ever travell- 
 ed through Sicily, or through France at the first comjng 
 on of the Revolution, or even alas ! through too many of 
 the Provinces of a Sister-Island, they could not but have 
 shrunk from their own declarations concerning the state of 
 Feeling and Opinion at that time predominant throughout 
 Great Britain. There was a time (Heaven grant that that 
 time may have passed by) when by crossing a narrow 
 Strait they might have learnt the true symptoms of ap- 
 proaching Danger and have secured themselves from mis- 
 taking the Meetings and idle Rant of such Sedition, as 
 shrunk appalled from the sight of a Constable, for the dire 
 murmuring and strange consternation which precedes the 
 storm or earthquake of national Discord. Not only in 
 Coffee-houses and public Theatres, but even at the Tables 
 of the wealthy, they would have heard the Advocates of 
 existing Government defend their Cause in the language 
 and with the tone of men, who are conscious that thev are 
 in a Minority. But in England, when the alarm was at 
 the highest, there was not a City, no, not a Town in which 
 a man suspected of holding democratic Principles could 
 move abroad without receiving some unpleasant proof of 
 the hatred, in which his supposed Opinions were held 
 by the great majority of the People : and the only instan- 
 ces of popular Excess and indignation were on the side of 
 the Government and the established Church. But whv 
 need I appeal to these invidious facts ? Turn over the page's 
 of History, and seek for a single instance of a Revolution 
 
153 1HE FRIEND. 
 
 having been effected without the concurrence of either 
 the Nobles, or the Ecclesiastics, or the monied Classes, ia 
 any Country in which the influences of Property had ever 
 been predominant, and where the interests of the Proprie* 
 tors were interlinked ! Examine the Revolution of the 
 Belgic Provinces under Philip the second ; the civil Wars 
 of France in the preceding generation, the History of the 
 American Revolution, or the yet more recent Events in 
 Sweden and in Spain ; and it will be scarcely possible not 
 to perceive, that in England, from 1791 to the Peace of 
 Amiens, there were neither tendencies to Confederacy nor 
 actual Confederacies, against which the existing Laws had 
 not provided both sufficient safeguards and an ample pun* 
 ishment. But alas ! the panic of Property had been struck 
 in the first instance for Party purposes: and when it be- 
 came general, its Propagators caught it themselves, and 
 ended in believing their own Lie : even as our Bulls in 
 Borrowdale sometimes run mad with the echo of their own 
 bellowing. The consequences were most injurious. Our 
 attention was concentred to a Monster which could not 
 survive the convulsions in which it had been brought 
 forth, even the enlightened Burke himself too often 
 talking and reasoning as if a perpetual and organized An- 
 archy had been a possible thing ! Thus while we were 
 warring against French Doctrines, we took little heed 
 whether the means, by which we attempted to overthrow 
 them, were not likely to aid and augment the far more for- 
 midable evil of French Ambition. Like Children we ran 
 away from the yelping of a Cur, and took shelter at the 
 heels of a vicious War Horse. 
 
 The conduct of the aristocratic Party was equally un- 
 wise in private life and to individuals, especially to the 
 young and inexperienced, who were surely to be forgiven 
 for having had their imagination dazzled, and their enthu- 
 siasm kindled, by a Novelty so specious, that even an 
 old and tried Statesman had pronounced it " a stupendous 
 monument of human Wisdom and human Happiness." 
 This was indeed a gross delusion, but assuredly for 
 young men at least, a very venial one, To hope too 
 boldly of Human Nature is a fault, which all good 
 Men have an interest in forgiving. But instead of re- 
 moving the Error in the only way, by which it could be or 
 even ought to have been removed— namely, having first 
 sympathized with the warm benevolence and the enthusi- 
 
THE FRIEND. 159 
 
 asm for Liberty, which was at the bottom of it, to have 
 then shewn the young Enthusiasts, that Liberty was not 
 the only blessing of Society, and though desirable even 
 for its own sake yet that it was chiefly valuable as the 
 means of calling forth and securing other advantages and 
 excellencies, the activities of Industry, the security of 
 Life and Property, the peaceful energies of Genius and 
 manifold Talent, the developement of the moral Virtues, 
 and the independence and dignity of the Nation itself in 
 relation to foreign Powers : and that neither these nor 
 Liberty itself could subsist in a country so various in its 
 Soils, so long inhabited and so fully peopled, as Great 
 Britain, without difference of Ranks, and without Laws 
 which recognized and protected the privileges of each. 
 But instead of thus winning them back from the snare, 
 they too often drove them into it by angry contumelies, 
 which being in contradiction with each other, could only 
 excite contempt for those that uttered them. To prove 
 the folly of the Opinions, they were represented as the 
 crude fancies of unfledged Wit and School-boy Statesmen ; 
 but when abhorrence was to be expressed, the self-same 
 unfledged School-boys were invested with all the attri- 
 butes of brooding Conspiracy and hoary-headed Treason, 
 Nay, a sentence of absolute Reprobation was passed on 
 them ; and the speculative Error of Jacobinism was 
 equalized to the mysterious Sin in Scripture, which in 
 smoe inexplicable manner excludes not only Mercy but 
 even Repentance. It became the Watch-word of the 
 Party, " once a Jacobin always a Jacobin." And 
 wherefore f ? might the individual say, (who in his Youth 
 or earliest Manhood had been enamoured of a System, 
 which for him had combined the austere beauty of Science, 
 at once with all the light and colours of Imagination, and 
 with all the warmth of wide religious Charity, and who 
 overlooking its ideal Essence, had dreamt of actually 
 building a Government on personal and natural Rights a- 
 lone) And wherefore ? " Is Jacobinism an absurdity, and 
 
 
 f The Passage which follows is taken from an Essay of my own, published 
 many years ago, >n a morning Newspaper (I hope the friendly Reader will 
 forgive this little piece of yanity, which, however, I can assure him, respects 
 my political Principles, not my literary Merits) which gave the first fair and 
 philosophical statement and definition of Jacobinism and of Jacobin, as far 
 as a Jacobin is not a mere word of abuse, or already expressed in P k epublican, 
 Dfmocrat, or Jt>emagogue, 
 
160 THE FRIEND. 
 
 have we no Understanding to detect it with ? Is it pro- 
 ductive of all misery and all horrors, and have we no natu- 
 ral Humanity to make us turn away with indignation and 
 loathing from it ? Uproar and confusion, insecurity of 
 person and of property, the tyranny of Mobs or the domi- 
 nation of a soldiery ; private houses changed to brothels, 
 the ceremony of marriage but an initiation to harlotry } 
 and marriage itself degraded to mere concubinage— these, 
 the wiser Advocates of Aristocracy have said, and truly 
 said, are the effects of Jacobinism { In private Life an 
 insufferable licentiousness, and abroad an intolerable des* 
 potism ? " Qnce a Jacobin, always a Jacobin' — O where- 
 fore ? Is it because the Creed which we have stated is 
 dazzling at first sight to the young, the innocent, the dis- 
 interested, and to those, who judging of Men in general 
 from their own uneorrupted hearts, judge erroneously, 
 and expect unwisely ? Is it, because it deceives the 
 mind in its purest and most flexible period ? Is it, be- 
 cause it is an Error, that every days experience aids to 
 detect ? An error against which all History is full of 
 warning examples ? Or is it because the experiment has 
 been tried before our eyes and the error made palpable \ 
 
 From what source are we to derive this strange Phae- 
 nomenon, that the Young and the Enthusiastic, who as our 
 daily experience informs us, are Received in their religious 
 Antipathies, and grow wiser ; in. their Friendships, and 
 grow wiser ; in their modes of Pleasure, and grow wiser; 
 should, if once deceived in a question of abstract Politics, 
 cling to the Error for ever and ever ? though in addition to 
 the natural growth of judgement and information with 
 increase of years, they live in the Age in which the tenet? 
 have been acted upon, and the consequences such that 
 every good Man's heart sickens and his head turns giddy 
 at the retrospect, f 
 
 - 
 
 b 
 
 rk /:' * 
 
 
 
 se 
 
 JENR1TH : PIUNTZD AND PUBLISHED BY J. SHOWN, AND SOLD IV 
 
 MEStP.3. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER 1(0 W, AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 901, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
fi THE FRIENB, 
 
 No. 11, THURSDAY, October 26, 1809. 
 
 ( 'Continued '^4- <&y ■ / ' *-/< / <- 
 
 I was never myself, at any period of my life, a Convert 
 to the System. From my earliest Manhood, it was an 
 axiom in Politics with me, that in every Country where 
 Property prevailed, Property must be the grand basis of 
 the Government ; and that that Government was the best, 
 in which the Power or political Influence of the Individual 
 was in proportion to his property, provided that the free 
 circulation of Property was not impeded by any positive 
 Laws or Customs, nor the tendency of Wealth to accumu-p 
 late in abiding Masses unduly encouraged. I perceived, 
 that if the People at large were neither ignorant nor im-s 
 moral, there could be no motive for a sudden and violent 
 change of Government ; and if they were, there could be 
 no hope but of a change for the worse. The Temple of 
 Despotism, like that of the Mexican God, would be rebuilt 
 with human skulls, and more firmly, though in a different 
 architecture. Thanks to the excellent Education which I 
 had received, my reason was too clear not to draw this 
 " circle of Power" round me, and my spirit too honest to 
 attempt to break through it. My feelings, however, and 
 imagination did npt remain unkindled in tl)is general con-? 
 flagration ; and I confess I should be more inclined to be 
 ashamed than proud of myself, if they had ! I was a 
 sharer in the general vortex, though my little World de- 
 scribed the path of its Revolution in an orbit of its own. 
 What I dared not expect from constitutions of Govern* 
 ment and whole Nations, I hoped from Religion and a 
 small Company of chosen Individuals, and formed a plan, 
 as harmless as it was extravagant, of trying the experiment 
 of human Perfectability on the banks of the Susquehannah ; 
 where our little Society, in its second Generation was tQ 
 have combined the innocence of the patriarchal Age with 
 the knowledge and genuine refinements of European cul- 
 ture : and where I dreamt that in the sober evening of my 
 life, I should behold the Cottages of Independence in. the 
 undivided Dale of Industry, 
 
 « And oft, soothed sadly by some dirgeful wind, 
 Muse on the sore ills I had left behind !" 
 
JU 
 
 V 
 
 162 ■ THE FRIEND. 
 
 Strange fancies ! and as vain as strange ! yet to the intensp 
 interest and impassioned zeal, which called forth and 
 strained every faculty of my intellect for the organization 
 and defence of this Scheme, I owe much of whatever I at 
 present possess, my clearest insight into the nature of 
 individual Man, and my most comprehensive views of his 
 social relations, the true uses of Trade and Commerce; and 
 how far the Wealth and relative Power of Nations promote 
 or impede their true welfare and inherent strength. Nor 
 were they less serviceable in securing myself, and perhaps 
 some others, from the pitfalls of Sedition : and when we 
 gradually alighted on the firm ground of common sense, 
 from the gradually exhausted Balloon of youthful Enthu- 
 siasm, though the air-built Castles, which we had been 
 pursuing, had vanished with all their pageantry of shifting 
 forms and glowing colours, we were yet free from the stains 
 and impurities which might have remained upon us, had 
 we been travelling with the crowd of less imaginative 
 malcontents, through the dark lanes and foul bye roads of 
 ordinary Fanaticism. 
 
 But Oh ! there were thousands as j'oung and as inno- 
 cent as myself who, not like me, sheltered in the tranquil 
 nook or inland cove of a particular Fancy, were driven 
 along with the general current ! Many there were, young- 
 Men of loftiest minds, yea the prime stuff out of which 
 manlv Wisdom and practicable Greatness is to be formed, 
 who "had appropriated their hopes and the ardour of their 
 souls to Mankind at large, to the wide expanse of national 
 Interests, which then seemed fermenting in the French 
 Republic as in the main Outlet and chief Crater of the 
 revolutionary Torrents ; and who confidently believed, that 
 these Torrents, like the Lavas of Vesuvius, were to sub- 
 side into a soil of inexhaustible fertility on the circumja- 
 cent Lands, the old divisions and mouldering edifices of 
 which they had covered or swept away — Enthusiasts of, 
 kindliest temperament, who to use the words of the Poet 
 (having already borrowed the meaning and the metaphor) 
 had approached 
 
 ~_ — « the shield 
 
 Of human nature from the golden side, 
 
 And would have fought even to the death to attest 
 
 The quality of the metal which they saw." 
 
 My honoured Friend has permitted me to give a value 
 and relief to the present Essay, by a quotation from one of 
 
 

 THE FRIEND. 163 
 
 his unpublished Poems, the length of which I regret only 
 from its forbidding me to trespass on his kindness by 
 making it yet longer. I trust there are many of my 
 Readers of the same Age with myself, who will throw 
 themselves back into the state of thought and feeling, in 
 which they were when France was reported to have 
 solemnized her first sacrifice of error and prejudice on 
 the bloodless altar of Freedom, by an Oath of Peace and 
 Good-will to all Mankind 
 
 Oh ! pleasant exercise of hope and joy ! - / / Jsf 4 J r , » 
 
 For mighty were the auxiliars, which then stood f&^il vSTj/*' x t 
 
 Upon our side, we who were strong in love ! 
 Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
 But to be young was very heaven ! oh ! times, 
 In which the meagre stale forbidding ways 
 Of custom, law, and statute, took at once 
 The attraction of a country in Romance ! 
 When Reason seem'd the most to assert her rights, 
 When most intent on making of herself 
 A prime Enchanter to assist the work, 
 Which then was going forward in her name ! 
 Not favour'd spots alone, but the whole earth 
 The beauty wore of promise — that which sets 
 (To take an image which was felt no doubt 
 Among the bowers of paradise itself) 
 The budding rose above the rose full blown. 
 What temper at the prospect did not wake 
 To happiness unthought of ? The inert 
 Were rous'd, and lively natures rapt away ! 
 They who had fed their childhood upon dreams, 
 The play-fellqws of fancy, who had made 
 All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength 
 Their ministers, used to stir in lordly wise 
 
 Among the grandest objects of the sense f\ v 
 
 And deal with whatsoever they found there \AfTJ^'^ / '^ 
 
 As if they had within some lurking right 
 To yield it ; — they too, who of gentle mood 
 Had watch'd all gentle motions, and to these 
 Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild 
 
 And in the region of their peaceful selves ; 
 
 Now was it that both found, the Meek and Lofty, 
 
 Did both find helpers to their heart's desire 
 
 And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish ! — 
 
 Were <rall'd upon to exercise their skill 
 
 Not in Utopia, subterraneous Fields, 
 
 Or some secreted Island, heaven knows where ! 
 
 But in the very world, which is the world 
 
 Of all of us, the place where in the end 
 
 We find our happiness, or not at all ! Wordsworth. 
 
 I 
 
 
 j-t 
 
l6i THE FRIEND. 
 
 The Peace of Amiens deserved the name of Peace, for 
 it gave us unanimity at home, and reconciled Englishmen 
 with each other. Yet it would be as wild a fancy as any 
 of which we have treated, to expect that the violence of 
 party Spirit is never more to return. Sooner or later the 
 same causes, or their equivalents, will call forth the same 
 opposition of opinion, and bring the same passions into 
 play. Ample would be my recompence, could I foresee 
 that this present Essay would be the means of preventing 
 discord and unhappiness in a single Family ; if its words 
 of warning, aided by its tones of sympathy, should arm a 
 single man of Genius against the fascinations of his own 
 ideal World, a single Philanthropist against the enthusiasm 
 of his own heart ! Not less would be my satisfaction, 
 dared I flatter myself that my lucubrations would not be 
 altogether without effect on those who deem themselves 
 Men of Judgement, faithful to the light of Practice and 
 not to be led astray by the wandering fires of Theory ! If I 
 should aid in making these aware, that in recoiling with 
 too incautious an abhorrence from the bugbears of innova- 
 tion, they may sink all at once into the slough of slavish- 
 ness and corruption. Let such persons recollect, that the 
 charms of hope and novelty furnish some palliation for the. 
 idolatry, to which they seduce the mind ; but that the 
 Apotheosis of familiar abuses and of the errors of selfish- 
 ness, is the vilest of Superstitions. Let them recollect too, 
 that nothing can be more incongruous than to combine the 
 pusillanimity, which despairs of human improvement, with 
 the arrogance, supercilious contempt, and boisterous an- 
 ger, which have no pretensions to pardon except as the 
 overflowings of ardent anticipation and enthusiastic faith ! 
 And finally, and above all, let it be remembered by both 
 Parties, and indeed by Controversialists on all Subjects, 
 that every speculative Error, which boasts a multitude of 
 Advocates, has its golden as well as its dark side ; that 
 there is always some Truth connected with it, the exclu- 
 sive attention to which has misled the understanding, some 
 moral beauty which has given it charms for the heart. 
 Let it be remembered, that no Assailant of an Error can 
 reasonably hope to be listened to by its Advocates, who 
 has not proved to them that he has seen the disputed 
 Subject in the same point of view, and is capable of con- 
 templating it with the same feelings as themselves ; (for 
 why should we abandon a Cause at the persuasions of one 
 
THE FRIEND. 165 
 
 who is ignorant of the reasons which have attached us to 
 it ?) Let it be remembered, that to write, however ably, 
 merely to convince those who are already convinced, dis- 
 plays but the courage of a boaster ; and in any Subject to 
 rail against the Evil before we have enquired for the Good, 
 and to exasperate the Passions of those who think with us, 
 by caricaturing the Opinions and blackening the Motives 
 of our Antagonists, is to make the Understanding a Pandar 
 of the Passions ; and even though we should have defended 
 the right cause, to gain for ourselves ultimately, from the 
 Good and the Wise no other praise, than the supreme 
 Judge awarded to the Friends of Job for their partial and 
 Uncharitable defence of his Justice : " My Wrath is kind- 
 led against you, for ye have not spoken of me rightfully? 
 
 TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
 To R. L. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 When I first undertook the present 
 Publication for the sake and with the avowed object of 
 referring Men in all things to Principles or fundamen- 
 tal Truths, I was well aware of the obstacles which the 
 plan itself would oppose to my success. For in order to 
 the regular attainment of this object, all the driest and 
 least attractive Essays must appear in the first fifteen or 
 twenty Numbers, and thus subject me to the necessity of 
 demanding effort of soliciting patience in that part of the 
 Work, where it was most my interest to secure the con- 
 fidence of my Readers by winning their favour. Though 
 I dared warrant for the pleasantness of the Journey on the 
 whole ; though I might promise that the road would, for 
 the far greater part of it, be found plain and easy, that it 
 would pass through countries of various prospect, and that 
 at every stage there would be a change of company ; it 
 still remained a heavy disadvantage, that I had to start at 
 the foot of a high and steep hill : and 1 foresaw, not 
 without occasional feelings of despondency, that during 
 the slow and laborious ascent it would require no common 
 management to keep my Passengers in good humour with 
 the Vehicle and its' Driver, As far as this inconvenience 
 

 166 THE FRIEND. 
 
 could be palliated by sincerity and previous confession, 1 
 have no reason to accuse myself of neglect. In the Pros- 
 pectus of the Friend, which for this cause I re-printed 
 and annexed to the first Number, I felt it my duty to 
 inform such as might be inclined to patronize the Publi- 
 cation, that I must submit to be esteemed dull -by those 
 who sought chiefly for amusement : and this I hazarded 
 as a general confession, though in my own mind I felt a 
 chearful confidence that it would apply almost exclusively 
 to the earlier Numbers. I could not therefore be sur* 
 prized, however much I may have been depressed, by 
 the frequency with which you hear The Friend com- 
 plained of for its' abstruseness and obscurity ; nor did the 
 highly flattering expressions, with which you accompanied 
 your communication, prevent me from feeling its' truth to 
 the whole extent. 
 
 An Author's pen like Children's legs, improves by 
 exercise. That part of the blame which rests on myself, 
 I am exerting my best faculties to remove. A man long 
 accustomed to silent and solitary meditation, in proportion 
 as he encreases the power of thinking in long and con- 
 nected trains, is apt to lose or lessen the talent of com* 
 municating his thoughts with grace and perspicuity. 
 Doubtless too, I have in some measure injured my style, 
 in respect to its' facility and popularity, from having 
 almost confined my reading, of late years, to the Works of 
 the Ancients and those of the elder Writers in the modern 
 languages. We insensibly imitate what we habitually 
 admire ; and an aversion to the epigrammatic unconnected 
 periods of the fashionable Anglo- gallican Taste has too 
 pften made me willing to forget, that the stately march 
 and difficult evolutions, which characterize the eloquence 
 of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, and Jeremy Taylor, are, not- 
 withstanding their intrinsic excellence, still less suited to 
 a periodical Essay. This fault I am now endeavouring to 
 correct ; though I can never so far sacrifice my judge- 
 ment to the desire of being immediately popular, as to 
 cast my sentences in the French moulds, or affect a style 
 which an ancient critic would have deemed purposely 
 invented for persons troubled with the asthma to~ read, 
 and for those to comprehend who labour under the more 
 pitiable asthma of a short- vvitted intellect. It cannot but 
 be injurious to the human mind never to be called into ef- 
 fort : the habit of receiving pleasure without any exer- 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 167 
 
 tion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity and 
 sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects 
 of habitual novel reading. It is true that these short and 
 unconnected sentences are easily and instantly under- 
 stood : but it is equally true, that wanting all the cement 
 of thought as well as of style, all the connections, and (if 
 you will forgive so trivial a metaphor) all the hooks-and- 
 eyes of the memory, they are easily forgotten : or rather, 
 it is scarcely possible that they should be remembered. — 
 Nor is it less true, that those who confine their reading to 
 such books dwarf their own faculties, and finally reduce 
 their Understandings to a deplorable imbecility : the fact 
 you mention, and which I shall hereafter make use of, is a 
 fair instance and. a striking illustration. Like idle morn- 
 ing Visitors, the brisk and breathless Periods hurry in and 
 hurry off in quick and profitless succession ; each indeed 
 for the moments of its' stay prevents the pain of vacancy, 
 while it indulges the love of sloth ; but all together they 
 leave the Mistress of the house (the soul I mean) flat and 
 exhausted) incapable of attending to her own concerns, 
 and unfitted for the conversation of more rational Guests. 
 I know you will not suspect me of fostering so idle a 
 hope, as that of obtaining acquittal by recrimination ; or 
 think that 1 am attacking one fault, in order that its' oppo- 
 site may escape notice in the noise and smoke of the 
 battery. On the contrary, 1 shall do my best, and even 
 make all allowable sacrifices, to render my manner more 
 attractive and my matter more generally interesting. All 
 the principles of my future Work, all the fundamental 
 doctrines, in the establishment of which I must of neces- 
 sity require the attention of my Reader to become my 
 fellow-labourer ; all the primary facts essential to the 
 intelligibility of my principles, the existence of which 
 facts 1 can prove to others only as far as I can prevail on 
 them to retire into themselves and make their own minds 
 the objects of their stedfast 'attention ; these will, all 
 together, not occupy more than six or seven of my future 
 Essays, and between each of these I shall interpose one or 
 more Numbers devoted to the rational entertainment of my 
 various Readers ; and, partly from the desire of gratifying 
 particular requests, and partly as a specimen of the sub- 
 jects which will henceforward have a due proportion of 
 The Friend allotted to them, I shall fill up the present 
 Paper with a miscellany. I feel too deeply the importance 
 
of the convictions, which first impelled me to the present 
 undertaking, to leave unattempted any honourable means 
 of recommending them to as wide a circle as possible ; 
 and though all the opinions which I shall bring forward in 
 the course of the Work, on politics, morals, religion, 
 literature, and the fine arts; will with all their applications, 
 be strictly deducible from the principles established in 
 these earlier Numbers ; yet I doubt not, that being Truths 
 and interesting Truths (and such, of course, I must be 
 Supposed to deem them) their intrinsic beauty will pro- 
 Cure them introduction to the feelings of my Readers, 
 even of those whose habits or avocations preclude the 
 fatigue of Close reasoning, and that each Essay of itself, by 
 the illustrations and the auxiliary and independent argu- 
 ments appropriate to it, will become sufficiently intelligi- 
 ble and evident. 
 
 Hitherto, my dear Sir, I have been employed in laying 
 the Foundation of my Work. But the proper merit of a 
 foundation is its' massiveness and solidity . The con- 
 veniences and ornaments, the gilding and stucco work, the 
 sunshine and sunny prospects, will come with the Super- 
 structure. Yet I dare not flatter myself, that any endea- 
 vours of mine, compatible with the duty I owe to Truth 
 and the hope of permanent utility, will render The 
 Friend agreeable to the majority Of what is called the 
 reading Public. I never expected it. How indeed could 
 1, when I was to borrow so little from the influence of 
 passing Events, and absolutely excluded from my plan all 
 appeals to personal curiosity and personal interests ? Yet 
 even this is not my greatest impediment. No real infor- 
 mation can be conveyed, no important errors rectified, no 
 Widely injurious prejudices rooted up, without requiring 
 some effort of thought on the part of the Reader. But the 
 obstinate (and toward a contemporary Writer, the contemp- 
 tuous) aversion to all intellectual effort is the mother evil 
 of all which I had proposed to war against, the Queen Bee 
 in the Hive of our errors and misfortunes, both private and 
 national. The proof of the Fact, positively and compara- 
 tively, and the enumeration of its' various causes, will, 
 as I have already hinted (P. 75) form the preliminary 
 Essay of the disquisition on the elements of our moral 
 and intellectual faculties. To solicit the attention of those, 
 on whom these debilitating causes have acted to their 
 full extent, would be no less absurd than to recommend 
 
TltE FRIENfi. 160 
 
 exercise with the dumb bells, as the only mods' of cure* 
 to a patient paralytic in both arms. You, my dear Sir* 
 well know, that my expectations were more modest as 
 well as more rational. I hoped, that my Readers in 
 general would be aware of the impracticability of suiting 
 every Essay to every Taste in any period of the work ; and 
 that they would not attribute wholly to the Author, but 
 in part to the necessity of his plan, the austerity and ab- 
 sence of the lighter graces in the first fifteen Or twenty 
 Numbers. In my cheerful moods I sometimes flattered 
 myself, that a few even among those, who foresaw that my 
 lucubrations would at all times require more attention 
 than from the nature of their own employments they 
 could afford them, might yet find a pleasure in supporting 
 the Friend during its' infancy, so as to give it a chance 
 of attracting the notice of others, to whom its' style and 
 subjects might be better adapted. But my main anchor 
 was the Hope, that when circumstances gradually enabled 
 me to adopt the ordinary means of making the Publication 
 generally known, there might be found throughout the 
 Kingdom a sufficient number of meditative minds, who, 
 entertaining similar convictions with myself, and gratified 
 by the prospect of seeing them reduced to form and 
 system, would take a warm interest in the work from the 
 very circumstance, that it wanted those allurements of 
 transitory interest, which render particular patronage 
 superfluous, and for the brief season of their Blow and 
 Fragrance attract the eye of thousands, who would pass 
 
 unregarded. 
 
 -Flowers 
 
 Of sober tint, and Herbs of med'cinable powers. 
 
 1 hoped that a sufficient number of such Readers would 
 gradually be obtained, as to secure for the Paper that 
 small extent of circulation and immediate Sale, which 
 would permit the Editor to carry it on to its' conclusion, 
 and that they might so far interest themselves in recom- 
 mending it to men of kindred judgements among their 
 -acquaintances, that the alterations in my list of Sub- 
 scribers should not be exclusively of a discouraging 
 nature. Hitherto, indeed, I have only to express grati* 
 tude, and acknowledge constancy ; but I do not attempt 
 to disguise from myself that I owe this, in many instances* 
 to a generous reluctance hastily to withdraw from an 
 
170 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Undertaking in it's first struggles, and before the Adven- 
 turer had had a fair opportunity of displaying the quality 
 of his goods, or the foundations of his credit. 
 
 * * * * * — the one tan turn vidi : the other I know by 
 his works only and his public character. To profess indif- 
 ference to their praises would convict me either of insen- 
 sibility or insincerity. Yet (and I am sure, that you will 
 -both understand, and sympathize with, the feeling) my 
 delight was not unalloyed by a something like pain, as if 
 I were henceforward less free to express my admiration of 
 them with the same warmth and affection, which 1 have 
 been accustomed to do, before I had even anticipated the 
 honor of such a communication. You will therefore not 
 judge me too harshly, if so confirmed and cheered, I have 
 sometimes in the warmth of composition, and while I was 
 reviewing the materials of the more important part of my 
 intended Essays, if 1 have Bometimes permitted my Hopes 
 a bolder flight ; and counted on a share of favour and 
 protection from the soberly zealous among the profession- 
 ally Learned, when the Principles of The Friend shall 
 have been brought into clear view, and Specimens have 
 been given of the mode and the direction in which 1 pur- 
 pose to apply and enforce them. 
 
 There are charges, the very suspicion of which is pain- 
 ful to an ingenuous mind in exact proportion as they are 
 unfounded and inapplicable. I can bear with resignation 
 a charge of enthusiasm. Even if accused of presumption, I 
 will repay myself by deriving from the accusation an addi- 
 tional motive to increased watchfulness over myself, that 
 I may remain entitled to plead, Not guilty ! to it in the 
 Court of my own conscience. B«t if my anxiety to obvi- 
 ate hasty judgements and misapprehensions is imputed to 
 a less honorable motive than the earnest wish to exert my 
 best faculties, as to the most beneficial purposes, so in the 
 way most likely to effectuate them, 1 can give but one 
 answer: that however great my desires of profit may be, 
 they cannot be greater than my ignorance of the world, if 
 I have chosen a weekly paper planned, as the Friend is, 
 written on such subjects, and composed in such a style, 
 as the most promising method of gratifving them 
 
 S. T. C. 
 
 • 
 
THE FRIEND. 171 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Of mortal Parents is the Heio born 
 
 By whom the undaunted Tyrolese are led ?- 
 
 Or is it Tell's great Spirit from the dead 
 
 Returned to animate an age forlorn ? 
 
 He comes like Phcebus through the gates of morn 
 
 When dreary darkness is discomfited : 
 
 Yet mark his simple state ! — upon his head 
 
 A Heron's feather for a crest is worn. 
 
 O Liberty ! they stagger at the shock, 
 
 The Murderers are aghast ; they strive to flee 
 
 And half their host is buried : — rock on rock 
 
 Descends : — beneath this godlike Warrior, see ! 
 
 Hills, Torrents, Woods, embodied to bemock 
 
 The Tyrant, and confound his cruelty I W, W, 
 
 Advance—come forth from thy Tyrolean ground 
 
 Dear Liberty !-— stern Nymph of soul untamed, 
 
 Sweet Nymph, oh ! rightly of the mountains named! 
 
 Through the long chain of Alps, from mound to mound s 
 
 And o'er the eternal snows like Echo, bound, 
 
 Like Echo when the Hunter-train at dawn 
 
 Have roused her from her sleep ; and forest-lawn, 
 
 Cliffs, Woods, and Caves, her viewless steps resound 
 
 And babble of her pastime !— On dread Power, 
 
 With such invisible motion speed thy flight, 
 
 Through hanging clouds, from craggy height to height, 
 
 Through the green vales and through the Herdsman's bower, 
 
 That all the Alps may gladden in thy might 
 
 Here, there, and in all places at one hour ? W. W. 
 
17$ TttE FRIEND. 
 
 SPECIMENS OF RABBINICAL WISDOM r 
 
 SELECTED FROM THE MISHNA. 
 
 1. 
 
 The Lord helpeth man and beast. 
 
 During his march to conquer the World, Alexander 
 the Macedonian, came to a People in Africa, who dwelt in 
 a remote and secluded corner in peaceful huts, and knew 
 neither War nor Conqueror. They led him to the hut of 
 their Chief, who received him hospitably and placed be- 
 fore him golden Dates, golden Figs, and Bread of gold. 
 Do you eat Gold in this Country I said Alexander. I take 
 it for granted (replied the Chief) that thou wert able to 
 find eatable food in thine own Country. For what reason 
 then art thou come among us ? Your Gold has not tempt- 
 ed me hither, said Alexander, but I would willingly be- 
 come acquainted with your Manners and Customs. So be 
 it, rejoined the other. Sojourn among us as long as it 
 pleaseth thee. At the close of this Conversation two 
 Citizens entered as into their Court of Justice. The 
 Plaintiff said, 1 bought of this Man a piece of Land, and 
 as I was making a deep drain through it I found a Trea- 
 sure. This is not mine, for I only bargained for the Land, 
 and not for any treasure that might be concealed beneath 
 it : and yet the former Owner of the Land will not receive 
 it. The Defendant answered : 1 hope I have a Consci- 
 ence as well as my Fellow-citizen. I sold him the Land 
 with all it's contingent, as well as existing advantages, and 
 consequently the Treasure inclusively. 
 
 The Chief, who was at the same time their supreme 
 Judge, recapitulated their words, in order that the Parties 
 might see whether or no he understood them aright. 
 Then after some reflection said : Thou hast a Son, Friend, 
 1 believe ? Yes ! And thou (addressing the other) a Daugh» 
 ter? Yes! — Well then, let thy Son marry thy Daughter, 
 and bestow the Treasure on the young Couple for their 
 
 marriage Portion. Alexander seemed surprized and 
 
 perplexed. Think you my sentence unjust? the Chiqf 
 asked him — O no, replied Alexander, but it astonishes 
 me. And how, then, rejoined the Chief, would the Case 
 have been decided in your Country ?— -To confess the 
 yuth, said Alexander, we should have taken both Parties 
 
THE FRIEND. 173 
 
 into Custody and have seized the Treasure for the King's 
 use. — For the King's use ! exclaimed the Chief, now in his 
 turn astonished. Does the Sun shine on that Country ? — i 
 
 yes! — Does it rain there? — Assuredly. — Wonderful i 
 but are there tame Animals there that live on the grass 
 and green herbs ? — Very many, and of many kindt. — Aye, 
 that must be the Cause, said the Chief: for the sake of 
 those innocent Animals the All-gracious Being continues 
 to let the Sun shine and the Rain drop down on your 
 Country, . 
 
 2 
 
 Whoso hath found a virtuous Wife, hath a greater treasure 
 than costly Pearls. 
 
 Such a Treasure had the celebrated Teacher Rabbi 
 Meir found. He sate during the whole of one Sabbath 
 day in the public School, and instructed the People. 
 During his absence from his House, his two Sons died, 
 both of them of uncommon beauty and enlightened in the 
 Law. His Wife bore them to her Bed-chamber, laid them 
 upon the marriage-bed, and spread a white covering over 
 their Bodies. In the Evening Rabbi Meir came home. 
 Where are my Soqs, he asked, that I may give them my 
 blessing? They are gone to the School, was the answer. 
 
 1 repeatedly looked round the School, he replied, and I 
 
 did not see them there. She reached to him a Goblet, 
 
 he praised the Lord at the going out of the Sabbath, drank 
 and again asked : where are my Sons, that they too may 
 drink of the cup of blessing ? They will not be far off, she 
 said, and placed food before him that he might eat. He 
 was in a gladsome and genial mood, and when he had said 
 Grace after the meal, she thus addressed him. Rabbi, 
 with thy permission \ would fain propose to thee one 
 question. Ask it then, my Love ! he replied. A few 
 days ago, a person entrusted some Jewels to my custody, 
 and now he demands them again : should 1 give them 
 back to him? This is a question, said Rabbi Meir, which 
 my Wife should not have thought it necessary to ask. 
 What, wouldst thou hesitate or be reluctant to restore to 
 every one his own ? — No, she replied ; but yet I thought it 
 best not to restore them without acquainting thee there- 
 with. She then led him to their Chamber, and stepping 
 to the Bed, took the white covering from the dead Bodies, 
 i — Ah, my Sons, my Sons, thus loudly lamented the Father, 
 my Sons, the Light of mine Eyes and the Light of my 
 
V* 1 
 
 174 THK FRIEND. 
 
 Understanding, I was your Father, but ye were my 
 Teachers in the Law. The Mother turned away and 
 wept bitterly. At length she took her husband by the 
 hand and said, Rabbi, didst thou not teach me that we 
 must not be reluctant to restore that which was entrusted 
 to our keeping ? See, the Lord gave, the Lord has taken 
 away, and blessed be the name of the Lord ! Blessed be 
 the name of the Lord! echoed Rabbi Meir, and blessed 
 be his name for thy sake too ! for well is it written. Who- 
 so hath found a virtuous Wife hath a greater Treasure than 
 costly Pearls : She openeth her mouth with Wisdom, and 
 in her tongue is the law of Kindness. 
 
 v 
 
 
 J»» ' '■' 
 
 K^- 
 
 HYMN 
 
 Before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouny. 
 
 ff Besides the Rivers Arve and Aveiron, which have their sources in the 
 
 foet of Mount Blanc, five conspicuous Torrents rush down its sides, and 
 ■within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense 
 flowers of liveliest Blue." 
 
 Last thou a charm to stay the morning Star 
 In his steep Course ? So long he seems to pause 
 On thy bald aweful top, O sovran Blanc ! 
 The Arve and Arveiron at thy base 
 Rave ceaselesly ; but thou, dread aweful Form ! 
 Risest from forth thy silent Sea of Pines, 
 How silently ! Around thee and above 
 Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, 
 [ass : methinks, thou piercest it, 
 As with a wedge ! But when 1 look again, 
 It is thy own calm Home, thy crystal Shrine, 
 Thy Habitation from eternity ! 
 
 dread and silent Mount ! I gaz'd upon thee, 
 Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 
 Didst vanish from my Thought : entranc'd in prayer 
 
 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. 
 Yet, like some sweet beguiling Melody 
 So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, 
 
 3* Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought. 
 
 Deep is the a 
 ->h uc '^ An ebon Ma 
 
 ^r 
 
 - y 
 
THE FRIEND. 175 
 
 Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret Joy : 
 
 Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfus'd, 
 
 Into the mighty vision passing, there ,» 
 
 As in her natural form, swell' d vast to Heaven ! 
 
 * Awake, my Soul ! not only passive praise 
 Thou owest ! Not alone these swelling Tears, 
 Mute Thanks and secret extacy ! Awake, 
 Voice of sweet Song ! Awake, my Heart, awake ! 
 Green Vales and icy Cliffs, all join my Hymn. 
 Thou first and chief, sole Sovran of the Vale I U/yl-*- 
 O struggling with the Darkness, all the night, 
 And visited all night by troops of Stars, 
 Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink : 
 Companion of the Morning-star, at dawn, 
 Thyself Earth's rosy Star ! and of the Dawn 
 Co-herald ! Wake, O wake, and utter praise ! 
 
 Who sank thy sunless Pillars deep in Earth ? 
 Who fill'd thy Countenance with rosy light ! 
 Who made thee Parent of perpetual Streams ? 
 
 And you, ye five wild Torrents, fiercely glad ! ^ sri - 
 
 Who call'd you forth from night and utter Death., 
 
 From dark and icy Caverns call'd you forth, 
 
 Down those precipitous, black, jagged Rocks - 
 
 For ever shatter' d and the same for ever ? 
 
 Who gave you your invulnerable Life, 
 
 Your Strength, your Speed, your Fury, and your Joy, 
 
 Unceasing Thunder and eternal Foam ! 
 
 And who commanded (and the silence came) 
 
 Here let the Billows stiffen, and have Rest ! 
 
 Ye Ice-falls ! ye that from the Mountain's Brow 
 Adown enormous Ravines slope amain — 
 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice, 
 And stopp'd at once amid their maddest Plunge I 
 
* 
 
 tit 
 
 -i 
 
 176 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Motionless Torrents ! Silent Cataracts ! 
 
 Who made you glorious, as the Gates of Heaven, 
 
 Beneath the keen full Moon ? Who bade the Sun 
 
 Cloath you with Rainbows ? Who with living£lower§ 
 
 Of loveliest Blue, spread Garlands at your feet? 
 
 God I let the Torrents, like a shout of Nations, 
 
 Answer! And let the Ice plains echo, God ! 
 
 God ! sing, ye meadow streams ! with gladsome voice ! 
 
 Ye Pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like Sounds ! 
 
 And they too have a Voice, yon Piles of Snow, 
 
 And in their perilous Fall shall thunder God I 
 
 Ye living Flowers, that skirt th' eternal Frost ! 
 \e wild-goats sporting round the Eagle's nest I 
 Ye Eagles, play-mates of the Mountain Storm ! 
 Ye Lightnings, the dread Arrows of the Clouds 1 
 Ye Signs and Wonders of the Element ! 
 Utter forth God, and fill the Hills with praise ! 
 
 Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing Peaks* 
 Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard, 
 Shoots downward, glittering in the pure Serene, . 
 Into the depth of Clouds that veil thy breast— t 
 Thou too, again, stupendous Mountain ! thou, 
 That as once more I raise my Head, bow'd low 
 | ) In adoration, upward from thy Base 
 
 Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffus ? d with tears, 
 Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury Cloud, 
 To rise before me — rRise, 0_ever rise, 
 Rise, like a Cloud of Incense, from the Earth ! 
 Thou kingly Spirit thron'd among the Hills, 
 Thou dread- Ambassador from Earth to Heaven, 
 Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent Sky, 
 And tell the Stars, and tell yon rising Sun, 
 Earth with her thousand voices praises God. 
 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 
 -v 
 
 >t 
 
 
 
 Penrith ; Printed and published by J. Brovn, 
 
 A^^y 
 
 ' 
 
 
- 
 
 THE FRIEIB. 
 
 No. 12, THURSDAY, November 9, 1809. 
 
 ON THE VULGAR ERRORS RESPECTING TAXES AND 
 TAXATION. 
 
 In a passage in the last Essay I referred to the second 
 part of the '« Rights of Man," in which Paine assures his 
 Readers that their Poverty is the consequence of Taxation : 
 that Taxes are rendered necessary only by Wars and State- 
 Corruption ; that War and Corruption are entirely owing 
 to Monarchy and Aristocracy ; that by a Revolution and a 
 brotherly alliance with the French Republic, our Land 
 and Sea Forces, our Revenue Officers, andthree-fourths 
 of our Pensioners, Placemen, &c. &c, would be rendered 
 superfluous ; and that a small part of the Expences thus 
 saved would suffice for the maintenance of the poor, the 
 infirm, and the aged, throughout the kingdom. Would to 
 Heaven ! that this infamous mode of misleading and flat- 
 tering the lower Classes were confined to the Writings of 
 Thomas Paine. But how often do we hear, even from the 
 mouths of our parliamentary Advocates for Popularity, the 
 Taxes stated as so much money actually lost to the 
 People ; and a nation in Debt represented as the same 
 both in Kind and Consequences, as an individual Trades- 
 man on the brink of Bankruptcy ? It is scarcely possible, 
 that these Men should be themselves deceived ; that they 
 should be so ignorant of History as not to know that the 
 freest Nations, being at the same time commercial, have 
 been at all times the most heavily taxed : of so void of 
 common sense as not to see that there is no analogy in the 
 case of a Tradesman and his Creditors, to a Nation in- 
 debted to itself. Surely, a much fairer instance would be 
 that of a Husband and Wife playing Cards at the same 
 Table against each other, where what the one loses the 
 other gains. Taxes may be indeed, and often are injuri- 
 ous to a Country, at no time, however, from their amount 
 merely, but from the time or injudicious mode in which 
 they are raised. A great Statesman, lately deceased, in 
 one of his anti-ministerial harangues against some proposed 
 
178 THE FRIEND. 
 
 impost, said : the Nation lias been already bled in every 
 vein, and is faint with loss of blood. This Blood, how- 
 ever, was circulating in the mean time, through the whole 
 Body of the State, and what was received into one cham- 
 ber of the Heart, was instantly sent out again at the other 
 Portal. Had he wanted a "metaphor to convey the pos- 
 sible injuries of Taxation, he might have found one less 
 opposite to the fact, in the known disease of aneurism, 
 or relaxation of the coats of particular Vessels, by a dis- 
 proportionate accumulation of Blood in them, which some- 
 times occurs, when the circulation has been suddenly and 
 violently changed, and causes Helplessness, or even mor- 
 tal stagnation, though the total quantity of Blood remains 
 the same in the System at large. 
 
 But a fuller and fairer symbol of Taxation, both in its 
 possible good and evil Effects, is to be found in the evapo- 
 ration of Waters from the surface of the Planet. The Sun 
 may draw up the moisture from the River, the Morass, 
 and the Ocean, to be given back in genial Showers, to the 
 Garden, the Pasture, and the Corn-field ; but it may like- 
 wise force away the moisture from the fields of Tillage, to 
 drop it on the stagnant Pool, the saturated Swamp, or the 
 unprofitable Sand Waste. The Gardens in the South of 
 Europe supply, perhaps, a not less apt illustration of a 
 system of Finance judiciously conducted, where the 
 Tanks or Reservoirs would represent the Capital of a 
 Nation, and the hundred Rills hourly varying their chan- 
 nels and directions, under the Gardener's Spade, give a 
 pleasing image of the dispersion of that capital through 
 the whole Population, by the joint effect of Taxation and 
 Trade. For Taxation itself is a part of Commerce, and 
 the Government may be fairly considered as a great manu- 
 facturing House carrying on in different Places, by means 
 of its Partners and Overseers, the Trades of the Ship- 
 builder, the Clothier, the Iron-founder, &c. &c. 
 
 There are so many real Evils, so many just causes of 
 Complaint in the Constitution and Administration of 
 Governments, our own not excepted, that it becomes the 
 imperious Duty of every Well-wisher of his Country, to 
 prevent, as much as in him lies, the feelings and efforts of 
 his Compatriots from losing themselves on a wrong scent. 
 Whether a System of Taxation is injurious or beneficial 
 on the whole, is to be known, not by the amount of the 
 sum taken from each Individual, but by that which re. 
 
THE FRIEND. 179 
 
 mains behind. A War will doubtless cause a stagnation 
 of certain branches of Trade, and severe temporary distress 
 in- the Places where those branches are carried on : but 
 are not the same effects produced in time of Peace by 
 prohibitory edicts and commercial regulations of Foreign 
 Powers, or by new Rivals with superior advantages in 
 other Countries, or in different parts of the same ? Bristol 
 has, doubtless, been injured by the rapid Prosperity of 
 Liverpool and its superior spirit of Enterprize; and the 
 vast Machines of Lancashire have overwhelmed and ren- 
 dered hopeless the domestic Industry of the Females in 
 the Cottages and small Farm-houses of Westmorland and 
 Cumberland. But if Peace has its stagnations as well as 
 War, does not War create or re-enliven numerous branches 
 of Industry as well as Peace ? Is it not a fact, that not 
 only our own military and naval Forces, but even a part 
 of those of our Enemy are armed and cloathed by British 
 Manufacturers ? It cannot be doubted, that the whole of 
 our immense military force is better and more expensively 
 cloathed, and both these and our Sailors better fed, than 
 the same Persons would be in their individual capacities : 
 and this forms one of the real expences of War. Not, J 
 say, that so much more money is raised, but that so much 
 more of the means of comfortable existence are consumed, 
 than would otherwise have been, But does not this, like 
 all other Luxury, act as a stimulus on the producing 
 Classes, and this in the most useful manner, and on the 
 most important branches of production, on the Tiller, on 
 the Grazier, the Clothier, and the maker of Arms ? Had 
 it been otherwise, is it possible that the receipts from the 
 Property Tax should have increased instead of decreased, 
 notwithstanding all the rage of our Enemy ? 
 
 Surely, never from the beginning of the World was 
 such a tribute of admiration paid by one Power to another, 
 as Bonaparte within the last years has paid to the British 
 Empire ! With all the natural and artificial powers of 
 almost the whole of continental Europe, with all the 
 fences and obstacles of all public and private morality 
 broken down before him, with a mighty Empire of fifty 
 millions of Men, nearly tworthirds of whom speak the 
 same Language, and are as it were fused together by the 
 intensest nationality; With this mighty and swarming 
 Empire organized in all its parts for War, and forming one 
 huge Camp, and himself combining in his own person 
 
180 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the two-fold Power of Monarch and Commander in Chief; 
 with all these advantages, with all these stupendous in- 
 struments and inexhaustible resources of Offence, this 
 mighty Being finds himself imprisoned by the enemy 
 whom he most hates and Would fain despise, insulted by 
 every wave that breaks upon his Shores, and condemned 
 to behold his vast Flotillas as worthless and idle as the 
 Sea-weed that rots around their keels ! After years of 
 haughty menace and expensive preparations for the In- 
 vasion of an Island, the trees and buildings of which are 
 visible from the Roofs of his naval Store-houses, he is at 
 length compelled to make open confession, that he pos- 
 sesses one mean only of ruining Great Britain. And 
 what is it ? The ruin of his own enslaved Subjects ! To 
 undermine the resources of one Enemy, he reduces the 
 Continent of Europe to the wretched state in which it 
 was before the wide diffusions of Trade and Commerce, 
 deprives its' Inhabitants of comforts and advantages to 
 which they and their Fathers had been, for more than a 
 Century, habituated, and thus destroys, as far as his 
 power extends a principal source of Civilization, the 
 origin of a middle Class throughout Christendom, and 
 with it the true Balance of Society, the parent of inter- 
 national Law, the foster-nurse of general Humanity, and 
 (to sum up all in one) the main Principle of Attraction and 
 Repulsion, by which the Nations were rapidly though 
 insensibby drawing together into one system, and by which 
 alone they could combine the manifold Blessings of dis- 
 tinct character and national independence, with the need- 
 ful stimulation and general influences of Intercommunity, 
 and be virtually united without being crushed together by- 
 Conquest, in order to waste away under the Tabes and 
 slow Putrefaction of a Universal Monarchy. This boasted 
 Pacificator of the World, this earthly Providence,* as his 
 Catholic Bishops blasphemously call him, professes to 
 entertain no Hope of purchasing the destruction of Great 
 
 * It has been well remarked, that there is something far more shocking in 
 the Tyrant's pretensions to the gracious attributes of the Supreme Ruler, 
 than in his most remorseless Cruelties. There is a sort of wild grandeur, not 
 ungratifying to the imagination, in the answer of Timur Khan to one who 
 remonstrated with him on the inhumanity ol" his devastations : Cur me Homi- 
 nem putas, et nonpotius Irani Dei in lerris agentem ob perniciem human! 
 generis ? Why do you deem me a Man, and not rather the incarnate Wrath 
 <jf God acting on the ear h for the ruin of Mankind ? 
 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 181 
 
 Britain at a less price than that of the Barbarism of all 
 Europe ! By the ordinary War of Government against 
 Government, Fleets against Fleets, and Armies against 
 Armies, he could effect nothing. His fleets might as well 
 have been built at his own expence in our Dock-yards, is 
 Tribute-offerings to the Masters of the Ocean : and bfis 
 Army of England lay encamped on his Coasts like 
 Wolves baying the Moon ! 
 
 Delightful to humane and contemplative minds was 
 the Idea of countless individual efforts working together 
 by a common instinct and to a common object, under the 
 protection of an unwritten Code of Religion, Fhi!osop ! 
 and common Interest, which made Peace and Brother- 
 hood co-exist with the most active Hostility. Not in the 
 untamed Plains of Tartary, but in the very bosom of 
 Civilization, and himself indebted to its' fostering care 
 for his own education and for all the means of his eleva- 
 tion and power, did this genuine offspring of the old 
 Serpent warm himself into the fiend-like resolve of waging 
 War against Mankind and the quiet growth of the World's 
 improvement, in an emphatic sense the enemy of the 
 human Race! By these- means only he deems Great 
 Britain assailable (a strong presumption, that our pros- 
 perity is built on the common interests of mankind ! — ) 
 this he acknowledges to be his only hope — and in this 
 Hope he has been utterly baffled ! 
 
 To what then do we owe our strength and our immu- 
 nity ? The sovereignity of Law : the incorruptness of its 
 administration ; the number and political importance of 
 our religious Sects, which in an incalculable degree have 
 added to the dignity of the Establishment; the purity, or 
 at least the decorum of private Morals, and the indepen- 
 dence, activity, and weight, of public Opinion ? These 
 and similar Advantages are doubtless the materials of the 
 Fortress, but what has been the cement \ What has 
 bound them together ? What has rendered Great Britain, 
 from the Orkneys to the Rocks of Scilly, indeed and with 
 more than metaphorical propriety a body politic, our 
 Roads, Rivers, and Canals being so truly the veins, 
 arteries, and nerves, of the State, that every pulse in the 
 Metropolis produces a correspondent pulsation in the 
 remotest Village on its extreme Shores? What made the 
 stoppage of the national Bank the conversation of a day 
 without causing one irregular throb, or the stagnation of 
 
182 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the commercial Current in the minutest Vessel } 1 ahswcf 
 without hesitation, that the cause and Mother Principle 
 of this unexampled Confidence, of this system of Credit, 
 which is as much stronger than mere positive Possessions} 
 as the soul of Man is than his Body, or as the force of a 
 mighty Mass in free motion, than the pressure of its sepa- 
 rate component parts would be in a state of rest — the 
 main cause of this, I say, has been our national Debt* 
 What its injurious effects on the Literature* the Morals* 
 and religious Principles, have been, I shall hereafter de- 
 velope with the same boldness. But as to our political 
 Strength and circumstantial Prosperity, it is the National 
 Debt which has wedded in indissoluble union all the 
 interests of the State, the landed with the commercial* 
 and the man of independent fortune with the stirring 
 Tradesman and reposing Annuitant. It is the National 
 Debt, which by the rapid nominal rise in the value of 
 Things, has made it impossible for any considerable num- 
 ber of Men to retain their own former comforts without 
 joining in the common Industry, and adding to the Stock 
 of national Produce ; which thus first necessitates a gene- 
 ral activity, and then by the immediate and ample Credit* 
 which is never wanting to him, who has any object on 
 Which his activity can employ itself, gives each Man the 
 means not only of preserving but of encreasing and mul- 
 tiplying all his former enjoyments, and all the symbols of 
 the rank in which he was born. It is this which has 
 planted the naked Hills and enclosed the bleak Wastes, in 
 the Lowlands of Scotland not less than in the wealthief 
 Districts of South Britain : it is this, which leaving all the 
 other causes of Patriotism and national Fervor Undiminish- 
 ed and uninjured, has added to our public Duties the 
 same feeling of Necessity, the same sense of immediate 
 Self-interest, which in other Countries actuates the Mem- 
 bers of a single Family in their conduct toward each 
 other. 
 
 Somewhat more than a year ago, I happened to be on 
 a visit with a Friend, in a small market town in the South 
 West of England, when one of the Company turned the 
 Conversation to the weight of Taxes and the consequent 
 hardness of the times. 1 answered, that if the Taxes were 
 a real weight, and that in proportion to their Amount, we 
 must have been ruined long ago : for Mr 4 Hume, who 
 had proceeded, as on a self-evident axiom* on the hypo- 
 
THE FRIEND. 183 
 
 thesis, that a debt of a Nation was the same as a debt of 
 an individual, had declared our ruin arithmetically demon- 
 strable, if the national debt encreased beyond a certain sum. 
 Since his time it has more than quintupled that sum, and 
 yet-- — True, answered my Friend, but the Principle might 
 be right though he might have been mistaken in the Time. 
 But still, 1 rejoined, if the Principle were right, the nearer 
 we came to that given point, and the greater and the more 
 active the pernicious Cause became, the more manifest would 
 its effects be. We might not be absolutely ruined, but 
 our embarrassments would encrease in some proportion to 
 their cause. Whereas instead of being poorer and poorer, 
 we are richer and richer. Will any Man in his Senses con- 
 tend, that the actual Labour and Produce of the Country 
 has not only been decupled within half a century, but in- 
 creased so prodigiously beyond that Decuple as to make six 
 hundred millions a less weight to us than fifty millions 
 were in the days of our Grandfathers ? But if it really be 
 so, to what can we attribute this stupendous progression of 
 national Improvement, but to that System of credit and pa- 
 per Currency, of which the national Debt is both the Re- 
 servoir and the Water-works ? A constant Cause should 
 have constant Effects ; but if you deem that this is some 
 anomaly, some strange exception to the general Rule, ex- 
 plain its mode of Operation, make it comprehensible, how 
 a Cause acting on a whole Nation, can produce a regular 
 and rapid encrease of Prosperity to a certain point, and 
 then all at once pass from an Angel of Light into a Dae- 
 mon of Destruction ? That an individual House may live 
 more and more luxuriously upon borrowed Funds, and 
 that when the suspicions of the Creditors are awakened, 
 and their patience exhausted, the luxurious Spendthriftmay 
 all at once exchange his Palace for a Prison — this I can 
 understand perfectly : for I understand, whence the luxu- 
 ries could be produced for the Consumption of the indivi- 
 dual House, and who the Creditors might be, and that it 
 might be both their inclination and their interest to de- 
 mand the debt, and to punish the insolvent Debtor. But 
 who are a Nation's Creditors ? The answer is, every Man 
 to every Man. Whose possible interest could it be either 
 to demand the Principal, or to refuse his share toward the 
 means of paying the Interest ? Not the Merchant's : for 
 he would but provoke a crash of Bankruptcy, in which 
 his own House would as necessarily be included, as a sin- 
 
184 THE FRIEND. 
 
 gle Card in a house of Cards ! Not the Landholder's : for" 
 in the general Destruction of all Credit, how could he ob-> 
 tain payment for the Produce of his Estates ? not to men- 
 tion the improbability, that he would remain the undis- 
 turbed Possessor in so direful a Concussion — not to men- 
 tion that on him must fall the whole weight of the public 
 Necessities — -not to mention, that from the Merchant's 
 Credit depends the ever-encreasing value of his Land and 
 the readiest means of improving it. Neither could it be 
 the Labourer's Interest : for he must be either thrown 
 out of employ, and lie like the Fish in the bed of a River 
 from which the water has been diverted, or have the va* 
 lue of his labour reduced to nothing, by the inruption of 
 eager Competitors. But least of all could it be the wish 
 of the Lovers of Liberty, which must needs perish or be 
 suspended, either by the horrors of anarchy, or by the abso- 
 lute Power* with which the Government must be invested, 
 in order to prevent them. In short, with the exception of 
 Men desperate from guilt or debt, or mad with the black- 
 est Ambition, there is no Class or Description of Men who 
 can have the least Interest in producing or permitting a 
 Bankruptcy* If then, neither Experience has acquainted 
 Us with any national impoverishment or embarrassment 
 from the increase of national Debt, nor Theory renders 
 such efforts comprehensible, (for the predictions of Hume 
 went on the false assumption, that a part only of the Na- 
 tion was interested in the preservation of the public Cre- 
 dit) on what authority are we to ground our apprehensions ? 
 Does History record a single Nation, in which relatively 
 to Taxation there were no privileged or exempted Class- 
 es, in which there were no compulsory prices of Labour, 
 and in which the interest of all the different Classes and 
 all the different Districts, were mutually dependent and 
 vitally co-organized, as in Great Britain — has History, I 
 say, recorded a single instance of such a Nation ruined or 
 dissolved by the weight of Taxation ? In France there was, 
 no public Credit, no communion of Interests: its unprin- 
 cipled Government and the productive and taxable Class- 
 es were as two Individuals with separate Interests. Its 
 Bankruptcy and the consequences of it are sufficiently 
 comprehensible. Yet the Cahiers, ortheinstructionsand 
 complaints sent to the National Assembly, from the Towns 
 and Provinces of France (an immense mass of Documents 
 indeed, but without examination, and patient perusal of, 
 
tHE FRIEND. 185 
 
 Which, no Man is entitled to write a History of the French 
 Revolution) these proved, beyond contradiction, that the 
 amount of the Taxes was one only, and that a subordinate 
 Cause of the revolutionary Movement. Indeed, if the 
 amount of the Taxes could be disjoined from the mode of 
 raising them, it might be fairly denied to have been a 
 Cause at all. Holland was taxed as heavily and as equally 
 as ourselves ; but was it by Taxation that Holland was 
 reduced to its present miseries ? 
 
 The mode in which Taxes are supposed to act on the 
 marketableness of our manufactures in foreign Marts, I 
 shall examine in some future Number, when I shall en* 
 deavour to explain in a more satisfactory way than has 
 been hitherto done, to my apprehension at least, the real 
 mode in which Taxes act, and how and why and to what 
 extent they affect the Wealth, and what is of more conse- 
 quence, the Well-being of a Nation. But in the present 
 exigency, when the safety of the Nation depends, on the 
 one hand, on the sense which the People at large have of 
 the comparative excellencies of the Laws and Govern- 
 ment, and on the firmness and wisdom of the Legislators 
 and enlightened Classes in detecting, exposing, and re- 
 moving its many particular Abuses and Corruptions on 
 the other, right views on this Subject of Taxation are of 
 such especial importance ; and I have besides in my in- 
 most nature such a loathing of factious Falsehoods and 
 Mob-sycophancy, i. e. the flattering of the Multitude by 
 informing against their Betters ; that I cannot but revert 
 to that point of the Subject from which I began, namely, 
 that the Weight of Taxes is to be calculated not 
 
 BY WHAT IS PAID, BUT BY WHAT IS LEFT. What 
 
 matters it to a Man, that he pays six times more Taxes 
 than his Father did, if, notwithstanding, he with the same 
 portion of exertion enjoys twice the Comforts which his 
 Father did ? Now this 1 solemnly affirm to be the case 
 in general, throughout England, according to all the facts 
 which I have collected during an examination of years, 
 wherever I have travelled, and wherever I have been 
 resident. (I do not speak of Ireland, or the Lowlands of 
 Scotland : and if I may trust to what I myself saw and 
 heard there, I must even except the Highlands). In the 
 Conversation which I have spoken of as taking place in 
 the South West of England, by the Assistance of one or 
 other of the Company, we went through every Family in 
 
186 las FRifcKD. 
 
 the town and neighbourhood, and my assertion was found 
 completely accurate, though the Place had no one advan- 
 tage over others, and many disadvantages, that heavy one 
 in particular, the non-residence and frequent change of 
 it's Rectors, the Living being always given to one of the 
 Canons of Windsor, and resigned on the acceptance of 
 better preferment. It was even asserted, and not only 
 asserted but proved, by my Friend (who has from his 
 earliest youth devoted a strong, original understanding, 
 and a Heart warm and benevolent even to Enthusiasm, to 
 the Service of the Poor and the labouring Class), that 
 every sober Labourer, in that part of England at least, 
 who should not marry till thirty, might, without any hard- 
 ship or extreme self-denial, commence house-keeping at 
 the age of thirty, with from a hundred to a hundred and 
 twenty pounds belonging to him. I have no doubt, that 
 on seeing this Essay, my Friend will communicate to me 
 the proof in detail. But the price of Labour in the south 
 west of England is full one third less than in the greater 
 number, if not all of the Northern Counties. What then 
 is wanting ? Not the repeal of Taxes ; but the encreased 
 activity both of the Gentry and Clergy of the Land, in 
 securing the Instruction of the lower Classes. A System 
 of Education is wanting, such a system as that discoyered, 
 and to the blessing of thousands realized, by Dr. Bell, 
 whom I never am, or can be weary of praising, while my 
 Heart retains any spark of regard for human nature, or of 
 reverence for human virtue. — A System, by which in the 
 very act of receiving knowledge, the best virtues and most 
 useful qualities of the moral Character are awakened, 
 developed, and formed into habits. Were there a Bishop 
 of Durham (no odds whether a temporal or a spiritual 
 Lord) in every County or half County, and a Clergyman 
 enlightened with the views, and animated with the spirit 
 of Dr. Bell, in every Parish, we might bid defiance to the 
 present weight of Taxes, and boldly challenge the whole 
 World to shew a Peasantry as well fed and cloathed as the 
 English, or with equal chances of improving their situa- 
 tion, and of securing an old Age of Repose and Comfort 
 to a Life of chearful Industry. 
 
 I will add one other Anecdote, as it demonstrates in- 
 controvertibly the Error of the vulgar Opinion, that Taxes 
 make things really dear, taking in the whole of a Man's 
 expenditure. A Friend of mine, who has passed some 
 
THE FRIEND. 18? 
 
 yeats irt America, was questioned by an American Trades- 
 man, in one of their Cities of the second Class, concern* 
 ing the names and number of our Taxes and Rates. The 
 answer seemed perfectly to astound him : and he exclaim- 
 ed, " How is it possible that Men can live in such a 
 Country ? In this Land of Liberty we never see the face 
 of a Tax-gatherer, nor hear of a Duty except in our Sea- 
 ports." My Friend, who was perfect Master of the 
 question, made semblance of turning off the Conversation 
 to another Subject : and then, without any apparent 
 reference to the former Topic, asked the American, for 
 what sum he thought a Man could live in such and such 
 a Style, with so many Servants, in a House of such di- 
 mensions and such a situation (still keeping in his mind 
 the situation of a thriving and respectable Shop-keeper 
 and Householder in different parts of England,) first sup* 
 posing him to reside in Philadelphia or New York, and 
 then in some Town of secondary importance. Having 
 received a detailed answer to these questions, he proceed- 
 ed to convince the American, that notwithstanding all 
 our Taxes, a Man might live in the same Style, but with 
 incomparably greater Comforts* on the same Income in 
 London as in New York, and on a considerably less In- 
 come in Exeter or Bristol, than in any American provin- 
 cial Town of the same relative importance. It would be 
 insulting my Readers to discuss on how much less a 
 Person may vegetate or brutalize in the back Settlements 
 of the Republic, than he could live as a Man, as a rational 
 and social Being, in an English Village ; and it would be 
 wasting time to inform him* that where Men are com- 
 paratively few, and unoccupied Land is in inexhaustible 
 abundance, the Labourer and common Mechanic must 
 needs receive (not only nominally but really) higher 
 Wages than in a populous and fully occupied Country. 
 But that the American Labourer is therefore happier, or 
 even in possession of more Comforts and Conveniences 
 of Life, than a sober or industrious English Labourer or 
 Mechanic, remains to be proved. In conducting the 
 comparison we must not however exclude the Operation 
 of moral Causes, when these Causes are, not accidental, 
 but arise out of the nature of the Country and the consti- 
 tution cf the Government and Society. This being the 
 case, take away from the American's Wages all the Taxes 
 which his insolence, sloth, and attachment to spirituous 
 
1S8 riiF. FiUExd. 
 
 liquors impose on him, and judge of the remainder by his 
 House, his Household Furniture, and Utensils — and if I 
 have not been grievously deceived by those whose veracity 
 and good sense 1 have found unquestionable in all other 
 respects, the Cottage of an honest English Husbandman, 
 in the Service of an enlightened and liberal Farmer, who is 
 paid for his Labour at the price usual in Yorkshire or 
 Northumberland, would in the mind of a man in the same 
 rank of life, who had seen a true account of America, 
 excite no ideas favourable to emigration. This however, 
 I confess, is a balance of morals rather than of circum- 
 stances : it proves, however, that where foresight and 
 good morals exist, the Taxes do not stand in the way of 
 an industrious Man's Comforts. 
 
 Dr. Price almost succeeded in persuading the English 
 Nation (for it is a cuiions fact, that the fancy of our cala- 
 mitous situation is a sort of necessary sauce without which 
 our real prosperity would become insipid to us) Dr. Price, 
 1 say, alarmed the Country with pretended proofs that the 
 Island was in a rapid state of depopulation, that England 
 at the Revolution had been, Heaven knows how much ! 
 more populous ; and that in Queen Elizabeth's time or a- 
 bout the Reformation (!!!) the number of Inhabitants in 
 . England might have been greater than even at the Revo- 
 lution. My old mathematical Master, a Man of an uncom- 
 monly clear head, answered this blundering Book of the 
 worthy Doctor's, and left not a stone unturned of the 
 pompous Cenotaph in which the Effigy of the still living 
 and bustling English Prosperity lay interred. And yet so 
 much more suitable was the Doctor's Book to the pur- 
 poses of Faction, and to the November mood of (what is 
 called) the Public, that Mr. Wales's Pamphlet, though a 
 Master-piece of perspicacity as well as perspicuity, was 
 scarcely heard of. This tendency to political Night-mares 
 in our Countrymen reminds me of a Superstition, or ra- 
 ther nervous Disease, not uncommon in the Highlands of 
 Scotland, in which Men, though broad awake, imagine they 
 see then r Ives lying dead at a small distance from them. 
 The act '/> Parliament for ascertaining the Population of 
 the Empire has layed for ever this uneasy Ghost: and 
 now, forsooth ! we are on the brink of ruin from the excess 
 of Population, and he who would prevent the Poor from 
 rotting away in disease, misery, and wickedness, is an Ene- 
 my to his Country ! A lately deceased Miser, of immense 
 
THE FRIEND. 189 
 
 Wealth, is reported to have been so delighted with this 
 splendid Discovery, as to have offered a handsome An- 
 nuity to the Author, in part of payment, for this new and 
 welcome piece of Heart-armour. This, however, we may 
 deduce from the fact of our encreased Population, that if 
 Cloathingand Food had actually become dearer in propor- 
 tion to the means of procuring them, it would be as absurd 
 to ascribe this effect to encreased Taxation, as to attribute 
 the scantiness of Fare at a public Ordinary, to the Land- 
 lord's Bill, when twice the usual number of Guests had 
 sat down to the same number of Dishes. But the fact is 
 notoriously otherwise, and every man has the means of 
 discovering it in his own House and in that of his Neigh- 
 bours, provided that he makes the proper allowances for 
 the disturbing forces of individual vice and imprudence. 
 If this be the case, 1 put it to the Consciences of our liter- 
 ary Demagogues, whether a Lie, for the purposes of crea- 
 ting public disunion and dejection, is not as much a Lie, 
 as one for the purpose of exciting discord among indivi- 
 duals. I entreat my Readers to recollect, that the present 
 question does not concern the effects of Taxation on the 
 public Independence and on the supposed balance of the 
 three constitutional Powers (from wijjich said balance, as 
 well as from the balance of Trade, 1 own, I have never 
 been able to elicit one ray of common sense.) That the 
 nature of our Constitution has been greatly modified by 
 the funding System, I do not deny : whether for good or 
 for evil, on the whole, will form part of my Essay on the 
 British Constitution as it actually exists. 
 
 There are many and great public Evils, all of which 
 are to be lamented, some of which may be, and ought to 
 be removed, and none of which can consistently with 
 Wisdom or Honesty be kept concealed from the Public. 
 As far as these originate in false Principles, or in the 
 contempt or neglect of right ones (and as such belonging 
 to the Plan of the Friend), 1 shall not hesitate to make 
 known my opinions concerning them, with the same fear- 
 less simplicity with which 1 have endeavoured to expose 
 the Errors of Discontent and the Artifices of Faction. 
 But for the very reason that there are great Evils, the 
 more does it behove us not to open out on a false scent. 
 I will conclude this Essay with the examination of an 
 article in a provincial Paper of a recent date, which is 
 now lying before me ; f^e accidental perusal of which 
 
190 THE FRIEND, 
 
 occasioned the whole of the preceding remarks. In order 
 to guard against a possible mistake, 1 must premise, that 
 I have not the most distant intention of defending the 
 plan or conduct of our late Expeditions, and should be 
 grossly calumniated if 1 were represented as an Advocate 
 for carelessness or prodigality in the management of the 
 public Purse. The public Money may or may not have 
 been culpably wasted. I confine myself entirely to the 
 general Falsehood of the Principle in the Article here 
 cited ; for I am convinced, that any hopes of Reform ori- 
 ginating in such notions, must end in disappointment and 
 public mockery. 
 
 " ONLY A FEW MILLIONS f 
 
 We have unfortunately of late been so much accustomed to read of mil- 
 lions being spent in one expedition, and millions being spent in another, that 
 a comparative insignificance is attached to an immense sum of money, by 
 calling it only afew millions. Perhaps some of our readers may have their judg- 
 ment a little improved by making a few calculations, like those below, on the 
 millions which it has been estimated will be lost to the nation by the late ex- 
 pedition to Holland ; and then perhaps they will be led to reflect on the many 
 millions which are annually expended in expeditions, which have almost inva- 
 riably ended in absolute loss. 
 
 . In the first place, with less money than it cost the nation to take Walcheren, 
 &c. with the view of taking or destroying the Fienph fleet at Antwerp, con- 
 sisting of nine sail of the line, we could have completely built and equipped, 
 ready for sea, a fleet of upwards of one hundred sail of the line. 
 
 Or, secondly, a new town could be built in every county of England, and 
 each town consist of upwards of 1000 substantial houses for a less sum. 
 
 Or, thirdly, it would have been enough to give 1001. to 2000 poor fami- 
 lies in every county in England and Wales. 
 
 Or, fourthly, it would be more than sufficient to give a handsome mar- 
 riage portion to 200,000 young women who probably, if they had even less 
 than 501. would not long remain unsolicited to enter the happy state. 
 
 Or, fifthly, a much less sum would enable the legislature to establish a life 
 boat in every port in the United Kingdom, and provide for 10 or 12 men to be 
 kept in constant attendance on each; and 100,0001. could be funded, the in- 
 terest of which to be applied in premiums to those who should prove to be par- 
 ticularly active in saving lives from wrecks, &c. and to provide for the wi- 
 dows and children of those men who may accidentally lose their lives in the 
 cause of humanity. 
 
 This interesting appropriation of 10 millions sterling, may lead our 
 readers to think of the great good that can be done by only a few millions." 
 
 The Exposure of this Calculation will require but a 
 few Sentences. These ten millions were expended, I pre-? 
 sume, in Arms, Artillery, Ammunition, Cloathing, Pro- 
 vision, &c. &c. for about one hundred and twenty thousand 
 British Subjects : and 1 presume that all these Consumables 
 were produced by, and purchased from, other British Subr 
 jects. Now during the building of these new Towns for a 
 thousand Inhahitantseach, in every County, or the distri- 
 bution of the hundred pound Bank notes to the two thou? 
 
THE FRIEND. 191 
 
 sand poor Families, were the industrious Ship-builders, 
 Clothiers, Charcoal-burners, Gunpowder-makers, Gun- 
 smiths, Cutlers, Cannon-founders, Taylors, and Shoe, 
 makers, to be left unemployed and starving ? or our brave 
 Soldiers and Sailors to have remained without Food and 
 Raiment ? and where is the proof, that these ten millions, 
 which (observe) all remain in the Kingdom, do not circu* 
 late as beneficially in the one way as they would in the 
 other ? Is it better to give money to the idle, or to give 
 Houses to those who do not ask for them, or Towns to Coun- 
 ties which have already perhaps too many, or to afford 
 opportunity to the industrious to earn their Bread, and to 
 the enterprizingto better their Circumstances, and perhaps 
 found new Families of independent Proprietors ? The only 
 mode, not absolutely absurd, of considering the Subject 
 would be, not by the calculation of the Money expended, 
 but of the Labour of which the money is a Symbol. But 
 then the Question would be removed altogether from the 
 Expedition : for assuredly, neither the Armies were raised, 
 nor the Fleets built or manned for the sake of conquering 
 the Isle of Walcheren, nor would a single Regiment have 
 been disbanded, or a single Sloop paid off, though the Isle 
 of Walcheren had never existed. The whole dispute, there- 
 fore, resolves itself to this one Question : whether our Sol- 
 diers and Sailors would not be better employed in making 
 Canals, for instance^ or cultivating Waste Lands, than in 
 fighting or in learning to fight ; and the Tradesman, &c, 
 in making grey Coats instead of red or blue— and plough- 
 shares, &c. instead of Arms. When I reflect on the state 
 of China and the moral Character of the Chinese, I dare 
 not positively affirm that it would be better. When the 
 fifteen millions, which form our present Population, shall 
 have attained to the same purity of Morals and of primi- 
 tive Christianity, and shall be capable of being governed by 
 the same admirableDiscipline, as the Society of the Friends, 
 I doubt not that we should be all Quakers in this as in the 
 other points of their moral Doctrine. But were this trans- 
 fer of employment desirable, is it practicable at present, is 
 it in our power ? These Men know, that it is not. What 
 then does all their Reasoning amount to ? Nonsense!——. 
 

 192 THE FRIEND, 
 
 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 I. 
 
 _ What is an Epigram? A dwarfish Whole, 
 
 \J It's Body brevity, and wit it's Soul. 
 
 2. 
 An excellent Adage commands that we should 
 Relate of the Dead that alone which is good ; 
 ^ But of the great Lord, who here lies in lead, 
 We know nothing good but that he is dead. 
 
 3. 
 Here lies the Devil — ask no other name. 
 Well ! but you mean Lord — Hush ! we mean the same. 
 
 4. 
 An evil Spirit's on thee, friend! of late, 
 E'en from the day thou cam'st to thy estate : 
 Thy mirth all gone, thy kindness, thy discretion, 
 V Th' Estate has prov'd to thee a most complete Possession, 
 For shame, old friend ! would'st thou be truly blest, 
 Be thy wealth's Lord not Slave, Possessor not possess' d ! 
 
 5. 
 Did'st thou think less of thy dear Self, 
 
 Far more would others think ofthee ! 
 Sweet Anne! the knowledge of thy wealth 
 
 Reduces thee to poverty. 
 Boon Nature gave Wit, Beauty, Health, 
 
 On thee, as on her darling, pitching : 
 Could'st thou forget, thou'rt thus enrich'd, 
 
 That moment would'st thou become rich in ; 
 And wert thou not so self-bewitch'd, 
 
 Sweet Anne ! thou wert indeed bewitching ! 
 
 6. 
 For a French House-dog* s Collar. 
 
 When Thieves come, I bark ; when Gallants, I am still: 
 ..j So perform both my Master's and Mistress's will. 
 
 S. T. C. 
 
 PENRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J, BROWK", AND SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 
 CLEMENT.SOI, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
 « 
 
THE PRIEKB, 
 
 No. 13. THURSDAY, November 16, 1809- 
 
 It were a wantonness and would demand 
 Severe reproof if we were men whose hearts 
 Could hold vain dalliance with the misery- 
 Even of the dead ; contented thence to draw 
 A momentary pleasure, never mark'd 
 By reason, barren of all future good. 
 But we have known that there is often found 
 In mournful thoughts, and always might be found 
 A power to virtue friendly. Wordsworth. MSS. 
 
 It is gratifying to me to find from my correspondents, 
 that the homeliness of the language and metre in the 
 Fragment of " the three Graves," has not prevented 
 the philosophical interest of the Tale from being felt. In 
 that rude Ballad, I attempted to exemplify the effect, 
 which one painful idea vividly impressed on the mind, 
 under unusual circumstances, might have in producing an 
 alienation of the Understanding ; and in the parts hitherto 
 published, I have endeavoured to tiace the progress to 
 madness, step by step. But though the main incidents 
 are facts, the detail of the circumstances is of my own 
 invention : that is, not what 1 knew, but what I conceived 
 likely to have been the case, or at least equivalent to it. 
 In the present Number, I present an instance of the same 
 causes acting upon the mind, to the production of conduct 
 as wild as that of madness, but without any positive or 
 permanent loss of the Reason or the Understanding ; and 
 this in a real occurrence, real in all its' parts and particu- 
 lars. But in truth this Tale overflows with a human 
 interest, and needs no philosophical deduction to make it 
 impressive. The account was published in the City in 
 which the event took place, and in the same year I read 
 it, when I was in Germany, and the impression made on 
 my memory was so deep, that though I relate it in my 
 own language, and with my own feelings, and in reliance 
 ion the fidelity of my recollection, I dare vouch for the 
 ; accuracy of the narration in all important particulars. 
 
 The Imperial free Towns of Germany are, with only 
 t\yo or three exceptions, enviably distinguished by the 
 
194- THE FRIEND. 
 
 virtuous and primitive manners of the Citizens, and by 
 the parental character of their several Governments. As 
 exceptions, however, we must mention Aix la Chapelle, 
 poisoned by French manners, and the concourse of Game- 
 sters and Shar'pers ; and Nuremberg, whose industrious 
 and honest Inhabitants deserve a better fate, than to have 
 their lives and properties under the guardianship of a 
 wolfish and merciless Oligarchy, proud from ignorance, 
 and remaining ignorant through pride. It is from the 
 small States of Germany, that our Writers on political 
 Economy, might draw their most forcible instances of 
 actually oppressive, and even mortal taxation, and gain 
 the clearest insight into the causes and circumstances of 
 the injury. One other remark, and I proceed to the 
 Story. 1 well remember, that the event I am about to 
 narrate, called forth, in several of the German periodical 
 publications, the most passionate (and in more than one 
 instance, blasphemous) declamations, concerning the in- 
 comprehensibility of the moral Government of the World, 
 and the seeming injustice and cruelty of the dispensations 
 of Providence. But, assuredly, every one of my Readers, 
 however deeply he may sympathize with the poor Suffer- 
 ers, will at once answer all such declamations by the 
 simple reflection, that no one of these awfui events could 
 possibly have taken place under a wise Police and humane 
 Government, and that men have no right to complain of 
 Providence for evils which they themselves are compe- 
 tent to remedy by mere common sense, joined with mere 
 common humanity. 
 
 Maria Eleonora Schoning, was the Daughter of a 
 Nuremberg Wire-drawer. She received her unhappy ex- 
 istence at the price of her Mother's Life, and at the age 
 of seventeen she followed, as the sole Mourner, the bier 
 of her remaining Parent. From her thirteenth year she 
 had passed her Life at her Father's sick-bed, the gout 
 having deprived him of the use of his limbs: and beheld 
 the arch of Heaven only when she went to fetch food or 
 medicines. The discharge of her filial duties occupied 
 the whole of her time and all her thoughts. She was his 
 only Nurse, and for the last two years they lived without 
 a Servant. She prepared his scanty meal, she bathed his ' 
 aching limbs, and though weak and delicate from constant 
 confinement and the poison of melancholy thoughts, she 
 
THE FRIEND. \Q5 
 
 had acquired an unusual power in her arras, from the 
 habit of lifting her old and suffering Father out of and 
 into his bed of pain. Thus passed away her early youth 
 in sorrow : she grew up in tears, a stranger to the amuse- 
 ments of Youth, and its more delightful schemes and 
 imaginations. She was not, however, unhappy : she 
 attributed, indeed, no merit to herself for her virtues, but 
 for that reason were they the more her reward. The peace, 
 w/iiq/i passeth all understanding, disclosed itself in all her 
 Looks and Movements. It lay on her Countenance, like 
 a steady unshadowed Moonlight : and her Voice, which 
 was naturally at once sweet and subtle, came from her, 
 like the fine flute-tones of a masterly performer, which 
 still floating at some uncertain distance, seem to be created 
 by the player, rather than to proceed from the instrument. 
 If you had listened to it in one of those brief Sabbaths of 
 the soul, when the activity and discursiveness of the 
 Thoughts are suspended, and the mind quietly eddies 
 round, instead of flowing onward (as at late evening in the 
 Spring I have seen a Bat wheel in silent circles round and 
 round a fruit-tree in full blossom, in the midst of which, 
 as within a close Tent of the purest White, an unseen 
 Nightingale was piping its' sweetest notes) in such a 
 mood you might have half-fancied, half-felt, that her 
 Voice had a separate Being of its' own — that it was a 
 living Something, whose mode of existence was for the 
 Ear only : so deep was her Resignation, so entirely had it 
 become the unconscious Habit of her Nature, and in all, 
 she did or said, so perfectly were both her movements and 
 her utterance without effort and without the appearance 
 of effort ! Her dying Father's last words, addressed to 
 the Clergyman who attended him, were his grateful testi- 
 mony, that during his long and sore Trial, his good Maria 
 had behaved to him like an Angel : that the most dis- 
 agreeable offices and the least suited to her age and sex, 
 had never drawn an unwilling look from her, and that 
 whenever his eye had met her's, he had been sure to see 
 in it either the tear of pity or the sudden smile expressive 
 of her affection and wish to cheer him. God (said he) 
 will reward the good Girl for all her long dutifulness to 
 |me ! He departed during the inward Prayer, which fol- 
 lowed these his last words. His wish will be fulfilled in 
 Eternity ; but for this World the Prayer of the dying 
 Man was not heard ! 
 
^L0 
 
 196 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Maria sate and wept by the Grave, which now con- 
 tained her Father, her Friend, the only bond by which she 
 was linked to Life. But while yet the last sound of his 
 death-bell was murmuring away in the air, she was 
 obliged to return with two Revenue Officers, who demand- 
 ed entrance into the house, in order to take possession of 
 the papers of the deceased, and from them to discover 
 whether he had always given in his income, and paid 
 the yearly income-tax according to his Oath, and in pro- 
 portion to his property.* After the few Documents had 
 been looked through and collated with the Registers, the 
 Officers found, or pretended to find, sufficient proofs, that 
 the Deceased had not paid his Tax proportionally, which 
 imposed on them the duty to put all the Effects under 
 lock and seal. They therefore desired the Maiden to 
 retire to an empty room, till the Ransom Office had de- 
 cided on the Affair. Bred up in suffering, and habituated 
 to immediate compliance, the affrighted and weeping 
 Maiden obeyed. She hastened to the empty Garret, while 
 the Revenue Officers placed the lock and seal upon the 
 other doors, and finally took away the papers to the Ran- 
 som Office. 
 
 Not before evening did the poor faint Maria, exhausted 
 with weeping, rouse herself with the intention of going to 
 her bed : but she found the door of her Chamber sealed up 
 and must pass the night on the floor of the Garret . The 
 officers had had the humanity to place at the door the small 
 portion of food that happened to be in the house. Thus 
 passed several days, till the Officers returned with an 
 order that Maria Eleonora Schonikg should leave the 
 house without delay, the commission Court having con- 
 fiscated the whole property to the City Treasury. The 
 
 ■ * This Tax called the Losungor Ransom, in Nuremberg, was at first a vo- 
 luntary contribution: everyone gave according to his liking or circumstan- 
 ces. But in the beginning of the ldth Century the heavy contributions levied 
 for the service of the Empire, forced the Magistrates to determine the propor- 
 tions and make the payment compulsory. At the time in which this Event 
 took place, 1787, every Citizen must yearly take what was called his Ransom 
 Oath iLosungseid) that the sum paid by him had been in the strict determi- 
 nate proportion to his property. On the death of any citizen, the Ransom 
 Office, or commissioners for this income or property tax, possess the right to 
 examine his books and papers, and to compare his yearly payment as found in 
 their Registers with the property he appears to have possessed during that 
 time, if any disproportion appeared, if the yearly declarations of the Deceas- 
 ed should have been inaccurate in the K-ast degree, his whole Effects are con. 
 fiscated, and though he should have left '.Vife and Child, the state Tieasury 
 becomes his Heir. 
 
THE FRIEND. 197 
 
 Father before he was bed-ridden had never possessed any- 
 considerable property ; but yet, by his industry, had been 
 able not only to keep himself free from debt, but to lay up 
 a small sum for the evil day. Three years of evil days, 
 three whole years of sickness, had consumed the greatest 
 part of this ; yet still enough remained not only to defend 
 his Daughter from immediate want, but likewise to main- 
 tain her till she could get into some Service or Employ- 
 ment, and have recovered her Spirits sufficiently to bear 
 up against the hardships of Life. With this thought her 
 dying Father had comforted himself, and this hope too 
 proved vain ! 
 
 A timid Girl, whose past life had been made up of 
 sorrow and privation, she went indeed to solicit the com- 
 missioners in her own behalf; but these were, as is mostly 
 the case on the Continent, Advocates — the most hateful 
 Class, perhaps, of human society, hardened by the fre- 
 quent sight of misery, and seldom superior in moral 
 character to English Pettifoggers or Old Bailey Attornies. 
 She went to them, indeed, but not a word could she say 
 for herself. Her tears and inarticulate sounds — for these 
 her Judges had no ears or eyes. Mute and confounded, 
 like an unfledged Dove fallen out from its Mother's Nest, 
 Maria betook herself to her home, and found the house 
 door too, now shut upon her. Her whole wealth con- 
 sisted in the clothes she wore. She had no Relations to 
 whom she could apply, for those of her Mother had dis- 
 claimed all acquaintance with her, and her Father was 
 a Nether Saxon by birth. She had no acquaintance, for 
 all the Friends of old Schoning had forsaken him in the 
 first year of his sickness. She had no Playfellow, for who 
 was likely to have been the Companion of a Nurse in 
 the room of a sick man ? Surely, since the Creation 
 never was a human Being more solitary and forsaken, 
 than this innocent poor Creature, that now roamed about 
 friendless in a- populous City, to the whole of whose 
 inhabitants her filial tenderness, her patient domestic 
 goodness, and all her soft yet difficult virtues, might well 
 have been the model. 
 
 « But homeless near a thousand homes she stood, 
 And near a thousand tables pin'd and wanted food ! " 
 
 S The night came, and Maria knew not where to find a 
 \ shelter. She tottered to the Church-yard of the St. 
 
198 THE FRIEND. 
 
 James' Church in Nuremberg, where the Body of her 
 Father rested. Upon the yet grassless grave she threw 
 herself down ; and could anguish have prevailed over 
 youth, that night she had been in Heaven. The day 
 eame, and like a guilty thing this guiltless, this good 
 Being, stole away from the Crowd that began to pass 
 through the Church- yard, and hastening through the 
 Streets to the City Gate, she hid herself behind a garden 
 hedge just beyond it, and there wept away the second 
 day of her desolation. The Evening closed in : the pang 
 of hunger made itself felt amid the dull aching of self- 
 wearied anguish, and drove the Sufferrr back again into 
 the City. Yet what could she gain there ? She had not 
 the courage to beg, and the very thought of stealing never 
 occurred to her innocent mind. Scarce conscious whither 
 she was going, or why she went, she found herself once 
 more by her Father's Grave, as the last relict of evening 
 faded away in the horizon. I have sate for some minutes 
 with my pen resting : I can scarce summon the courage to 
 tell, what 1 scarce know, whether 1 ought to tell. Were 
 I composing a Tale of Fiction, the Reader might justly 
 suspect the purity of my own heart, and most certainly 
 would have abundant right to resent such an incident, as 
 an outrage wantonly offered to his imagination. As I 
 think of the circumstance, it seems more and more like a 
 distempered dream : but alas ! what is guilt so detestable 
 Other than a dream of madness, that worst madness, the 
 madness of the heart ? I cannot but believe, that the 
 dark and restless passions must first have drawn the mind 
 in upon themselves, and as with the confusion of imper- 
 fect sleep, have in some strange manner taken away the 
 sense of reality, in order to render it possible for a human 
 being to perpetrate what it is too certain that human 
 beings have perpetrated The Church-yards in most of 
 the German Cities, and too often, I fear in those of our 
 own Country, are not more injurious to health than to 
 morality. Their former venerable character is no more. 
 The religion of the place has followed its superstitions, 
 and their darkness and loneliness tempt worse spirits to 
 roam in them than those whose nightly wanderings ap-, 
 palled the believing hearts of our brave Forefathers ! It 
 was close by the new-made Grave of her Father, that the 
 meek and spotless Daughter became the victim to brutal 
 violence, which weeping and watching and cold and 
 
THE FRIENDi 199 
 
 hunger had rendered her utterly unable to resist. The 
 Monster left her in a trance of stupefaction, and into her 
 right hand, which she had clenched convulsively, he had 
 forced a half-dollar. 
 
 It was one of the darkest nights of Autumn : in the 
 deep and dead silence the only sounds audible were the 
 slow blunt ticking of the Church Clock, and now and 
 then the sinking down of bones in the nigh Charnel 
 House. Maria, when she had in some degree recovered 
 her senses, sate upon the Grave near which — not her in- 
 nocence had been sacrificed, but that which, from the 
 frequent admonitions and almost the dying words of her 
 Father, she had been accustomed to consider as such. 
 Guiltless, she felt the pangs of guilt, and still continued to 
 grasp the Coin which the Monster had left in her hand, 
 with an anguish as sore as if it had been indeed the wages 
 of voluntary prostitution. Giddy and faint from want of 
 food, her brain becoming feverish from sleeplessness, and 
 this unexampled concurrence of calamities, this compli- 
 cation and entanglement of misery in misery ! she imagin- 
 ed that she heard her Father's voice bidding her leave his 
 sight. His last blessings had been conditional, for in his 
 last hours he had told her, that the loss of her innocence 
 would not let him rest quiet in his grave. His last bless- 
 ings now sounded in her ears like curses, and she fled from 
 the Church-yard as if a daemon had been chasing her; 
 and hurrying along the streets, through which it is pro- 
 bable her accursed Yiolater had walked with quiet and 
 orderly step * to his place of rest and security, she was 
 seized by the Watchmen of the night — a welcome prey, 
 as they receive in Nuremberg half a Gulden from the 
 police chest, for every Woman that they find in the Streets 
 
 * It must surely have been after hearing of or witnessing same similar event 
 or scene of wretchedness, that the most eloquent of our Writers (I had almost 
 said of our Poets) Jeremy Tavlor, wrote the following paragraph, which, at 
 least in Longinus's sense of the word, we may place among the most sultlmie 
 passages in English Literature. " He that is no fool, but can consider wisely, 
 if he be in love with this world we need not despa'ir but that a witty man might 
 reconcile him with tortures, and make him think charitably of the Rack, and 
 be brought to admire the harmony that is made by a herd of evening Wolves 
 when they miss their draught of blood in their midnight Revels. The groans 
 of a man in a fit of the Stone are worse than all these; and the distractions of 
 a troubled Conscience are worse than those groans: and yet a careless merry 
 sinner is worse than all that. But if we could from one of the battlements of 
 Heaven espy, how many men and women at this time lie fainting and dying 
 for want of bread, how many young men are hewn down by the sword of VVar; 
 how many poor Orphans are now weeping over the graves of their Father, by 
 
200 THE FRIEND. 
 
 after ten o'clock af night. It was midnight, and she was 
 taken to the nextYVatch-house. 
 
 The sitting Magistrate, before whom she was carried 
 the next morning, prefaced his first question with the most 
 opprobious title that ever belonged to the most haidened 
 Street-walkers, and which man born of woman should not 
 address even those, were it but for his own sake. The 
 frightful name awakened the poor Orphan from her drearn 
 ofguilt, it brought back the consciousness of her inno- 
 cence, but with it the sense likewise of her wrongs and of 
 her helplessness. The cold hand of death seemed to grasp 
 her, she fainted dead away at his feet, and was not with- 
 out difficulty recovered. The Magistrate was so far 
 softened, and only so far, as to dismiss her for the present ; 
 but with a menace of sending her to the House of Correc- 
 tion if she were brought before him a second time. The 
 idea of her own innocence now became uppermost in her 
 mind ; but mingling with the thought of her utter forlorn- 
 ness, and the image of her angry Father, and doubtless 
 still in a state of bewilderment, she formed the resolution 
 of drowning herself in the river Pegnitz — in order (tor 
 this was the shape which her fancy had taken) to throw 
 herself at her Father's feet, and to justify her innocence to 
 him in the world of Spirits. She hoped, that her Father 
 would speak for her to the Saviour, and that she should 
 be forgiven. Hut as she was passing through the suburb, 
 she was met by a Soldier's Wile, who during the life-time 
 of her Father, had been occasionally employed in the 
 house as a Chare-woman. This poor Woman was startled 
 at the disordered apparel, and more disordered looks of 
 her young Mistress, and questioned her with such an 
 anxious and heart-felt tenderness, as at once brought back 
 the poor Orphan to her natural feelings and the obliga- 
 tions of religion. As a frightened Child throws itself into 
 the arms of its' Mother, and hiding its' head on her breast, 
 half tells amid sobs what has happened to it, so did she 
 
 whose life they were enabled to eat ; if we could but hear how many Mariners 
 and Passengers are at this present in a storm, and shriek out because their keel 
 dashes against a Rock, or bulges under them ; how many People there are 
 that weep with want, and are mad with oppression, or are desperate by a too 
 quick sense of a constant infelicity; in all reason we should be glad to be out 
 of the noise aud participation of so many evils. This is a place of sorrows 
 and tears, of great evils and constant calamities: let us remove from hence, at 
 least in affections and preparations of mind. 
 
 'Holy Dying, Chap. 1. Sect, 5. 
 
THE FRIEND. 201 
 
 throw herself on the neck of the Woman who had uttered 
 lhe first words of kindness to her since her Father's death, 
 and, with loud weeping she related what she had endured 
 and what she was about to have done, told her all her 
 affliction and her misery, the wormwood and the gall! Her 
 kind-hearted Friend mingled tears with tears, pressed the 
 poor forsaken-one to her heart ; comforted her with sen- 
 tences out of the Hymn-book ; and with the most affec- 
 tionate entreaties conjured her to give up her horrid pur- 
 pose, for that life was short, and heaven was for ever, and 
 Christ a sure recompence. 
 
 Maria had been bred up in the fear of God : she now 
 trembled at the thought of her former purpose, and follow- 
 ed her Friend Harlin, for that was the name of her Guar- 
 dian Angel, to her home hard by. The moment she 
 entered the door she sank down and lay at her full length, 
 as if only to be motionless in a place of shelter had been 
 the fulness of delight. As when a withered Leaf, that 
 has been long whirled about by the gusts of Autumn, is 
 blown into a Cave or hollow Tree, it stops suddenly, and 
 all at once looks the very image of quiet. Such might 
 this poor Orphan appear to the eye of a meditative 
 imagination. 
 
 A place of shelter she had attained, and a Friend 
 willing to comfort her, all that she could : but the noble- 
 hearted Harlin was herself a daughter of calamity, one 
 who from year to year must lie down in weariness and rise 
 up to labour ; for whom this World provides no other 
 comfort but the Sleep which enables them to forget it ; 
 no other Physician but death, which takes them out of it! 
 She was married to one of the City Guards, who, like 
 Maria's Father, had been long sick and bed-ridden. Him, 
 herself, and two little Children, she had to maintain by 
 washing and* charing; and sometime after Maria had 
 been domesticated with them, Harlin told her that she 
 herself had been once driven to a desperate thought by 
 the cry of her hungry Children, during a want of employ- 
 ment, and that she h d been on the point of killing one of 
 the Little-ones, and of then surrendering herself into the 
 hands of justice. In this manner, she had conceived, all 
 j would be well provided for ; the surviving Child would 
 
 * I am ignorant, whether there be any classical authority for this word; 
 but I know no other word that expresses occasional day-labour in the Houses 
 •f others. 
 
202 THE FRIEND. 
 
 be admitted, as a matter of course, into the Orphan House, 
 and her Husband into the Hospital ; while she herself 
 would have atoned for her act by a public execution, and, 
 together with the Child that she had destroyed, would 
 have passed into a state of bliss. All this she related to 
 Maria, and these tragic ideas left but too deep and lasting 
 impression on her mind. Weeks after, she herself renewed 
 the conversation, by expressing to her Benefactress her 
 inability to conceive how it. was possible for one human 
 being to take away the life of another, especially that of 
 an innocent little Child. For that reason, replied Harlin* 
 because it was so innocent and so good, I wished to put 
 it out of this wicked world. Thinkest thou then, that I 
 would have my head cut off for the sake of a wicked 
 Child ? Therefore it was little Nan, that 1 meant to have 
 taken with me, who, as you see, is always so sweet and 
 patient : little Frank has already his humours and naughty 
 tricks, and suits better for this world. This was the an- 
 swer. Maria brooded awhile over it in silence, then 
 passionately snatched the Children up in her arms, as if 
 she would protect them against their own Mother. 
 
 For one whole year the Orphan lived with the Soldier's 
 Wife, and by their joint labours barely kept off absolute 
 want. As a little Boy (almost a Child in size, though in 
 his thirteenth year) once told me of himself, as he was 
 guiding me up the Brocken, in the Hartz Forest, they had 
 but " (title of that, of which a great deal tells but for 
 little." But now Came the second Winter, and with it 
 came bad times, a season of trouble for this poor and 
 meritorious household. The Wife now fell sick : too 
 constant and too hard labour, too scanty and too innutri- 
 tious food, had gradually wasted away her strength. 
 Maria redoubled her efforts in order to provide bread and 
 fuel for their washing which they took in ; but the task 
 was above her powers. Besides, she was so timid and so 
 agitated at the sight of Strangers, that sometimes, with the' 
 best good-will, she was left without employment. One 
 by one, every article of the least value which they possess- 
 ed was sold off, except the Bed on which the Husband 
 lay. He died just before the approach of Spring; but 
 about the same time the Wife gave signs of convalescence. ■ 
 The Physician, though almost as poor as his Patients, 
 had been kind to them : silver and gold had he none, but 
 he occasionally brought a little Wine, and often assured 
 
THE FRIEND. .203 
 
 them that nothing was wanting to her perfect recovery, 
 but better nourishment and a little wine every day. This, 
 however, could not be regularly procured, and Harlin's 
 spirits sank, and as her bodily pain left her she became 
 more melancholy, silent, and self-involved. And now jt 
 was that Maria's mind was incessantly racked* by the 
 frightful apprehension, th?.t her Friend might be again 
 meditating the accomplishment of her former purpose. 
 She had grown as passionately fond of the two Children, 
 as if she had borne them under her own heart ; but the 
 jeopardy in which she conceived her Friend's salvation to 
 stand — this was her predominant thought. For all the 
 hopes and fears, which under a happier lot would have 
 been associated with the objects of the senses, were 
 transferred, by Maria, to her notions and images of a 
 future state. 
 
 In the beginning of March, one bitter cold evening, 
 Maria started up and suddenly left the House. The 
 last morsel of food had been divided betwixt the two 
 Children for their breakfast, and for the last hour or more 
 the little Boy had been crying for hunger, while his 
 gentler Sister had been hiding her face in Maria's lap, and 
 pressing her little body against her knees, in order by that 
 mechanic pressure to dull the aching from emptiness. 
 The tender-hearted and visionary Maiden had watched 
 the Mother's eye, and had interpreted several of her sad 
 and steady looks according to her preconceived apprehen- 
 sions. She had conceived all at once the strange and 
 enthusiastic thought, that she would in some way or other 
 offer her own soul for the salvation of that of her Friends. 
 The money which had been left in her hand, flashed upon 
 the eye of her mind, as a single and connected ima^e : 
 and faint with hunger and shivering with cold, she sallied 
 forth— in search of guilt ! Awful are thedispensations 
 of the Supreme, and in his severest judgements the hand 
 of mercy is visible. It was a night so wild with wind 
 and rain, or rather rain and snow mixed together, that a 
 famished Wolf would have stayed in his Cave, and listen- 
 ed to a more fearful howl than his own. Forlorn Maria ! 
 thou wert kneeling in pious simplicity at the Grave of thy 
 Father, and thou becamest the prey of a Monster ! In- 
 nocent thou wert and without guilt didst thou remain. 
 
 Now thou goest forth of thy own accord but God will 
 
 have pity on thee ! Poor bewildered Innocent ! in thy 
 
204 THE FRIEND. 
 
 spotless imagination dwelt no distinct conception of ihe 
 evil which thou wentest forth to brave ! To save the 
 soul of thy Friend was the dream of thy feverish brain, 
 and thou were again apprehended as an Outcast of shame- 
 less sensuality, at the moment when thy too-spiritualized 
 fancy was busied with the glorified forms of thy Friend 
 and of her Little- ones interceding for thee at the Throne 
 of the Redeemer ! at this moment her perturbed fancy 
 suddenly suggested to her a new Mean for the accom- 
 plishment of her purpose : and she replied to the Night- 
 watch (who with a brutal laugh bade her expect on the 
 morrow the unmanly punishment, which to the disgrace 
 of human nature the laws of Protestant States (alas ! even 
 those of our own Country) inflict on female Vagrants) that 
 she came to deliver herself up as an Infanticide. She 
 was instantly taken before the Magistrate, through as 
 wild and pitiless a storm as ever pelted on a houseless 
 head ! through as black and " tyrannous a night " as ever 
 aided the workings of a heated brain ! Here she confessed 
 that she had been delivered of an Infant by the Soldier's 
 Wife, Harlin, that she deprived it of life in the presence of 
 Harlin, and according to a plan preconcerted with her, 
 and that Harlin had buried it somewhere in the wood, 
 but where she knew not. During this strange tale she 
 appeared to listen with a mixture of fear and satisfaction, 
 to the howlim? of the wind : and never sure could a con- 
 fession of real guilt have been accompanied by a more 
 dreadfully appropriate music ! At the moment of her 
 Apprehension she had formed the scheme of helping her 
 Friend out of the World in a state of innocence. When 
 the Soldier's Widow was confronted with the Orphan, 
 and the latter had repeated her Confession to her face, 
 Harlin answered in these words, " For God's sake, Maria ! 
 how have I deserved this of thee?" Then turning to the 
 Magistrate, said, " I know nothing of this." This was 
 the sole answer which she gave, and' not another word 
 could they extort from her. The instruments of torture 
 were brought, and Harlin was warned, that if she did not 
 confess of her own accord, the truth would be immediately 
 forced from her. This menace convulsed Maria Schoning 
 with affright : her intention had been to emancipate her- 
 self and her Friend from a life of unmixed suffering, with- 
 out the crime of suicide in either, and with no guilt at all 
 on the part of her Friend. The thought of her Friend's 
 
THE FRIEND. 205 
 
 being put to the torture had not occurred to her. Wildly 
 and eagerly she pressed her Friend's hands, already bound 
 in preparation for the torture — she. pressed them in agony 
 between her own, and said to her, " Anna ! confess it ! 
 Anna, dear Anna! it will then be well with all of us! all, 
 all of us ! and Frank and little Nan will be put into the 
 ( Jrphan House ! " Maria's scheme now passed, like a 
 flash of Lightening^ through the Widow's mind, she 
 acceeded to it at once, kissed Maria repeatedly, and then 
 serenely turning her face to the judge, acknowledged that 
 she had added to the guilt by so obstinate a denial, that 
 all her Friend had said, had been true, save only that she 
 had thrown the dead Infant into the River, and not buried 
 it in the Wood. 
 
 They were both committed to prison, and as they both 
 persevered in their common Confession, the process was 
 soon made out and the condemnation followed the trial : 
 and the sentence, by which they were both to be beheaded 
 with the Sword, was ordered to be put in force on the next 
 day but one. On the morning of the execution, the De- 
 linquents were brought together, in order that they might 
 be reconciled with each other, and join in common prayer 
 for forgiveness of their common guilt. And now Maria's 
 thoughts took another turn : the Idea that her Benefactress, 
 that so very good a Woman, should be violently put out of 
 Life, and this with an infamy on her name which would 
 cling for ever to the little Orphans, overpowered her. Her 
 own excessive desire to die scarcely prevented her from 
 discovering the whole plan ; and when Flarlin was left 
 alone with her, and she saw her Friend's calm and affec'- 
 tionate look, her fortitude was dissolved : she burst into 
 loud and passionate weeping, and throwing herself into 
 her Friend's arms, with convulsive sobs she entreated her 
 forgiveness. Harlin pressed the poor agonized Girl to her 
 arms : like a tender Mother, she kissed and fondled her 
 wet cheeks, and in the most solemn and emphatic tones as- 
 sured her, that there was nothing to forgive. On the con- 
 trary, she was her greatest Benefactress and the instrument 
 of God's goodness to remove her at once from a miserable 
 world and from the temptation of committing a heavy 
 Crime. In vain ! Her repeated promises, that she would 
 answer bsfore God for them both, could not pacify the tor- 
 tured Conscience of Maria, till at length the presence of 
 the Clergyman and the preparations for receiving the sacra- 
 
S06 THE FRIEND. 
 
 • 
 
 ment occasioning the Widow to address her with — "See, 
 Maria ! this is the Body and Blood of Christ, which takes 
 away all sin ; let us partake together of this holy Repast 
 with full trust in God and joyful hope of our approaching 
 happiness." These words of comfort, uttered with cheer- 
 ing tones and accompanied with a look of inexpressible 
 tenderness and serenity, brought back peace for a while to 
 her troubled Spirit. '3 hey communicated together and on 
 parting the magnanimous Woman once more embraced 
 her young Friend : then stretching her hand toward Hea- 
 ven said, " Be tranquil Maria ! by tomorrow Morning we 
 are there, and all our sorrows stay here behind us." 
 
 I hasten to the scene of the Execution : for 1 anticipate 
 my Reader's feelings in the exhaustion of ray own heart. 
 Serene and with unaltered countenance the lofty minded 
 Harlin heard the strokes of the death-bell, stood before the • 
 scaffold while the Staff was broken over her, and at length 
 ascended the steps, all with a steadiness and tranquillity 
 of manner which was not more distant from fear than from 
 defiance and bravado. Altogether different was the state 
 of poor Maria : with shattered nerves and an agonizing 
 Conscience that incessantly accused her as the Murderess of 
 her Friend, she did not walk but staggered towards the scaf-. 
 fold and stumbled up the steps. While Harlin, who went 
 first, at every step turned her head round and still whis- 
 pered to her, raising her eyes to heaven, — " but a few mi- 
 nutes, Maria ! and we are there"! On the Scaffold she again 
 bade her farewell, again repeating " Dear Maria ! but one 
 minute now, and we are together with God." But whe 
 she knelt down and her neck was bared for the stroke, the 
 unhappy Girl lost all self-command and with a loud and- 
 piercing shriek she bade them hold and not murder the i'n- 
 iiocent " She is innocent ! I have born false Witness ! K 
 alone am the Murderess!" She rolled herself now at the 
 feet of the Executioner, andnow at those of the Clergymen, 
 and conjured them to stop the execution : that the whole 
 story had been invented by herself; that she had never, 
 brought forth, much less destroyed, an infant ; that for her 
 Friend's sake she made this discover}' ; that for her- 
 self she wished to die, and would die gladly, if they would 
 take away her Friend, and promise to free her soul from 
 the dreadful agony of having murdered her Friend by false 
 witness. The Executioner asked Harlin, if there were any 
 truth in what Maria Schoning had said. The Heroine 
 answered with manifest reluctance : " most assuredly she 
 
 ! 
 
THE FRIEND. 207 
 
 hath said the truth : I confessed myself guilty, because I 
 wished to die ?nd thought it best for both of us : and now 
 that my hope is on the moment of its accomplishment, I 
 cannot be supposed to declare myself innocent for the sake 
 of saving my Life — but any wretchedness is to be endured 
 rather, than that that poor Creature should be hurried out 
 of the world in a state of despair." 
 
 The outcry of the attending Populace prevailed to sus- 
 pend the Execution : a report was sent to the assembled 
 Magistrates, and in the mean time one of the Priests re- 
 proached the Widow in bitter words for her former false 
 confession. What ? she replied sternly but without anger, 
 " what would the truth have availed ? Before I perceived 
 my Friend's purpose, I did deny it : my assurance was 
 pronounced an impudent lie : I was already bound for 
 the torture, and so bound that the sinews of my hands 
 started, and one of their Worships in the large white Pe- 
 ruke threatened that he would have me stretched till the 
 Sun shone through me ! and that then 1 should cry out, 
 yes, when it was too late." The Priest was hard-hearted 
 or superstitious enough to continue his reproofs, to which 
 the noble Woman condescended no further answer. The 
 other Clergyman, however, was both more rational and 
 more humane. He succeeded in silencing his Colleague, 
 and the former Half of the Ions; Hour, which the Masjistra- 
 tes took in making speches on the improbability of the tale, 
 instead of re-examining the Culprits in person, he employ- 
 ed in gaining from the widow a connected account of all 
 the circumstances, and in listening occasionally to Maria's 
 passionate descriptions of all her Friend's goodness and 
 magnanimity. For she had gained an influx of life and 
 spirit from the assurance in her mind, both that she had 
 now rescued Harlin from Death and was about to expiate 
 the guilt of her purpose by her own execution. For the 
 latter half of the time, the Clergyman remained in silence, 
 lost in thought, and momently expecting the return of 
 the Messenger. . All which during the deep silence of this 
 interval could be heard, was one exclamation of Harlin to 
 her unhappy Friend — Oh ! Maria ! Maria ! couldst thou 
 but have kept up thy courage but for another minute, we 
 should have been now in Heaven ! The Messenger came 
 back with an order from the Magistrates — -—to proceed 
 with the Execution ! With re-animated Countenance Har- 
 lin placed her neck on the block and her head was severed 
 
208 THE FRIEND. 
 
 from her body amid a general shriek from the Crowd. 
 The Executioner fainted after the blow, and the under 
 hangman was ordered to take his place. He was not Want- 
 ed. Maria was already gone : her body was found as cold 
 as if she had been dead for some hours. The Flower had 
 been snapt in the storm, before the scythe of violence 
 could come near it. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Suggested by the efforts of the Tyrolese, contrasted with the present 
 state of Germany. 
 
 Alas ! what boots the long laborious quest 
 Of moral prudence sought through good and ill ; 
 Or pain abstruse to elevate the will, 
 Or lead us on to that transcendent rest 
 Where every passion shall the sway attest 
 
 Of Reason seated on her sovereign hill j 
 
 What is it but a vain and curious skill 
 
 If sapient Germany must lie deprest 
 
 Beneath the brutal sword ? — Her haughty schools 
 
 Shall blush, and may not we with sorrow say, 
 
 A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, 
 
 Among the Herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought 
 
 More for mankind at this unhappy day 
 
 Than all the pride of intellect and thought ? W. W. 
 
 Tn the Hymn in No. 11, the Reader will be pleased to make the following 
 corrections and alterations, an imperfect Copy having been sent by mistake. 
 
 Page 174, line 14, for then read thou. 
 
 175, 3, read : Tlwu first and chief, stern Monarch of the Vale I 
 
 176, 5, for you read yon : 
 
 and the beginning of the last paragraph, as follows: 
 
 And thou, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing Peaks, 
 
 Oft from whose feet the Avalahchs unheard 
 
 Shoots downward, glittering in the pure Serene, 
 
 Into the depth of Clouds that veil thy Breast—. 
 
 Thou too, again, stupendous Mountain ! thou, 
 
 That, as once more I raise my head bow'd low 
 
 In Adoration, upward from thy Base 
 
 Slow- travelling with dim eyes suftus'd with tears. 
 
 Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury Cloud, 
 
 To rise before me — Rise, O ever rise. 
 
 Rise, like a Cloud of Incense, from the earth ! 
 
 Thou kingly Spirit, &c. &c. 
 
 TENRITH : PUNTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BT 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW) AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
fp 
 
 THE FRIENB. 
 
 No. 14. THURSDAY, November 23, 1809. 
 
 'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane 
 
 (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise 
 
 And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, 
 
 Masking his birth-name, wont to character 
 
 His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal) 
 
 'Tis true, that passionate for ancient truths 
 
 And honoring with religious love the Great 
 
 Of elder times, he hated to excess, 
 
 With an unquiet and intolerant scorn, 
 
 The hollow Puppets of an hollow Age 
 
 Ever idolatrous, and changing ever 
 
 Its' worthless Idols ! — Learning, Power, and Time* 
 
 (Too much of all !) thus wasting in vain war 
 
 Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true, 
 
 Whole years of weary days, besieg'd him close 
 
 Even to the gates and outlets of his Life ! 
 
 But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm, 
 
 And with a natural gladness, he maintain'd 
 
 The Citadel unconquer'd, and in joy 
 
 Was strong to follow the delightful Muse. 
 
 For not a hidden path, that to the shades 
 
 Of the belov'd Parnassian forest leads, 
 
 Lurk'd undiscover'd by him ; not a rill 
 
 There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, . j 
 
 But he had trac'd it upward to its' source 
 
 Thro' open glade, dark glen, and secret dell, 
 
 Knew the gay wild-flowers on its' banks, and cull'd 
 
 Its' med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone 
 
 Piercing the long-neglected holy cave, 
 
 The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, 
 
 He bade with lifted torch its' starry walls 
 
 Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame 
 
 Of od'rous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. 
 
 O fram'd for calmer times and nobler hearts ! 
 
 O studious Poet, eloquent for truth ! 
 
 Philosopher, contemning wealth and death, 
 
 Yet docile, child-like, full of light and love ! 
 
 Here, rather than on monumental stone, 
 
 This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes 
 
 Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.* S. T. C. 
 
 * Imitated, though in the movements rather than the though**, from the 
 Vllth. of Gli Epitafi of Chiabrera : 
 
 Fu ver, che Ambrosio Salinero a torto ' 
 Si pose in pena d' odiose liti, &c. 
 

 210 THE FRIEND. 
 
 During my second Term at Cambridge I had, for my 
 own amusement, commenced a Work on the plan of the 
 well known Miseries of Human Life : at least with 
 the same Title, for by its Title only, and the pleasure ex- 
 pressed by all who have spoken to me of it, am 1 ac- 
 quainted with that Publication. But at the same time I 
 had meant to add, as an Appendix, a Catalogue raisonne 
 of the Sights, Incidents, and Employments, that leave us 
 better men than they found us ; or, to use my original 
 phrase, of the Things that do a Mans Heart good. If the 
 seventeen or eighteen years, which have elapsed since that 
 period, would enable me greatly to extend and diversify 
 the former list, the latter, as more properly the offspring 
 of experience and reflection, would be augmented in a 
 still larger proportion. Among the addenda to this second 
 Catalogue I should rank foremost, a long winter evening 
 devoted to the re-perusal of the Letters of far distant, or 
 deceased Friends. I suppose the Person so employed to 
 be one, whose time is seldom at his own disposal, and that 
 he finds himself alone in a quiet house, the other Inmates 
 of which are absent on some neighbourly visit. I have 
 been led to this observation by the numerous Letters 
 (many of which had all the pleasure of novelty for me, 
 joined with the more tender charm of awakened recollec- 
 tion) from the Friend, with a slight sketch of whose 
 character 1 have introduced the present Number under 
 the name, which he went by among his friends and famili- 
 ars, of Satyrane, the Idoloclast, or breaker of Idols. 
 
 A few Seasons ago, I made the Tour of the northern 
 Counties with him and three other Companions. His 
 extensive erudition, his energetic and all too subtle intel- 
 lect, the opulence of his imagination, and above all his 
 inexhaustible store of anecdotes, which always appeared 
 to us the most interesting when of himself, and his pas- 
 sionate love of mountain scenery, which often gave an 
 eloquence to his looks and made his very silence intelli- 
 gible, will for ever endear the remembrance of that Tour 
 to the Survivors. Various were our discussions, most 
 often with him, but sometimes (when we had split our 
 Party for a few hours) concerning him and his opinions ; 
 not a few of which appeared, to some of us at least, suffi- 
 ciently, paradoxical, though there was nothing which he 
 bore with less patience than the hearing them thus cha- 
 racterized, iftlany and various were our topics, often sug- 
 gested by the objects and occurrences of the moment, and 
 often occasioned by the absence of other interest. O 
 
THE FRIEND. 211 
 
 Satyrane ! who would not have lost the sense of time and 
 fatigue in thy company ? How often, after a walk of 
 fifteen or twenty miles on rough roads and through a 
 dreary or uninleresting Country, have we seen our pro- 
 posed resting-place with a sort of pleasant surprize, all 
 joining in the same question, " who would have thought 
 we had walked so far ? " And then perhaps examined 
 our Watches, as if half in doubt, or perhaps to contrast 
 the length of time which had thus slipped away from us, 
 with our own little sense of its' elapse. These discussions 
 and the marked difference of our several Characters 
 (though we were all old acquaintances, and with one ex- 
 ception, all of us fellow Cantabs) suggested to us the idea 
 of a joint Work to be entitled, " Travelling Conver- 
 sations." Since that time I have often renewed this 
 idea in my mind, and pleased myself with the thought of 
 realizing it. Independent of the delightful recollections, 
 the lively portraiture and inward music, which would 
 enliven my own fancy during the composition, it appeared 
 to me to possess the merit of harmonizing an indefinite 
 variety of matter by that unity of interest, which would 
 arise from the Characters remaining the same throughout, 
 while the Tour itself would supply the means of intro- 
 ducing the most different topics by the most natural con- 
 nections. We had agreed to call each other by the 
 names of our Walking-Sticks, each of which happened to 
 be of a different Wood : Satyrane, however, excepted, 
 who was well pleased to be called among us by his old 
 College name, and not displeased with his learned Ag- 
 nomen, when we used with mock solemnity to entreat 
 a short reprieve for our prejudices from him, under the 
 lofty title of " puissant and most redoubtable Idoloclastes." 
 I flatter myself, that the Readers of the Friend will 
 consent to travel over the same road with the same fellow- 
 Tourists. High indeed will be my gratification, if they 
 should hereafter think of the walk and talk with the 
 Friend's Satyrane, Holly, Larch, Hiccory. and Syca- 
 more, with a small portion of the delight with which they 
 have accompanied the Spectator to his club, and made 
 acquaintance with Will Honeycomb and the inimitable 
 Sir Roger de Coverley. From any imitation indeed, I am 
 precluded by the nature and object of my work : and for 
 many reasons, the persons, whom 1 introduce, must be 
 . distinguished by their sentiments, their different kinds of 
 information, and their different views of life and society, 
 rather than by any prominent individuality of humour in 
 
 
212 THE FRIEND. 
 
 their personal Characters. What they were to myself, 
 they will be to my Reader ; glasses of different colours 
 and various degrees of power, through which truth and 
 error, happiness and misery, may be contemplated. 
 
 From his earliest youth Satyrane had derived his high- 
 est pleasures from the admiration of moral grandeur and 
 intellectual energy ; and during the whole of his short 
 life he had a greater and more heart-felt delight in the 
 superiority of other men to himself, than men in general 
 derive from the belief of their own. His readiness to 
 imagine a superiority where it did not exist, was indeed, 
 for many years his predominant foible. His pain from the 
 perception of inferiority in others, whom he had heard 
 spoken of with any respect, was unfeigned and involun- 
 tary ; arid perplexed him, as a something which he did 
 not comprehend. In the child-like simplicity of his 
 nature he talked to all men, as if they were, at least, his 
 equals in knowledge and talents ; and his Familiars record 
 many a whimsical anecdote, and many a ludicrous inci- 
 dent, connected with this Habit of his, of scattering the 
 good seed on unreceiving soils. When he was at length 
 compelled to see and acknowledge the true state of the 
 morals and intellect of his contemporaries, his disappoint- 
 ment was severe, and his mind, always thoughtful, became 
 pensive and almost gloomy : for to love and sympathize 
 with mankind was a necessity of his nature. Hence, as 
 if he sought a refuge from his own sensibility,, he attached 
 himself to the most abstruse researches, and seemed to 
 derive his purest delight from subjects that exercised the 
 strength and subtlety of his understanding without 
 awakening the feelings of his heart. When I first knew 
 him* and for many years after, this was all otherwise. 
 The sun never sholie on a more joyous being ! The 
 Letters of earliest date, which I possess of his, were writ- 
 ten to a common friend, and contain the accounts of his 
 first travels. That I may introduce him to my Readers in 
 his native and original character, I now place before them 
 his first Letter, written on his arrival at Hamburg. From 
 the remaining Series, written in the same or following 
 year, I shall select and occasionally publish such letters 
 as will give the liveliest idea of his opinions, and the 
 different traits of his character at that period. I have 
 only to premise, that Satyrane was incapable of ridiculing 
 a foreigner merely for speaking English imperfectly ; but 
 the extravagant vanity that could prompt a man so speak- 
 ing and pronouncing to pride himself on his excellence as 
 
THE FRIEND. 213 
 
 a Linguist, is as honest a subject of light satire, as an old 
 Coquette, or as a Beau of threescore and ten exposing 
 the infirmities of old age in a Reel on his Wedding-day. 
 
 Letter I. 
 
 On Sunday Morning, September 16, 1798, the Ham- 
 burg Pacquel set sail from Yarmouth : and I, for the first 
 time in my life, beheld my native land retiring from me. 
 At the moment of its' disappearance— in all the Kirks, 
 Churches, Chapels, and Meeting-houses, in which the 
 greater number, 1 hope, of my Countrymen were at that 
 time assembled, I will dare question whether there was 
 one more ardent prayer offered up to Heaven, than that 
 which I then preferred for my Country. Now then (said 
 I to a Gentleman who was standing near me) we are out 
 of our Country. Not yet, not yet ! he replied, and 
 pointed to the Sea ; " This, too, is a Briton's Country." 
 This bdn mot gave a fillip to my spirits, I rose and looked 
 round on my Fellow-passengers, who were all on the 
 Deck. We were eighteen in number, videlicit, five 
 Englishmen, an English Lady, a French Gentleman and 
 his Servant, an Hanoverian and his Servant, a Prussian, a 
 Swede, two Danes, and a Mulatto Boy, a German Tailor 
 and his Wife (the smallest couple I ever beheld) and a 
 Jew. We were all on the Deck ; but in a short time I 
 observed marks of dismay. The Lady retired to the 
 Cabin in some confusion, and many of the Faces round me 
 assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured appearance ; and 
 within an hour the number of those on Deck was lessened 
 by one half. I was giddy, but not sick, and the giddiness 
 soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of ap- 
 petite which I attributed, in great measure, to the sceva 
 Mephitis of the Bilge-water ; and it was certainly not de- 
 creased by the exportations from the Cabin. However, 
 I was well enough to join the able-bodied Passengers, 
 one of whom observed not inaptly, that Momus might 
 have discovered an easier way to see a Man's Inside 
 than by placing a Window in his breast. He needed only 
 have taken a Salt-water trip in a pacquet-boat. 
 
 I am inclined to believe, that a Pacquet is far superior 
 to a Stage-coach, as a means of making men open out to 
 each other. In the latter the uniformity of posture dis- 
 poses to dozing, and the definiteness of the period at 
 which the Company will separate, makes each individual 
 think more of those, to whom he is going, than of those 
 with whom he is going. But at Sea more curiosity is 
 
21-i THE FRIEND. 
 
 excited, if only on this account, that the pleasant or un- 
 pleasant qualities of your companions are of greater im- 
 portance to you, from the uncertainty hoAV long you may 
 be obliged to house with them. Besides, if you are 
 Countrymen, that now begins to form a distinction and a 
 bond of Brotherhood ; and if of different Countries, there 
 are new incitements to conversation, more to ask and 
 more to communicate. I found that I had interested the 
 Danes in no common degree. I had crept into the Boat 
 on the Deck and fallen asleep ; but was awaked by one 
 of them about three o'clock in the Afternoon, who told 
 me that they had been seeking me in every hole and 
 corner, and insisted that 1 should join their Party and 
 drink with them. He talked English with such fluency, 
 as left me wholly unable to account for the singular and 
 even ludicrous incorrectness with which he spoke it. I 
 went, and found some excellent Wines and a desert of 
 Grapes with a Pine Apple. The Danes had christened 
 me Docteur Teology, and dressed as I was all in black, 
 with large shoes and black worsted stockings, I might 
 certainly have passed very well for a Methodist Mission- 
 ary. However I disclaimed my Title. What then may 
 you be? A man of Fortune ? No! — A Merchant? No! 
 
 A Merchant's Traveller? No! — A Clerk? No! Un 
 
 Philosophe, perhaps ? It was that time in my life, in 
 which of all possible names and characters I had the 
 greatest disgust to that of " un Philosophe." But I was 
 weary of being questioned, and rather than be Nothing, 
 or at best only the abstract Idea of a Man, 1 submitted by 
 a bow, even to the Aspersion implied in the word " un 
 Philosophe."— The Dane then informed me, that all in the 
 present Party were Philosophers likewise. Certes we 
 were not of the Stoic School. For we drank and talked 
 and sung, till we talked and sung all together ; and then 
 we rose and danced on the Deck a set of Dances, which 
 in one sense of the word at least were very intelligibly and 
 appropriately entitled Reels. The Passengers who lay in 
 the Cabin below in all the agonies of Sea-sickness, must 
 have found our Bacchanalian merriment 
 
 -a tunc 
 
 Harsh and of dissonant mood for their complaint. 
 I thought so at the time ; and (by way, I suppose, of sup- 
 porting my newly assumed philosophical Charaeter) I 
 thought too, how closely the greater number of our Vir- 
 tues are connected with the fear of Death, an-j how little 
 sympathy we bestow on Pain, where there is no Danger. 
 
THE FRIEND. 215 
 
 The two Danes were Brothers The one was a man 
 with a clear white complexion, white hair, and white eye- 
 brows, looked silly, and nothing that he uttered gave the 
 lie to his Looks. The other, whom, by way of eminence I 
 have called the Dane, had likewise white hair, but was 
 much shorter than his Brother, with slender limbs, and a 
 very thin face slightly pock-fretten. This man convinced 
 me of the justice of an old remark, that many a faithful 
 Portrait in our Novels and Farces has been rashly cen- 
 sured for an outrageous Caricature, or perhaps Nonentity. 
 I had retired to my station in the Boat — he came and 
 seated himself by my side, and appeared not a little tipsy. 
 He commenced the conversation in the most magnific 
 style, and as a sort of Pioneering to his own Vanity, he 
 flattered me with such grossness ! The Parasites of the Old 
 Comedy were modest in the comparison. His language 
 and accentuation were so exceedingly singular, that I 
 determined for once in my life to take notes of a Conver- 
 sation. Here it follows, somewhat abridged indeed, but 
 in all other respects as accurately as my memory per- 
 mitted. 
 
 The Dane. Vat Imagination! vat Language! vat 
 vast Science ! and vat eyes ! vat a milk-vite forehead ! — 
 O my heafen ! vy, you're a Got ! 
 
 Answer. You do me too much honour, Sir. 
 
 The Dane. O me ! if you should dink I is flattering 
 you ! — No, no, no ! 1 haf ten tousand a year — yes, ten 
 tousand a year — yes, ten tousand pound a year ! Veil — 
 and vat is dhat ? a mere trifle ! I 'ouldn't gif my sincere 
 heart for ten times dhe money. — Yes, you're a Got ! I a 
 mere man ! But, my dear Friend ! dhink of me, as a 
 man ! Is, is — I mean to ask you now, my dear Friend — 
 is I not very eloquent ! Is I not speak English very fine ? 
 
 Answ. Most admirably ! Believe me, Sir ! I have 
 seldom heard even a Native talk so fluently. 
 
 The Dane, (squeezing my hand with great vehemence) 
 My dear Friend ! vat an affection and fidelity we have for 
 each odher ! But tell me, do tell me, — Is I not, now and 
 den, speak some fault ? Is I not in some wrong ? 
 
 Answ. Why, Sir ! perhaps it might be observed by 
 nice critics in the English Language, that you occasion- 
 ally use the word " Is" instead of " am." In our best 
 companies we generally say I am, and not I is or Ise. 
 Excuse me, Sir ! it is a mere trifle. 
 
 The Dane. O! — is, is, am, am, am. Yes, yes — I 
 know, I know. 
 
216 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Answ. I am, thou art, he is, we are, ye are, they are. 
 
 The Dane. Yes, yes — I know, I know — Am, am, 
 am, is dhe Presens, and Is is dhe Perfectum — yes, yes — 
 and are is dhe Plusquam perfectum. 
 
 Answ. And " Art," Sir ! is ? 
 
 The Dane- My dear Friend! it is dhe Plusquam 
 perfectum, no, no— dhat is a great lie. " Are " is the 
 Plusquam perfectum — and "art" is dhe Plusquamplue- 
 perfectum — (then swinging my hand to and fro and cocking 
 his little bright hazle eyes at me, that danced with vanity and 
 ■wine). You see, my dear Friend ! that I too have some 
 Learning. 
 
 Answ. Learning, Sir ? Who dares suspect it ? Who 
 can listen to you for a minute, who can even look at you, 
 without perceiving the extent of it ? 
 
 The Dane. My dear Friend ! — -(then with a would- 
 be-humble look, and in a tone of voice as if he was reasoning) 
 I could not talk so of Presens and Imperfectum, and Futu- 
 rum and Plusquamplue perfectum, and alUdhat, my dear 
 Friend ! widhout some Learning ? 
 
 Answ. Sir ! a man like you cannot talk on any sub- 
 ject without discovering the depth of his information. 
 
 The Dane. Dhe grammatic Greek, my Friend ! Ha ! 
 ha ! ha ! f laughing, and swinging my hand to and fro — then 
 with a sudden transition to great solemnity) Now I will 
 tell you, my dear Friend ! Dhere did happen about me 
 vat dhe whole Historia of Denmark record no instance 
 about no body else. Dhe Bishop did ask me all dhe 
 questions about all dhe Religion in dhe Latin Grammar. 
 
 Answ. The Grammar, Sir ? The Language, I pre- 
 sume-— 
 
 The Dane (a little offended). Grammar is Language, 
 and Language is Grammar — 
 
 Answ. Ten thousand pardons ! 
 
 The Dane. Veil, and I was only fourteen years — 
 
 Answ. Only fourteen years old ? 
 
 The Dane. No more. I vas fourteen years old— 
 and he asked me all questions, Religion and Philosophy, 
 and all in dhe Latin Language — and I answered him all 
 every one, my dear Friend ! all in dhe Latin Language. 
 
 Answ. A Prodigy ! an absolute Prodigy ! 
 
 The Dane. No, no, no ! he was a Bishop, a great 
 Superintendant. 
 
 Answ. Yes! a Bishop. 
 
 The Dane. A Bishop— not a mere Predicant, not a 
 Prediger — 
 
THE FRIEND. 217 
 
 Answ. My dear Sir ! we have misunderstood each 
 other. I said that your answering in Latin at so early an 
 age was a Prodigy, that is, a thing that is wonderful, that 
 does not often happen. 
 
 The Dane. Often! Dhere is not von instance re- 
 corded in dhe whole Historia of Denmark. 
 
 Answ. And since then Sir ? 
 
 The Dane. I was sent ofer to dhe Vest Indies — to 
 our Island, and dhere I had no more to do vid Books. 
 No! no! I put my genius another way — and I hafmade 
 ten tousand pound a year. Is not dhat Genius, my dear 
 Friend ! — But vat is money ! 1 dhink dhe poorest man 
 alive my equal. Yes, my dear Friend ! my little Fortune 
 is pleasant to my generous Heart, because I can do good 
 — no man with so little a fortune ever did so much gene- 
 rosity — no person, no man person, no woman person ever 
 denies it. But we are all Got's Children. 
 
 Here the Hanoverian interrupted us, and the other 
 Dane, the Swede, and the Prussian, joined us, together 
 with a young Englishman who spoke the German fluently, 
 and interpreted to me many of the Prussian's Jokes. The 
 Prussian was a travelling Merchant, turned of threescore, 
 a hale man, tall, strong, and stout, full of stories, gesticu- 
 lations, and buffoonery, with the soul as well as the look 
 of a Mountebank, who while he is making you laugh, 
 picks your pocket. Amid all his droll Looks and droll 
 Gestures there remaiaed one look untouched by laughter; 
 and that one Look was the true face, the others were but 
 its' mask. The Hanoverian was a pale, fat, bloated young 
 man, whose Father had made a large Fortune in London, 
 as an Army-contractor. He seemed to emulate the man- 
 ners of young Englishmen of fortune. He was a good- 
 natured Fellow, not without information or literature ; but 
 a most egregious Coxcomb. He had been in the habit of 
 attending the House of Commons, and had once spoken, 
 as he informed me, with great applause in a debating 
 Society. For this he appeared to have qualified himself 
 with laudable industry : for he was perfect in Walker's 
 pronouncing Dictionary, and with an accent, which for- 
 cibly reminded me of the Scotchman in Roderic Random, 
 who professed to teach the English Pronunciation, he 
 was constantly deferring to my superior Judgment, whether 
 or no 1 had pronounced this or that word with propriety 
 or " the true delicacy." When he spoke, though it were 
 only half a dozen sentences, he always rose ; for which I 
 could detect no other motive, than his partiality to that 
 
218 THE FRIEND. 
 
 elegant phrase so liberally introduced in the orations of 
 our British Legislators, " While I am on my Legs." The 
 Swede, whom for reasons that will soon appear, I shall 
 distinguish by the name of " Nobility," was a strong- 
 featured, scurvy -faced man, his complexion resembling in 
 colour a red hot poker beginning to cool. He appeared 
 miserably dependent on the Dane ; but was however in- 
 comparably the best informed and most rational of the 
 Party. Indeed his manners and conversation discovered 
 him to be both a Man of the Avorld and a Gentleman. 
 The Jew was in the Hold ; the French Gentleman was 
 lying on the Deck so ill, that I could observe nothing con- 
 cerning him except the affectionate attentions of his Ser- 
 vant to him. The poor Fellow was very sick himself, 
 and every now and then ran to the side of the Vessel, still 
 keeping his eye on his Master, but returned in a moment, 
 and seated himself again by him, now supporting his head, 
 now wiping his forehead and talking to him all the while 
 in the most soothing Tones. There had been a matrimo- 
 nial squable of a very ludicrous kind in the Cabin between 
 the little German Tailor and his little Wife. He had se- 
 cured two beds, one for himself, and one for her. This 
 had struck the little Woman as a very cruel action ; she 
 insisted upon their having but one, and assured the Mate 
 in the most piteous tones, that she was his lawful Wife. 
 The Mate and the Cabin Boy decided in her favour, abu- 
 sed the little Man for his want of tenderness with much hu- 
 mour, and finally hoisted him into the same bed with his 
 sea-sick Wife. This quarrel was interesting to me, as it 
 procured me a bed, which I otherwise should not have 
 had. 
 
 In the Evening at 7o'Clock the Sea rolled higher, and 
 the Dane by means of the greater agitation eliminated 
 enough of what he had been swallowing to make room for 
 a great deal more. His favourite potation was sugar and 
 Brandy, i. e. a very little warm water with a large quan- 
 tity of Brandy, Sugar, and Nutmeg. His servant boy, a 
 black-eyed Alulatto, had a good-natured round face, exact- 
 ly the colour of the skin of the kernel of the Walnut. 
 The Dane and I were again seated, tete a tete in the Ship's 
 Boat. The conversation, which was now indeed rather an 
 oration, than a dialogue, became extravagant beyond all 
 that 1 ever heard. He told me that he had made a large 
 fortune in the Island of Santa Cruz, and was now return- 
 ing to Denmark to enjoy it. He expatiated on the Style 
 in which he meant to live, and the great undertakings, 
 
THE FRIEND. 219 
 
 which he proposed to himself to commence, till the Bran- 
 dy aiding his Vanity, and his Vanity and Garrulity aiding 
 the Brandy, he talked like a madman — entreated me to ac- 
 company him to Denmark — there I should see his influ- 
 ence with the Government, and he would introduce me 
 to the King, &c. &c. Thus he went on dreaming a- 
 loud, and then passing with a very lyrical transition to the 
 subject of general Politics he declaimed, like a member of 
 the Corresponding Society, about (not concerning) the 
 Rights of Man, and assured me that notwithstanding his 
 Fortune he thought the poorest man alive his Equal " All 
 are equal, my dear Friend ! all are equal ! Ve are all Got's 
 Children. The poorest man haf the same Rights with me. 
 Jack ! Jack ! some more sugar and Brandy. Dhere is 
 dhat Fellow now! He is a Mulatto — but he is my equal. 
 — That's right, Jack ! (taking the Sugar and Brand// ) Here 
 you Sir! shake hands with dhis Gentleman ! Shake hands 
 with me, you dog! Dhere, dhere ! — We are all equal my 
 
 dear Friend ! Do 1 not speak like Socrates, and Plato, 
 
 and Cato — they were all Philosophers, my dear Philoso- 
 phe! all very great men ! — and so was Homer and Virgil 
 — but they were Poets, yes, yes! I know all about it! — 
 But what can any body say more than this ? we are all 
 equal, all Got's Children. 1 haf ten tousand a year, but I 
 am no more than the meanest man alive. 1 haf no pride ; 
 and yet, my dear Friend ! I can say, Do ! and it is done. 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! my dear Friend ! Now dhere is dhat Gen- 
 tleman (pointing to " Nobility") he is a Swedish Baron — 
 you shall see. Ho ! (calling to the Swede) get me, will 
 you, a bottle of Wine from the Cabin. Swede. Here, 
 Jack ! go and get your Master a bottle of Wine from the 
 Cabin. Dane. No, no, no ! do i/ou go now — you go your- 
 self —you go now ! Swede. Pah ! — Dane. Now go ! Go, I 
 pray you. And the Swede went !! 
 
 After this the Dane commenced an harangue on Reli- 
 gion, and mistaking me for " un Philosophe" in the con- 
 tinental sense of the word, he talked of Deity in a decla- 
 matory style very much resembling the devotional Rants 
 of that rude Blunderer, Mr. Thomas Paine, in his Age of 
 Reason, and whispered in my ear, what damned Hypocrism 
 all Jesus Christ's Business was. I dare aver, that few men 
 have less reason to charge themselves with indulging in 
 Persiflage than myself. 1 should hate it if it were only 
 that it is a Frenchman's vice, and feel a pride in avoiding it 
 because our own language is too honest to have a word to 
 express it by. But in this instance the temptation had 
 
220 THE FRIEND. 
 
 been too powerful, and I have placed it on the list of my 
 offences. Pericles answered one of his dearest Friends 
 who had solicited him on a case of life and death, to take 
 an equivocal oath for his preservation : Debeo amicis opt- 
 tulari, sed usque ad Deos.* Friendship herself must place 
 her last and boldest step on this side the altar. What Pe- 
 ricles would not do to save a Friend's life, you may be 
 assured 1 would not hazard merely to mill the chocolate- 
 pot of a drunken Fool's vanity till it frothed over. Assum- 
 ing a serious Look, I professed myself a Believer, and sunk 
 at once an hundred fathoms in his good graces. He retir- 
 ed to his Cabin, and I wrapped myself up in my great 
 Coat, and looked at the Water. A beautiful white cloud 
 of Foam at momently intervals coursed by the side of the 
 Vessel with a roar, and little Stars of Flame danced and 
 sparkled and went out in it : and every now and then light 
 detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from 
 the Vessel's side, each with its' own small constellation, 
 over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar Troop 
 over a Wilderness. 
 
 It was cold, the Cabin was at open War with my Olfac- 
 tories, and I found reason to rejoice in my great Coat, a 
 weighty high-caped, respectable Rug, the Collar of which 
 turned over, and played the part of a Night-cap very pas- 
 sably. In looking up at two or three bright stars, which 
 oscillated with the motion of the sails, I fell asleep, but 
 was awakened at one o'clock, monday morning, by a show- 
 er of Rain. I found myself compelled to go down into 
 the Cabin, where I slept very soundly, and awoke with a 
 very good Appetite at Breakfast Time, my nostrils, the 
 most placable of all the senses, reconciled to or indeed in- 
 sensible of the Mephitis. 
 
 Monday September 17th, I had a long Conversation 
 with the Swede, who spoke with the most poignant con- 
 tempt of the Dane, whom he described as a Fool, purse- 
 mad ; but he confirmed the boasts of the Dane respecting 
 the largeness of his Fortune, which he had acquired in the 
 first instance as an Advocate, and afterwards as a Planter. 
 From the Dane and from himself 1 collected that he was 
 indeed a Swedish Nobleman, who had squandered a For- 
 tune, that was never very large, and had made over his 
 Property to the Dane, on whom he was now utterly de- 
 pendent. He seemed to suffer very little pain from the 
 
 '"Translation. It behores me to side with my Friends but onlj as far as 
 the Gods. 
 
THE FRIEND. 221 
 
 Cane's insolence. He was in high degree humane and 
 attentive to the English Lady, who suffered most fearfully, 
 and for whom he performed many little offices with a ten- 
 derness and delicacy which seemed to prove real goodness 
 of Heart. Indeed, his general manners and conversation 
 were not only pleasing, but even interesting ; and I strug- 
 gled to believe his insensibility respecting the Dane philo- 
 sophical Fortitude. For though the Dane was now quite 
 sober, his character oozed out of him at every pore. And 
 after Dinner, when he was again flushed with wine, every 
 quarter of an hour or perhaps oftener he would shout out 
 to the Swede, " Ho ! Nobility, go — do such a thing ! Mr. 
 Nobility ! — tell the Gentlemen such a Story, and so forth," 
 with an insolence which must have excited disgust and 
 detestation, if his vulgar rants on the sacred rights of equa- 
 lity, joined to his wild havoc of general Grammar no less 
 than of the English Language, had not rendered it so ir- 
 resistibly laughable. 
 
 At four o'clock I observed a Wild Duck swimming on 
 the waves, a single solitary wild duck. It is not easy to 
 conceive, how interesting a Thing it looked in that round 
 objectless Desert of Waters. I had associated such a feel- 
 ing of immensity with the Ocean, that I felt exceedingly 
 disappointed, when I was out of sight of all land, at the 
 narrowness and nearness, as it were, of the circle of the 
 Horizon. So little are images capable of satisfying the 
 obscure feelings connected with words. In the evening 
 the Sails were lowered, lest we should run foul of the 
 Land, which can be seen only at a small distance. And 
 at f©ur o'clock, on Tuesday morning, I was awakened by 
 the cry of Land ! Land ! It was an ugly Island Rock at 
 a distance on our left, called Heiligeland, well known to 
 many Passengers from Yarmouth to Hamburg, who have 
 been obliged by stormy weather to pass weeks and weeks 
 in weary captivity on it, stripped of all their money by the 
 exhorbitant demands of the Wretches who inhabit it. So 
 at least the Sailors informed me. — About nine o'clock we 
 saw the main land, which seemed scarcely able to hold 
 its head above water, low, flat, and dreary, with light- 
 houses and land-marks which seemed to give a character 
 and language to the Dreariness. We entered the mouth 
 of the Elbe, passing Neu-werk ; though as yet the right 
 bank only of the River was visible to us. On this I saw a 
 Church, and thanked God for my safe Voyage, not with- 
 out affectionate thoughts of those I had left in England. 
 At eleven o'clock on the same morning we arrived at 
 
222 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Cuxhaven, the Ship dropped anchor, and the Boat wag 
 hoisted out, to carry the Hanoverian and a few others on 
 shore. The Captain agreed to take us, who remained, to 
 Hamburg for ten guineas, to which the Dane contributed 
 so largely, that the other Passengers paid but half a 
 guinea each. Accordingly we hauled anchor, and passed 
 gently up the River. At Cuxhaven both sides of the 
 River may be seen in clear weather; we could how see 
 the right bank only We passed a multitude of English 
 Traders that had been waiting many weeks for a wind. In a 
 short time both banks became visible, both flat and eviden- 
 cing the labour of human hands by their extreme neatness. 
 On the left Bank I saw a Church or two in the distance ; 
 on the right bank we passed by Steeple and Windmill and 
 Cottage, and Windmill and single House, Windmill and 
 Windmill, and neat single House, and Steeple. These 
 were the objects and in the succession. The shores were 
 very green and planted with Trees not inelegantly. Thir- 
 ty five miles from Cuxhaven, the night came on us and as 
 the Navigation of the Elbe is perilous, we dropped anchor. 
 Over what place, thought I, does the Moon hang to 
 your eye, my dearest Friend ? To me it hung over the 
 left bank of the Elbe. Close above the Moon was a huge 
 Volume of deep black Cloud, while a very thin fillet 
 crossed the middle of the orb, as narrow and thin and 
 black as a ribbon of crape. The long trembling road of 
 moonlight, which lay on the Water and reached to the 
 stern of our Vessel, glimmered dimly and obscurely. We ■ 
 saw two or three lights from the right bank, probably from 
 Bedrooms. I felt the striking contrast between the silence 
 of this majestic Stream, whose banks are populous with 
 men and women and children, and flocks and herds — 
 between the silence by night of this peopled River, and 
 the ceaseless noise, and uproar, and loud agitations of the 
 desolate Solitude of the Ocean. The Passengers belov 
 had all retired to their Beds ; and I felt the interest of 
 this quiet scene the more deeply from the circumstance of 
 having just quitted them. For the Prussian had during 
 the whole of the evening displayed all his Talents to cap- 
 tivate the Dane, who had admitted him into the train of 
 his Dependents. The young Englishman continued to 
 interpret the Prussian's Jokes to me. They were all with- 
 out exception profane and abominable, but some suffi- 
 ciently witty, and a few incidents, which he related in 
 his own person, were valuable as illustrating the manners 
 of the Countries in which they had taken place. 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 223 
 
 Five o'clock on Wednesday morning we hauled the 
 Anchor, but were soon obliged to drop it again in conse- 
 quence of a thick fog, which our Captain feared would 
 continue the whole day ; but about nine it cleared off 
 and we sailed slowly along, close by the shore of a very 
 beautiful Island forty miles from Cuxhaven, the wind 
 continuing slack. This Holme or Island is about a mile 
 and a half in length, wedge-shaped, well wooded, with 
 glades of the liveliest green, and rendered more interest- 
 ing by the remarkably neat farm house on it. It seemed 
 made for retirement without solitude — a place that would 
 allure one's Friends while it precluded the impertinent 
 calls of mere Visitors. The shores of the Elbe now be- 
 came more beautiful, with rich meadows and trees running 
 like a low wall along the River's edge ; and peering over 
 them, neat houses and (especially on the right bank) a 
 profusion of steeple-spires, whire. black, or red. An in- 
 stinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat 
 countries with spire-steeples, which as they cannot be re- 
 ferred to any other object, point as with silent finger to 
 the sky and stars, and sometimes when they reflect the 
 brazen light of a rich though rainy sun-set, appear like a 
 pyramid of flame burning heaven-ward. I remember once, 
 and once only, to have seen a spire in a narrow valley of 
 a mountainous country. The effect was not only mean 
 but ludicrous, and reminded me against my will of an 
 extinguisher ; the close neighbourhood of the high moun- 
 tain, at the foot of which it stood, had so completely 
 dwarfed it, and deprived it of all connection with the sky 
 or clouds. Forty six English miles from Cuxhaven, and 
 sixteen from Hamburg, the Danish Village Veder orna- 
 ments the left bank with its black steeple, and close by it 
 the wild and pastoral Hamlet of Schulau. Hitherto both 
 the right and left bank, green to the very brink and level 
 with the River, resembled the shores of a park canal. 
 The trees and houses were alike low, sometimes the low 
 trees overtopping the yet lower houses, sometimes the 
 low houses rising above the yet lower trees. But at 
 Schulau the left bank rises at once forty or fifty feet, and 
 stares on the River with its perpendicular fassade of sand, 
 thinly patched with tufts of green. The Elbe continued to 
 present a more and more lively spectacle from the multi- 
 tude of fishing boats and the flocks of sea gulls wheeling 
 round them, the clamorous rivals and companions of the 
 Fishermen ; till we came to Blankaness, a most interest- 
 ing Village scattered amid scattered trees, over three hill." 
 
224 THE FRIEND. 
 
 in three divisions. Each of the three hills stares upon the 
 River, with faces of bare sand, with which the Boats with 
 their bare poles, standing in files along the banks, made a 
 sort of fantastic harmony. Between each fassade lies a 
 green and woody dell, each deeper than the other. In 
 short it is a large Village made up of individual Cottages, 
 each Cottage in the centre of its own little Wood or 
 Orchard, and each with its own separate path : a Village 
 with a labyrinth of paths, or rather a neighbourhood of 
 Houses ! It is inhabited by Fishermen and Boat-makers, 
 the Blankanese Boats being in great request through the 
 whole navigation of the Elbe. Here first we saw the 
 Spires of Hamburg, and from hence as far as Altona the 
 left bank of the Elbe is uncommonly pleasing, considered 
 as the vicinity of an industrious and republican City — in 
 that style of beauty, or rather prettiness, that might tempt 
 the Citizen into the Country and yet gratify the taste 
 which he had acquired in the Town. Summer Houses 
 and Chinese show-work are every where scattered along 
 the high and green banks ; the boards of the farm-houses 
 left unplaistered and gaily painted with green and yellow; 
 and scarcely a tree not cut into shapes and made to re- 
 mind the human being of his own power and intelligence 
 instead of the wisdom of nature. Still, however, these 
 are links of connection between Town and Country, and 
 far better than the affectation of tastes and enjoyments 
 for which mens' habits have disqualified them. Pass them 
 by on Saturdays and Sundays with the Burgers of Ham- 
 burg smoking their Pipes, the Women and Children feast- 
 ing in the Alcoves of Box and Yew, and it becomes a 
 a nature of its own. On Wednesday, four o'clock, we 
 left the Vessel and passing with trouble through the huge 
 masses of Shipping that seemed to choke the wide Elbe 
 from Altona upward, we were at length landed at the 
 Boom House, Hamburg. 
 
 PENRITH: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BT 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW; AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 

 THE FRIEID. 
 
 No. lo. THURSDAY, November 30, 1809- 
 
 I have not intentionally either hidden or disguised the Truth* 
 like an Advocate ashamed of his Client, or a bribed Accomptant 
 who falsifies the quotient to make the Bankrupt's Ledgers square 
 with the Creditor's Inventory. My conscience forbids the use of 
 falsehood and the arts of concealment : and were it otherwise, yet 
 I am persuaded, that a system which has produced and protected so 
 great prosperity, cannot stand in need of them. If therefore 
 Honesty and the Knowledge of the whole Truth be the things you 
 aim at, you will find my principles suited to your ends : and as I 
 like not the democratic forms, so am I not fond of any others above 
 the rest. That a succession of wise and godly men may be secured 
 to the nation in the highest power, is that to which I have directed 
 your attention in this Essay, which if you will read, perhaps you 
 may see the error of those principles which have led you into 
 errors of practice. I wrote it purposely for the use of the multi- 
 tude of well-meaning people, that are tempted in these times to 
 usurp Authority and meddle with Government before they have 
 any call from Duty or tolerable understanding of its' Principles. I 
 never intended it for Learned Men versed in Politics ; but for such 
 as will be Practitioners before they have been Students. 
 
 Baxter's Holy Commonwealth} or Political aphorisms. 
 
 1 he metaphysical (or as I have proposed to call them, 
 metapolitical) reasonings hitherto discussed, belong to 
 Government in the abstract. But there is a second class 
 of Reasoners, who argue for a change in our government 
 from former usage and from Statutes still in force or which 
 have been repealed, (so these writers affirm) either through 
 a corrupt influence, or to ward off temporary hazard or in- 
 convenience. This Class, which is rendered illustrious 
 by the names of many intelligent and virtuous Patriots, 
 are Advocates for reform in the literal sense of the word. 
 They wish to bring back the Government of Great Britain 
 to a certain form, which they affirm it to have once pos- 
 sessed : and would melt the bullion anew in order to re- 
 cast it in the original mould. 
 
 The answer to all arguments of this nature is obvious, 
 and to my understanding appears decisive. These Reform- 
 ers assume the character of Legislators or of Advisers of 
 
226 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the Legislature, not that of Law Judges or of appellants 
 to Courts of Law. Sundry Statutes concerning the rights 
 of electors and the mode of election still exist ; so like- 
 wise do sundry statutes on other subjects (on Witchcraft 
 for instance) which change of circumstances have rendered 
 obsolete, or increased information shewn to be absurd. 
 It is evident, therefore, that the expediency of the regu- 
 lations prescribed by them and their suitableness to the 
 existing circumstances of the Kingdom, must first be 
 proved : and on this proof must be rested all rational 
 claims for the enforcement of the Statutes that have not, 
 no less than for the re-enacting of those that have been, 
 repealed. If the authority of the men, who first enacted 
 the Laws in question, is to weigh with us, it must be on 
 the presumption that they were wise men. But the wis- 
 dom of Legislation consists in the adaptation of Laws to 
 Circumstances. If then it can be proved, that the cir- 
 cumstances, under which those laws were enacted, no 
 longer exist ; and that other circumstances altogether dif- 
 ferent, and in some instances opposite, have taken their 
 place ; we have the best grounds for supposing, that if 
 the men were now alive, they would not pass the same 
 Statutes. In other words, the spirit of the Statute inter- 
 preted by the intention of the Legislator would annul the 
 Letter of it. It is not indeed impossible, that by a rare 
 felicity of accident, the same law may apply to two sets of 
 circumstances. But surely the presumption is, that regu 
 lations well adapted for the manners, the social distinc 
 tions, and the state of property, of opinion, and of exter 
 nal relations, of England in the reign of Alfred, or even in 
 that of Edward the first, will not be well suited to Great 
 Britain at the close of the reign of George the third. For 
 instance : at the time when the greater part of the Cot- 
 tagers and inferior Farmers were in a state of Villenage, 
 when Sussex alone contained seven thousand and the Isle 
 of Wight twelve hundred Families of Bondsmen, it was* 
 the Law of the Land that every Freeman should vote in 
 the Assembly of the Nation personally or by his represen- 
 tative. An act of Parliament in the year 1660 confirmed: 
 what a concurrence of causes had previously effected :— M 
 every Englishman is now horn free, the Laws of the Land 
 are the Birth-right of every Native, and with the excep- 
 tion of a few honorary privileges all Classes obey the 
 same Laws. Now, argues one of our political Writers', j 
 
 : 
 
THE FRIEND. 227 
 
 it being made the Constitution of the Land by our Saxon 
 Ancestors, that every Freeman should have a vote, and 
 all Englishmen being now born free, therefore, by the 
 Constitution of the Land, every Englishman has now a 
 right to a vote How shall we reply to this without 
 breach of that Respect, to which the Reasoner at least, if 
 not the Reasoning, is entitled ? If it be the definition of 
 a Pun, that it is the confusion of two different meanings 
 under the same or some similar sound, we might almost 
 characterize this argument as being grounded on a grave 
 Pun. Our Ancestors established the right of voting in a 
 particular Class of men forming at that time the middle 
 rank of Society, and known to be all of them, or almost 
 all, legal Proprietors — and these were then called the Free- 
 men of England : therefore they established it in the 
 lowest Classes of Society, in those who possess no Proper- 
 ty, because these too are now called by the same name ! \ 
 This is the same kind of Logic as that on the strength of 
 which a Mameluke Bey extorted a large contribution 
 from the Egyptian Jews : " it is my duty," said he, " to 
 make men pay their just debts. The Jews borrowed a 
 large Treasure from the Egyptians, which has not been 
 repaid. But you are the Jezvs, and on you, therefore, I 
 call for the repayment." Besides, if a law is to be in- 
 terpreted by the known intention of its' makers, the 
 Parliament in 1660, which declared all natives of England 
 freemen, but neither altered nor meant thereby to alter 
 the limitations of the right of election, did to all intents 
 and purposes except that right from the common privi- 
 leges of Englishmen, as Englishmen. 
 
 A moment's reflection may convince us, that every 
 single Statute is made under the knowledge of all the 
 other Laws, with which it is meant to co-exist, and by 
 which its' action is to be modified and determined. In 
 the legislative as in the religious Code, the text must 
 not be taken without the context. Now, I think, we may 
 safely leave it to the Reformers themselves to make choice 
 between the civil and political privileges of Englishmen at 
 present, considered as one Sum Total, and those of our 
 Ancestors in any former period of our History, considered 
 as another, on the old principle, take one and leave the 
 other ; but whichever you take, take it all or none. Laws 
 seldom become obsolete as long as they are both useful 
 and practicable ; but should there be an exception, there 
 
228 THE FRIEND. 
 
 is no other way of reviving its' validity but by convincing 
 the existing Legislature of its' undiminished practicability 
 and expedience : which in all essential points is the same 
 as the recommending of a new Law. And this leads me 
 to the third Class of the Advocates of Reform, those, 
 namely, who leaving ancient statutes to Lawyers and 
 Historians, and universal Principles with the demonstrable 
 deductions from them to the Schools of Logic, Mathe- 
 matics, Theology, and Ethics, rest all their measures, 
 which they wish to see adopted, wholly on their Expe- 
 diency. Consequently, they must hold themselves pre- 
 pared to giye such proof, as the nature of comparative 
 expediency admits, and to bring forward such evidence, 
 as experience and the logic of probability can supply, that 
 the plans which they recommend for adoption, are : first, 
 practicable ; secondly, suited to the existing circum- 
 stances ; and lastly, necessary or at least requisite, and 
 such as will enable the Government to accomplish more 
 perfectly the ends for which it was instituted. These 
 are the three indispensible Conditions of all prudent 
 change, the Credentials, with which Wisdom never fails 
 to furnish her public Envoys. Whoever brings forward a 
 measure that combines this threefold excellence, whether 
 in the Cabinet, the Senate, or by means of the Press, 
 merits emphatically the title of a patriotic Statesman. 
 Neither are they without a fair claim to respectful atten- 
 tion, as State-Counsellors, who fully aware of these con- 
 ditions, and with a due sense of the difficulty of fulfill- 
 ing them, employ their time and talents in making the 
 attempt. An imperfect Plan is not necessarily a useless 
 plan : and in a complex Enigma the greatest Ingenuity is 
 not always shewn by him who first gives the compleat so- 
 lution. The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant, when he 
 has the Giant's shoulders to mount on. — It is, however, 
 to Statesmen and State-Counsellors of this third Class, 
 whom I would distinguish from the two former, i. e. from 
 the Metapoliticians and from the Antiquarians, by 
 the name of Practicians, that I shall henceforward 
 address myself, not as an Opponent, but as a Learner and 
 Fellow-student : whenever I shall think it likely to gratify 
 my readers that I should renew the Subject of Politics, 
 by an examination of our Constitution, and of the ex- 
 pediency of a Change. 
 
 Thus, as perspicuously as I could, I have exposed the 
 
THE FRIEND. 229 
 
 erroneous Principles of political Philosophy, and pointed 
 out the one only ground, on which the constitution of 
 Governments can be either condemned or justified by 
 wise men. By this sole test of general expedience, as 
 determined by existing circumstances, I had intended to 
 try both the present Government and the different plans 
 which had been proposed for its' improvement, in detail ; 
 but as I find that after all possible compression, my Essay 
 on this subject could not be comprized in less than two 
 Numbers, and it being no part of my original plan, I shall 
 inweave the jet of this most important question in the 
 miscellaneous Conversations of the Tourists (See No. 14). 
 So not wholly dropping it, I may yet proceed without 
 delay to other Subjects, which I conceive more generally 
 interesting, and which are incomparably more agreeable to 
 myself; namely, the Principles on which we can alone 
 deserve or procure happiness as individuals, and the rules 
 of right judgement concerning the Works of Nature and 
 the Productions of human Genius. To pourtray the ideal 
 of a Moral Being, to prove the close connection between 
 moral worth and intellectual excellence both in the pro- 
 duction and appreciation of the works of genius, and to 
 apply this truth in detail to literature and the fine arts, 
 was, and has always remained, my strongest motive for 
 the present undertaking. I would not, however, willingly 
 conclude this Essay, without something from which my 
 Readers individually may draw a practical advantage. If 
 I interpret aright the signs of the times, that branch of 
 politics which relates to the necessity and practicability of 
 infusing new life into our Legislature, as the best means 
 of securing talent and wisdom in the Cabinet, will shortly 
 occupy the public attention with a paramount interest. 
 I would gladly therefore suggest the proper state of feel- 
 ing and the right preparatory notions with which this dis- 
 quisition should be entered upon : and I do not know how 
 1 can effect this more naturally, than by relating the facts 
 and circumstances which influenced my own mind. I 
 can scarcely be accused of egotism as in the communica- 
 tions and conversations which I am about to mention as 
 having occurred to me during my residence abroad, I am 
 no otherwise the hero of the Tale, than as being the pas- 
 sive receiver or auditor. But above all, let it not be for- 
 gotten, that in the following paragraphs I speak as a Chris- 
 tian Moralist, not as a Statesman. 
 
230 THE FRIEND. 
 
 To examine any thing wisely, two conditions are re- 
 quisite : first, a distinct notion of the desirable ends, in 
 the complete accomplishment of which would consist the 
 perfection of such a thing, or its' ideal excellence ; and, 
 secondly, a calm and kindly mood of feeling, without 
 which we shall hardly fail either to overlook, or not to 
 make due allowances for, the circumstances which prevent 
 these ends from being all perfectly realized in the particu- 
 lar thing, which we are to examine. For instance, we 
 must have a general notion what a Man can be and ought 
 to be, before we can even proceed to determine on the 
 merits or demerits of any one Individual. For the exami- 
 nation of our own Government, I prepared my mind, 
 therefore, by the following short Catechism, on which I 
 flatter myself the remaining Contents of this Number will 
 be found an amusing, if not an instructive commentary. 
 
 In what do all States agree ? A number of men — 
 exert — powers — in union. Wherein do they differ ? 1st. 
 In the quality and quantity of the powers. One State pos- 
 sesses Chemists, Mechanists, Mechanics of all kinds, Men 
 of Science ; and the Arts of zear and peace ; and its' Citi- 
 zens naturally strong and of habitual courage : another State 
 may possess none or a few only of these, or the same more 
 imperfectly. Or of two States possessing the same in equal 
 perfection the one is more numerous than the other, as France 
 and Switzerland. 2d. In the more or less perfect union of 
 these powers. Compare Mr. Leckie's valuable and authen- 
 tic documents respecting the state of Sicily with No. 12, page 
 181, 182, o/'the Friend. 3dly. In the greater or less 
 activity of exertion. Think of the ecclesiastical State and 
 its' silent Metropolis and then of the County of Lancaster 
 and the Towns of Manchester and Liverpool. What is the 
 Condition of powers exerted in union by a number of men ? 
 A Government. What are the ends of Government ? 
 They are of two kinds, negative and positive. The nega- 
 tive ends of Government are the protection of Life, of 
 personal Freedom, of Property, of Reputation, and of Re- 
 ligion, from foreign and from domestic attacks. The posi- 
 tive ends are, 1st. to make the means of subsistence more 
 easy to each individual : 2d. that in addition to the neces- 
 saries of life he should derive from the union and division 
 of labour a share of the comforts and conveniencies, which 
 humanize and ennoble his nature ; and at the same time 
 the power of perfecting himself in his own branch of in e 
 
THE FRIEND, 231 
 
 dustry by having those things which he needs, provided 
 for him by others among his fellow-citizens ; including 
 the tools and raw or manufactured materials, necessary 
 for his own Employment. / knew a profound Mathema- 
 tician In Sicily, who had devoted a full third of his life to 
 the perfecting the discovery of the Longitude, and who had 
 convinced not only himself but the principal Mathematicians 
 of Messina and Palermo that he had succeeded ; but neither 
 throughout Sicily or Naples could he find a single Artist 
 capable of constructing the instrument which he had invent- 
 ed.* 3dly. The hope of bettering his own condition and 
 that of his children. The civilized man gives up those stimu- 
 lants of hope and fear which constitute the chief charm of 
 the savage life : and yet his Maker has distinguished him 
 from the Brute that perishes, by making Hope an instinct of 
 his nature and an Indespenslble condition of his moral and 
 intellectual progression. But a natural Instinct constitutes a 
 natural right, as far as its' gratification is compatible with 
 the equal rights of others. Hence our Ancestors classed 
 those who were bound to the soil (addlctl glebcej and in- 
 capable by law of altering their condition from that of their 
 parents, as Bondsmen or Villains, however advantageously 
 they might otherwise be situated. Reflect on the direful 
 effects of Casts in Hmdostan, and then transfer yourself in 
 fancy to an English Cottage, 
 
 " Where o'er the cradled Infant bending 
 Hope has fixed her wishful gaze," 
 
 and the fond Mother dreams of her Child's future fortunes 
 — who knows but he may come home a rich Merchant, like 
 such a one ? or be a Bishop or a Judge? The prizes are 
 indeed few and rare; but still they are possible: and the 
 Hope is universal; and perhaps occasions more happiness 
 than even its' fulfillment, (and lastly) the developement 
 
 * The good old Man, who is poor, old, and blind, universally esteemed foi 
 the innocence and austerity of his life not less than for his learning, and yet 
 universally neglected except by persons almost as poor as himself, strongly 
 remindedme of a German Epigram on Kepler, which may bs thus translated: 
 No mortal spirit yet had clomb so high 
 As Kepler — yet his Country saw him die 
 For very Want ! the Minds alone he fed, 
 And so the Bodies left him without bread. 
 The good old Man presented me with the book in which he has described 
 and demonstrated his invention: and I should with great pleasure transmit it 
 to any mathematician who would feel an interest in examining it and com- 
 rounicatini; his opinions ob its merits. 
 
232 THE FRIEND. 
 
 of those faculties which are essential to his human nature 
 by the knowledge of his moral and religious duties, and 
 the increase of his intellectual powers in as great a degree 
 as is compatible with the other ends of social union, and 
 does not involve a contradiction. The poorest Briton 
 possesses much and important knowledge, which he would not 
 have had, if Newton, Luther, Calvin, and their Compeers, 
 had not existed ; but it is evident that the means of Science 
 and Learning could not exist, if all men had a right to he 
 made profound Mathematicians or men of extensive Erudi- 
 tion. Still instruction is one of the ends of Government : for 
 it is that only which makes the abandonment of the savage 
 state an absolute duty : and that Constitution is the best, 
 under which the average sum of useful knowledge is the 
 greatest, and the causes that awaken and encourage talent 
 and genius, the most powerful and various. 
 
 These were my preparatory notions. The influences 
 under which I proceeded to re-examine our own Consti- 
 tution, were the following, which I give, not exactly as 
 they occurred, but in the order in which they will be 
 illustrative of the different articles of the preceding para- 
 graph. That we are better and happier than others is 
 indeed no reason for our not becoming still better ; espe- 
 cially as with States, as well as Individuals, not to be 
 progressive is to be retrograde. Yet the comparison will 
 usefully temper the desire of improvement with love and 
 a sense of gratitude for what we already are. 
 
 I. A Letter received, at Malta, from an American Officer 
 of high Rank, who has since received the thanks and 
 rewards of the Congress for his Services in the Medi- 
 terranean. 
 Sir, Grand Cairo, Dec. 13, 1804. 
 
 The same reason, which induced me to re- 
 quest Letters of iptroduction to his Britannic Majesty's 
 Agents here, suggested the propriety of shewing an 
 English jack at the main top-gallant mast head, on enter- 
 ing the port of Alexandria on the 26th ult. The signal 
 
 was recognised ; and Mr. B- was immediately on 
 
 board. 
 
 We found in port a Turkish Vice Admiral with a ship 
 
THE FRIEND. 233 
 
 of the line and six frigates ; a part of which squadron is 
 stationed there to preserve the tranquillity of the Country; 
 with just as much influence as the same number of Peli- 
 cans would have on the same Station. 
 
 On entering and passing the streets of Alexandria I 
 could not but notice the very marked satisfaction, which 
 every expression and every countenance of all denomina* 
 tions of people, Turks and Frenchmen only excepted, 
 manifested under an impression that we were the Avant- 
 courier of an English Army. They had conceived this 
 from observing the English Jack at our main, taking our 
 flag perhaps for that of a saint, and because as is common 
 enough every where, they were ready to believe what they 
 wished. It would have been cruel to have undeceived 
 them: consequently without positively assuming it, we 
 passed in the character of Englishmen among the middle 
 and lower orders of society, and as their Allies among 
 those of better information. Wherever we entered or 
 wherever halted, we were surrounded by the wretched 
 Inhabitants ; and stunned with their benedictions and 
 prayers for blessings on us. " Will the English come ? 
 Are they coming ? God grant the English may come ! 
 we have no commerce — we have no money — we have no 
 bread! When will the English arrive?" My answer 
 was uniformly, Patience! The same tone was heard at 
 Rosetta as among the Alexandrians, indicative of the same 
 dispositions ; only it was not so loud, because the Inha- 
 bitants are less miserable, although without any traits of 
 Happiness. On the fourth we left that Village for Cairo, 
 and for our security as well as to facilitate our procurement 
 of accommodations during our voyage, as well as our stay 
 
 there, the Resident directed his Secretary, Capt.V. , 
 
 to accompany us, and to give us lodgings in his house. 
 We ascended the Nile leisurely, and calling at several 
 Villages, it was plainly perceivable that the rational par- 
 tiality, the strong and open expression of which proclaim- 
 ed so loudly the feelings of the Egyptians of the Sea Coast, 
 was general throughout the Country : and the prayers for 
 the return of the English as earnest as universal. 
 
 On the morning of the sixth we went on shore at the 
 village of Sabour. The Villagers expressed an enthusias- 
 tic gladness at seeing red and blue Uniforms and round 
 Hats (the French, I believe, wear three-cornered ones.) 
 Two days before before, five hundred Albanian Deserters 
 
234 THE FRIEND. 
 
 from the Viceroy's army had pillaged and left this Village ; 
 at which they had lived at free quarters about four weeks. 
 — The famishing Inhabitants were now distressed with ap- 
 prehensions from another quarter. A Company of wild 
 Arabs were encamped in sight. They dreaded their rava- 
 ges and apprized us of danger from them. We were eigh- 
 teen in the party, well armed ; and a pretty brisk fire which 
 we raised around the numerous flocks of Pigeons and other 
 small fowl in the Environs, must have deterred them from 
 mischief, if, as is most probable, they had meditated any 
 against us. Scarcely, however, were we on board and un- 
 der weigh, when we saw these mounted Marauders of the 
 Desart fall furiously upon the herds of Camels, Buffaloes, 
 and Cattle of the Village, and drove many of them off 
 wholly unannoyed on the part of the unresisting Inhabi- 
 tants, unless their shrieks could be deemed an annoyance. 
 They afterwards attacked and robbed several unarmed 
 boats, which were a few hours astern of us. The most in- 
 sensible must surely have been moved by the situation of 
 the Peasants of that Village. The while we were listening 
 to their complaints, they kissed our hands and with pros- 
 trations to the ground, rendered more affecting by the in- • 
 flamed state of the eyes almost universal amongst them, 
 and which the new Traveller might venially imagine to 
 have been the immediate effect of weeping and anguish, 
 they all implored English succour. Their shrieks at the 
 assault of the wild Arabs seemed to implore the same still 
 more forcibly, while it testified what multiplied reasons 
 they had to implore it. I confess, I felt an almost insur- 
 mountable impulse to bring our little party to their relief, 
 and might perhaps have done a rash act, had it not been 
 
 for the calm and just observation of Captain V 's that 
 
 "■ these were common occurrences, and that any relief, 
 which we could afford, would not merely be only tempo- 
 rary, but would exasperate the Plunderers to still more 
 atrocious outrages after our departure." 
 
 On the morning of the seventh we landed near a Vil- 
 lage. At our approach the Villagers fled : signals of Friend- 
 ship brought some of them to us. When they were told, 
 that we were Englishmen, they flocked around us with 
 demonstrations of joy, offered their services, and raised 
 loud ejaculations for our establishment in the Country. 
 Here we could not procure a pint of milk for our coffee. 
 The Inhabitants had been plundered and chased from their 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 235 
 
 habitations by the Albanians and Desart Arabs, and it was 
 but the proceeding day, they had returned to their naked 
 Cottages. 
 
 Grand Cairo differs from the places already passed, 
 only as the presence of the Tyrant stamps silence on the 
 lips of misery with the seal of Terror. Wretchedness 
 here assumes the form of Melancholy ; but the few whis- 
 pers that are hazarded, convey the same feelings and the 
 same wishes. And wherein does this misery and conse- 
 quent Spirit of Revolution consist ? Not in any form of 
 Government but in a formless Despotism, an Anarchy 
 indeed ! for it amounts literally to an annihilation of every 
 thing that can merit the name of Government or justify 
 the use of the word even in the laxest sense. Egypt is 
 under the most frightful Despotism, yet has no Master 1 
 The Turkish Soldiery, restrained by no discipline, seize 
 every thing by violence, not only all that their necessities 
 dictate, but whatever their caprices suggest. The Mame- 
 lukes, who dispute with these the right of Domination, 
 procure themselves subsistence by means as lawless 
 though less insupportably oppressive. And the wild Arabs 
 availing themselves of the occasion, plunder the defence- 
 Jess wherever they find Plunder. To finish the whole, 
 the talons of the Viceroy fix on every thing which can be 
 changed into currency, in order to find the means of sup- 
 porting an ungoverned, disorganized Banditti of foreign 
 Troops, who receive the harvest of his oppression, desert 
 and betray him. Of all this rapine, robbery, and extor- 
 tion, the wretched Cultivators of the Soil are the per- 
 petual Victims. — A spirit of Revolution is the natural 
 consequence. 
 
 The reason the Inhabitants of this Country give for 
 preferring the English to the French, whether true or false, 
 is as natural as it is simple, and as influential as natural. 
 " The English," say they, " pay for every thing — the 
 French pay nothing, and take every thing." They do 
 not like this kind of Deliverers. ; 
 
 Well, thought I, after the perusal of this Letter, the 
 Slave Trade (which had not then been abolished) is a 
 dreadful crime, an English iniquity ! and to sanction its' 
 continuance under full conviction and parliamentary con- 
 fession of its' injustice and inhumanity is, if possible, still 
 blacker guilt. Would that our discontents were for a 
 
i 
 
 236 THE FRIEND. 
 
 while confined to our moral Wants ! whatever may be the 
 defects of our Constitution, we have at least an effective 
 Government, and that too composed of Men who were 
 born with us and are to die among us. We are at least 
 preserved from the incursions of foreign enemies; the 
 intercommunion of interests precludes a civil War, and 
 the Volunteer Spirit of the Nation equally with its laws, 
 give to the darkest lanes of our crowded Metropolis that 
 quiet and security which tlie remotest Villager at the 
 cataracts of the Nile prays for in vain, in his mud hovel! 
 
 Not t/et enslaved nor wholly vile, 
 
 O Albion, O my Mother Isle ! 
 
 Thy Vallies fair, as. Eden's bowers, 
 
 Glitter green with sunny showers ; 
 
 Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells 
 
 Echo to the bleat of flocks ; 
 
 (Those grassy hills; those glitt'ring dells 
 
 Proudly ramparted with rocks) 
 
 And Ocean mid his uproar wild 
 
 Speaks safety to his Island-child. 
 
 Hence for many a fearless age 
 
 Has social quiet lov'd thy shore; 
 
 Nor ever sworded Warrior's rage 
 
 Or sack'd thy towers or stain'd thy fields with gore. 
 
 Coleridge's Poems. 
 
 II. Anecdote of Buonaparte. 
 
 Buonaparte, during his short stay at Malta, called out 
 the Maltese Regiments raised by the Knights, amounting 
 to fifteen hundred of the stoutest young men of the 
 Islands. As they were drawn up on the parade, he inform- 
 ed them, in a bombastic harangue, that he had restored 
 them to Liberty ; but in proof that his attachment to 
 them was not bounded by this benefaction, he would now ; 
 give them an opportunity of adding Glory to Freedom — 
 and concluding by asking who of them would march for- 
 ward to be his Fellow-soldier on the banks of the Nile, 
 and contribute a flower of Maltese heroism to the immor- 
 tal wreaths of fame, with which he meant to crown the 
 Pyramids of Egypt ! Not a man stirred : all gave a 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 237 
 
 silent refusal. They were instantly surrounded by a 
 Regiment of French Soldiers, marched to the Marino, 
 forced on board the Transports, and threatened with death 
 if any one of them attempted his escape, or should be 
 discovered in any part of the Islands of Malta or Goza. 
 At Alexandria they were always put in the front, both to 
 save the French Soldiery and to prevent their running 
 away : and of the whole number fifty only survived to re- 
 visit their native Country. From one of these Survivors 
 I first learnt this fact, which was afterwards confirmed to 
 me by several of his remaining Comrades, as well as by 
 the most respectable Inhabitants of Vilette. 
 
 This anecdote recalled to my mind an accidental con- 
 versation with an old Countryman in a central district of 
 Germany. 1 purposely omit names because the day of 
 retribution has come and gone by. I was looking at a 
 strong Fortress in the distance, which formed a highly in- 
 teresting object in a rich and varied landscape, and asked 
 the old man, who had stopped to gaze at me, it's name &c. 
 adding — how beautiful it looks ! It may be well enough 
 to look at, answered he, but God keep all Christians from 
 being taken thither ! He then proceeded to gratify the 
 curiosity, which he had thus excited, by informing me 
 that the Baron < had been taken out of his bed at mid- 
 night and carried to that Fortress — that he was not heard 
 of for nearly two years, when a Soldier who had fled over 
 the boundaries sent information to his family of the place 
 and mode of his imprisonment. As I have no design to 
 work on the feelings of my Readers, I pass over the shock- 
 ing detail : had not the language and countenance of my 
 informant precluded such a suspicion, I might have sup- 
 posed that he had been repeating some tale of horror from 
 a Romance of the dark ages. What was his crime ? I asked 
 — The report is, said the old Man, that in his capacity as 
 
 Minister he had remonstrated with the concerning 
 
 the extravagance of his Mistress, an outlandish Countess ; 
 and that she in revenge persuaded the Sovereign, that it 
 was the Baron who had communicated to a Professor at 
 Gottingen the particulars of the infamous sale of some 
 thousand of his Subjects as Soldiers. On the same day I 
 discovered in the Landlord of a small Public House one of 
 the men who had been thus sold. He seemed highly de- 
 lighted in entertaining an English Gentleman, and in once 
 
338 TfiE FRIEND. 
 
 more talking English after a lapse of so many years. He 
 was far from regretting this incident in his life, but his ac- 
 count of the manner, in which they were forced away, ac- 
 corded in so many particulars with Schiller's empassioned 
 description of tlie same, or a similar scene, in his Tragedy 
 of Cabal and Love, as to leave a perfect conviction on 
 my mind, that the dramatic pathos of that description was 
 not greater than its' historic fidelity. 
 
 As I was thus reflecting, I glanced my eye on the lead- 
 ing paragraph of a London Newspaper, containing much 
 angry declamation, and some bitter truths, respecting our 
 military arrangements. It were in vain, thought I, to 
 deny that the influence of parliamentary interest, which 
 prevents the immense patronage of the Crown from be- 
 coming a despotic power, is not the most likely to secure 
 the ablest Commanders or the fittest persons for the man- 
 agement of our foreign empire. However, thank Hea- 
 ven ! if we fight, we fight for our own King and Country : 
 and grievances which may be publicly complained of, 
 there is some chance of seeing remedied. 
 
 III. A celebrated Professor in a German University, 
 shewed me a very pleasing Print entitled, " Toleration." 
 A Catholic Priest, a Lutheran Divine, a Calvinist Mini- 
 ster, a Quaker, a Jew, and a Philosopher, were represented 
 sitting round the same table over which a winged figure 
 hovered in the attitude of protection. For this harmless 
 Print, said my Friend, the Artist was imprisoned, and hav- 
 ing attempted to make his escape, was sentenced to draw 
 the Boats on the banks of the Danube with robbers and 
 murderers : and there died in less than two months, from 
 exhaustion and exposure. In your happy Country, Sir, 
 this print would be considered as a pleasing scene from 
 real life : for in every great Town throughout your empire 
 you may meet with the original. Yes, I replied, as far as 
 the negative ends of Government are concerned, we have 
 no reason to complain. Our Government protects us from 
 foreign enemies, and our Laws secure our lives, our per- 
 sonal freedom, our property, reputation, and religious 
 rights, from domestic attacks. Our Taxes, indeed, are en- 
 ormous—Oh ! talk not of Taxes, said my Friend, till you 
 have resided in a Country where the Boor disposes of his 
 produce to Strangers for a foreign mart, not to bring back 
 to his family the comforts and conveniences of foreign 
 
e 
 
 THE FRIEND. 239 
 
 manufactures, but to procure that coin which his Lord is 
 to squander away in a distant land. Neither can 1 with 
 Datience hear it said, that your Laws act only to the nega 
 •ive ends of government. They have a manifold positiv 
 influence, and their incorrupt administration gives a co- 
 lour to all your modes of thinking, and is one of the 
 ?hief causes of your superior morality in private as well as 
 public life.* 
 
 My limits compel me to strike out the different inci- 
 dents, which I had written as a Commentary on the three 
 former of the positive ends of Government. To the moral 
 feelings of my Readers they might have been serviceable ;_ 
 but for their understandings they are superfluous. It is 
 surely impossible to peruse them, and not admit that all 
 three are realized under our Government to a degree unex- 
 ampled in any other old and long peopled Country. The 
 defects of our Constitution (in which word I include the 
 Laws and Customs of the Land as well as it's scheme of 
 Legislative and Executive power) must exist, therefore, 
 in the fourth, namely, the production of the highest aver- 
 age of general information, of general moral and religious 
 principles, and the excitements and opportunities which 
 it affords, to paramount Genius and heroic power, in a 
 sufficient number of its' Citizens. These are points in 
 which it would be immorality to rest content with the 
 presumption, however well founded, that we are better 
 than others, if we are not what we ought to be ourselves, 
 and not using the means of improvement. The first ques- 
 tion then is, what is the fact ? The second : supposing 
 a defect or deficiency in one or all of these points, and 
 
 * " The administration of Jastice throughout the Continent is partial, ve- 
 ■ al, and infamous. I have, in conversation with many sensible men, met with 
 something of content with their governments in all other respects than this; 
 but upon the question of expecting justice to be really and fairly administered 
 every one confessed there was no such thing to be looked for. The conduct 
 of the Judges is profligate and atrocious. Upon almost every cause that 
 comes before them, interest is openly made with the Judges; and woe betide 
 the man who, with a cause to support had no means of conciliating favour 
 either by the beauty of a handsome Wife or by other methods." — This quo- 
 tation is confined in the original to France under the monarchy; I have ex- 
 tended the application, and adopted the words, as comprizing the result of my 
 own experience: and I take this opportunity of declaring, that the most im- 
 portant parts of Mr. Leckie's Statement concerning Sicily I myself know ta be 
 accurate, and am authorized by what I myself saw there, to rely on the v/hole 
 as a fair and unexaggerated representation. 
 
 
I 
 
 240 THE FRIEND. 
 
 that to a degree which may effect our power and pros- 
 perity if not our absolute safety, are the plans of Legisla- 
 tive Reform that have hitherto been proposed, fit or likely 
 to remove such defect, and supply such deficiency ? The 
 third and last question is — Should there appear reason to 
 deny or doubt this, are there then any other means, and 
 what are they ?— -Of these points hereafter and occasion- 
 ally. 
 
 A French Gentleman in the reign of Lewis the 1 4th 
 was comparing the French and English writers with all the 
 boastfulness of national prepossession. Sir ! (replied an 
 Englishman better versed in the principles of Freedom 
 that the canons of criticism) there are but two Subjects 
 worthy the human Intellect: Politics and Religion, 
 our State here and our State hereafter : and on neither of 
 these dare you write. Long may the envied Privilege 
 be preserved to my Countymen of writing and talking 
 concerning both ! Nevertheless, it behoves us all to con- 
 sider, that to write or talk concerning any subject without 
 having previously taken the pains to understand it, is a 
 breach of Duty which we owe to ourselves, though it 
 may be no offence against the Laws of the Land. The 
 privilege of talking and even publishing Nonsense is 
 necessary in a free state ; but the more sparingly we make 
 use of it, the better. 
 
 PENRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BHOWH; AND SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW; AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 

 >. 
 
 
 
 * THE FRIEND. 
 
 No. 16. THURSDAY, December 7, 1809. 
 
 SATYRANE'S LETTERS. 
 
 Letter II. (To a Lady.) 
 
 Ratzeburg. 
 
 Meine liebe Freundin, 
 
 See how natural the German comes from me, 
 thougli I have not yet been six weeks in the Country!— 
 almost as fluently as English from my neighbour the 
 Amptschreiber (or Public Secretary) who as often as we 
 meet, though it should be half a dozen times in the same 
 day, never fails to greet me with — " * * ddam your ploot 
 unt Eyes, mi/ dearest Englander ! vhee goes it ! ' — which 
 is certainly a proof of great generosity on his part, these 
 words being his whole stock of English. I had, however, 
 a better reason than the desire of displaying my proficieJn- 
 cy : for I wished to put you in good humour with a lan- 
 guage, from the acquirement of which 1 have promised 
 myself much edification and the means too of communi- 
 cating a new pleasure to you and your Sister, during our 
 winter Readings. And how can I do this better than by 
 pointing out its' gallant attention to the Ladies ? Our 
 English affix, ess, is, I believe, confined either to words 
 derived from the Latin, as Actress, Directress, &c. or 
 from the French, as Mistress, Duchess, and the like. But 
 the German, in, enables us to designate the Sex in every 
 possible relation of life. Thus the Amptman's Lady is 
 the Frau Amptmamw — the Secretary's Wife (by the bye 
 the handsomest Woman I have yet seen in Germany) is 
 Die allerliebste Frau Amptschreiberm — the Colonel's 
 Lady, Die Frau Obristm or Colonel/2'w — and even the 
 Parson's Wife, Die Frau Paston'w. But I am especially 
 
242 THE FRIEND. 
 
 pleased with their Freundin, which, unlike the Arnica of 
 the Romans, is seldom used but in its' best and purest 
 sense. Now, I know, it will be said, that a Friend is 
 already something more than a Friend, when a Man feels 
 an anxiety to express to himself that this Friend is a fe- 
 male ; but this 1 deny — —in that sense at least in which 
 the objection will be made. I would hazard the impeach- 
 ment of heresy, rather than abandon my belief that there 
 is a sex in our souls as well as in their perishable gar- 
 ments : and he who does not feel it, never truly loved a 
 Sister — nay, is not capable even of loving a Wife as she 
 deserves to be loved, if she indeed be worthy of that 
 holy name. 
 
 Now I know, my gentle Friend, what you are mur- 
 muring to yourself — " This is so like him ! running away 
 after ihe first bubble, that chance has blown off from the 
 surface of his fancy ; when one is anxious to learn where 
 he is and what he has seen." Well then ! that I am 
 settled at Ratzehurg, with my motives and the particulars 
 
 of my journey hither will inform you. My first 
 
 Letter to him, with which doubtless he has edified your 
 whole Fire-side, left me safely landed at Hamburg on the 
 Elbe Stairs, at the Boom House. While standing on the 
 Stairs, I was amused by the contents of the Passage Boat 
 which crosses the River once or twice a day from Hamburg 
 to Haarburg. It was stowed close with all People of all 
 Nations, in all sorts of Dresses ; the Men all with pipes in 
 their mouths, and these pipes of all shapes and fancies — 
 straight and wreathed, simple and complex, long and short, 
 cane, clay, porcelain, wood, tin, silver, and ivory ; most 
 of them with silver chains and silver bole-covers. Pipes 
 and Boots are the first universal characteristic of the male 
 Hamburgers that would strike the eye of a raw Traveller. 
 But I forget my promise of journalizing as much as possible. 
 —Therefore, Sejptri \9th. Afternoon. My Companion, who 
 you recollect speaks the French Language with unusual 
 propriety, had formed a kind of confidential acquaintance 
 with the Emigrant, who appeared to be a man of sense, 
 and whose manners were those of a perfect Gentleman. 
 He seemed about fifty or rather more. Whatever is un- 
 pleasant in French manners from excess in the Degree, 
 had been softened down by age or affliction, and all that 
 is delightful in the kind, alacriiy and delicacy in little 
 attentions, &c. remained, and without bustle, gesticula- 
 
THE FRIEND. 243 
 
 tion, or disproportionate eagerness. His demeanour ex- 
 hibited the minute philanthropy of a polished Frenchman, 
 tempered by the sobriety of the English character dis- 
 united from its' reserve. There is something strangely 
 attractive in the character of a Gentleman when you apply 
 the word emphatically, and yet in that sense of the term 
 which it is more easy to feel than to define. It neither 
 includes the possession of high moral excellence nor, of 
 necessity, even the ornamental graces of manner. I have 
 now in my mind's eye a Person whose life would scarcely 
 stand scrutiny even in the court of honour, much less in 
 that of conscience ; and his manners, if nicely observed, 
 would of the two excite an idea of awkwardness rather 
 than of elegance : and yet every one who conversed with 
 him felt and acknowledged the Gentleman. The secret of 
 the matter, I believe to be this — we feel the gentlemanly 
 character present to us, whenever under all the circum- 
 stances of social intercourse, the trivial not less than the 
 important, through the whole detail of his manners and 
 deportment, and with the ease of a habit, a Person shews 
 respect to others in such a way, as at the same time implies 
 in his own feelings an habitual and assured anticipation of 
 reciprocal respect from them to himself. This description 
 will perhaps explain to you the ground of one of your own 
 remarks, as I was englishing to you the interesting Dia- 
 logue concerning the causes of the corruption of elo- 
 quence. " What perfect Gentlemen these old Romans 
 must have been ! I was impressed, I remember, with the 
 same feeling at the time 1 was reading a translation of 
 Cicero's philosophical Dialogues and of his epistolary cor- 
 respondence : while in Pliny's Letters I seemed to have 
 a different feeling — he gave me the notion of a very fine 
 Gentleman ."-••You uttered the words as if you had felt 
 that the adjunct had injured the substance, and the en- 
 creased degree altered the kind. Pliny was the Courtier 
 of an absolute Monarch — Cicero an aristocratic Repub- 
 lican. For this reason the character of Gentleman, in the 
 sense to which 1 have confined it, is frequent in England, 
 rare in France, and found, where it i9 found, in age or the 
 latest period of manhood ; while in Germany the charac- 
 ter is almost unknown. But the proper Antipode of a 
 Gentleman is to be sought for among the Anglo-American 
 Democrats. 
 
 I owe this digression, as an act of justice, to this 
 
244 THE FRIEND. 
 
 amiable Frenchman, and of humiliation for myself: for in 
 a little controversy between us on the subject of French 
 Poetry, he made me feel my own ill behaviour by the 
 silent reproof of contrast, and when I afterwards apolo- 
 gized to him for the warmth of my language, he answered 
 me with a chearful expression of surprize, and an imme- 
 diate compliment, which a Gentleman might both make 
 with dignity and receive with pleasure. 1 was pleased, 
 therefore, to find it agreed on, that we should, if possible, 
 take up our quarters in the same House. My Friend 
 went with him in search of an Hotel, and I to deliver my 
 Letters of recommendation. 
 
 I walked onward at a brisk pace, enlivened not so 
 much by any thing I actually saw, as by the confused 
 sense that 1 was for the first time in my life on ihe 
 Continent of our Planet. I seemed to myself like a libe- 
 rated Bird that had been hatched in an aviary, who now 
 after his first Soar of freedom poises himself in the upper 
 air. Very naturally I began to wonder at all things, some 
 for being so like aud some for being so unlike the things 
 
 in England Dutch Women with large umbrella hats 
 
 shooting out half a yard before them, with a prodigal 
 plumpness of petticoat behind — the Women of Hamburg 
 with caps plated on the caul with silver or gold, or both, 
 bordered round with stiffened lace, which stood out before 
 their eyes, but not lower, so that the eyes sparkled 
 through it — the Hanoverian Women with the fore part of 
 the head bare, then a stiff lace standing up like a wall per- 
 pendicular on the cap, and the cap behind tailed with an 
 enormous quantity of ribbon which lies or tosses on the 
 back : 
 
 " Their visnomies seem'd like a goodly banner 
 
 Spread in defiance of all enemies." 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 The Ladies all in English dresses, all rouged, and all 
 
 with bad teeth : which you notice instantly from their 
 striking contrast to the beautiful mother-of-pearl white- 
 ness and regularity of the teeth of the laughing, loud- I 
 talking Country-women and Servant-girls, who with their 
 clean white stockings and with slippers without heel- 
 quarters, tripped along the dirty streets, as if they were 
 secured by a charm from the dirt, and with a lightness 
 which surprized me, who had always considered it as one 
 
THE FRIEND. 245 
 
 3f the annoyances of sleeping in an Inn, that I had to 
 flatter up stairs in a pair of them. The streets narrow ; 
 to my English nose sufficiently offensive, and explaining 
 it first sight the universal use of Boots ; without any ap- 
 propriate path for the foot-passengers ; the gable ends of 
 the Houses all towards the street, some in the ordinary 
 triangular form and entire as the botanists say, but the 
 greater number notched and scolloped with more than 
 Chinese grotesqueness — above all, I was struck with the 
 profusion of windows, so large and so many, that the 
 houses look all glass. Mr. Pitt's window Tax, with its' 
 pretty little additionals sprouting out from it like young 
 toadlets on the back of a Surinam toad, would certainly 
 improve the appearance of the Hamburg houses, which 
 have a slight summer look, not in keeping with their size, 
 incongruous with the climate, and precluding that feeling 
 jf retirement and self-content, which one wishes to 
 associate with a house in a noisy city; but in truth a 
 conflagration would be the previous requisite to the pro- 
 duction of any architectural beauty in Hamburg: for 
 verily it is a filthy Town. I moved on and crossed a 
 multitude of ugly Bridges, with huge black deformities of 
 water wheels close by them. The water intersects the 
 City every where, and would have furnished to the genius 
 of Italy the capabilities of all that is most beautiful and 
 magnificent in architecture. It might have been the 
 rival of Venice, and it is huddle and ugliness, stench 
 and stagnation. The Jungfer Stieg (i. e. young Ladies 
 Walk) to which my Letters directed me, made an excep- 
 tion. It is a walk or promenade planted with treble rows 
 af elm trees, which being yearly pruned and cropped, re- 
 main slim and dwarf-like. This walk occupies one side 
 Df a square piece of water, with many swans on it per- 
 fectly tame, and moving among the swans, shewy pleasure 
 boats with ladies in them, rowed by their husbands or 
 lovers. ********************* 
 
 Some paragraphs have been here omitted^ * * * * 
 
 thus embarrassed by sad and solemn politeness still more 
 :han by broken English, it sounded like the voice of an 
 )ld friend when I heard the Emigrant's servant enquiring 
 ifter me. He had come for the purpose of guiding me to 
 )ur Hotel. Through streets and streets I pressed on as 
 lappy as a child and, I doubt not, with a childish expres- 
 ;ion of wonderment in my busy eyes, amused by the 
 
246 THE FRIEND. 
 
 wicker waggons with moveable benches across them, one 
 behind the other, (these were the hackney coaches) ; 
 amused by the sign-boards of the shops, on which all the 
 articles sold within are painted, and that too very exactly, 
 though in a grotesque confusion (a useful Substitute for 
 language in this great mart of nations) amused with the 
 incessant tinkling of the shop and house door bells, the 
 bell hanging over each door and struck with a small iron 
 rod at every entrance and exit;^-and finally, amused by 
 looking in at the windows, as 1 passed along ; the ladies 
 and gentlemen drinking coffee or playing cards, and the 
 gentlemen all smoking. I wished myself a painter, that 
 I might have sent you a sk tch of one of the card parties. 
 The long pipe of one gentleman rested on the table, its' 
 bole half a yard from his mouth, fuming like a censer by 
 the fish pool — the other gentleman, who was dealing the 
 cards, and of course had both hands employed, held his 
 pipe in his teeth, which hanging down between his knees, 
 smoked beside his ancles. Hogarth himself never drew a 
 more ludicrous distortion both of attitude and physiog- 
 nomy, than this effort occasioned : nor was there wanting 
 beside it one of those beautiful female faces which the 
 same Hogarth, in whom the Satyrist never extinguished 
 that love of beauty which belonged to him as a Poet, so 
 often and so gladly introduces as the central figure in a 
 crowd of humourous deformities, which figure (such is 
 the power of true genius!) neither acts, nor is meant to act 
 as a contrast ; but diffuses through all, and over each of 
 the group, a spirit of reconciliation and human kindness ; 
 and even when the attention is no longer consciously 
 directed to the cause of this feeling, still blends its' tender- 
 ness with our laughter : and thus prevents the instructive 
 merriment at the whims of nature or the foibles or hu- 
 mours of our fellow-men from degenerating into the heart- 
 poison of contempt or hatred- 
 
 Our Hotel die Wilde Man, (the sign of which was 
 no bad likeness of the Landlord, who had engrafted on a 
 very grim face a restless grin, that was at every man's 
 service, and which, indeed, like an Actor rehearsing to 
 himself, he kept playing in expectation of an occasion for 
 it) — neither our Hotel, I say, nor its Landlord were of the 
 genteelest class ; but it has one great advantage for a 
 Stranger, by being in the market place, and the next 
 neighbour of the huge Church of St. Nicholas : a church 
 
- 
 
 THE FRIEND. 247 
 
 with shops and houses built up against it, out of which 
 wens and zvarts its' high massive steeple rises, necklaced 
 near the top with a Round of large gilt balls. A better 
 pole-star could scarcely be desired. Long shall I retain 
 the impression made on my mind by the awful echo, so 
 loud and long and tremulous, of the deep-toned clock 
 within this church, which awoke me at two in the morn- 
 ing from a distressful dream, occasioned, I believe, by the 
 feather bed which is used here instead of bed clothes. I 
 will rather carry my blanket about with me like a wild 
 Indian, than submit to this abominable custom. Our 
 Emigrant Acquaintance was, we found, an intimate friend 
 of the celebrated Abbe de Lisle : and from the large for- 
 tune which he possessed under the Monarchy, had rescued 
 sufficient not only for independence, but for respectability. 
 He had offended some of his Fellow-emigrants in London, 
 whom he had obliged with considerable sums, by a refusal 
 to make further advances, and in consequence of their in- 
 trigues had received an order to quit the kingdom. I 
 thought it one proof of his innocence, that he attached no 
 blame either to the alien act or to the Minister who had 
 exerted it against him ; and a still greater, that he spoke 
 of London with rapture, and of his favourite Niece, who 
 had married and settled in England, with all the fervor 
 and all the pride of a fond parent. A Man sent by force 
 out of a Country, obliged to sell out of the Stocks at a 
 great loss, and exiled from those pleasures and that style 
 of society which habit had rendered essential to his hap- 
 piness, whose predominant feelings were yet all of a pri- 
 vate nature, resentment for friendship outraged, and 
 anguish for domestic affections interrupted — such a man, 
 I think, I could dare warrant guiltless of Espionage in any 
 service, most of all in that of the present French Directory. 
 He spoke with extacy of Paris under the Monarchy : and 
 yet the particular facts, which made up his description, 
 left as deep a conviction on my mind, of French worthless- 
 ness, as his own tale had done of Emigrant ingratitude. 
 Since my arrival in Germany I have not met a single 
 Person, even among those who abhor the Revolution, 
 that spoke with favor, or even charity, of the French 
 Emigrants. Though the belief of their influence in the 
 origination of this disastrous war (from the horrors of 
 which North Germany deems itself only reprieved, not 
 secured) may have some share in the general aversion with 
 
24S THE FRIEND. 
 
 which they are regarded ; yet I am deeply persuaded that 
 the far greater part is owing to their own profligacy, to 
 their treachery and hard-heartedness to each other, and 
 the domestic misery or corrupt principles which so many 
 of them have carried into the families of their Protectors. 
 My heart dilated with honest pride, as I recalled to mind 
 the stern yet amiable characters of the English Patriots, 
 who sought refuge on the Continent at the Restoration ! 
 O let not our civil war under the first Charles, be parallel- 
 ed with the French Revolution ! In the former the 
 chalice overflowed from excess of Principle, in the latter 
 from the fermentation of the dregs ! The former was a 
 civil war belween the virtues and virtuous prejudices of 
 the two parties, the latter between the vices. The Vene- 
 tian Glass of the French Monarchy, shivered and flew 
 asunder with the working of a double poison. 
 
 Septr. SOth, I was introduced to Mr. Klopstock, the 
 brother of the Poet, who again introduced me to Professor 
 Ebeling, an intelligent and lively man, though deaf: so 
 deaf, indeed, that it was a painful effort to talk with him, 
 as we were obliged to drop all our pearls into a huge ear- 
 trumpet. From this courteous and kind-hearted man of 
 letters (I hope the German Literati in general may re- 
 semble this first specimen) I heard a tolerable Italian Pun 
 and an interesting Anecdote. When Buonaparte was in 
 Italy, having been irritated by some instance of perfidy, he 
 said, in a loud and vehement tone, in a public company — 
 "'tis a true proverb, Gli Italiuni tutti Lad'oni (\. e. the 
 Italians ail Plunderers). A Lady had the courage to 
 reply, " Non tutti; ma buoka parte," (not all, but a 
 good part, or Buonaparte]. This, I confess, sounded to my 
 ears, as one of the many good things that might have been 
 said. The Anecdote is more valuable ; for it instances 
 the ways and means of French insinuation. Hoche had 
 received much information concerning the face of the 
 Country, from a Map of unusual fullness and accuracy, 
 the Maker of which, he heard, resided at Dusseldorf. At 
 the storming of Dusseldorf by the French army, Hoche 
 previously ordered, that the house and property of this 
 Man should be preserved, and entrusted the performance 
 of the order to an Officer on whose Troop he could rely. 
 Finding afterwards that the Man had escaped before the 
 storming commenced, Hoche exclaimed, "He had no 
 reason to flee ! it is for such Men, not against them, that 
 
THE FRIEND. 249 
 
 the French Nation makes war and consents to shed the 
 blood of its' Children." You remember Milton's Son- 
 net — 
 
 " The great Emathion conqueror bid spare 
 The house of Pindarus when temple and tower 
 Went to the ground " ■ 
 
 Now though the Dusseldorf Map-maker may stand in the 
 same relation to the Theban Bard as the snail that marks 
 its' path by lines of film on the wall it creeps over, to the 
 Eagle that soars sun -ward and beats the tempest with its' 
 wings ; it does not therefore follow, that the Jacobin of 
 France may not be as valiant a General and as good a 
 Politician as the Madman of Macedon. 
 
 From Professor Ebeling's Mr. Klopstock accompanied 
 my Friend and me to his own house, where 1 saw a fine 
 Bust of his Brother. There was a solemn and heavy great- 
 ness in his countenance which corresponded to my precon- 
 ceptions of his style and genius. — I saw there, likewise, a 
 very fine Portrait of Lessing, whose Works are at present 
 the chief object of my admiration. His eyes were un- 
 commonly like mine, if any thing, rather larger and more 
 prominent. But the lower part of his face and his nose — 
 O what an exquisite expression of elegance and sensi- 
 bility ! — There appeared no depth, weight, or comprehen- 
 siveness, in the Forehead — The whole face seemed to 
 say, that Lessing was a man of quick and voluptuous 
 feelings; of an active but light fancy ; acute; yet acute 
 not in the observation of actual life, but in the arrange- 
 ments and management of the Ideal World, i. e. in taste, 
 and in metaphysics. 1 assure you, that I wrote these 
 very words in my Memorandum Book with the portrait 
 before my eyes, and when I knew nothing of Lessing but 
 his name, and that he was a German Writer of eminence. 
 We consumed two hours and more over a bad dinner, 
 at the table d'Hote. " Patience at a German Ordinary, 
 Smiling at Time." The Germans are the worst cooks in 
 Europe. There is placed for every two persons a bottle 
 of common wine — Rhenish and Claret alternately; but in 
 the houses of the opulent during the many and long inter- 
 vals of the dinner, the Servants hand round glasses of 
 richer wines. At the Lord of Culpin's they came in this 
 order, Burgundy — Madeira — Port— Frontiniac — Pacchia- 
 retti — Old Hock — Mountain— ^Champagne— iHock again 
 
:/ 
 
 2.50 THE FRIEND. 
 
 — Bishop, and lastly, Punch. A tolerable quantum, me- 
 thinks ! The last dish at the Ordinary, viz. slices of roast 
 pork (for all the larger dishes are brought in cut up and 
 first handed round and then set on the table) with stewed 
 prunes and other sweet fruits, and this followed by ckeese 
 and butter, with plates of Apples, reminded me of Shake- 
 speare* and Shakespeare put it in my head to go to the 
 French Comedy. Bless me ! why it is worse than our 
 modern English Plays ! The first Act informed me, that a 
 Court Martial is to be held on a Count Vatron, who had 
 drawn his sword on the Colonel, his Brother-in-law. The 
 Officers plead in his behalf — in vain ! His wife, the Colo- 
 nel's Sifter, pleads with most tempestuous agonies — in vain ! 
 She falls into hysterics and faints away, to the dropping 
 of the inner Curtain ! Inthe second act sentence of death 
 is passed on the Count — his wife, as frantic and hysterical 
 as before : more so (good industrious creature !) she could 
 not be. The third and last act, the wife still frantic, very 
 frantic indeed ! the Soldiers just about to' fire, the hand- 
 kerchief actually dropped, when Reprieve! Reprieve ! is 
 heard from behind the scenes : and in comes Prince some- 
 body, pardons the Count, and the wife is still frantic, only 
 with Joy ; That was all ! O dear Lady ! this is one of the 
 cases, in which laughter is followed by melancholy : for 
 such is the kind of Drama, which is now substituted every 
 where for Shakespeare and Racine. You well know, that 
 I offer violence to my own feelings in joining these names ; 
 but however meanly I may think of the French serious 
 Drama, even in it's most perfect specimens ; and with 
 whatever right I may complain of its perpetual falsification 
 of the language, and of the connections and transitions of 
 thought, which Nature has appropriated to states of pas- 
 sion : still, however, the French Tragedies are consistent 
 works of art, and the Offspring of great intellectual power. 
 Preserving a fitness in the parts, and a harmony in the 
 whole, they form a nature of their own, though a false 
 nature. Still they excite the minds of the Spectators to 
 active thought, to a striving after ideal excellence. The 
 Soul is not stupefied into mere sensations, by a worthless 
 sympathy with our own ordinary sufferings, or «m empty 
 
 * " Slender. 1 braised my shin with playing with sword and dagger for 
 a dish of stewed prunes, and by my troth I cannot abide the smell of hot meat 
 since." So again, Evans. " I will make an end I of my dinner: there's Pippins 
 and Cheese yet to come." 
 
THE FRIEND. 251 
 
 curiosity for the Surprising, undignified by the language or 
 the situations which awe and delight the imagination 
 What (I would ask of the Crowd, that press forward to the 
 pantomimic Tragedies and weeping Comedies of Kotzebue 
 and his Imitators) what are you seeking! Is it Comedy ? 
 But in the comedy of Shakespeare and Moliere the more 
 accurate my knowledge, and the more profoundly I think, 
 the greater is the satisfaction that mingles with my laugh- 
 ter. For though the qualities which these Writers pour- 
 tray are ludicrous indeed, either from the kind or the ex- 
 cess, and exquisitly ludicrous, yet are they the natural 
 growth of the human mind and such as, with more or less 
 change in the drapery, I can apply to my own heart, or at 
 least to whole Classes of my fellow-creatures. How often 
 are not the Moralist and the Metaphysician obliged for the 
 happiest illustrations of general truths and the subordinate 
 laws of human thought and action to quotations not only 
 from the tragic characters but equally from the Jaques, 
 FalstafF, and even from the Fools and Clowns of Shake- 
 speare, or from the Miser, Hypochondriast and Hypocrite of 
 Moliere. Say not that I am recommending abstractions, for 
 these Class-characteristics which constitute the instruc- 
 tiveness of a character, are so modified and particularized 
 in each Person of the Shakespearian Drama, that life itself 
 does not excite more distinctly that sense of individuality 
 which belongs to real existence. Paradoxical as it may 
 sound, one of the essential properties of Geometry is not 
 less essential to dramatic excellence, and (if 1 may mention 
 his name without pedantry to a Lady) Aristotle has ac- 
 cordingly required of the Poet an involution of the uni- 
 versal in the individual. The chief differences are, that in. 
 Geometry it is the universal truth which is uppermost in 
 the consciousness, in Poetry the individual form in which 
 it is cloathed. With the Ancient and not less with the 
 elder Dramatists of England and France, both Comedy and 
 Tragedy were considered as kinds of Poetry. They nei- 
 ther sought in Comedy to make us laugh merely, much less 
 to make us laugh by wry faces, accidents of jargon, slang 
 phrases for the day, or the cloathing of common-place mo- 
 rals in metaphors drawn from the Shops or mechanic oc- 
 cupations of their Characters. Nor did they condescend 
 in Tragedy to wheedle away the applause of the Specta- 
 tors, by representing before them fac-similies of their own 
 mean selves in all their existing meanness, or to work on 
 
 < 
 
252 THE FRIEND. 
 
 their sluggish sympathies by a pathos not a whit more re- 
 spectable than the maudlin tears of drunkenness. Their 
 tragic scenes were meant to affect us indeed, but within 
 the bounds of pleasure, and in union with the activity both 
 of our Understanding and Imagination. They wished to 
 transport the mind to a sense of it's possible greatness, and 
 to implant the germs of that greatness during the tempo- 
 rary oblivion of the worthless " thing, we are" and of the 
 peculiar state, in which each man happens to be ; suspend- 
 ing our individual recollections and lulling them to sleep 
 amid the music of nobler thoughts. 
 
 Hold! (methinks 1 hear the Spokesman of the crowd 
 reply, and we will listen to him. I am the Plaintiff, and 
 be He the Defendant.) 
 
 Defendant. Hold! Are not our modern senti- 
 mental Plays filled with the best Christian morality ? 
 
 Plaintiff. Yes ! just as much of it, and just that 
 part of it which you can exercise without a single christian 
 virtue — without a single sacrifice that is really painful to 
 you ! — just as much as flatters you, sends you away 
 pleased with your own hearts, and quite reconciled to 
 your vices, which can never be thought very ill of, when 
 they keep such good company, and walk hand in hand 
 with so much compassion and generosity ; Adulation so 
 loathsome, that you would spit in the man's face who 
 dared offer it to you in a private company, unless you 
 interpreted it as insulting irony, you appropriate with 
 infinite satisfaction, when you share the garbage with the 
 whole stye, and gobble it out of a common trough. No 
 Caesar must pace your boards — no Antony, no royal Dane, 
 no Orestes, no Andromache ? 
 
 D. No : or as few of them as possible. What has a 
 plain Citizen of London, or Hamburg, to do with your 
 Kings and Queens, and your old school-boy Pagan 
 Heroes ? besides, every body knows the stories : and what 
 curiosity can we feel 
 
 P. What, Sir, not for the manner! not for the de- 
 lightful language of the Poet ? not for the situations, the 
 action and reaction of the passions ? 
 
 D. You are hasty, Sir, the only curiosity we feel is in 
 the story, and how can we be anxious concerning the end 
 of a Play, or be surprized by it, when we know how it will 
 turn out. 
 
 P. Your pardon, for having interrupted you ! we now 
 
THE FRIEND. 253 
 
 understand each other. You seek then, in a Tragedy, 
 which wise men of old held for the highest effort of human 
 genius, the same gratification, which you receieve from a 
 new Novel, the last German Romance, and other dainties 
 of the same kind, which can be enjoyed but once. If 
 you carry these feelings to the Sister Art of Painting, 
 Michael Angelo's Sestine Chapel and the Scripture Gal- 
 lery of Raphael, can expect no favour from you. You 
 know all about them beforehand ; and are, doubtless, more 
 familiar with the subjects of those Paintings, than with the 
 tragic Tales of the historic or heroic ages. There is 
 a consistency, therefore, in your preference of Contempo- 
 rary Writers : for the great Men of former times, those at 
 least who were deemed great by our Ancestors, sought so 
 little to gratify this kind of curiosity, that they seemed to 
 have regarded the Story in a not much higher light, than 
 the Painter regards his Canvass : as that on, not by, which 
 they were to display their appropriate excellence. No 
 work, resembling a Tale or Romance, can well shew less 
 variety of invention in the incidents, or less anxiety in 
 weaving them together, than the Don Quixote of Cer- 
 vantes. Its' Admirers feel the disposition to go back 
 and re-peruse some preceeding chapter, at least ten times 
 for once that they find any eagerness to hurry forwards : 
 or open the Book on those parts which they best recollect, 
 even as we visit those friends oftenest whom Ave love 
 most, and with whose characters and actions we are the 
 most intimately acquainted. In the divine Ariosto (as 
 his Countrymen call this, their darling Poet) I question 
 whether there be a single tale of his own invention, or the 
 elements of which were not familiar to the Readers of 
 " old Romance." I will pass by the ancient Greeks, 
 who thought it even necessary to the Fable of a Tragedy, 
 that its' substance should be previously known. That 
 there had been at least fifty Tragedies with the same Title, 
 would be one of the motives which determined Sophocles 
 and Euripedes in the choice of Electra, as a Subject. 
 But Milton 
 
 D. Aye Milton, indeed ! but do not Dr. Johnson and 
 other great Men tell us, that nobody now reads Milton 
 but as a task ? 
 
 P. So much the worse for them, of whom this can be 
 truly said! But why then do you pretend to admire 
 Shakespeare ? The greater part, if not all, of his Dramas 
 
$54 THE FRIEND. 
 
 were, as far as the names and the main incidents are con- 
 cerned, already Stock Plays. All the Stories, at least, on 
 which they are built, pre-existed in the Chronicles, Bal- 
 lads, or Translations of contemporary or preceding English 
 Writers. Why, I repeat, do you pretend to admire 
 Shakespeare? is it, perhaps, that you only pretend to ad- 
 mire him ? However, as once for all you nave dismissed 
 the well-known Events and Personages of History or the 
 Epic Muse, what have you taken in their stead ? Whom 
 has your tragic Muse armed with her bowl and dagger? 
 the sentimental Muse, I should have said, whom you have 
 seated in the throne of Tragedy ? What Heroes has she 
 reared on. -her buskins ? 
 
 D. O our good Friends and next-door-neighbours, 
 honest Tradesmen, valiant Tars, high-spirited half-pay 
 Officers, philanthropic Jews, virtuous Courtezans, tender- 
 hearted Braziers, and sentimental Rat-catchers! (a little 
 bluff or so, but all our very generous, tender-hearted 
 characters are a little rude or misanthropic, and all our 
 Misanthropes very tender-hearted.) 
 
 P. But I pray you, Friend, in what actions great or 
 interesting, can such men be engaged ? 
 
 D. They give away a great deal of money ; find rich 
 Dowries for young men and maidens who have all other 
 good qualities ; they brow-beat Lords, Baronets, and 
 Justices of the Peace (for they are as bold as Hector), 
 they rescue Stage Coaches at the instant they are falling 
 down precipices; carry away Infants in the sight of op- 
 posing Armies ; and some of our Performers act a muscular 
 able-bodied man to such perfection, that our Dramatic 
 Poets, who always have the Actors in their eye, seldom 
 fail to make their favourite Male Character as strong as 
 Sampson : and then they take such prodigious leaps ! ! 
 And what is done on the Stage is more striking even than 
 what is acted. I once remember such a deafening ex- 
 plosion, that I could not hear a word of the Play for half 
 an act after it, and a little real gunpowder being set fire to 
 at the same time, and smelt by all the Spectators, the 
 naturalness of the scene was quite astonishing ! 
 
 P. But how can you connect with such Men and 
 such Actions, that dependance of thousands on the fate of 
 one, which gives so lofty an interest to the Personages of 
 Shakespeare and the Greek Tragedians ? How can you 
 connect with them that sublimest of all feelings, the 
 
THE FRIEND. . %55 
 
 power of Destiny and the controllingrmight of Heaven, 
 which seems to elevate the Characters which sink beneath 
 its' irresistible blow ? 
 
 D. O mere fancies ! We seek and find on the present 
 Stage our own wants and passions, our own vexations, 
 losses, and embarrassments. 
 
 P. It is your own poor pettifogging nature then, 
 which you desire to have represented before you ] not 
 human nature in its' heighth and vigour? But surely 
 you might find the former with all its' joys and sorrows, 
 more conveniently in your own houses and parishes. 
 
 D. True, but here comes a difference. Fortune is 
 blind, but the Poet has his eyes open, and is besides as 
 complaisant as Fortune is capricious. He makes every 
 thing turn out exactly as we would wish it. He gratifies 
 us by representing those as hateful or contemptible whom 
 we hate and wish to despise. 
 
 P. f aside J That is, he gratifies your Envy by libelling 
 your superiors. 
 
 D. He makes all those precise Moralists, who affect 
 to be better than their Neighbours, turn out at last abject 
 Hypocrites, Traitors, and hard-hearted Villain© ; and your 
 Men of Spirit, who take their Girl and their Glass with 
 equal freedom, prove the true Men of Honour, and (that 
 no part of the Audience may remain unsatisfied) reform 
 in the last scene, and leave no doubt on the minds of the 
 Ladies, that they will make most faithful and excellent 
 Husbands ; though it does seem a pity, that they should 
 be obliged to get rid of qualities which had made them so 
 interesting ! Besides, the Poor become rich all at once ; 
 and in the final matrimonial choice the opulent ^rid high- 
 born themselves confess, that Virtue is the only true 
 Nobility, and that a lovely Woman is a Dowry 
 of herself ! ! 
 
 P. Excellent ! But you have forgotten those brilliant 
 flashes of Loyalty, those patriotic praises of the King and 
 old England, which, especially if conveyed in a Metaphor 
 from the Ship or the Shop, so often solicit and so unfail- 
 ingly receive the public plaudit ! I give your prudence 
 credit for the omission. For the whole System of your 
 Drama is a moral and intellectual Jacobinism of the most 
 dangerous kind, and those common-place rants of Loyalty 
 are no better than hypocrisy in your Play-wrights, and 
 your own sympathy with them a gross self-delusion. For 
 
256 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the whole secret of dramatic popularity with you, consists 
 in the confusion and subversion of the natural order of 
 things in their causes and effects , in the excitement of 
 surprize, by representing the qualities of liberality, refined 
 feeling, and a nice sense of honour (those things rather, 
 which pass among you for such) in persons and in classes 
 of life where experience teaches us least to expect them ; 
 and by rewarding with all the sympathies that are the 
 dues of virtue, those criminals whom Law, Reason, and 
 Religion, have excommunicated from our esteem ! 
 
 And now good Night ! Truly ! I might have written 
 this last sheet without having gone to Germany, but I 
 fancied myself talking to you by your own fire-side, and 
 can you think, it a small pleasure to me to forget now and 
 then, that I am not there. Besides, you and my other 
 good Friends have made up your minds to me as I am, 
 and from whatever place I write you will expect that part 
 of my " Travels " will consist of the excursions in my 
 own mind. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Subscribers, who have not remitted their payment by 
 other means, are respectfully requested, after the 20th Number, to 
 order the money to be paid to Mr. George Ward, Bookseller> 
 Skinner Street, Snow Hill. The Author takes the liberty of 
 suggesting to his Readers, not resident in London, that it would 
 be of very great advantage to him, especially under the heavy 
 expences and many losses of an infant publication, if they could 
 contrive, in the ordinary course of their Correspondence, to have 
 the money paid by their friends in town, instead of remitting it by 
 the post, which must needs subtract so large a part from the Sum 
 Total of the Subscription. 
 
 PENRITH : MINTED AND PUBLISHED BV J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW; AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
 
 

 °i 
 
 ;. 
 
 THE FJR1ENB. 
 
 No. 17. THURSDAY, December 14, 1809. 
 
 To the Editor of the Friend. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I hope you will not ascribe to presump- 
 tion, the liberty I take in addressing you, on the subject of 
 your Work. I feel deeply interested in the cause you 
 have undertaken to support ; and my object in writing 
 this letter is to describe to you, in part from my own 
 feelings, what I conceive to be the state of many minds, 
 which may derive important advantage from your in- 
 structions. 
 
 I speak, Sir, of those who, though bred up under our 
 unfavourable System of Education, have yet held at times 
 some intercourse with Nature, and with those great 
 minds whose works have been moulded by the Spirit of 
 Nature : who, therefore, when they pass from the Seclu- 
 sion and Constraint of early Study, bring with them into 
 the new scene of the world, much of the pure sensibility 
 which is the spring of all that is greatly good in thought 
 and action. To such the season of that entrance into the 
 world is a season of fearful importance ; not for the seduc- 
 tion of it's passions, but of it's opinions. Whatever be 
 their intellectual powers, unless extraordinary circum- 
 stances in their lives have been so favourable to the 
 growth of meditative genius, that their speculative opini- 
 ons must spring out of their early feelings, their Minds 
 are still at the mercy of fortune: they have no inward 
 impulse steadily to propel them : and must trust to the 
 chances of the world for a guide. And such is our present 
 moral and intellectual State, that these chances are little 
 else than variety of danger. There will be a thousand 
 causes conspiring to complete the work of a false Educa- 
 tion, and by enclosing the mind on every side from the 
 influences of natural feeling, to degrade its inborn dig- 
 
258 THE FRIEND. 
 
 nity, and finally bring the heart itself under subjection to 
 a corrupted understanding. I am anxious to describe to 
 you what I have experienced or seen of the dispositions 
 and feelings that will aid every other Cause of danger, and 
 tend to lay the Mind open to the infection of all those 
 falsehoods in opinion and sentiment, which constitute the 
 degeneracy of the age. 
 
 Though it would not be difficult to prove, that the 
 mind of the Country is much enervated since the days of 
 her strength, and brought down from its moral dignity, it 
 is not yet so forlorn of all good, — there is nothing in the 
 face of the times so dark and saddening, and repulsive— 
 as to shock the first feelings of a generous Spirit, and 
 drive, it at once to seek refuge in the elder ages of our 
 greatness. There yet survives so much of the character 
 bred up through long years of liberty, danger, and glory, 
 that even what this age produces bears traces of those that 
 are past, and it still yields enough of beautiful, and 
 splendid, and bold, to caplivate an ardent but untutored 
 imagination. And in this real excellence is the beginning 
 of danger : for it is the first spring of that excessive admi- 
 ration of the age which at last brings down to its own 
 level a mind born above it. If there existed only the 
 general disposition of all who are formed with a high 
 capacity for good, to be rather credulous of excellence 
 than suspiciously and severely just, the error would not 
 be carried far : — but there are, to a young Mind, in this 
 Country and at this time, numerous powerful causes con- 
 curring to inflame this disposition, till the excess of the 
 affection above the worth of its object, is beyond all com- 
 putation. To trace these causes it will be necessary to 
 follow the history of a pure and noble mind from the first 
 moment of that critical passage from seclusion to the world, 
 which changes all the circumstances of its intellectual 
 existence, shews it for the first time the real scene of 
 living men, and calls up the new feeling of numerous rela- 
 tions by which it is to be connected with them. 
 
 To the young adventurer in life, who enters upon his 
 course with such a mind, every thing seems made for de- 
 lusion. He comes with a spirit whose dearest feelings 
 and highest thoughts have sprung up under the influences 
 of Nature. He transfers to the realities of life the high 
 wild fancies of visionary boyhood : he brings with him 
 into the world the passions of solitary and untamed 
 
THE FRIEND. 259 
 
 imagination, and hopes which he has learned from dreams. 
 Those dreams have been of the great and wonderful, and 
 lovely, of all which in these has yet been disclosed to 
 him : his thoughts have dwelt among the wonders of Na- 
 ture, and among the loftiest spirits of iMen — Heroes, and 
 Sages, and Saints ; — those whose deeds, and thoughts, and 
 hopes, were high above ordinary Mortality, have been the 
 familiar Companions of his soul. To love and to admire 
 has been the joy of his existence. Love and admiration 
 are the pleasures he will demand of the world. For these 
 he has searched eagerly into the ages that are gone : but 
 with more ardent and peremptory expectation he requires 
 them of that in which his own lot is cast : — for to look on 
 life with hopes of happiness is a necessity of his nature, 
 and to him there is no happiness but such as is surrounded 
 with excellence. 
 
 See first how this spirit will affect his judgment of 
 moral character, in those with whom chance may connect 
 him in the common relations of life. It is of those with 
 whom he is to live, that his Soul first demands this food of 
 her desires. From their conversation, their looks, their 
 actions, their lives, she asks for excellence. To ask from 
 all and too ask in vain, would be too dismal to hear : it 
 would disturb him too deeply with doubt and perplexity, 
 and fear. In this hope, and in the revolting of his 
 thoughts from the possibility of disappointment, there is a 
 preparation for self-delusion : there is an unconscious 
 determination that his soul shall be satisfied ; an obstinate 
 will to find good everywhere. And thus his first study of 
 mankind is a continued effort to read in them the expres- 
 sion of his own feelings. He catches at every uncertain 
 shew and shadowy resemblance of what he seeks ; and 
 unsuspicious in innocence, he is first won with those ap- 
 pearances of good which are in fact only false pretensions. 
 But this error is not carried far : for there is a sort of 
 instinct of rectitude, which like the pressure of a talisman 
 given to baffle the illusions of enchantment, warns a pure 
 mind against hypocrisy. — There is another delusion more 
 difficult to resist and more slowly dissipated. It is when 
 he finds, as he often will, some of the real features of ex- 
 cellence in the purity of their native form. For then his 
 rapid imagination will gather round them all the kindred 
 features that are wanting to perfect beauty ; and make for 
 him, where he could not find, the moral creature of his 
 
260 THE FRIEND. 
 
 expectation : — peopling, even from this human world, his 
 little circle of affection, with forms as fair as his heart 
 desired for its love. 
 
 But when, from the eminence of life which he has 
 reached, he lifts up his eyes, and sends out his spirit to 
 range over the great scene that is opening before him and 
 around him, — the whole prospect of civilized life — so wide 
 and so magnificent : — when he begins to contemplate, in 
 their various stations of power or splendour, the leaders of 
 mankind — those men on whose wisdom are hung the for- 
 tunes of nations — those whose genius and valour wield 
 the heroism of a people ; — or those, in no inferior " pride 
 of place," whose sway is over the Mind of Society, — 
 Chiefs in the realm of Imagination. — Interpreters of the 
 
 Secrets of Nature, — Rulers of Human Opinion what 
 
 wonder, when he looks on all this living scene, that his 
 heart should burn with strong affection, that he should 
 feel that his own happiness will be for ever interwoven 
 with the interests of mankind ? — Here then the sanguine 
 hope with which he looks on life, will again be blended 
 with his passionate desire of excellence ; and he will still 
 be impelled to single out some, on whom his imagination 
 and his hopes may repose. To whatever department of 
 human thought or action his mind is turned with interest, 
 either by the sway of public passion or by its own impulse 
 — among Statesmen, and Warriors, and Philosophers, and 
 Poets, he will distinguish some favoured names on which 
 he may satisfy his admiration. And there, just as in the 
 little circle of his own acquaintance, seizing eagerly on 
 every merit they possess, he will supply more from his 
 own credulous hope, completing real with imagined ex- 
 cellence, till living men, with all their imperfections, be- 
 come to him the representatives of his perfect ideal 
 creation : — Till, multiplying his objects of reverence, as 
 he enlarges his prospect of life, he will have surrounded 
 himself with idols of his own hands, and his imagination 
 will seem to discern a glory in the Countenance of the 
 Age, which is but the reflection of its own effulgence. 
 
 He will possess, therefore, in the creative power of 
 generous hope, a preparation for illusory and exaggerated 
 admiration of the age in which he lives : — and this pre- 
 disposition will meet with many favouring circumstances, 
 when he has grown up under a System of Education like 
 ours, which (as perhaps all Education must that is placed 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 26l 
 
 in the hands of a distinct and embodied Class, who there- 
 tore bring to it the peculiar and hereditary prejudices of 
 their Order) has controuled his imagination to a reverence 
 of former times, with an unjust contempt of his own. — 
 For no sooner does he break loose from this Controul, and 
 begin to feel, as he contemplates the world for himself, 
 how much there is surrounding him on all sides, that 
 gratifies his noblest desires, than there springs up in him 
 an indignant sense of injustice, both to the age and to his 
 own mind : and he is impelled warmly and eagerly to 
 give loose to the feelings that have been held in bondage, 
 to seek out and to delight in finding excellence that wilt 
 vindicate the insulted world, while it justifies too, his 
 resentment of his own undue subjection, and exalts the 
 value of his new-found liberty. 
 
 Add to this, that secluded as he has been from know, 
 ledge, and, in the imprisoning circle of one System of 
 ideas, cut ofT from his share in the thoughts and feelings 
 that are stirring among men, he finds himself, at the first 
 steps of his liberty, in a new intellectual world. Passions 
 and powers which he knew not of, start up in his Soul. 
 The human Mind, which he had seen but under one 
 aspect, now presents to him a thousand unknown and 
 beautiful forms. He sees it, in its varying powers, 
 glancing over Nature with restless curiosity, and with, 
 impetuous energy striving for ever against the barriers 
 which she has placed around it ; sees it with divine 
 power creating from dark materials living beauty, and 
 fixing all its high and transported fancies in imperishable 
 forms- — In the world of Knowledge, and Science, and 
 Art, and Genius, he treads as a stranger : — in the con- 
 fusion of new sensations, bewildered in delights, all seems 
 beautiful ; all seems admirable. And therefore he en- 
 gages eagerly in the pursuit of false or insufficient Philoso- 
 phy; he is won by the allurements of licentious Art; he 
 follows with wonder the irregular transports of undiscip- 
 lined Imagination. — Nor, where the objects of his admira- 
 tion are worthy, is he yet skilful to distinguish between 
 the acquisitions which the age has made for itself, and 
 that large proportion of its wealth which it has only in- 
 herited : but in his delight of discovery and growing 
 knowledge, all that is new to his own mind seems to him 
 new-born to the world. — To himself every fresh idea ap- 
 pears instruction ; every new exertion, acquisition of 
 
262 THE FRIEND. 
 
 power: he seems just called to the consciousness of him- 
 self, and to his true place in the intellectual world ; and 
 gratitude and reverence towards those to whom he owes 
 this recovery of his dignity, tends much to subject him to 
 the dominion of minds that were not formed by Nature to 
 be the leaders of opinion. 
 
 All the tumult and glow of thought and imagination, 
 which seizes on a mind of power in such a scene, tends 
 irresistibly to bind it by stronger attachment of love and 
 admiration to its own age. And there is one among tfee 
 new emotions which belong to its entrance on the world 
 — one — almost the noblest of all — in which this exaltation 
 of the Age is essentially mingled. The faith in the per- 
 petual progression of human nature towards perfection, 
 gives birth to such lofty dreams, as secure to it the devout 
 assent of Imagination ; and it will be yet more grateful 
 to a heart just opening to hope, flushed with the con- 
 sciousness of new strength, and exulting in the prospect 
 of destined achievements. There is, therefore, almost a 
 Compulsion on generous and enthusiastic Spirits, as they 
 trust that the future shall transcend the present, to be- 
 lieve that the present transcends the past. It is only on 
 an undue love and admiration of their own Age, that they 
 can build their confidence in the amelioration of the hu- 
 man race. Nor is this faith, — which, in some shape, will 
 always be the creed of virtue, — without apparent reason, 
 even in the erroneous form in which the young adopt it. 
 For there is a perpetual acquisition of knowledge and art, 
 — an unceasing progress in many of the modes of exertion 
 of the human mind, — a perpetual unfolding of virtues 
 with the changing manners of society : — and it is not for 
 a young mind to compare what is gained with what has 
 passed away ; to discern, that amidst the incessant intel- 
 lectual activity of the race, the intellectual power of 
 individual minds may be falling off; — and that amidst 
 accumulating knowledge lofty Science may disappear: — 
 and still less, to judge, in the more complicated moral 
 character of a people, what is progression, and what is 
 decline. 
 
 Into a mind possessed with this persuasion of the per- 
 petual progress of man, there may even imperceptibly steal 
 both from the belief itself, and from many of the views on 
 which it rests — something like a distrust of the wisdom of 
 great men of former ages, and with the reverence — which 
 
THE FRIEND. 263 
 
 no delusion will ever overpower in a pure mind — for their 
 greatness, a fancied discernment of imperfection ; — of in- 
 complete excellence, which wanted for its accomplish- 
 ment the advantages of later improvements : there will be 
 a surprize, that so much should have been possible in 
 times so ill prepared : and even the study of their works 
 may be sometimes rather the curious research of a specu- 
 lative Enquirer, than the devout contemplation of an En- 
 thusiast ; the watchful and obedient heart of a disciple 
 listening to the inspiration of his Master. 
 
 Here then is the power of delusion that will gather 
 round the first steps of a youthful spirit, and throw en- 
 chantment over the world in which it is to dwell. — Hope 
 realizing its own dreams : — Ignorance dazzled and ravish- 
 ed with sudden sunshine : — Power awakened and rejoic- 
 ing in its own consciousness : — Enthusiasm kindling 
 among multiplying images of greatness and beauty ; and 
 enamoured, above all, of one splendid error : — and, spring- 
 ing from all these, such a rapture of life and hope, and joy, 
 that the soul, in the power of its happiness, transmutes 
 things esentially repugnant to it, into the excellence of 
 its own nature : — these are the spells that cheat the eye 
 of the Mind with illusion. It is under these influences 
 that a young man of ardent spirit gives all his love, and 
 reverence, and zeal, to productions of Art, to theories of 
 Science, to Opinions, to Systems of feeling, and to Cha- 
 racters distinguished in the World, that are far beneath 
 his own original dignity. 
 
 Now as this delusion springs not from his worse but 
 his better nature, it seems as if there could be no warning 
 to him from within of his danger: for even the impassion- 
 ed joy which he draws at times from the works of Nature, 
 and from those of her Mightier Sons, and which would 
 startle him from a dream of unworthy passion, serves only 
 to fix the infatuation : — for those deep emotions, proving 
 to him that his heart is uncorrupted, justify to him all its 
 workings, and his mind confiding and delighting in itself, 
 yields to the guidance of its own blind impulses of plea- 
 sure. His chance, therefore, of security, is the chance 
 lhat the greater number of objects occurring to attract his 
 honourable passions, may be worthy of them. But we 
 have seen that, the whole power of circumstances is coU 
 leered to gather round him such objects and influences a.s. 
 will bend his high passions to unworthy enjoyment. He 
 
264 THE FRIEND. 
 
 engages in it with a heart and understanding unspoiled : 
 but they cannot long be misapplied with impunity. Tliey 
 are drawn gradually into closer sympathy with the false- 
 hoods they have adopted, till, his very nature seeming to 
 change under the Corruption, there disappears from it the 
 capacity of those higher perceptions and pleasures to 
 which he was born : and he is cast off from the commu- 
 nion of exalted minds, to live and to perish with the age 
 to which he has surrendered himself. 
 
 If minds under these circumstances of danger are pre- 
 served from decay and overthrow, it can seldom, I think, 
 be to themselves that they owe their deliverance. It 
 must be to a fortunate chance which places them under 
 the influence of some more enlightened mind, from which 
 they may first gain suspicion and afterwards wisdom. 
 There is a Philosophy, which, leading them by the light 
 of their best emotions to the principles which should give 
 life to thought and law to genius, will discover to them in 
 clear and perfect evidence, the falsehood of the Errors that 
 have misled them ; and restore them to themselves. And 
 this Philosophy they will be willing to hear and wise to 
 understand : but they must be led into its mysteries by 
 some guiding hand ; for they want the impulse or the 
 power to penetrate of themselves the recesses. 
 
 If a superior Mind should assume the protection of 
 others just beginning to move among the dangers 1 have 
 described, it would probably be found, that delusions 
 springing from their own virtuous activity, were not the 
 only difficulties to be encountered. Even after suspicion 
 is awakened, the subjection to falsehood may be prolonged 
 and deepened by many weaknesses both of the intellectual 
 and moral nature ; weaknesses that will sometimes shake 
 the authority of acknowledged Truth. — There may be 
 intellectual indolence ; an indisposition in the mind to the 
 effort of combining the ideas it actually possesses, and 
 bringing into distinct form the knowledge, which in its 
 elements is already its own : — there may be, where the 
 heart resists the sway of opinion, misgivings and modest 
 self-mistrust, in him who sees, that if he trusts his heart, 
 he must slight the judgment of all around him : — there 
 may be a too habitual yielding to authority, consisting, 
 more than in indolence or diffidence, in a conscious help- 
 lessness, an incapacity of the mind to maintain itself in its 
 own place against the weight of general opinion ;— and 
 
THE FRIEND. 265 
 
 there may be too indiscriminate, too undisciplined a 
 sympathy with others, which by the mere infection of 
 feeling will subdue the reason. — There must be a weak- 
 ness in dejection to him who thinks, with sadness, if his 
 faith be pure, how gross is the error of the multitude, and 
 that multitude how vast : — A reluctance to embrace a 
 creed that excludes so many whom he loves, so many 
 whom his youth has revered : — a difficulty to his under- 
 standing to believe that those whom he knows to be, in 
 much that is good and honourable, his superiors, can be 
 beneath him in this which is the most important of all :— i 
 a sympathy pleading importunately at his heart to des- 
 cend to the fellowship of his brothers, and to take their 
 wisdom and faith for his own. — How often, when under 
 the impulses of those solemn hours, in which he has felt 
 with clearer insight and deeper faith his sacred truths, he 
 labours to win to his own belief those whom he loves, 
 will he be checked by their indifference or their laughterl 
 and'will he not bear back to his meditations a painful and 
 disheartening sorrow,— ^-a gloomy discontent in that faith 
 which takes in but a portion of those whom he wishes to 
 include in all his blessings ? Will he not be enfeebled by 
 a distraction of inconsistent desires, when he feels so 
 strongly that the faith which fills his heart, the circles 
 within which he would embrace all he loves — would re- 
 pose all his wishes and hopes, and enjoyments, is yet in- 
 commensurate with his affections? 
 
 Even when the Mind, strong in reason and just feeling 
 united, and relying on its strength, has attached itself to 
 Truth, how much is there in the course and accidents of 
 life that is for ever silently at work for its degradation. 
 There are pleasures deemed harmless, that lay asleep the 
 recollections of innocence : — there are pursuits held 
 honourable, or imposed by duty, that oppress the moral 
 spirit : — above all there is that perpetual connexion with 
 ordinary minds in the common intercourse of society ; — ■ 
 that restless activity of frivolous conversation, where men 
 of all characters and all pursuits mixing together, nothing 
 may be talked of that is not of common interest to all — 
 nothing, therefore, but those obvious thoughts and feelings 
 that float over the surface of things : — and all which is 
 drawn from the depth of Nature, all which impassioned 
 feeling has made original in thought, would be misplaced 
 and obtrusive. The talent that is allowed to shew itself 
 
266 THE FRIEND. 
 
 is that which can repay admiration by furnishing enter- 
 tainment : — and the display to which it is invited is that 
 which flatters the vulgar pride of society, by abasing what 
 is too high in excellence for its sympathy. A dangerous 
 seduction to talents — which would make language — that 
 was given to exalt the soul by the fervid expression of its 
 pure emotions — the instrument of its degradation. And 
 even when there is, as the instance I have supposed, too 
 much uprightness to choose so dishonourable a triumph, 
 there is a necessity of manners, by which every one must 
 be controled who mixes much in society, not to offend 
 those with whom he converses by his superiority ; and 
 whatever be the native spirit of a mind, it is evident that 
 this perpetual adaptation of itself to others — this watchful- 
 ness against its own rising feelings, this studied sympathy 
 with mediocrity^must pollute and impoverish the sources 
 of its strength. 
 
 From much of its own weakness, and from all the 
 errors of its misleading activities, may generous youth be 
 rescued by the interposition of an enlightened mind : and 
 in some degree it may be guarded by instruction against 
 the injuries to which it is exposed in the world. His lot 
 is happy who owes this protection to friendship : who has 
 found in a friend the watchful guardian of his mind. He 
 will not be deluded, having that light to guide : he will 
 not slumber, with that voice to inspire ; he will not be 
 desponding or dejected, with that bosom to lean on. — ■ 
 But how many must there be whom Heaven has left un- 
 provided, except in their own strength ; who must main- 
 tain themselves, unassisted and solitary, against their own 
 infirmities and the opposition of the world ! For such 
 there may be yet a protector. If a Teacher should stand 
 up in their generation conspicuous above the multitude 
 in superior power, and yet more in the assertion and pro. 
 clamation of disregarded Truth — to Him — to his cheering 
 or summoning voice all hearts would turn, whose deep 
 sensibility has been oppressed by the indifference, or mis-, 
 led by the seduction of the times. Of one such Teacher 
 who has been given to our own age, you have described * 
 the power when you said, that in his annunciation of 
 truths he seemed to speak in thunders. I believe that 
 mighty voice has not been poured out in vain : that there 
 are hearts that have received into their inmost, depths all 
 its varying tones : and tha.t even now, there are many to' 
 
THE FRIEND. 26? 
 
 whom the name of Wordsworth calls up the recollection 
 of their weakness, and the consciousness of their strength. 
 To give to the reason and eloquence of one Man, this 
 complete control over the minds of others, it is necessary, 
 1 think, that he should be born in their own times. For 
 thus whatever false opinion of pre-eminence is attached to 
 the Age, becomes at once a title of reverence to him : and 
 when with distinguished powers he sets himself apart 
 from the Age, and above it as the Teacher of high but ill- 
 understood truths, he will appear at once to a generous 
 imagination, in the dignity of one whose superior mind 
 outsteps the rapid progress of society, and will derive 
 from illusion itself the power to disperse illusions. It is 
 probable too, that he who labours under the errors I have 
 described, might feel the power of Truth in a writer of 
 another age, yet fail in applying the full force of his prin- 
 ciples to his own times : but when he receives them from 
 a living Teacher, there is no room for doubt or misappli- 
 cation. It is the errors of his own generation that are 
 denounced ; and whatever authority he may acknowledge 
 in the instructions of his Master, strikes, with inevitable 
 force, at his veneration for the opinions and characters of 
 his own times. — And finally, there will be gathered round 
 a living Teacher, who speaks to the deeper soul, many 
 feelings of human love, that will place the infirmities of 
 the heart peculiarly under his controul ; at the same time 
 that they blend with and animate the attachment to his 
 cause. So that there will flow from him something of the 
 peculiar influence of a friend : while his doctrines will be 
 embraced and asserted, and vindicated, with the ardent 
 zeal of a disciple, such as can scarcely be carried back to 
 distant times, or connected with voices that speak only 
 from the grave. 
 
 I have done what I proposed, I have related to you 
 as much as I have had opportunities of knowing of the 
 difficulties from within and from without, which may op- 
 pose the natural developement of true feeling and "right 
 opinion, in a mind formed with some capacity for good : 
 and the resources which such n, mind may derive from an 
 enlightened contemporary writer. — Jf what 1 have said be 
 just, it is certain that this influence will be felt more par- 
 ticularly in a work, adapted by its mode of publication, to 
 address the feelings of the time, and to bring to its readers 
 repeated admonition and repeated consolation. 
 
g6S THE FRIEND. 
 
 I have perhaps presumed too far in trespassing on 
 your attention, and in giving way to my own thoughts: 
 but I was unwilling to leave any thing unsaid which might 
 induce you to consider with favour the request I was 
 anxious to make, in the name of all whose state of mind 
 I have described, that you would at times regard us more 
 particularly in your instructions. I cannot judge to what 
 degree it may be in your power to give the Truth you 
 teach a controul over understandings that have matured 
 their strength in error ; but in our Class I am sure you 
 will have docile learners. 
 
 Mathetes. 
 
 The Friend might rest satisfied that his exertions thus 
 far have not been wholly unprofitable, if no other proof 
 had been given of their influence, than that of having 
 called forth the foregoing Letter, with which he has been 
 so much interested, that he could not deny himself the 
 pleasure of communicating it to his Readers. — In answer 
 to his Correspondent, it need scarcely here be repeated, 
 that one of the main purposes of his work is to weigh, 
 honestly and thoughtfully, the moral worth and intellectual 
 power of the Age in which we live ; to ascertain our 
 gain and our loss ; to determine what we are in ourselves 
 positively, and Avhat we are compared with our Ancestors; 
 and thus, and by every other means within his power, to 
 discover what may be hoped for future times, what and 
 how lamentable are the evils to be feared, and how far 
 there is cause for fear. If this attempt should not b 
 made wholly in vain, my ingenuous Correspondent, an 
 all who are in a state of mind resembling that of which he 
 gives so lively a picture, will be enabled more readily and 
 surely to distinguish false from legitimate objects of ad- 
 miration : and thus may the personal errors which he . 
 would guard against, be more effectually prevented or 
 removed, by the developement of general truth for a gene- 
 ral purpose, than by instructions specifically adapted to 
 himself or to the Class of which he is the able Represen- 
 tative. There is a life and spirit in knowledge which wte. 
 extract from truths scattered for the benefit of all, and 
 which the mind, by its own activity, has appropriated to 
 itself — a life and a spirit, which is seldom found in know- 
 ledge communicated by formal and direct precepts, even 
 
 u 
 
 i 
 
THE FRIEND. 269 
 
 vvlien they are exalted and endeared by reverence and 
 love for the Teacher. 
 
 Nevertheless, though I trust that the assistance which 
 my Correspondent has clone me the honour to request, 
 will in course of time flow naturally from my labours, in a 
 manner that will best serve him, I cannot resist the incli- 
 nation to connect, at present, with his Letter a few remarks 
 of direct application to the subject of it — remarks, I say, 
 for to such I shall confine myself, independent of the main 
 point out of which his complaint and request both pro- 
 ceed, I mean the assumed inferiority of the present Age 
 in moral dignity and intellectual power, to those which 
 have preceded it. For if the fact were true, that we had 
 even surpassed our Ancestors in the best of what is good, 
 the main part of the dangers and impediments which my 
 Correspondent has feelingly pourtrayed, could not cease 
 to exist for minds like his, nor indeed would they be 
 much diminished; as they arise out of the Constitution 
 of tilings, from the nature of Youth, from the laws that 
 govern the growth of the Faculties, and from the neces- 
 sary condition of the great body of Mankind. Let us 
 throw ourselves back to the age of Elizabeth, and call up 
 to mind the Heroes, the Warriors, the Statesmen, the 
 Poets, the Divines, and the Moral Philosophers, with 
 which the reign of the Virgin Queen was illustrated. Or 
 if we be more strongly attracted by the moral purity and 
 greatness, and that sanctity of civil and religious dutv, 
 with which the Tyranny of Charles the first was struggled 
 against, let us cast our eyes, in the hurry of admiration, 
 round that circle of glorious Patriots — but do not let us be 
 persuaded, that each of these, in his course of discipline, 
 was unitormly helped forward by those with whom he 
 associated, or by those whose care it was to direct him. 
 Then as now existed objects, to which the wisest attached 
 undue importance ; then as now judgment was misled by 
 factions and parties — time wasted in controversies fruits 
 less, except as far as they quickened the faculties ; then 
 as now Minds were venerated or idolized, which owed 
 their influence to the weakness of their Contemporaries 
 rather than to their own power. Then, though great 
 Actions were wrought, and great works in literature and 
 science produced, yet the general taste was capricious, 
 fantastical, or grovelling : and in this point as in all 
 others, was Youth subject to delusion, frequent in pro- 
 
270 THE FRIEND. 
 
 portion to the liveliness of the sensibility, and strong as 
 the strength of the imagination. Every Age hath abound- 
 ed in instances of Parents, Kindred, and Friends, who, by 
 indirect influence of example, or by positive injunction 
 and exhortation have diverted or discouraged the Youth, 
 who, in the simplicity and purity of Nature, had deter- 
 mined to follow his intellectual genius through good and 
 through evil, and had devoted himself to knowledge, to 
 the practice of Virtue and the preservation of integritv, 
 in slight of temporal rewards. Above all, have not the 
 common duties and cares of common life, at all times ex- 
 posed Men to injury, from causes whose action is the 
 more fatal from being silent and unremitting, and which, 
 wherever it was not jealously watched and steadily op- 
 posed, must have pressed upon and consumed the diviner 
 spirit. 
 
 There are two errors, into which we easily slip when 
 thinking of past times. One lies in forgetting, in the ex- 
 cellence of what remains, the large overbalance of worth- 
 lessness that has been swept away. Ranging over the 
 wide tracts of Antiquity, the situation of the Mind may 
 be likened to that of a Traveller * in some unpeopled 
 part of America, who is attracted to the burial place of one 
 of the primitive Inhabitants. It is conspicuous upon an 
 eminence, " a mount Upon a mount !" He digs into it, 
 and finds that it contains the bones of a Man of mighty 
 stature : and he is tempted to give way to a belief, that as 
 there were Giants in those days, so that all Men were 
 Giants. But a second and wiser thought may suggest to 
 him, that this Tomb would never have forced itself upon 
 his notice, if it had not contained a Body that was dis- 
 tinguished from others, that of a Man who had been 
 selected as a Chieftain or Ruler for the very reason that 
 he surpassed the rest of his Tribe in stature, and who now 
 lies thus conspicuously inhumed upon the mountain-top, 
 while the bones of his Followers are laid unobstrusively 
 together in their burrows upon the Plain below. The 
 second habitual error is, that in this comparison of Ages 
 we divide time merely into past and present, and place 
 these in the balance to be weighed against each other, 
 not considering that the present is in our estimation not 
 more than a period of thirty years, or half a century at 
 
 • Vide Ashe's Travels in America. 
 
THE FRIEND. 271 
 
 most, and that the past is a mighty accumulation of many 
 such periods, perhaps the whole of recorded time, or at 
 least the whole of that portion of it in which our own 
 Country has been distinguished. We may illustrate this 
 by the familiar use of the words Ancient and Modern, 
 when applied to Poetry — what can be more inconsiderate 
 or unjust than to compare a few existing Writers with 
 the whole succession of their Progenitors ? The delusion, 
 from the moment that our thoughts are directed to it, 
 seems too gross to deserve mention ; yet Men will talk 
 for hours upon Poetry, balancing against each other the 
 words Ancient and Modern, and be unconscious that they 
 have fallen into it. 
 
 These observations are not made as implying a dissent 
 from the belief of my Correspondent, that the moral spirit 
 and intellectual powers of this Country are declining ; but 
 to guard against unqualified admiration, even in cases where 
 admiration has been rightly fixed, and to prevent that de- 
 pression, which must necessarily follow, where the notion 
 of the peculiar unfavourableness of the present times to 
 dignity of mind, has been carried too far. For in propor- 
 tion as we imagine obstacles to exist out of ourselves to 
 retard our progress, will, in fact, our progress be retarded. 
 
 Deeming then, that in all ages an ardent mind will 
 
 be baffled and led astray in the manner under contempla- 
 tion, though in various; degrees, 1 shall at present content 
 myself with a few practical and desultory comments upon 
 some of those general causes, to which my Correspondent 
 justly attributes the errors in opinion, and the lowering or 
 deadening of sentiment, to which ingenuous and aspir- 
 ing Youth is exposed. And first, for the heart-cheering 
 belief in the perpetual progress of the Species towards a 
 point of unattainable perfection. If the present Age do 
 indeed transcend the past in what is most beneficial and 
 honorable, he that perceives this, being in no error, has no 
 cause for complaint ; but if it be not so, a Youth of geni- 
 us might, it should seem, be preserved from any wrong 
 influence of this faith, by an insight into a simple truth, 
 namely, that it is not necessary, in order to satisfy the de- 
 sires of our Nature, or to reconcile us to the economy of 
 Providence, that there should be at all times a continuous 
 advance in what is of highest worth. In fact it is not, as 
 a Writer of the present day has admirably observed, in the 
 power of fiction, to pourtray in words, or of the imagina- 
 
272 THE FRIEND. 
 
 tion to conceive in spirit, Actions or Characters of more 
 exalted virtue, than those which thousands of years ago 
 have existed upon earth, as we know from the records of 
 authentic history. Such is the inherent dignity of human 
 nature, that there belong to it sublimities of virtue which 
 all men may attain, and which no man can transcend : 
 And, though this be not true in an equal degree, of intel- 
 lectual power, yet in the persons of Plato, Demosthenes, 
 and Homer, — and in those of Shakespeare Milton, and 
 lord Bacon, — were enshrined as much of the divinity of 
 intellect as the inhabitants of this planet can hope will 
 ever take up its abode among them. But the .question is 
 not of the power or worth of individual Minds, but of the 
 general moral or intellectual merits of an Age — or a People, 
 .or of the human Race. Be it so — let us allow and beljeve 
 that there is a progress in the Species towards unattainable 
 perfection, or whether this be so or not, that it is a neces- 
 sity of a good and greatly-gifted Nature to believe it — sure- 
 ly it does not follow, that this progress should be constant 
 in those virtues, and intellectual qualities, and in those 
 departments of knowledge, which in themselves absolutely 
 considered are of most value — things independant and in 
 their degree indispensible. The progress of the Species 
 neither is nor can be like that of a Roman road in a right 
 line. It may be more justly compared to that of a River, 
 which both in its smaller reaches and larger turnings, is 
 frequently forced back towards its fountains, by objects 
 which cannot otherwise be eluded or overcome ; yet with 
 an accompanying impulse that will ensure its advancement 
 hereafter, it is either gaining strength every hour, or con- 
 quering in secret some difficulty, by a labour that contri- 
 butes as effectually to further it in its course, as when it 
 moves forward uninterrupted in a line, direct as that of 
 the Roman road with which we began the comparison. 
 
 (To be continued.) 
 
 PENRITH: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY 3. BROWN; AND SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW; AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
 i 
 
£ 
 
 THE FRIENJfo. 
 
 ■ 
 
 No. 18. THURSDAY, December 21, 1809. 
 
 I present my readers, in this Number, with four original Sonnets 
 from Mr .Wordsworth, on the same subject as his three former, in 
 Numbers 11 and 13 ; and as its' conclusion. To make the 5^ com- 
 plete (if I may use so trivial a phrase) I have prefixed his Sonnet oa» 
 Switzerland from his " Poems," having always thought it one of the 
 noblest Sonnets in our Language, and the happiest comment on the 
 line of Milton — " The mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty," which 
 would be no inapt motto for the whole collection. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of SWITZERLAND* 
 
 Two Voices are there ; one is of the Sea, 
 
 One of the Mountains ; each a mighty Voice : 
 
 In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, 
 
 They were thy chosen Music, Liberty ! 
 
 There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee 
 
 Thou fought'st against Him ; but hast vainly striven ! 
 
 Thou from thine Alpine Holds at length art driven, 
 
 Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. 
 
 Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft : 
 
 Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left ! 
 
 For, high-soul'd Maid ! what sorrow would it be, 
 
 That mountain Floods should thunder as before, 
 
 And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore, 
 
 And neither awful Voice be heard by thee ! 
 
 ^ 
 
 Feelings of the TrROLESE. 
 The Land we from our Fathers had in trust 
 And to our Children will transmit, or die : 
 This is our maxim, this our piety ; 
 And God and Nature say, that it is just. 
 That which we would perform in arms — we must ! 
 We read the dictate in the Infant's eye, 
 In the Wife's smile, and in the placid sky, 
 And at our feet, amid the silent dust 
 
 Of them that were before us. Sing aloud 
 
 Old Songs, the precious music of the heart \ 
 Give, Herds and Flocks ! your voices to the wind ! 
 While we go forth, a self-devoted crowd, 
 With weapons in the fearless hand, to assert 
 Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind ! 
 
^7^ THE FRIEND. 
 
 And is it among rude untutor'd vales, 
 There, and there only, that the heart is true ? 
 And rising to repel or to subdue, 
 Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails ? 
 Ah no ! — though Nature's dread protection fails, 
 There is a bulwark in the soul. — This knew 
 Iberian Burghers, when the sword they drew 
 In Zaragoza, naked to the gales 
 Of fiercely-breathing War. The truth was felt 
 By Palafox, and many a brave Compeer, 
 Like him, of noble birth and noble mind : 
 By Ladies, meek-eyed Women without fear, 
 \ And Wanderers of the Street, to whom is dealt 
 
 ** The bread which without industry they find. 
 
 
 O'er the wide warth, ©n mountain and on plain 
 
 Dwells in the affections and the soul of man 
 
 A Godhead, like the universal Pan * 
 
 But more exalted, with a brighter train. 
 
 And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain, 
 
 Shower'd equally on city and on Field, 
 
 And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield 
 
 In these usurping times of fear and pain ? 
 
 Such doom awaits us ! — Nay, forbid it Heaven ! 
 
 We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws 
 
 To which the triumph of all good is given, 
 
 High sacrifice and labour without pause 
 
 Even to the death : — else wherefore should the eye 
 
 Of man converse with immortality ? 
 
 On the report of the submission of the Trs&LESE. 
 
 It was a moral end for which they fought ; 
 
 Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame, 
 
 Could They, poor Shepherds, have preserv'd an aim, 
 
 A Resolution or enlivening thought ? 
 
 Nor hath that moral good been vainly sought \ 
 
 For in their magnanimity and fame 
 
 Powers have they left — an impulse — and a claim 
 
 Which neither can be overturned nor bought. 
 
 Sleep, Warriors, sleep ! among your hills repose ! 
 
 We know that Ye beneath the stern cpntrpul 
 
 Of awful prudence keep the unvanquished soul. 
 
 And when impatient of her guilt and woes 
 
 Europe breaks forth, then Shepherds, shall ye rise . 
 
 For perfect triumph o'er your enemies. W. W. 
 
 -" universal Pan 
 
 Knit with the graces and tlie hours in dance 
 
 Lad on the eternal sluing." Milton- 
 
THE FRIEND. f^S 
 
 I am indebted to an accomplished Correspondent for the follow- 
 ing elegant Copy of Verses, imitated from a French Poem addressed 
 to Madame Buonaparte, when she was Madam Beauharnois. I do 
 not remember to have read a more pleasing combination of beauti- 
 ful Images and intelligible Allegory with a play of words. Those 
 Hyper-critics, who will discover that two different meanings are 
 confounded under one word, namely, Age and the sensation of 
 Time, &c. will have caught a Fire-fly, as it was flitting to and fro irj 
 a Grove at twilight, to transfix it with a pin, and pore over it in 
 fcroad day. 
 
 Destined with restless foot to roam, 
 
 Old Time, a venerable sage, 
 Reaches a river's brink, and — <« come," 
 
 He cries — « have pity on my age. 
 " What ! on these banks forgotten I, 
 
 « Who mark each moment with my glass ! 
 « Hear, Damsels, hear my suppliant cry, 
 
 «« And courteously help Time to pass." 
 
 Disporting on the farther shore, 
 
 Full many a gentle Nymph look'd on ; 
 And fain to speed his passage o'er, 
 
 Bade Love, their boatman, fetch the crone : 
 But one, of all the group most staid, 
 
 Still warn'd her venturous mates — " Alas ! 
 « How oft has shipwreck whelm'd the Maid, 
 
 " Whose pity would help Time to pass ! " 
 
 Lightly his boat across the stream 
 
 Love guides, his hoary freight receives, 
 And fluttering 'mid the sunny gleam, 
 
 His canvas to the breezes gives : 
 And plying light his little oars— 
 
 In treble now and now in bass, 
 " See, girls," th' enraptur'd Urchin roars, 
 
 « How gaily Love makes Time to pass." 
 
 But soon — 'tis Love's proverbial crime- 
 Exhausted, he his oars let fall ; 
 
 And soon those oars are snatch'd by Time, 
 And — heard ye not the rallier's call ? — 
 
 " What ! tired so soon of thy sweet toil, 
 
 (Poor Child ! thou sleepest ! — I, alas ! 
 In graver strain repeat the while 
 
 My Seng-^Tis Tin* makes Love to pas» ! M 
 
 F. W. 
 
276 THE FRIEND. 
 
 SATYRANE'S LETTERS. 
 
 Letter III. 
 
 Ratzeburg. 
 
 No little Fish thrown back again into the Water, 
 no Fly unimprisoned from a child's hand, could more 
 buoyantly enjoy it's element, than I this clean and peace- 
 ful house, with this lovely view of the town, groves, and 
 lake of Ratzeburg, from the window at which 1 am writing. 
 My spirits certainly, and my health 1 fancied, were be- 
 ginning to sink under the noise, dirt, and unwholesome 
 air, of our Hamburg Hotel. I left it on Sunday, Sept. 23d. 
 with a Letter of introduction from the Poet Klopstock, to 
 the Amptman of Ratzeburg. The Amptman received me 
 with kindness, and introduced me to the worthy Pastor, 
 who agreed to board and lodge me for any length of time 
 not less than a month. The Vehicle, in which I took my 
 place, was considerably larger than an English Stage 
 Coach, to which it bore much the same proportion and 
 rude resemblance, that an Elephant's ear does to the 
 human. Its top was composed of naked boards of differ- 
 ent colours, and seeming to have been parts of different 
 wainscots. Instead of windows there were leathern cur- 
 tains with a little eye of glass in each : they perfectly 
 answered the purpose of keeping out the prospect and 
 letting in the cold. I could observe little, therefore, but 
 the inns and farm houses at which we stopped. They were 
 all alike, except in size : one great room, like a barn, 
 with a hay-loft over it, the straw and hay dangling in tufts 
 through the boards which formed the ceiling of the room, 
 and the floor of the loft. From this room, which is paved 
 like a street, sometimes one, sometimes two smaller ones, 
 are enclosed at one end. These are commonly floored. 
 In the large room the Cattle, Pigs, Poultry, Men, Wo- 
 men, and Children, live in amicable community : yet 
 there was an appearance of cleanliness and rustic comfort. 
 One of these houses I measured. It was an hundred feet 
 in length. The apartments were taken off from one cor- 
 ner. Between these and the stalls there was a small inter- 
 space, and here the breadth was forty eight feet, but thirty 
 two where the stalls were ; of course, the stalls were on 
 each side eight feet in depth. The faces of the Cows, &c. 
 
THE FRIEND. 277 
 
 were turned towards the room ; indeed they were in it, so 
 that they had at least the comfort of seeing each others 
 faces. Stall-feeding is universal in this part of Germany, 
 a practice concerning which the Agriculturalist and the 
 Poet are likely to entertain opposite opinions — or at least, 
 to have very different feelings. The wood work of these 
 buildings on the outside is left unplaistered, as in old 
 houses among us, and being painted red and green, it cuts 
 and tesselates the buildings very gaily. From within 
 three Miles of Hamburg almost to Molln, which is thirty 
 miles from it, the Country, as far as I could see it, was a 
 dead flat, only varied by woods. At Molln it became 
 more beautiful. I observed a small Lake nearly surround- 
 ed with groves, and a Palace in view belonging to the 
 King of Great Britain and inhabited by the Inspector of 
 the Forests. We were nearly the same time in travelling 
 the thirty five miles from Hamburg to Ratzeburg, as we 
 had been in going from London to Yarmouth, one hun- 
 dred and twenty six miles. 
 
 The Lake of Ratzeburg runs from south to north, 
 about nine miles in length, and varying in breadth from 
 three miles to half a mile. About a mile from the souther- 
 most point it is divided into two, of course very unequal, 
 parts by an Island, which being connected by a Bridge 
 and a narrow slip of land with the one shore, and by 
 another Bridge of immense length with the other shore, 
 forms a complete Isthmus. On this Island the town of 
 Ratzeburg is built. The Pastor's house or Vicarage, to- 
 gether with the Amptman's, Amptschrieber's, and the 
 Church, stands near the summit of a hill, which slopes 
 down to the slips of land and the little Bridge, from which, 
 through a superb military gate, you step into the Island- 
 Town of Ratzeburg ; This again is itself a little hill, by 
 ascending and descending which, you arrive at the long 
 Bridge, and so to the other shore. The water to the south 
 of the town is called the little Lake, which however al- 
 most engrosses the beauties of the whole : The shores 
 being just often enough green and bare to give the proper 
 effect to the magnificent groves which occupy the greater 
 part of their circumference. From the turnings, wind- 
 ings, and indentations of the shore, the views vary almost 
 every ten steps, and the whole has a sort of majestic 
 beauty, a feminine grandeur. At the north of the great 
 Lake, and peeping over it, I see the seven Church towers. 
 
978 THE FRIEN6. 
 
 of Lubec, at the distance of twelve or thirteen miles, yet 
 as distinctly as if they were not three. The only defect 
 in the view is, that Ratzeburg is built entirely of red 
 bricks, and all the houses roofed with red tiles. To the 
 eye, therefore, it presents a clump of brick-dust red. Yet 
 this evening, Octr 10th. twenty minutes past five, I saw 
 the town perfectly beautiful, and the whole softened down 
 into complete keeping, if I may borrow a term from the 
 Painters. The sky over Ratzeburg and all the east, was a 
 pure evening blue, while over the west it was covered 
 with light sandy clouds. Hence a deep red light spread 
 over the whole prospect, in undisturbed harmony with the 
 red town, the brown-reil woods, and the yellow-red reeds 
 on the skirts of the Lake. Two or three boats, with 
 single persons paddling them, floated up and down in the 
 rich light, which not only was itself in harmony with all, 
 but brought all into harmony. 
 
 I should have told you that I went back to Hamburg 
 on Thursday (Sept. 27th.) to take leave of my Friend, 
 who travels southward, and returned hither on the Mon- 
 day following. From Empfelde, a village half way from 
 Ratzeburg, 1 walked to Hamburg through deep sandy 
 roads and a dreary flat : the soil every where white, hun- 
 gry, and excessively pulverized ; but the approach to the 
 City is pleasing. Light cool Country Houses, which yon 
 can look through and see the Gardens behind them, with 
 arbours and trellis work, and thick vegetable walls, and 
 trees in cloisters and piazzas, each house with neat raits 
 before it, and green seats within the rails. Every object, 
 whether the growth of Nature or the work of Man, was 
 neat and artificial. It pleased me far better, than if the 
 houses and gardens, and pleasure fields, had been in a 
 nobler taste : for this nobler taste would have been mere 
 apery. The busy, anxious, money-loving, Merchant of 
 Hamburg could only have adopted, he could not have 
 enjoyed, the simplicity of Nature. The mind begins to 
 love nature by imitating human conveniences in Nature ; 
 but this is a step in intellect, though a low one — -and were 
 it not so, yet all around me spoke of innocent enjoyment 
 and sensitive comforts, and I entered with unscrupulous 
 sympathy into the enjoymeuts and comforts even of the 
 busy, anxious, money-loving Merchants of Hamburg. In 
 this charitable and catholic mood I reached the vast ram- 
 parts of the City. These are huge green cushions, one 
 
THE FftlEND. 979 
 
 fising above the other, with trees growing in the inter- 
 spaces, pledges and symbols of a long peace. Of my 
 return I have nothing worth communicating, except that 
 I took extra post, which answers to posting in England. 
 These North-German Post Chaises are uncovered wicker 
 carts. An English dust-cart is a piece of finery, a chef 
 d'oeuvre of mechanism, compared with them : and the 
 horses ! a Savage might use their ribs instead of his fingers 
 for a numeration table. Wherever we stopped, the Pos- 
 tillion fed his cattle with the brown rye bread of which he 
 eat himself, all breakfasting together, only the Horses had 
 no gin to their water, and the Postillion no water to his 
 gin. Now and henceforward for subjects of more interest 
 to you, and to the objects in search of which 1 left you ; 
 namely, the Literati and Literature of Germany. 
 
 Believe me, I walked with an impression of awe on my 
 
 spirits, as B and myself accompanied Mr. Klopstock 
 
 to the House of his Brother, the Poet, which stands 
 about a quarter of a mile from the City Gate. It is one 
 of a row of little common-place Summer-houses, (for so 
 they looked) with four or five rows of young meagre elm 
 trees before the windows, beyond which is a Green, and 
 then a dead flat intersected with several roads. Whatever 
 beauty (thought 1) may be before the Poet's eyes at pre- 
 sent, it must certainly be purely of his own creation. We 
 waited a few minutes in a neat little parlour, ornamented 
 with the figures of two of the Muses and with Prints, the 
 subjects of which were from Klopstock's Odes. The 
 Poet entered. I was much disappointed in his counten- 
 ance, and recognized in it no likeness to the Bust. There 
 was no comprehension in the forehead, no weight over 
 the eye-brows, no expression of peculiarity, moral or in- 
 tellectual on the eyes, no massiveness in the general 
 countenance. He is if any thing rather below the middle 
 size. He wore Very large half-boots which his legs filled, 
 so fearfully were they swoln. However, though neither 
 B nor myself could discover any indications of sub- 
 limity or enthusiasm in his phisiognomy, we were both 
 equally impressed with his liveliness, and his kind and 
 ready courtesy. He talked in French with my Friend, 
 and with difficulty spoke a few sentences to me in 
 English. His enunciation was not in the least affected by 
 the entire want of his upper teeth. The conversation 
 began on his part by the expression of his rapture at the 
 
280 THE FRIENB. 
 
 surrender of the detachment of French Troops under 
 General Humbert. Their proceedings in Ireland with 
 regard to the Committee, which they had appointed, with 
 the rest of their organizing System, seemed to have given 
 the Poet great Entertainment. He then declared his 
 Sanguine belief in Nelson's victory, and anticipated its' 
 confirmation with a keen and triumphant pleasure. His 
 words, tones, looks, implied the most vehement Anti- 
 Gallicanism. The subject changed to Literature, and I 
 enquired in Latin concerning the History of German 
 Poetry and the elder German Poets. To my great astonish- 
 ment he confessed, that he knew very little on the subject, 
 He had indeed occasionally read one or two of their elder 
 Writers, but not so as to enable him to speak of their 
 merits. Professor Ebeling, he said, would probably give 
 me every information of this kind : the subject had not 
 particularly excited his curiosity. He then talked of 
 Milton and Glover, and thought Glover's blank verse su- 
 perior to Milton's. B— — and myself expressed our sur- 
 prize : and my Friend gave his definition and notion of 
 harmonious verse, that it consisted (the English iambic 
 blank verse above all) in the apt arrangement of pauses 
 and cadences, and the sweep of whole paragraphs, 
 
 g i .. . " with many a winding bout 
 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out," 
 
 and not in the even flow, much less in the prominence or 
 antithetic vigour, of single lines which were indeed injuri- 
 ous to the total effect, except where they were introduced 
 for some specific purpose. Klopstock assented, and said 
 that he meant to confine Glover's superiority to single 
 lines. He told us that he had read Milton, in a prose 
 translation, when he was fourteen.* I understood him 
 thus myself, and B — — - interpreted Klopstock's French as 
 I had already construed it. He appeared to know very 
 little of Milton— or indeed of our Poets in general. He 
 spoke with great indignation of the English prose transla- 
 tion of his Messiah. All the Translations had been bad, 
 very bad — but the English was no translation — there were 
 pages on pages, not in the Original : — and half the 
 Original was not to be found in the Translation. B 
 
 * This was accidentally *onfirmed to me by an old German Gentleman at 
 Helmstadt, who had been Klopstock's school and bedfellow. Among other 
 boyish anecdotes he related, that the young Poet set a particular value on a 
 translation of the Paradise Lost, and always slept with it under fcis pillow. 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 281 
 
 told him that I intended to translate a few of his Odes as 
 specimens of German Lyrics — he then said to me in 
 English, " I wish you would render into English some 
 select Passages of the Messiah, and revenge me of your 
 Countryman ! " It was the liveliest thing which he pro- 
 duced in the whole conversation. He told us, that his 
 first Ode was fifty years older than his last. I looked at 
 him with much emotion— I considered him as the vener- 
 able Father of German Poetry ; as a good Man ; as a 
 Christian ; seventy four years old ; with legs enormously 
 swoln ; yet active, lively, chearful, and kind, and commu- 
 nicative. My eyes felt as if a tear were swelling into 
 them. In the Portrait of Lessing there was a Toupee 
 Periwig which enormously injured the effect of his Phi- 
 siognomy — Klopstock wore the same, powdered and 
 frizzled. r By the bye, old Men ought never to wear pow- 
 der — the contrast between a large snow-white wig and the 
 colour of an old man's skin is disgusting, and wrinkles in 
 such a neighbourhood appear only channels for dirt. It is 
 an honour to Poets and Great Men, that you think of 
 them as parts of Nature ; and any thing of trick and 
 fashion wounds you in them, as much as when you see 
 venerable Yews clipped into miserable peacocks. — The 
 Author of the Messiah should have worn his own grey 
 hair. — His Powder and Perriwig were to the Eye, what 
 Mr. Virgil would be to the ear. 
 
 Klopstock dwelt much on the superior power which 
 the German Language possessed, of concentrating mean- 
 ing. He said, he had often translated parts of Homer and 
 Virgil, line by line, and a German line proved always suf- 
 ficient for a Greek or Latin one. In English you cannot 
 do this. I answered, that in English we could commonly 
 render one Greek heroic line in a line and a half of our 
 common heroic metre, and I conjectured that this line and 
 a half would be found to contain no more syllables, than 
 one German or Greek hexameter. He did not under- 
 stand * me : and I who wished to hear his opinions, not to 
 correct them, was glad that he did not. 
 
 * Klopstock's observation was partly true and partly erroneous. In the 
 literal sense of his words, and if we confine the comparison to the average of 
 space required for the expression of the same thought in the twe languages, 
 it is erroneous. I have translated some German hexameters into English 
 hexameters, and find, that on the average three lines English will express four 
 lines German. The reason is evident: our language abounds in monosyllables 
 
gg2 THE FRIEND. 
 
 We now took our leave. At the beginning of the 
 French Revolution Klopstock wrote Odes of congratula- 
 tion. He received some honorary presents from the 
 French Republic (a golden Crown I believe) and, like our 
 Priestly, was invited to a seat in the Legislature, which 
 he declined. But when French Liberty metamorphosed 
 herself into a Fury, he sent back these presents with a 
 Palinodia, declaring his abhorrence of their proceedings : 
 and since then he has been perhaps more than enough an 
 Anti-Gallican. I mean, that in his just contempt and 
 detestation of the crimes and follies of the Revolutionists 
 he suffers himself to forget, that the Revolution itself is a 
 process of the Divine Providence ; and that as the folly of 
 Men is the wisdom of God, so are their iniquities instru- 
 ments of his goodness. From Klopstock's House we 
 walked to the Ramparts, discoursing together on the Poet 
 and his conversation, till our attention was diverted to the 
 beauty and singularity of the sunset and it's effects on the 
 objects round us. There were Woods in the distance. 
 A rich sandy light (nay, of a much deeper colour than 
 
 and dissyllables. The German not less than the Greek, is a polysyllabic 
 Language. But in another point of view the remark was not without founda- 
 tion. For the German possessing the same unlimited privilege of forming 
 compounds, both with prepositions and with epithets as the Greek, it can 
 express the richest single Greek word in a single German one, and is thu* 
 fieed from the necessity of weak or ungraceful paraphrases. I will content 
 myself with one example at present, viz. the use of the prefixed particles ver, 
 zer, ent, and toeg, thus reissen to rend, verreissen to rend away, zerreissen to 
 rend to pieces, entreissen to rend ofi"or out of a thing, in the active sense: or 
 schmelzen to melt — ver, zer, ent, schmelzen — and in like manner through all 
 the verbs neuter and active. If you consider only how much we should feel 
 the loss of the prefix be, as in bedropt, besprinkle, besot, especially in our 
 poetical Language, and then think that this same mode of composition is 
 carried through all their simple and compound prepositions, and many of their 
 adverbs ; and that with most of these the Germans have the same privilege 
 as we have, of dividing them from the verb and placing them at the end of. 
 the sentence; you will have no difficulty in comprehending the reality and 
 the cause, of this superior power in the German of condensing meaning, in 
 which it's great Poet exulted. It is impossible to read half a dozen pages of 
 Wieland without perceiving that in this respect the German has no rival but 
 the Greek, and yet I seem to feel that concentration or condensation is not 
 the happiest mode of expressing this excellence, which seems to consist not 
 so much in the less time required for conveying an impression, as in the uni- 
 ty and simultaneousness with which the impression is conveyed. It tends to 
 make their language more picturesque : it depictures images better. We have 
 obtained this power in part by our compound verbs derived from the Latin : 
 and the sense of it's great effect no doubt induced our Milton both to the use 
 and the abuse of Latin derivatives. But still these prefixed particles convey- 
 ing no separate or separable meaning to the mere English Reader, cannot 
 possibly act on the mind with the force or liveliness of an original and homo- 
 geneous language, such as the German is : and besides are confined to certain 
 words. 
 
tHE FRIEND. 283 
 
 sandy) lay over these woods that blackened in the blaze. 
 Over that part of the woods, which lay immediately un- 
 der the intenser light, a brassy mist floated. The Trees 
 On the Ramparts, and the People moving to and fro be- 
 tween them, were cut or divided into equal segments of 
 deep shade and brassy light. Had the Trees, and the bo- 
 dies of the Men and Women, been divided into equal seg- 
 ments by a rule or pair of Compasses, the portions could 
 not have been more regular. All else was obscure. It 
 was a fairy scene ! and to encrease its romantic character, 
 among the moving objects thus divided into alternate shade 
 and brightness, was a beautiful Child dressed with the ele- 
 gant simplicity of an English child, riding on a stately Goat, 
 the saddle, bridle, and other accoutrements of which were 
 in a high degree costly and splendid Before I quit the 
 subject of Hamburg, let me say, that I remained a day or 
 two longer than 1 otherwise should have done, in order to 
 be present at the feast of St. Michael, the Patron Saint of 
 Hamburg, expecting to see the civic pomp of this com- 
 mercial Republic. I was however disappointed. There 
 were no processions, two or three sermons were preached 
 to two or three old Women in two or three Churches, and 
 St. Michael and his patronage wished elsewhere by the 
 higher classes, all places of entertainment, Theatre, &c„ 
 being shut up on this day. In Hamburg, there seems to 
 be no religion at all : in Lubec it is confined to the Wo- 
 men. The Men seem determined to be divorced from 
 their wives in the other world, if they cannot in this. 
 You will not easily conceive a more singular si^ht, than is 
 presented by the vast aisle of the pripcipal Church at Lu- 
 bec seen from the Organ-loft : for being filled with female 
 Servants and Persons in the same class of life, and all 
 their caps having gold and silver cauls, it appears like a 
 rich pavement of gold and silver. 
 
 I will conclude this Letter with the mere transcription 
 of notes, which my Friend B— — took of his conversations 
 with Klopstock, during the interviews that took place 
 after my departure. On these I shall make but one re- 
 mark at present, and that will appear a presumptuous one; 
 namely, that Klopstock's remarks on the venerable Sage 
 of Koenigsburg are to my own knowledge injurious and 
 mistaken ; and so far is it from being true, that his system 
 is now given up, that throughout the Universities of Ger- 
 many there is not a single Professor, who is not either a 
 
2S4 THE FRIEND. 
 
 Kantean, or a disciple of Fichte whose system is built on 
 the Kantean, and presupposes it's truth; or lastly who, 
 though an antagonist of Kant as to his theoretical work, 
 has not embraced wholly or in part his moral system, and 
 adopts part of his nomenclature. " Klopstock having 
 wished to see the Calvary of Cumberland, and asked what 
 was thought of it in England, I went to Remnant's (the 
 English Bookseller) where I procured the Analytical Re- 
 view, in which is contained the review of Cumberland's 
 Calvary. "I remembered to have read there some speci- 
 mens of a blank verse translation of the Messiah. I had 
 mentioned this to Klopstock, and he had a great desire to 
 see them. I walked over to his house and put the book 
 into his hands. On adverting to his own Poem, he told 
 me he began the Messiah when he was seventeen : he 
 devoted three entire years to the plan without composing 
 a single line. He was greatly at a loss in what manner to 
 execute his work. There were no successful specimens of 
 versification in the German language before this time. 
 The first three cantos he wrote in a species of measured , 
 or numerous prose. This, though done with much labour 
 and some success, was far from satisfying him. He had 
 composed hexameters both Latin and Greek as a school 
 exercise, and there had been also in the German language 
 attempts in that style of versification. These were only 
 of very moderate merit — One day he was struck with the 
 idea of what could be done in this way — he kept his room 
 a whole day,«ven went without his dinner, and found that 
 in the evening be had written twenty three hexameters, 
 versifying a part of what he had before written in prose. 
 From that time, pleased with his efforts, he composed no 
 more in prose. To-day he informed me that he had finish- 
 his plan before he read Milton. He was enchanted to see 
 an Author who before him had trod the same path. This 
 is a contradiction of what he said before. He did not 
 wish to speak of his poem to any one till it was finished : 
 but some of his Friends who had seen what he had finish- 
 ed, tormented him till he had consented to publish a few 
 books in a journal. He was then I believe very young, 
 about twenty five. The rest was printed at different pe- 
 riods, four books at a time. The reception given to the 
 first specimens was highly flattering. He was nearly thir- 
 ty years in finishing the whole Poem, but of these thirty 
 years not more thap two were employed in the composi,- 
 
THE FRIEND. 285 
 
 tion. He only composed in favourable moments ; besides 
 he had other occupations. He values himself upon the 
 plan of his Odes, and accuses the modern lyrical Writers of 
 gross deficiency in this respect. I laid the same accusa- 
 tion against Horace : he would not hear of it — but waived 
 the discussion. He called Rousseau's Ode to Fortune a 
 moral Dissertation, in Stanzas. I spoke of Dryden's St. 
 Cecilia ; but he did not seem familiar with our Writers. 
 He wished to know the distinctions between our drama- 
 tic and epic blank verse. He recommended me to read 
 his Herman before I read either the Messiah or the 
 Odes. He flattered himself that some time or' other 
 his dramatic poems would be known in England. He 
 had not heard of Cowper. He thought that Voss in his 
 translation of the Iliad had done violence to the idiom of 
 the Germans, and had sacrificed it to the Greek, not re- 
 membering sufficiently th,at each language has it's particu- 
 lar spirit and genius. He said Lessing was the first of 
 their dramatic Writers. I complained of Nathan as tedi- 
 ous. He said there was not enough of action in it ; but 
 that Lessing was the most chaste of their Writers. He 
 spoke favourably of Goethe ; but said that his " Sorrows 
 of Werter" was his best work, better than any of his Dra- 
 mas : he preferred the first written to the rest of Goethe's 
 Dramas. Schiller's " Robbers" he found so extravagant, 
 that he could not read it. I spoke of the scene of the 
 setting sun. He did not know it. He said Schiller could 
 not live. He thought Don Carlos the best of his Dramas; 
 but said that the plot was inextricable — It was evident, 
 he knew little of Schiller's Works : indeed he said, he 
 could not read them. Burgher he said was a true Poet, 
 and would live ; that Schiller, on the contrary, must soon 
 be forgotten ; that he gave himself up to the imitation of 
 Shakespeare, who often was extravagant, but that Schiller 
 was ten thousand times more so. He spoke very slight- 
 ingly of Kotzebue, as an immoral Author in the first 
 place, and next as deficient in power. At Vienna, said 
 he, they are transported with him ; but we do not reckon 
 the people of Vienna either the wisest or the wittiest 
 People of Germany. He said Wieland was a charming 
 Author and a sovereign Master of his own language : that 
 in this respect Goethe could not be compared to him, or 
 indeed could any body else. He said that his fault was to 
 be fertile to exuberance. I told him the Oberon had just 
 

 2S6 THE FRIEND. 
 
 been translated into English. He asked me, if I was not 
 delighted with the Poem. I answered, that 1 thought the 
 Story began to flag about the seventh or eighth book ; 
 and observed that it was unworthy of a man of genius to 
 make the interest of a long poem turn entirely upon ani- 
 mal gratification. He seemed at first disposed to excuse 
 this by saying, that there are different subjects for poetry, 
 and that Poets are not willing to be restricted in their 
 choice. I answered, that 1 thought the passion of Love 
 as well suited to the purposes ot Poetry as any other pas- 
 sion ; but that it was a cheap way of pleasing to fix the 
 attention of the Reader through a long poem on the mere 
 appetite. Well ! but, said he, you see, that such Poems 
 please every body. I answered, that it was the province 
 of a great Poet to raise People up to his own level, not to 
 descend to their's. He agreed, and confessed, that on 
 no account whatsoever would he have written a work like 
 the Oberon. He spoke in raptures of Wieland's style, and 
 pointed out the passage where Retzia is delivered of her 
 Child, as exquisitely beautiful. I said that 1 did not per- 
 ceive any very striking pasages ; but that I made allow^ 
 ance for the imperfections of a Translation. Of the thefts 
 of Wieland he said, they were so exquisitely managed, that 
 the greatest writers might be proud to steal as he did. 
 He considered the books and fables of old Romance Wri- 
 ters in the light of the ancient mythology, as a sort of 
 common property, from which a man was free to take what- 
 ever he could make a good use of. An Englishman had 
 presented him with the Odes of Collins, which he had 
 read with pleasure. He knew little or nothing of Gray 
 except his Essay in the Church-yard. He complained of 
 the Fool in Lear. I observed, that he seemed to give a 
 terrible wildness to the distress ; but still he complained. 
 He asked whether it was not allowed, that Pope had writ- 
 ten rhyme poetry with more skill than any of our Writers..^ 
 I said, 1 preferred Dryden, because his couplets had great- 
 er variety in their movement. He thought my reason a 
 good one ; but asked whether the rhyme of Pope were 
 not more exact. This question I understood as applying 
 to the final terminations, and observed to him that I be- 
 lieved it was the case ; but that I thought it was easy to 
 excuse some inaccuracy in the final sounds, if the gene- 
 ral sweep of the verse was superior. I told him that we 
 were not so exact with regard to the fiaal endings of lines 
 
THE FRIEND. 297 
 
 as the French. He did not seem to know that we made 
 no distinction between masculine and feminine (i. e. sin- 
 gle or double,) rhymes : at least he put inquiries to me on 
 this subject. He seemed to think, that no language could 
 ever be so far formed as that it might not be enriched 
 by idioms borrowed from another tongue. I said this was 
 a very dangerous practice ; and added that I thought Mil- 
 ton had often injured both his prose and verse by taking 
 this liberty too frequently. I recommended to him the 
 prose works of Dryden as models of pure and native 
 English. I was treading upon tender ground, as I have 
 reason to suppose that he has himself liberally indulged in 
 the practice. 
 
 The same day I dined at Mr. Klopstocks, where I had 
 the pleasure of a third interview with the Poet. We 
 talked principally about indifferent things. I asked him 
 what he thought of Kant. He said that his reputation 
 was much on the decline in Germany. That for his own 
 part he was not surprized to find it so, as the Works of 
 Kant were to him utterly incomprehensible — that he had 
 often been pestered by the Kanteans ; but was rarely in 
 the practice of arguing with them. His custom was to 
 produce the book, open it and point to a passage, and beg 
 they would explain it. This they ordinarily attempted to 
 do by substituting their own ideas. I do not want, I say, 
 an explanation of your own ideas, but of the passage 
 which is before us. In this way I generally bring the dis- 
 pute to an immediate conclusion. He spoke of Wolfe as 
 the first Metaphysician they had in Germany. Wolfe had 
 followers ; but they could hardly be called a sect, and 
 luckily till the appearance of Kant, about fifteen years ago, 
 Germany had not been pestered by any sect of Philoso- 
 phers whatsoever ; but that each man had separately pur- 
 sued his enquiries uncontrolled by the dogmas of a 
 Master. Kant had appeared ambitious to be the founder 
 of a Sect, that he had succeeded : but that the Germans 
 were now coming to their senses again. That Nicolai and 
 Engel had in different ways contributed to disenchant the 
 Nation ; but above all the incomprehensibility of the 
 Philosopher and his philosophy. He seem pleased to 
 hear, that as yet Kant's doctrines had not met with many 
 Admirers in England — did not doubt but that we had too 
 much wisdom to be duped by a Writer who set at defiance 
 the common sense and common understandings of Men. 
 
2SS THE FRIEND. 
 
 We talked of Tragedy. He seemed to rate highly the 
 power of exciting tears — I said that nothing was more 
 easy than to deluge an audience, that it was done every 
 day by the meanest Writers." 
 
 I must remind you, my Friend, first, that these Notes, 
 &c. are not intended as specimens of Klopstock's intel- 
 lectual power or even " colloquial prowess," to judge of 
 which by an accidental conversation, and this with 
 Strangers, and those too Foreigners, would be not only 
 unreasonable, but calumnious. Secondly, I attribute little 
 other interest to the remarks than what is derived from 
 the celebrity of the Person who made them. Lastly, if 
 you ask me, whether I have read the Messiah, and what 
 I think of it ? I answer — as yet the first four books only : 
 and as to my opinion (the reasons of which hereafter) you 
 may guess it from what 1 could not help muttering to my- 
 self, when the good Pastor this morning told me, that 
 
 Klopstock was the German Milton " a very German 
 
 Milton indeed ! ! ! Heaven preserve you, and 
 
 Satyrane. 
 
 TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
 
 I thank the " Friend's friend and a Cantab" fer his inspiriting Letter, and 
 assure him, that it was not without it's intended effect, of giving me encour- 
 agement. That this was not needless, he would feel as well as know, if I 
 could convey to him the anxious thoughts and gloomy anticipations, with 
 which 1 write any single paragraph, that demands the least effort of attention, 
 or requires the Reader to enter iato himself and question his own mind as to 
 the truth of that which 1 am pressing on his notice. But both He and my 
 very kind Mai ton Correspondent, and all of similar dispositions, may rest as- 
 sured, that with every imaginable endeavour to make The Friend, cel/ective- 
 fy, as entertaining as is compatable with the main Object of the Work, I shall 
 never so far forget the duty, I owe to them and to my own heart, as not to re- 
 member that mere amusement is not that main Object. I have taken upon 
 myself (see No. 1 1.) all the blame that I could acknowledge without adulation 
 to my readers and hypocritical mock-humility. But the principal source of 
 the obscurity imputed must be sought for in the want of interest concerning 
 the truths themselves. (Revel. III. 17.) My sole Hope (I dare not say expec- 
 tation) is, that if I am enabled to proceed with the work through an equal 
 number of Essays with those already published, it will gradually find for itself 
 it's appropriate Public. 
 
 S. T. Coleridge, 
 • 
 
 
 
 * ENR1TH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW;. AND 
 - CLEMENT.201, STRAND, L«NDON. 
 
; 
 
 I > THE FRIJENJD. 
 
 No. 19. THURSDAY, December 28, 1809- 
 
 EPITAPHS 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM CHIABRERA. 
 
 There never breath 1 d a man who when his life 
 Was closing might not of that life relate 
 
 Toils long and hard. The Warrior will report 
 
 Of wounds, and bright swords flashing in the field, 
 
 And blast of trumpets. He, who hath been doomed 
 
 To bow his forehead in the courts of kings, 
 
 Will tell of fraud and never-ceasing hate, 
 
 Envy, and heart-inquietude derived 
 
 From intricate cabals of treacherous friends. 
 
 I, who on ship-board lived from earliest youth, 
 
 Could represent the countenance horrible 
 
 Of the vex'd waters, and the indignant rage 
 
 Of Auster and Bootes. Forty years 
 
 Over the well-steer* d Gal lies did I rule ; 
 
 From huge Pelorus to the Atlantic pillars 
 
 Rises no mountain to mine eyes unknown ; 
 
 And the broad gulphs 1 travers'd — oft — and oft. 
 
 Of every cloud which in the heavens might stir 
 
 I knew the force ; and hence the rough sea's pride 
 
 Avail'd not to my Vessel's overthrow. 
 
290 
 
 THE FRIEND. 
 
 What noble pomp and frequent have not 1 
 
 On regal decks beheld ! yet in the end 
 
 I learn that one poor moment can suffice 
 
 To equalize the lofty and the low. 
 
 We sail the sea of life — a calm One finds 
 
 And One a tempest — and, the voyage o'er, 
 
 Death is the quiet haven of us all. 
 
 If more of my condition ye would know, 
 
 Savona was my birth-place, and I sprang 
 
 Of noble Parents : sixty years and three 
 
 Lived I — then yielded to a slow disease. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Destined to war from very infancy 
 Was I, Roberto Dati, and I took 
 In Malta the white symbol of the Cross. 
 Nor in life's vigorous season did I shun 
 Hazard or toil ; among the Sands was seen 
 Of Lybia, and, not seldom, on the Banks 
 Of wide Hungarian Danube, 't was my lot 
 To hear the sanguinary trumpet sounded. 
 So liv'd I, and repined not at such fate ; 
 This only grieves me, for it seems a wrong, 
 That stripp'd of arms I to my end am brought 
 On the soft down of my paternal home. 
 Yet haply Arno shall be spared all cause 
 To blush for me. Thou loiter not nor halt 
 In thy appointed way, and bear in mind 
 How fleeting and how frail is human life. 
 
THE FRIEND. 291 
 
 Ma pianger non si dee, come per tempo 
 Dal Mondo uscito. Voi, Mortally errate, 
 Per vero dir, nel conto della vita — 
 Sol numerate gli anni, e non guardate 
 AW opre gloriose di Virtute* 
 
 Chiabrera. 
 
 " Does Fortune favour Fools ? Or how do you explain 
 the origin of the Proverb, which, differently worded, is to 
 be found in all the languages of Europe ?" 
 
 This Proverb admits of various explanations according 
 to the mood of mind, in which it is used. It may arise 
 from pity, and the soothing persuasion that Providence 
 is eminently watchful over the helpless, and extends an 
 especial care to those who are not capable of caring for 
 themselves. So used, it breathes the same feeling as " God 
 tempers the wind to the shorn Lamb" — or, the more 
 sportive adage, that " the Fairies take care of Children and 
 tipsy Folk." The persuasion itself, in addition to the 
 general religious feeling of Mankind, and the scarcely less 
 general love of the marvellous, may be accounted for from 
 our tendency to exaggerate all effects, that seem dispro- 
 portionate to their visible cause, and all circumstances 
 that are in any way strongly contrasted with our notions 
 of the Persons under them. Secondly, it arises from the 
 safety and success which an ignorance of danger and 
 difficulty sometimes actually assists in procuring ; in- 
 asmuch as it precludes the despondence, which might have 
 kept the more foresighted from undertaking the enterprize, 
 the depression which would retard its' progress, and those 
 overwhelming influences of terror in cases where the vivid 
 perception of the danger constitutes the greater part of the 
 danger itself. Thus men are said to have swooned and 
 even died at the sight of a narrow Bridge, over which they 
 had rode, the night before, in perfect safety ; or at tracing 
 their footmarks along the edge of a Precipice which the 
 darkness had concealed from them. A more obscure 
 cause, yet not wholly to be omitted, is afforded by the 
 
 \ * Literal Translation. But we ought not to lament, as if he had departed 
 tarty from the World : It is you, Mortals, in truth, that err in your calcula- 
 I ion of Life : you count the year! only, and do not look to the glorious workt 
 ■ fVirtue. 
 
292 THE FRIEND. 
 
 undoubted fact, that the exertion of the reasoning faculties 
 tends to extinguish or bedim those mysterious instincts of 
 skill, which, though for the most part latent, we never- 
 theless possess in common with other animals. 
 
 Or the Proverb" may be used invidiously : and Folly in 
 the vocabulary of Envy or Baseness may signify courage 
 and magnanimity. Hardihood and Fool-hardiness are 
 indeed as different as green and yellow, yet will appear the 
 same to the jaundiced eye. Courage multiplies the 
 chances of success by sometimes making opportunities, and 
 always availing itself of them: and in this sense Fortune 
 may be said to favour Fools by those, who however pru- 
 dent in their own opinion are deficient in valour and en- 
 terprize. Again : an eminently good and wise Man, for 
 whom the praises of the judicious have procured a high 
 reputation even with the world at large, proposes to him- 
 self certain objects, and adapting the right means to the 
 right end attains them : but his objects not being what the 
 world calls Fortune, neither money nor artificial rank, his 
 admitted inferiors in moral and intellectual worth, but 
 more prosperous in their worldly concerns, are said to have 
 been favoured by Fortune and he slighted : although the 
 fools did the same in their line as the wise man in his : 
 they adapted the appropriate means to the desired end and 
 so succeeded. In this sense the Proverb is current by a 
 misuse, or a catachresis at least, of both the words, For- 
 tune and Fools. 
 
 How seldom Friend ! a good great man inherits 
 Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains! 
 It sounds, like stories from the land of spirits, 
 If any man obtain that which he merits, 
 Or any merit that which he obtains. 
 
 REPLY. 
 
 For shame, dear Friend ! renounce this canting strain ! 
 
 What would'st thou have a good great man obtain ? 
 
 Place ? Titles ? Salary ? a gilded Chain ? 
 
 Or Throne of Corses which his sword hath slain ? 
 
 Greatness and goodness are not means but ends ! 
 
 Hath he not always treasures, always friends, 
 
 The good great Man ? Three treasures, Love, and Light 
 
 And calm Thoughts regular as infant's breath : 
 
 And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, 
 
 Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death. 
 
 S. T. C. 
 
THE FRIEND. 293 
 
 But, lastly, there is, doubtless, a true meaning attached 
 to Fortune, distinct both from Prudence and from Courage; 
 and distinct too from that absence of depressing or bewil- 
 dering Passions, which (as, according to my favourite 
 Proverb, " extremes meet,") the Fool not seldom obtains 
 in as great perfection by his ignorance, as the wise Man by 
 the highest energies of thought and self-discipline. Luck 
 has a real existence in human affairs from the infinite 
 number of powers, that are in action at the same time, and 
 from the co-existence of things contingent and accidental 
 (such as to us are at least accidental) with the regular 
 appearances and general laws of Nature. A familiar in- 
 stance will make these words intelligible. The moon 
 waxes and wanes according to a necessary law. — The 
 clouds likewise, and all the manifold appearances con- 
 nected with them, are governed by certain laws no less 
 than the phases of the moon. But the laws which deter- 
 mine the latter, are known and calculable : while those of 
 the former are hidden from us. At all events, the number 
 and variety of their effects baffle our powers of calculation : 
 and that the sky is clear or obscured at any particular time, 
 we speak of, in common language, as a matter of accident. 
 Well ! at the time of the full moon, but when the sky is 
 completely covered with black clouds, 1 am walking on in 
 the dark, aware of no particular danger : a sudden gust of 
 wind rends the cloud for a moment, and the moon emerging 
 discloses to me a chasm or precipice, to the very brink of 
 which I had advanced my foot. This is what is meant by 
 Luck, and according to the more or less serious mood or 
 habit of our mind we exclaim, how lucky 1 or, how provi- 
 dential ! The co-presence of numberless Phaenomena, and 
 the co-existence of those, which from the complexity or 
 subtlety of their determining causes are called contingencies, 
 with any regular or necessary Phenomenon (as the clouds 
 with the moon for instance) occasions coincidences, which, 
 when they are attended by any advantage or injury, and 
 are at the same time incapable of being calculated or fore- 
 seen by human prudence, form good or ill Luck. On a 
 hot sunshiny afternoon came on a sudden storm and 
 spoilt the Farmer's hay: and this is called ill Luck. We 
 will suppose the same event to take place, when meteoro- 
 logy shall have been perfected into a Science, and provided 
 itself with unerring instruments ; but which the Fanner 
 had neglected to examine. This is no longer ill Luck, 
 
 
294 THE FRIEND. 
 
 but Imprudence. Now apply this to our proverb. Un- 
 foreseen Coincidences may have greatly helped a Man, yet 
 if the}' have done for him only what possibly from his own 
 abilities he might have effected for himself, his good Luck 
 will excite less attention and the instances be less remem- 
 bered. That clever men should attain their objects seems 
 natural, and we neglect the circumstances that perhaps 
 produced that success of themselves without the interven- 
 tion of Skill or Foresight ; but we dwell on the fact and 
 remember it, as something strange, when the same hap- 
 pens to a weak or ignorant man. So too, though the 
 latter should fail in his undertakings from concurrences 
 that might have happened to the wisest man, yet his failure 
 being no more than might have been expected and ac- 
 counted for from his folly, it lays no hold on our attention, 
 but fleets away among the other undistinguished waves 
 in which the stream of ordinary life murmurs by us, and is 
 forgotten. Had it been as true as it was notoriously false, 
 that those all-embracing Discoveries, which have shed a 
 dawn of Science on the Art of Chemistry, and give no 
 obscure promise of some one great constitutive Law, in - 
 the light of which dwell dominion and the power of Pro- 
 phecy ; if these discoveries, instead of having been as they 
 really were, preconcerted by meditation, and evolved out 
 of his own intellect, had occurred by a set of lucky 
 accidents to the illustrious Father and Founder of philoso- 
 phic Alchemy ; if they had presented themselves to Pro- 
 fessor Davy exclusively in consequence of his luck in | 
 possessing a particular Galvanic Battery, if this Battery, 
 as far as Davy was concerned, had itself been an accident, 
 and not desired and obtained by him for the purpose of 
 ensuring the testimony of experience to his Principles, and 
 in order to bind down material Nature under the inqui- 
 sition of Reason, and force from her, as by torture, une- 
 quivocal answers to prepared and preconceived questions — : 
 yet still they would not have been talked of or described, 
 as instances of Luck, but as the natural results of his skill 
 and knowledge. But should an accident have disclosed 
 similar Discoveries to a Mechanic at Birmingham or 
 Sheffield, and if the Man should grow rich in consequence, 
 and partly by the envy of his Neighbours, and partly with 
 good reason, be considered by them as a man below par 
 in the general powers of his understanding ; then, " O 
 what a lucky Fellow ? — Well, Fortune does favour Fools— » 
 
THE FRIEND. 29.5 
 
 that's for certain ! — It is always so !" — And forthwith the 
 Exclaimer relates half a dozen similar instances. Thus 
 accumulating the one sort of facts and never collecting the 
 other, we do, as Poets in their diction, and Quacks of all 
 denominations do in their reasoning, put a part for the 
 whole, and at once soothe our envy and gratify our love of 
 the marvellous, by the sweeping Proverb, " Fortune 
 favours Fools." 
 
 The philosophic Ruler, who secured the favours of 
 Fortune by seeking Wisdom and knowledge in preference 
 to them, has pathetically observed — " The heart knoweth. 
 its own bitterness ; and there is a joy in which the 
 stranger intermedleth not." A simple Question founded 
 on a trite Proverb, with a discursive answer to it, would 
 scarcely suggest to an indifferent Person, any other 
 notion than that of a mind at ease, amusing itself with it's 
 own activity. Once before (I believe about this time last 
 year) I had taken up the old memorandum Book, from 
 which I have now transcribed the introductory Paragraphs, 
 and they had then attracted my notice by the name of the 
 extraordinary Man mentioned in the last illustration. 
 Exasperated by the base and cowardly attempt, that had 
 been made, to detract from the honours due to his 
 astonishing genius, I had slightly altered the concluding- 
 sentences, substituting the more recent for his earlier 
 Discoveries ; and without the most distant intention of 
 publishing what I then wrote, 1 had expressed my own 
 convictions for the gratification of my own feelings, and. 
 finished by tranquilly paraphrasing into a chemical Alle- 
 gory, the homeric adventure of Menelaus with Proteus. 
 Oh ! with what different feelings, with what a sharp and 
 sudden emotion did I re-peruse the same question yester- 
 morning, having by accident opened the book at the page ? 
 upon which it was written. I was moved; for the parti- 
 cular satisfaction expressed at my answer by him, who 
 proposed the question to me, had been the occasion of 
 my noting down the substance of it. I was moved : 
 because to this conversation, I was indebted for the 
 friendship and confidence, with which he afterwards 
 honoured me; and because it recalled the memory of one 
 of the most delightful mornings I ever passed ; when, as 
 we were riding together, the same person related to me 
 the principal events of his own Life, and introduced 
 them by adverting to this conversation. It recalled too 
 
296 THE FRIEND. 
 
 the deep impression left on my mind by that narrative, the 
 impression, that I had never known any analogous instance, 
 in which a man so successful, had been so little indebted 
 to Fortune, or lucky accidents, or so exclusively both the 
 Architect and Builder of his own success. The sum of 
 his History may be comprised in this one sentence: Haec, 
 sub numine, nobismet fecimus, sapientia duce, forluna 
 permittente. (i. e. These things, under God, we have 
 done for ourselves, through the guidance of wisdom, and 
 with the permission of Fortune.) Luck gave him nothing! 
 in her mostgeuerous moods, she only worked with him as 
 with a Friend, not for him as for a Fondling; but more 
 often she simply stood neuter and suffered him to work 
 for himself. Ah ! how could I be otherwise than deeply 
 affected, by whatever reminded me of that daily and 
 familiar intercourse with him, which made the fifteen 
 months from May 1804, to October 1805, in many 
 respects, the most memorable and instructive period of 
 
 my life ? for there was still lying on my table the 
 
 Paper which, the day before, had conveyed to me the 
 unexpected and most awful tidings of this Man's death! 
 his Death in the fulness of all his powers, in the rich 
 autumn of ripe yet undecaying Manhood! I once knew a 
 Lady, who after the loss of a lovely Child, continued for 
 several days in a state of seeming indifference, the weather, 
 at the same time, as if in unison with her, being calm, 
 though gloomy: till one morning a burst of sunshine 
 breaking in upon her, and suddenly lighting up the room 
 where she was sitting, she dissolved at once into tears, and 
 wept passionately. In no very dissimilar manner, did the 
 sudden gleam of recollection at the si°ht of this memoran- 
 dum act on myself. I had been stunned by the intelli- 
 gence, as by an outward blow, till this trifling incident 
 startled and disentranced me : (the sudden pang shivered 
 through my whole frame :) and if I repressed the outward 
 shews of sorrow, it was by force that I repressed them, 
 and because it is not by tears that 1 ought to mourn for 
 the loss of Sir Alexander Ball. 
 
 He was a Man above his Age: but for that very rea- 
 son the Age has the more need to have the master features 
 of his character pourtrayed and preserved. This 1 feel it 
 my duty to attempt, and this alone : for having received 
 neither instructions nor permission from the Family of the 
 Deceased, I cannot think myself allowed to enter into the 
 
 5, 
 
THE PRIEND. 297 
 
 particulars of his private History, strikingly as many of 
 them would illustrate the elements and composition of his 
 mind. For he was indeed a living confutation of the asser- 
 tion attributed to the Prince of Conde, that no Man ap- 
 peared great to his Valet de Chambre — a saying which, I 
 suspect, owes it's currency less to it's truth, than to 
 the envy of mankind and the misapplication of the word 
 great to actions unconnected with Reason and Free will. 
 It will be sufficient for my purpose to observe, that the pu- 
 Tity and strict propriety of his conduct, which precluded 
 rather than silenced calumny, the evenness of his Temper 
 and his attentive and affectionate Manners, in private life, 
 greatly aided and encreased his public utility : and, if it 
 should please Providence, that a portion of his spirit should 
 descend with his Mantle, the virtues of Sir Alexander 
 Ball, as u Master, a Husband, and a Parent, will form a no 
 less remarkable epoch in the History of Maltese Mora- 
 lity, than his wisdom, as a Governor, has made in that of 
 their outward circumstances. That the private and per- 
 sonal qualities of a first Magistrate should have political 
 effects, will appear strange to no reflecting Englishman, 
 who has attended to the workings of mens' minds during 
 the first ferment of revolutionary principles, and must there- 
 fore have witnessed the influence of the King's domestic 
 character in counteracting them. But in Malta there 
 were circumstances which rendered such an example pe- 
 culiarly requisite and beneficent. The very existence, for 
 so many generations, of an Order of Lay Celibates in that 
 Island, who abandoned even the outward semblances of an 
 adherence to their vow of chastity, must have had perni- 
 cious effects on the morals of the inhabitants. But when 
 it is considered too that the Knights of Malta had been 
 for the last fifty years or more a set of useless Idlers, gene- 
 rally illiterate, * for they thought literature no part of a 
 Soldier's excellence and yet effeminate, for they were Sol- 
 diers in name only ; that they were, moreover, all of them 
 aliens, who looked upon themselves not merely as of a su- 
 perior rank to the native Nobles, but as beings of a differ- 
 
 * The personal effects of every Knight were, after his death, appropriated 
 to the Order, and his Books, if he had any, devolved to the public Library. 
 This Library therefore, which has been accumulating from the time of their 
 first settlement in the Island, is a fair criterion of the nature and degree of 
 their literary Studies, as an average. Even in respect to works of military 
 science it is contemptible — as the sole public Library of so numerous and 
 ppulent an Order, ?nost contemptible — and in all othei departments of Litera- 
 ture it is below contempt. 
 
298 THE FRIEND. 
 
 ent race, (I had almost said, species), from the Maltese col- 
 lectively ; and finally that these Men possessed exclusively 
 the government of the Island ; it may be safely concluded 
 that they were little better than a perpetual Influenza, re- 
 laxing and diseasing the hearts of all the families within 
 their sphere of influence. Hence the Peasantry, who for- 
 tunately were below their reach, notwithstanding the more 
 than childish ignorance in which they were kept by their 
 Priests, yet compared Avith the middle and higher classes, 
 were both in mind and body, as ordinary men compared 
 with dwarfs Every respectable family had some one 
 Knight for their Patron, as a matter of course ; and to hint 
 the honour of a Sister or a Daughter was sacrificed, equally 
 as a matter of course. But why should I thus disguise 
 the truth ? Alas ! in nine instances out of ten, this Patron 
 was the common Paramour of every Female in the Family. 
 Were I composing a State-memorial, I should abstain from 
 all allusion to moral good or evil, as not having now first 
 to learn, that with Diplomatists, and with practical States- 
 men of every denomination, it would preclude all attention 
 to it's other contents, and with no result but that of secur- 
 ing for it's Author's name the official private mark of ex- 
 elusion or dismission, as a weak or suspicious Person. 
 But among those for whom I am now writing, there are I 
 trust many, who will think it not the feeblest reason for 
 rejoicing in our possession of Malta, and not the least wor- 
 thy motive for wishing it's retention, that one source of 
 human misery and corruption has been dried up. Such 
 persons will hear the name of Sir Alexander Ball with ad- 
 ditional reverence, as of one who has made the protection 
 of Great Britain a double blessing to the Maltese, and 
 broken, " the bonds of iniquity ' as well as unlocked the fet- 
 ters of political oppression. 
 
 When we are praising the Departed by our own fire- 
 sides,we dwell most fondly on those qualities which had won 
 our personal affection, and which sharpen our individual 
 regrets. But when impelled by a loftier and more medi- 
 tative Sorrow, we would raise a public monument to their 
 memory, we praise them appropriately when we relate 
 their actions faithfully : and thus preserving their ex- 
 ample for the imitation of the Living, alleviate the Loss, 
 while we demonstrate it's magnitude. My funeral Eulogy 
 of Sir Alexander Ball, must therefore be a narrative of his 
 Life ; and this Friend of Mankind will be defrauded of 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 299 
 
 honour in proportion as that narrative is deficient and 
 fragmentary. It shall, however, be as complete as my in- 
 formation enables, and as prudence and a proper respect 
 for the feelings of the Living permit me to render it. 
 His Fame (I adopt the words of one of our elder Writers) 
 is so great throughout the World that he stands in no 
 need of an encomium : and yet his worth is much greater 
 than his Fame. It is impossible not to speak great things 
 of him, and yet it will be very difficult to speak what he 
 deserves. But custom requires that something should be 
 said : it is a duty and a debt which we owe to ourselves 
 and to mankind, not less than to his memory : and I hope 
 his great Soul, if it hath any knowledge of what is done 
 here below, will not be offended at the smallness even of 
 my Offering. 
 
 After my next number, which will contain the con- 
 clusion of No. 17, (for 1 must not disappoint the expecta- 
 tions raised by the masterly* comments on the Letter of 
 Mathetes) I shall proceed with these sketches of the Life 
 and Character of the late Admiral Sir Alexander Ball, 
 under three heads ; first, as a naval officer ; secondly, as 
 entrusted with the Government of Malta ; and lastly, of 
 his opinions and principles, as learnt from his own conver- 
 sation. Ah ! how little, when among the subjects of the 
 Friend I promised " Characters met with in real Life," 
 did I anticipate the sad Event, which compels me to 
 weave on a Cypress branch, those sprays of Laurel, which 
 I had destined for his Bust not his Monument ! He lived 
 as we should all live; and, I doubt not, left the world as we 
 should all wish to leave it. Such is the power of dis- 
 pensing blessings, which Providence has attached to the 
 truly great and good, that they cannot even die without 
 advantage to their fellow-creatures : for Death consecrates 
 their Example ; and the wisdom, which might have been 
 slighted at the Council Table, becomes oracular from the 
 Shrine. Those rare excellencies, which make our grief 
 poignant, make it likewise profitable ; and the Tears, 
 which wise men shed for the departure of the Wise, are 
 
 * Of course I here imply, that these comments were themselves a com- 
 munication to The Friend. The Writer was present at the receipt of Ma- 
 thetes' Letter, and much interested by it's contents : His remarks on which 
 were so judicious and conceived in so manly and original a style of thinking, 
 that I requested him to reduce them into form and permit them to be annexed 
 to the Letter. 
 
SOO THE FRIEN0. 
 
 among those that are preserved in Heaven. It is the 
 fervent aspiration of my spirit, that I may so perform the 
 task which private gratitude, and public duty impose on 
 me, that " as God hath cut this tree of Paradise down, 
 from it's seat of Earth, the dead Trunk may yet support 
 a part of the declining Temple, or at least serve to kindle 
 the Fire on the Altar/' bp. jer. taylor- 
 
 CHRISTMAS WITHIN DOORS, 
 
 IN THE NORTH OF GERMANY. 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM SATYRANe's LETTERS. 
 
 ItATZEBURG. 
 There is a Christmas custom here which pleased and 
 interested me. — The Children make little presents to their 
 Parents, and to each other ; and the Parents to the 
 Children. Tor three or four months before Christmas the 
 Girls are all busy, and the Boys save up their pocket- 
 money, to make or purchase these presents. What the 
 Present is to be is cautiously kept secret, and the Girls 
 have a world of contrivances to conceal it — such as work- 
 ing when they are out on visits and the others are not 
 with them ; getting up in the morning before day-light, 
 &c. Then on the evening before Christmas day one of 
 the Parlours is lighted up by the Children, into which the 
 Parents must not go : a great yew bough is fastened on the 
 Table at a little distance from the wall, a multitude of 
 little Tapers are fastened in the bough, but not so as to 
 burn it till they are nearly burnt out, and coloured paper, 
 &c. nanus and flutters from the twigs. — Under this Bough 
 the Children lay out in great order the presents they mean 
 for their Parents, still concealing in their pockets what 
 they intend for each other. Then the Parents are intro- 
 duced— r-and each presents his little Gift — and then bring 
 out the rest one by one from their pockets, and present 
 them with kisses and embraces. — Where I witnessed this 
 scene, there were eight or nine Children, and the eldest 
 Daughter and the Mother wept aloud for joy and tender- 
 ness ; and the tears ran down the face of the Father, and 
 he clasped all his Children so tight to his breast — it seem- 
 ed as if he did it to stifle the sob that was rising within 
 him. — I was very much affected. — The Shadow of the 
 
THE FRIEND'. 301 
 
 Bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over 
 on the Ceiling, made a pretty Picture — and then the rap- 
 tures of the very little Ones, when at last the twigs and 
 their needles began to take fire and strap — O it was a 
 delight for them ! — On the next day, in the great Parlour, 
 the Parents lay out on the table the Presents for the 
 Children : a scene of more sober joy succeeds, as on this 
 day, after an old custom, the Mother says privately to 
 each of her Daughters, and the Father to his Sons, that 
 which he has observed most praise- worthy and that which 
 was most faulty in their conduct. — Formerly, and still in 
 all the smaller Towns and Villages throughout North 
 Germany, these Presents were sent by all the Parents to 
 some one Fellow who in high Buskins, a white Robe, a 
 Mask, and an enormous flax Wig, personates Knecht 
 Rupert, i. e. the Servant Rupert. On Christinas Night 
 he goes round to every House and says, that Jesus Christ, 
 his Master, sent him thither — the Parents and elder Chil- 
 dren receive him with great pomp of reverence, while the 
 little ones are most terribly frightened — He then enquires 
 for the Children, and according to the character which he 
 hears from the Parent, he gives them the intended Present, 
 as if they came out of Heaven from Jesus Christ. — Or, if 
 they should have been bad Children, he gives the Parents 
 a Rod, and in the name of his Master, recommends them 
 to use it frequently. — About seven or eight years old the 
 Children are let into the secret, and it is curious how 
 faithfully they keep it ! 
 
 CHRISTMAS OUT OF DOORS. 
 
 The whole Lake of Ratzeburg is one mass of thick 
 transparent ice — a spotless Mirror of nine miles in extent ! 
 The lowness of the Hills, which rise from the shores of 
 the Lake, preclude the awful sublimity of Alpine scenery, 
 yet compensate for the want of it by beauties, of which 
 this very lowness is a necessary condition. Yester- morn- 
 ing I saw the lesser Lake completely hidden by Mist ; but 
 the moment the Sun peeped over the Hill, the mist broke 
 in the middle, and in a few seconds stood divided, leaving 
 a broad road all across the Lake ; and between these two 
 Walls of mist the sunlight burnt upon the ice, forming a 
 
 
302 THE FRIEND. 
 
 road of golden fire, intolerably bright! and the mist-wall* 
 themselves partook of the blaze in a multitude of shining 
 colours. This is our second Frost. About a month ago, 
 before the Thaw came on, there was a storm of wind ; du- 
 ring the whole night, such were the thunders and howlings 
 of the breaking ice, that they have left a conviction on my 
 mind, that there are Sounds more sublime than any Sight 
 can be, more absolutely suspending the power of com- 
 parison, and more utterly absorbing the mind's self-con- 
 sciousness in it's total attention to the object working 
 upon it. Part of the ice which the vehemence of the 
 wind had shattered, was driven shore-ward and froze 
 anew. On the evening of the next day, at sun-set, the 
 shattered ice thus frozen, appeared of a deep blue, and in 
 shape like an agitated sea ; beyond this, the water, that 
 ran up between the great Islands of ice which had pre- 
 served their masses entire and smooth, shone of a yellow 
 green ; but all these scattered Ice-islands, themselves, 
 were of an intensely bright blood colour — they seemed 
 blood and light in union ! On some of the largest of these 
 Islands, the Fishermen stood pulling out their immense 
 Nets through the holes made in the ice for this purpose, 
 and the Men, their Net-Poles, and their huge Nets, were 
 a part of the glory ; say rather, it appeared as if the rich 
 crimson light had shaped itself into these forms, figures, 
 and attitudes, to make a glorious vision in mockery of 
 earthly things. 
 
 The lower Lake is now all alive with Scaters, and 
 with Ladies driven onward by them in their ice cars. 
 Mercury, surely, was the first maker of Scates, and the 
 wings at his feet are symbols of the invention. In seating 
 there are three pleasing circumstances : the infinitely 
 subtle particles of Ice, which the Scate cuts up, and 
 which creep and run before the Scate like a low mist, 
 and in sun-rise or sun-set become coloured ; second, the 
 shadow of the Scater in the water seen through the tran- 
 sparent Ice ; and third, the melancholy undulating sound 
 from the Scate, not without variety ; and when very many 
 are seating together, the sounds and the noises give an 
 impulse to the icy Trees, and the woods all round the 
 Lake tinkle ! 
 
 Here I stop, having in truth transcribed the preceding 
 in great measure, in order to present the lovers of Poetry 
 with a descriptive passage, extracted, with the Author's 
 
THE FRIEND. 303 
 
 permission, from an unpublished Poem on the growth and 
 revolutions of an individual mind, by Wordsworth. 
 
 -an Orphic Tale indeed, 
 
 A Tale divine of high and passionate thoughts 
 To their own music chaunted ! s. T. c. 
 
 GROWTH OP GENIUS FROM THE INFLUENCES OF NATURAL 
 
 OBJECTS, ON THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD, 
 
 AND EARLY YOUTH. 
 
 Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe ! 
 Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of Thought ! 
 And giv'st to forms and images a breath 
 And everlasting motion ! not in vain, 
 By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn 
 Of Childhood didst Thou intertwine for me 
 The passions that build up our human Soul, 
 Nor with the mean and vulgar works of Man 
 But with high objects, with enduring things, 
 With Life and Nature : purifying thus 
 The elements of feeling and of thought, 
 And sanctifying by such discipline 
 Both pain and fear, until we recognize 
 A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. 
 
 Nor was this fellowship vouchsaf'd to me 
 With stinted kindness. In November days 
 When vapours rolling down the vallies made 
 A lonely scene more lonesome ; among woods 
 At noon, and mid the calm of summer nights, 
 When by the margin of the trembling Lake, 
 Beneath the gloomy hills I homeward went 
 In solitude, such intercourse was mine ; 
 'Twas mine among the fields both day and night 
 And by the waters all the summer long. 
 
 And in the frosty season when the sun 
 Was set, and, visible for many a mile 
 The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, 
 I heeded not the summons : — happy time 
 It was indeed for all of us, to me 
 It was a time of rapture ! clear and loud 
 The village clock toll'd six , I wheel' d about, 
 
SOi THE FRIEND. 
 
 Proud and exulting, like an untir'd horse 
 
 That car'd not for its home — All shod with steel 
 
 We hiss'd along the polish'd ice, in games 
 
 Confederate, imitative of the Chace 
 
 And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn, 
 
 The Pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare. 
 
 So through the darkness and the cold we flew, 
 
 And not a voice was idle : with the din 
 
 Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud, 
 
 The leafless trees and every icy crag 
 
 Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills 
 
 Into the tumult sent an alien sound 
 
 Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars 
 
 Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west 
 
 The orange sky of evening died away. 
 
 Not seldom from the uproar I retired 
 Into a silent bay or sportively 
 Glanc'd sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng 
 To cut across the image of a Star 
 That gleam'd upon the ice : and oftentimes 
 When we had given our bodies to the wind, 
 And all the shadowy banks on either side 
 Came sweeping through the darkness spinning still 
 The rapid line of motion, then at once 
 Have I reclining back upon my heels 
 Stopp'd short, yet still the solitary Cliffs 
 Wheel'd by me even as if the earth had roll'd 
 With visible motion her diurnal round! 
 Behind me did they stretch in solemn train 
 Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watch'd 
 Till all was tranquil as a summer sea. 
 
 QStnti. 
 
 No. 18. p. 274, 1. 13, for Wanderers, read Beggars. 
 
 p. 275, 1. 6 and 7, read " that the words " Time" and " pass" are 
 
 each used in three different senses"— instead of " that two— — 
 
 Time &c." 
 p. 277, 1. 3, for slips, read Slip. 
 p. 281, 1. 20, after great men — insert in general. 
 p. 286,. 1. 39, 40, substitute " literally" for" as applying to the final 
 
 terminations," and omit the word "final" in the last line. 
 
 PENRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
 
, I THE FRIEND. 
 
 No. 20. THURSDAY, January 4, 1810. 
 
 J he remarks, which were called forth by the letter of 
 Mathetes, given in the 17th Number, concluded with a 
 comparison of the progress of the human race to that of 
 a river. We will now resume the subject, carrying on the 
 same illustration. It suffices to content the mind, though 
 there may be an apparent stagnation, or a retrograde 
 movement in the Species, that something is doing which 
 is necessary to be done, and the effects of which, will in 
 due time appear ; — that something is unremittingly gain- 
 ing, either in secret preparation or in open and triumphant 
 progress. But in fact here, as every where, we are de- 
 ceived by creations which the mind is compelled to make 
 for itself: we speak of the Species not as an aggregate, but 
 as endued with the form and separate life of an Individual. 
 But human kind, what is it else than myriads of rational 
 beings in various degrees obedient to their Reason; some 
 torpid, some aspiring; some in eager chace to the right 
 hand, some to the left ; these wasting down their moral 
 nature, and these feeding it for immortality? A whole 
 generation may appear even to sleep, or may be exasperated 
 with rage — they that compose it, tearing each other to 
 pieces with more than brutal fury. It is enough for com- 
 placency and hope, that scattered and solitary minds are 
 always labouring somewhere in the service of truth and 
 virtue ; and that by the sleep of the multitude, the energy 
 of the multitude may be prepared ; and that by the fury of 
 the people, the chains of the people may be broken. 
 Happy moment was it for England when her Chaucer, 
 who has rightly been called the morning star of her litera- 
 ture, appeared above the horizon — when her Wickliff, 
 like the Sun, " shot orient beams" through the night of 
 Romish superstition ! — Yet may the darkness and the 
 desolating hurricane which immediately followed in the 
 wars of York and Lancaster, be deemed in their turn a 
 blessing, with which the Land has been visited. 
 
306 THE FRIEND. 
 
 May I return to the thought of progress, of accumula- 
 tion, of increasing light, or of any other image by which it 
 may please us to represent the improvement of the Species? 
 The hundred years that followed the Usurpation of Henry 
 the fourth, were a hurling-back of the mind of the Country, 
 a delapidation, an extinction ; yet institutions, laws, 
 customs, and habits, were then broken down, which would 
 not have been so readily, nor perhaps so thoroughly 
 destroyed by the gradual influence of increasing know- 
 ledge; and under the oppression of which, if they had 
 continued to exist, the virtue and intellectual Prowess of 
 the succeeding Century could not have appeared at all, 
 much less could they have displayed themselves with that 
 eager haste, and with those beneficent triumphs which 
 will to the end of time be looked back upon with admira- 
 tion and gratitude. 
 
 If the foregoing obvious distinctions be once clearly 
 perceived, and steadily kept in view, — 1 do not see why 
 a belief in the progress of human Nature towards per- 
 fection, should dispose a youthful mind, however enthu- 
 siastic, to an undue admiration of his own Age, and thus 
 tend to degrade that mind. 
 
 But let me strike at once at the root of the evil com- 
 plained of in my Correspondent's Letter. Protection 
 
 from any fatal effect of seductions, and hindrances which 
 opinion may throw in the way of pure and high-minded 
 Youth, can only be obtained with certainty at the same 
 price by which every thing great and good is obtained, 
 namely, steady dependence upon voluntary and self-origi- 
 nating effort, and upon the practice of jself-examination, 
 sincerely aimed at and rigorously enforced. But how is 
 this to be expected from Youth ? Is it. not to demand the 
 fruit when the blossom is barely put forth, and is hourly 
 at the mercy of frosts and winds ? To expect from Youth 
 these virtues and habits, in that degree of excellence to 
 which in mature years they mat/ be carried, would indeed 
 be preposterous. Yet has youth many helps and apti- 
 tudes, for the discharge of these difficult duties, which are 
 withdrawn for the most part from the more advanced 
 stages of Life. For Youth has its own wealth and indepen- 
 dence ; it is rich in health of Body and animal Spirits, in 
 its sensibility to the impressions of the natural universe, in 
 the conscious growth of knowledge, in lively sympathy 
 and familiar communion with the generoMs actions re- 
 
THE FRIEND. 307 
 
 corded in History, and with the high passions of Poetry ; 
 and, above all, Youth is rich in the possession of Time, 
 and the accompanying consciousness of Freedom and 
 Power. The Young Man feels that he stands at a distance 
 from the Season when his harvest is to he reaped, — that he 
 has leisure and ma}' look around — may defer both the choice 
 and the execution of his purposes. If he makes an 
 attempt and shall fail, new hopes immediately rush in, and 
 new promises. Hence, in the happy confidence of his 
 feelings, and in the elasticity of his spirit, neither worldly 
 ambition, nor the love of praise, nor dread of censure, 
 nor the necessity of worldly maintenance, nor any of those 
 causes which tempt or compel the mind habitually to look 
 out of itself for support; neither these, nor the passions of 
 envy, fear, hatred, despondency, and the rankling of dis- 
 appointed hopes (all which in after life, give birth to, and 
 fegulate the efforts of Men, and determine their opinions), 
 have power to preside over the choice of the Young, if 
 the disposition be not naturally bad, or the circumstances 
 have not been in an uncommon degree unfavourable. 
 
 In contemplation, then, of this disinterested and free 
 condition of the youthful mind, I deem it in many points 
 oeculiarly capable of searching into itself, and of profiting 
 >y a few simple questions — such as these that follow. Am 
 I chiefly gratified by the exertion of my power from the 
 sure pleasure of intellectual activity, and from the know- 
 edge thereby acquired? In other words, to what degree do 
 I value my faculties and my attainments for their own 
 akes ? or are they chiefly prized by me on account of the 
 listinction which they confer, or the superiority which 
 hey give me over others ? Am I aware that immediate 
 lfluence and a general acknowledgment of merit, are no 
 ecessary adjuncts of a successful adherence to study and 
 teditation, in those departments of knowledge which are of 
 lost value to mankind? that a recompence of honours 
 ^id emoluments is far less to be expected — in fact, that 
 • lere is little natural connection between them? Have I 
 tprceived this truth ? and, perceiving it, does the coun- 
 tenance of philosophy continue to appear as bright and 
 dutiful in my eyes? — has no haze bedimmed it ? has no 
 'oud passed over and hidden from me that look which was 
 l:fore so encouraging ? Knowing that it is my duty, and 
 Isling that it is my inclination, to mingle as a social Being 
 v th my fellow Men ; prepared also to submit cheerfully to 
 
30S THE FRIEND. 
 
 the necessity that will probably exist of relinquishing, for 
 the purpose of gaining a livelihood, the greatest portion of 
 my time to employments where 1 shall have little or no 
 choice how or when I am to act; have I, at this moment, 
 when 1 stand as it were upon the threshold of the busy 
 world, a clear intuition of that pre-eminence in which virtue 
 and truth (involving in this latter word the sanctities of reli- 
 gion) sit enthroned above all dominations and dignities 
 which, in various degrees of exaltation, rule over the desires 
 of Men ? — Do 1 feel that, if their solemn Mandates shall be 
 forgotten, or disregarded, or denied the obedience due to 
 them when opposed to others, 1 shall not only have lived for 
 no good purpose, but that I shall have sacrificed my birth- 
 right as a Rational being ; and that every other acquisition 
 will be a bane and a disgrace to me ? This is not spoken 
 with reference to such sacrifices as present themselves to 
 the Youthful imagination in the shape of crimes, acts by 
 which the conscience is violated ; such a thought, I know, 
 would be recoiled from at once, not without indignation; 
 but 1 write in the spirit of the ancient fable of Prodicus, 
 representing the choice of Hercules. — Here is the world, 
 a female figure approaching at the head of a train of willing 
 or giddy followers: — her air and. deportment are at once 
 careless, remiss, self-satisfed, and haughty: — and there is 
 Intellectual Prowess, with a pale cheek and serene 
 brow, leading in chains Truth, her beautiful and modest 
 Captive. The One makes her salutation with a discourse 
 of ease, pleasure, freedom, and domestic tranquillity ; or, 
 if she invite to labour, it is labour in the busy and beaten 
 track, with assurance of the complacent regards of Parents, 
 Friends, and of those with whom we associate. The pro- 
 mise also may be upon her lip ot the huzzas of the multitude, 
 ot the smile of Kings, and the munificent rewards o 
 senates. The Other does not venture to hold forth any o 
 these allurements ; she does not conceal from him whom 
 she addresses the impediments, the disappointments, the 
 ignorance and prejudice which her follower will have tf 
 encounter, if devoted when duty calls, to active life; anc 
 if to contemplative, she lays nakedly before him, a scheme 
 of solitary and unremitting labour, a life of entire neglec 
 perhaps, or assuredly a life exposed to scorn, insult, per 
 secution, and hatred ; but cheered by encouragemen 
 from a grateful few, by applauding conscience, and by 
 prophetic anticipation, perhaps, of fame—alate, though last 
 
THE FRIEND. 309 
 
 ing consequence. Of these two, each in this manner soli- 
 citing you to become her adherent, you doubt not which 
 to prefer, — but oh ! the thought of moment is not pre- 
 ference, but the degree of preference ; the passionate and 
 pure choice, the inward sense of absolute and unchange- 
 able devotion. 
 
 I spoke of a few simple questions — the question in- 
 volved in this deliberation is simple ; but at the same time 
 it is high and awful : and 1 would gladly know whether 
 an answer can be returned satisfactory to the mind. — 
 We will for a moment suppose that it can not ; that 
 there is a startling and a hesitation. — Are we then to 
 despond? to retire from all contest? and to reconcile our- 
 selves at once to cares without generous hope, and to 
 efforts in which there is no more Moral life than that 
 which is found in the business and labours of the unfa- 
 voured and unaspiring many ? No — but, if the enquiry 
 have not heen on just grounds satisfactorily answered, we 
 briay refer confidently our Youth to that Nature of which 
 he deems himself an enthusiastic follower, and one who 
 wishes to continue no less faithful and enthusiastic. — We 
 would tell him that there are paths which he has not 
 trodden ; recesses which he has not penetrated, that there 
 is a beauty which he has not seen, a pathos which he has 
 not felt — a sublimity to which he hath not been raised. If 
 he have trembled, because there has occasionally taken 
 place in him a lapse, of which he is conscious; if he fore- 
 see open or secret attacks, which he has had intimations 
 that he will neither be strong enough to resist, nor watch- 
 ful enough to elude, let him not hastily ascribe this weak- 
 ness, this deficiency, and the painful apprehensions ac- 
 companying them, in any degree to the virtues or noble 
 qualities with which Youth by Nature is furnished ; but 
 let him first be assured, before he looks about for the 
 means of attaining the insight, the discriminating powers, 
 and the confirmed wisdom of Manhood, that his soul has 
 more to demand of the appropriate excellences of Youth, 
 than Youth has yet supplied to it; — that the evil under 
 which he labours is not a superabundance of the instincts 
 and the animating spirit of that age, but a falling short, or 
 a failure. — But what can he gain from this admonition ? 
 he cannot recal past time ; he .cannot begin his journey 
 afresh ; he cannot untwist the Jinks by which, in no tin- 
 delightful harmony, images and sentiments are wedded in 
 
310 THE FRIEND. 
 
 his mind. Granted that the sacred light of Childhood is 
 and must be for him no more than a remembrance. He 
 may, notwithstanding, be remanded to Nature; and with 
 trust-worthy hopes ; founded less upon his sentient than 
 upon his intellectual Being — to Nature, not as leading on 
 insensibly to the society of Reason; but to Reason and 
 Will, as leading back to the wisdom of Nature. A re- 
 union, in this order accomplished, will bring reformation 
 and timely support ; and the two powers of Reason and 
 Nature, thus reciprocally teacher and taught, may advance 
 together in a track to which there is no limit. 
 
 We have been discoursing (by implication at least) 
 of Infancy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, of pleasures 
 lying upon the unfolding Intellect plenteously as morning 
 dew-drops — of knowledge inhaled insensibly like a fra- 
 grance — of dispositions stealing into the Spirit like music 
 from unknown quarters — of images uncalled for and rising 
 up like exhalations — of hopes plucked like beautiful wild 
 flowers from the ruined tombs that border the high-ways 
 of antiquity, to make a garland for a living forehead ; — in 
 a word, we have been treating of Nature as a Teacher of 
 Truth through joy and through gladness, and as a Crea- 
 tress of the faculties by a process of smoothness and de- 
 light. We have made no mention of fear, shame, sorrow, 
 nor of ungovernable and vexing thoughts ; because, 
 although these have been and have done mighty service, 
 they are overlooked in that stage of life when youth is 
 passing into manhood — overlooked, or forgotten. We now 
 apply for succour which we need, to a faculty that works 
 •after a different course : that faculty is Reason : she gives 
 much spontaneously, but she seeks for more ; she 
 works by thought, through feeling; yet in thoughts 
 she begins and ends. 
 
 A familiar incident may elucidate this contrast in 
 the operations of Nature, may render plain the manner 
 in which a process of intellectual improvements, the 
 reverse of that which Nature pursues is by Reason 
 introduced : There never perhaps existed a School-boy 
 who, having when he retired to rest, carelesly blown 
 out his candle, and having chanced to notice as he 
 lav upon his bed in the ensuing darkness, the sullen light 
 which had survived the extinguished flame, did not, at 
 some time or other, watch that light as if his mind were 
 bound to it by a spell. It fades and revives — gathers to a 
 
THE FRIEXD. 311 
 
 point — sc-emsas if it would go out in a moment — again re- 
 covers it's strength, nay becomes brighter than before : 
 it continues to shine with an endurance, which in its ap- 
 parent weakness is a mystery — it protracts its existence 
 so long, clinging to the power which supports it, that the 
 Observer, who had laid down in his bed so easy-minded, 
 becomes sad and melancholy : his sympathies are touched 
 — it is to him an intimation and an image of departing 
 human life, — the thought comes nearer to him — it is the 
 life of a venerated Parent, of a beloved Brother or Sister, 
 or of an aged Domestic ; who are gone to the grave, or 
 whose destiny it soon may be thus to linger, thus to hang 
 upon the last point of mortal existence, thus finally to de- 
 part and be seen no more — This is Nature teaching seriouly 
 and sweetly through the affections — melting the heart, 
 and, through that instinct of tenderness, developing the 
 understanding. — In this instance the object of solicitude is 
 the bodily life of another. Let us accompany this same 
 Boy to that period between Youth and Manhood, when a 
 solicitude mav be awakened for the moral life of himself. 
 — \re there any powers by which, beginning with a sense 
 of inward decay that affects not however the natural life, 
 he could call up to mind the same image and hang over it 
 with an equal interest as a visible "type of his own perishing- 
 Spirit? — Oh! surely, if the being of the individual be 
 under his own care — if it be his first care — if duty begin 
 from the point of accountableness to our Conscience, and, 
 through that, to God and human Nature ; — if without such 
 primary sense of duty, all secondary care of Teacher, of 
 Friend, or Parent, must be baseless and fruitless ; if, lastly, 
 the motions of the Soul transcend in worth those "of the 
 animal functions, nay give to them their sole value ; then 
 truly are there such powers : and the image of the dying 
 taper may be recalled and contemplated, though with no 
 sadness in the nerves, no disposition to tears, no uncon- 
 querable sighs, yet with a melancholy in the soul, a sinking 
 inward into ourselves from thought to thought, a steady 
 
 remonstrance, and a high resolve. Let then the Youth 
 
 go back, as occasion will permit, to Nature and to Solitude, 
 thus admonished by Reason, and relying upon this newly, 
 acquired support. A world of fresh sensations will 
 gradually open upon him as his mind puts off its infirmi- 
 ties, and as instead of being propelled restlessly towards 
 others in admiration, or too hasty love, he makes it his 
 
312 THE FRIEND. 
 
 prime business to understand himself. New sensations, 
 1 affirm, writ be opened out — pure, and sanctioned by that 
 reason which is their original Author ; and precious feel- 
 ings of disinterested, that is self-disregarding joy and love 
 may be regenerated and restored : — and, in this sense, he 
 may be said to measure back the track of life he has 
 trod. 
 
 In such disposition of mind let the Youth return to the 
 visible Universe ; and to conversation with ancient Books; 
 and to those, if such there be, which in the present dav 
 breathe the ancient spirit : and let him feed upon that 
 beauty which unfolds itself, not to his eve as it sees care- 
 lessly the things which cannot possibly go unseen, and are 
 remembered or not as accident shall decide, but to the 
 thinking mind ; which searches, discovers, and treasures 
 up, — infusing by meditation into the objects with which it 
 converses an intellectual life ; whereby they remain planted 
 in the memory, now, and for ever. Hitherto the Youth, 
 1 suppose, has been content for the most part, to look at 
 bis own mind, after the manner in which he ranges along 
 the Stars in the firmament with naked unaided sight: let 
 him now apply the telescope of Art — to call the invisible 
 Stars out of their hiding places ; and let him endeavour to 
 look through the system of his being, with the organ of 
 Reason ; summoned to penetrate, as far as it has power, 
 in discovery of the impelling forces and the governing laws. 
 These expectations are not immoderate : they demand 
 nothing more than the perception of a few plain truths ; 
 namely, that knowledge efficacious for the production of 
 virtue, is the ultimate end of all effort, the sole "dispenser 
 of complacency and repose. A perception also is implied 
 of the inherent superiority of Contemplation to Action. 
 The Frtend does not in this contradict his own words, 
 where he has said heretofore, that " doubtless it is nobler 
 to Act than to Think." In those words, it was his pur- 
 pose to censure that barren contemplation, which rests 
 satisfied with itself in cases where the thoughts are of such 
 quality that they may be, and ought to be, embodied in 
 Action. But he speaks now of the general superiority of 
 thought to action ; — as preceeding and governing all action 
 that moves to salutary purposes : and, secondly, as leading 
 to elevation, the absolute possession of the individual mind, 
 and to a consistency or harmony of the Being within it- 
 self, which no outward agency can reach to disturb or to 
 
THE FRIEND. 313 
 
 impair: — and lastly as producing works of pure science; 
 or of the combined faculties of imagination, feeling, and 
 reason ; — works which, both from their independence in 
 their origin upon accident, their nature, their duration, 
 and the wide spread of their influence, are entitled rightly 
 to take place of the noblest and most beneficent deeds of 
 Heroes, Statesmen, Legislators, or Warriors. 
 
 Yet, beginning from the perception of this established 
 superiority, we do not suppose that the Youth, whom we 
 wish to guide and encourage, is to be insensible to those 
 influences of Wealth, or Rank, or Station, by which the 
 bulk of Mankind are swayed. Our eyes have not been 
 fixed upon virtue which lies apart from human Nature, or 
 transcends it. In fact there is no such Virtue. We 
 neither suppose nor wish him to undervalue or slight these 
 distinctions as modes of power, things that may enable him 
 to be more useful to his contemporaries ; nor as gratifica- 
 tions that may confer dignity upon his living person ; and, 
 through him, upon those who love him ; nor as they may 
 connect his name,- through a Family to be founded by his 
 success, in a closer chain of gratitude with some portion of 
 posterity, who shall speak of him, as among their An- 
 cestry, with a more tender interest than the mere general 
 bond of patriotism or humanity would supply. We sup- 
 pose no indifference to, much less a contempt of, these 
 rewards ; but let them have their due place ; let it be as- 
 certained, when the Soul is searched into, that they are 
 only an auxiliary motive to exertion, never the principal 
 or originating force. If this be too much to expect from 
 a Youth who, I take for granted, possesses no ordinary 
 endowments, and whom circumstances with respect to the 
 more dangerous passions have favoured, then, indeed, must 
 the noble Spirit of the Country be wasted away: then 
 would our Institutions be deplorable ; and the Education 
 prevalent among us utterly vile and debasing. 
 
 But my Correspondent, who drew forth these thoughts, 
 has said rightly, that the character of the age may not with- 
 out injustice be thus branded : he will not deny that, 
 without speaking of other Countries, there is in these 
 Islands, in the departments of Natural philosophy, of 
 mechanic ingenuity, in the general activities of the coun- 
 try, and in the particular excellence of individual Minds, 
 in high stations civil or military, enough to excite admira- 
 tion and love in the sober-minded, and more than enough 
 
514 THE FPaEND. 
 
 to intoxicate the Youthful and inexperienced. 1 will 
 
 compare, then, an aspiring Youth, leaving the Schools in 
 which he has been disciplined, and preparing to bear apart 
 in the concerns of the World, I will compare him in this 
 season of eager admiration, to a newly-invested Knight 
 appearing with his blank unsignalized Shield, upon some 
 day of solemn tournament, at the' Court, of the Fairy- 
 Queen, as that Sovereignity was conceived to exist by the 
 moral and imaginative genius of our divine Spenser. 
 He does not himself immediately enter the lists as a com- 
 batant, but he looks round him with a beating heart ; 
 dazzled by the gorgeous pageantry, the banners, the im- 
 presses, the Ladies of overcoming beauty, the Persons 
 of the Knights — now first seen by him, the fame of whose 
 actions is carried by the Traveller, like merchandize, 
 through the World ; and resounded upon the harp of the 
 Minstrel.— But 1 am not at liberty to make this comparison. 
 If a Youth were to begin his career in such an Assemblage, 
 with such examples to guide and to animate, it will be 
 pleaded, there would be no cause for apprehension : he 
 could not falter, he could not be misled. But ours, is not- 
 withstanding its manifold excellences, a degenerate Age: 
 and recreant Knights are among us, far out numbering the 
 true. A false Gloriana in these days imposes worthless 
 services, which they who perform them, in their blindness, 
 know not to be such; and which are recompenced by 
 rewards as worthless — yet eagerly grasped at, as if they 
 were the immortal guerdon of Virtue. 
 
 I have in this declaration insensibly overstepped the 
 limits which I had determined not to pass: — let me be for- 
 given; for it is hope which hath carried me forw.ard. In 
 such a mixed assemblage as our age presents, with its 
 genuine merit and its large overbalance of alloy, 1 may 
 boldly ask into what errors, either with respect to Person 
 or Thing, could a young Man fall, who had sinceerly enter- 
 ed upon the course of moral discipline which has been re- 
 commended, and to which the condition of youth, it has 
 been proved, is favourable ? His opinions could no where 
 deceive him beyond the point to which, after a season, he 
 would find that it was salutary for him to have been de- 
 ceived. For, as that Man cannot set a right value upon 
 health who has never known sickness, nor feel the bless- 
 ing of ease who has been through his life a stranger to 
 pain, so can there be no confirmed and passionate love of 
 
• THE FRIEND. 315 
 
 truth for him who has not experienced the hollowness of 
 error. — Range against each other as Advocates, oppose as 
 Combatants, two several Intellects, each strenously asser- 
 ting doctrines which he sincerely believes ; but the one 
 contending for the worth and beauty of that garment 
 which the other has outgrown and cast away. Mark the 
 superiority, the ease, the dignity, on the side of the more 
 advanced Mind, how he overlooks his subject, commands 
 it from centre to circumference , and hath the same 
 thorough knowledge of the tenets which his Adversary, 
 with impetuous zeal, but in confusion also, and thrown off 
 his guard at every turn of the argument, is labouring to 
 maintain ! If it be a question of the fine Arts (Poetry for 
 instance) the riper mind not only sees that his opponent 
 is deceived ; but, what is of far more importance, sees how 
 he is deceived. The imagination stands before him with 
 ail its imperfections laid open ; as duped by shews, ensla- 
 ved by words, corrupted by mistaken delicacy and false 
 refinement, — as not having even attended with care to 
 the reports of the senses, and therefore deficient grossly in 
 the rudiments of her own power. He has noted how, as 
 a supposed necessary condition, the Understanding sleeps 
 in order that the Fancy may dream. Studied in the his- 
 tory of Society, and versed in the secret laws of thought, 
 he can pass regularly through all the gradations, can pierce 
 infallibly all the windings, which false taste through ages 
 has pursued — from the very time when first, through in- 
 experience, heedlessness, or affectation, she took her de- 
 parture from the side of Truth, her original parent. ■ 
 
 Can a disputant thus accoutred be withstood ? — to whom, 
 further, every movement in the thoughts of his Antagonist 
 is revealed by the light of his own experience ; who, 
 therefore, sympathises with weakness gently, and wins his 
 way by forcbearance ; and hath, when needful, an irresis- 
 tible power of onset, — arising from gratitude to the truth 
 which he vindicates, not merely as a positive good for 
 Mankind, but as his own especial rescue and re- 
 demption. 
 
 I might here conclude : but my Correspondent towards 
 the close of his letter, has written so feelingly upon the 
 advantages to be derived, in his estimation, from a living 
 Instructor, that I must not leave this part of the Sub- 
 ject without a word of direct notice. The Friend cited, 
 some time ago, a passage from the prose works of Milton, 
 
316 THE FRIEND. 
 
 eloquently describing the manner in which good and evil 
 grow up together in the field of the World almost insepar- 
 ably ; and insisting, consequently, upon the knowledge 
 and survey of vice as necessary to the constituting of hu- 
 man virtue, and the scanning of Error to the confirmation 
 of Truth. If this be so., and i have been reasoning to the 
 same effect in the preceeding paragraph, the fact, and the 
 thoughts which it may suggest, will, if rightly applied, 
 tend to moderate an anxiety for the guidance of a more 
 experienced or superior Mind. The advantage, where it 
 is posessed, is far from being an absolute good : nay, such a 
 preceptor, ever at hand, might prove an oppression not tobe 
 thrown off, and a fatal hindrance. Grant that in the gene- 
 ral tenor of his intercourse with his Pupil he is forbearing 
 and circumspect, inasmuch as he is rich in that knowledge 
 (above all other necessary for a teacher) which cannot ex- 
 ist without a liveliness of memory, preserving for him 
 an unbroken image of the winding, excursive, and often 
 retrograde course, along whichiis own intellect has pas- 
 sed. Grant that, furnished with these distinct remem- 
 brances, he wishes that the mind of his pupil should be 
 free to luxuriate in the enjoyments, loves, and admirations 
 appropriate to its age ; that he his not in haste to kill what 
 he knows will indue time die of itself ; or be transmu- 
 ted, and put on a nobler form and higher faculties other- 
 wise unattainable. In a word, that the Teacher is govern- 
 ed habitually by the wisdom of Patience waiting with 
 pleasure. Yet perceiving how much the outward help of 
 Art can facilitate the progress of Nature, he may be be- 
 trayed into many unnecessary or pernicious mistakes where 
 he deems his interference warranted b}' substantial experi- 
 ence. And in spite of all his caution, remarks may drop 
 insensibly from him which shall wither in the mind of his 
 pupil a generous sympathy, destroya sentiment of appro- 
 bation or dislike, not merely innocent but salutary ; and 
 for the inexperienced Disciple how many pleasures may 
 be thuscut off, what joy, what admiration, and what love! 
 while in their stead are introduced into the ingenuous 
 mind misgivings, a mistrust of its own evidence, disposi- 
 tions to affect to feel where there can be no real feeling, 
 indecisive judgements, a superstructure of opinions that 
 has no base to support it, and words uttered by rote with 
 the impertinence of a Parrot or a Mocking-bird, yet which 
 may not be listened to with the same indifference, as 
 
THE FRIEND. 317 
 
 they cannot be beard without some feeling of moral dis- 
 approbation. 
 
 These results, I contend, whatever may be the benefit, 
 to be derived from such an enlightened Teacher, are in 
 their degree inevitable. And by this process, humility 
 and docile dispositions may exist towards the Master, en- 
 dued as he is with the power which personal presence 
 confers ; but at the same time they will be liable to over- 
 step their due bounds, and to degenerate into passiveness 
 and prostration of mind. This towards him ! while, with 
 respect to other living Men, nay even to the mighty 
 Spirits of past times, there may be associated with such 
 weakness a want of modesty and humility. Insensibly 
 may steal in presumption and a habit of sitting in judge- 
 ment in cases where no sentiment ought to have existed 
 but diffidence or veneration. Such virtues are the sacred 
 attributes of Youth ; its appropriate calling is not to dis- 
 tinguish in the fear of being deceived or degraded, not to 
 analyze with scrupulous minuteness, but to accumu- 
 late in genial confidence ; its instinct, its safety, its 
 benefit, its glory, is to love, to admire, to feel, and to la- 
 bour. Nature has irrevocably decreed, that our prime de- 
 pendance in all stages of life after Infancy and Childhood 
 have been passed through (nor do I know that, this latter 
 ought to be excepted) must be upon our own minds ; and 
 that the way to knowledge shall be long, difficult, wind- 
 ing, and often times returning upon itself. 
 
 What has been said is a mere sketch ; and that only of » 
 a part of the interesting Country into which we have been 
 led : but my Correspondent will be able to enter the paths 
 that have been pointed out. Should he do this and ad- 
 vance steadily for a while, he needs not fear any deviations 
 from the truth which will be finally injurious to him. He 
 will not long have his admiration fixed upon unworthy 
 objects ; he will neither be clogged nor drawn aside by 
 the love of friends or kindred, betraying his understanding 
 through his affections ; he will neither be bowed down by 
 conventional arrangments of manners producing too often 
 a lifeless decency : nor will the rock of his Spirit wear 
 away in the endless beating of the waves of the World : 
 neither will that portion of his own time, which he must 
 surrender to labours by which his livelihood is to be earn- 
 ed or his social duties performed, be unprofitable to him- 
 self indirectly, while it is directly useful to others : for that 
 
SIS THE FRIEND. 
 
 time has been primarily surrendered through an act of 
 obedience to a moral law established by himself, and there- 
 fore he moves then also along the orbit of perfect liberty. 
 
 Let it be remembered, that the advice requested does 
 not relate to the government of the more dangerous pas- 
 sions, or to the fundamental principles of right and wrong 
 as acknowledged by the universal Conscience of Mankind. 
 I may therefore assure my Youthful Correspondent, if he 
 will endeavour to look into himself in the manner which I 
 have exhorted him to do, that in him the wish will be rea- 
 lized, to him in due time the prayer granted, which was 
 uttered by that living Teacher of whom he speaks with 
 gratitude as of a Benefactor, when, in his character of phi- 
 losophical Poet, having thought of Morality as implying 
 in its essence voluntary obedience, and producing the 
 effect of order, he transfers in the transport of imagination, 
 the law of moral to physical natures, and, having contem- 
 plated, through the medium of that order, all modes of ex- 
 istence as subservient to one spirit, conludes his address to 
 the power of Duty in the following words : 
 
 To humbler functions, awful Power! 
 
 I call thee ; I myself commend 
 
 Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 
 
 Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 
 
 Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
 
 The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
 
 The confidence of reason give ; 
 
 And in the light of truth thij Bondman let me live ! 
 
 M. M. 
 
THE FRIEND. 319 
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 FROM THE ITALIAN OF CHIABRERA. 
 
 Not without heavy grief of heart did He, 
 On whom the duty fell, (for at that time 
 The Father sojourned in a distant Land) 
 Deposit in the hollow of this Tomb 
 A Brother's Child, most tenderly beloved ! 
 Francesco was the name the Youth had borne 
 Potzzobonnelli his illustrious House ; 
 And when beneath this stone the Corse was laid 
 The eyes of all Savona stream'd with tears. 
 Alas ! the twentieth April of his life 
 Had scarcely flowered : and, at this early time, 
 By genuine virtue he inspired a hope 
 That greatly cheared his country ; to his kin 
 He promis'd comfort ; and the flattering thoughts 
 His Friends had in their fondness entertained, 
 He suffer'd not to languish or decay. 
 Now is there not good reason to break forth 
 
 Into a passionate lament ? O Soul ! 
 
 Short while a Pilgrim in our nether world, 
 Do thou enjoy the calm empyreal air, 
 And round this earthly tomb let roses rise, 
 An everlasting spring! in memory 
 Of that delightful fragrance which was once 
 From thy mild manners quietly exhaled. 
 
320 IHE FRIEND. 
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 FROM THE ITALIAN OF CHIABRERA. 
 
 Pause, courteous Spirit! Balbi supplicates 
 
 That Thou, with no reluctant voice, for him 
 Here laid in mortal darkness, vvouldst prefer 
 A prayer to the Redeemer of the Avorld. 
 This to the dead by sacred right belongs, 
 
 All else is nothing.' -Did occasion suit 
 
 To tell his worth, the marble of this tomb 
 
 Would ill suffice: for Plato's love sublime 
 
 And all the wisdom of the Stagyrite 
 
 Enriched and beautified his studious mind ; 
 
 With Archimedes also he conversed 
 
 As with a chosen Friend ; nor did he leave 
 
 Those laureat wreathes ungathered which the Nymphs 
 
 Twine on the top of Pindus. — Finally, 
 
 Himself above each lower thought uplifting, 
 
 His ears he clos'd to listen to the Song 
 
 Which Sion's Kings did consecrate of old, 
 
 And fixed his Pindus upon Lebanon. 
 
 A blessed Man ! who of protracted days 
 
 Made not, as thousands do, a vulgar sleep, 
 
 But truly did he live his life. Urbino 
 
 Take pride in him. O Passenger farwell ! 
 
 PENRITH: PltlNTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
I 
 
 ■y 
 
 THE FRIJENB. 
 
 
 THURSDAY, January 11, 1810. 
 
 Ihe Friend regards the following as a supernumerary Essay, and 
 has therefore dated but not numbered it. As nearly one half relates 
 to the circumstances of the Publication, he leaves it wholly to the 
 Discretion of those who receive it, to pay the usual price or not — 
 for the names of those, who may have given orders for the discontinu- 
 ance of the work, after the 20th number, have not yet been received, 
 with very few exceptions. 
 
 IRUS. 
 
 Irus, the forlorn Irus, whose nourishment consisted in 
 bread and water, whose cloathing of one tattered mantle, 
 and whose bed of an arm-full of straw, this same Irus, by a 
 rapid transition of fortune, became the most prosperous 
 mortal under the sun It pleased the Gods to snatch him 
 at once out of the dust, and to place him by the side of 
 Princes. He beheld himself in the possession of incalcu- 
 lable treasures. His palace excelled even the temple of 
 the Gods in the pomp of it's ornaments ; his least sump- 
 tuous cloathing was of purple and gold, and his table might 
 well have been named the compendium of Luxury, the 
 summary of all that the voluptuous ingenuity of men had 
 invented for the gratification of the palate. A numerous 
 train of admiring Dependents followed him at every step ; 
 those to whom he vouchsafed a gracious look, were 
 esteemed already in the high road of fortune, and the 
 favoured individual who was permitted to kiss his hand, 
 appeared to be the object of common envy. The name of 
 Irus sounding in his ears an unwelcome memento and 
 perpetual reproach of his former poverty, he for this reason 
 named himself Ceraunius, or the Lightening-flasher, and 
 the whole people celebrated this splendid change of title 
 \ by public rejoicings. The Poet, who a few years ago had 
 
322 THE FRIEXD. • 
 
 personified poverty itself under his former name of Irus, 
 now made a discovery which had till that moment remained 
 a profound secret, but was now received by all with im- 
 plicit faith and warmest approbation. Jupiter, forsooth, 
 had become enamoured of the Mother of Ceraunius, and 
 assumed the form of a mortal in order to enjoy her love. 
 Henceforward, they erected altars to him, they swore by 
 his name, and the Priests discovered in the entrails of the 
 sacrificial victim, that the great Ceraunius, this 
 worthy son of Jupiter, was the sole Pillar of the Western 
 World. Toxaris, his former neighbour, a man whom good 
 fortune, unwearied industry, and rational frugality, had 
 placed among the richest citizens, became the first victim 
 of the pride of this new demi-god. In the time of his 
 poverty Irus had repined at his luck and prosperity, and 
 irritable from distress and envy, had conceived that Toxaris 
 had looked contemptuously at him ; and now was the 
 time that Ceraunius would make him feel the power of 
 him, whose father grasped the Thunder-bolt. Three 
 Advocates, newly admitted into the recently established 
 Order of the Cygnet, gave evidence, that Toxaris had 
 denied the Gods, committed peculations on the sacred 
 Treasury, and encreased his treasures by acts of sacri- 
 lege. He was hurried off to Prison and sentenced to an 
 ignominious death, and his wealth confiscated to the use 
 of Ceraunius, the earthly Representative of the Deities. 
 Ceraunius now found nothing wanting to his felicity but 
 a Bride worthy of his rank and blooming honours. The 
 most illustrious of the Land were Candidates for his 
 alliance. Euphorbia, the daughter of the noble Saxones, 
 was honoured with his final choice. To nobility of birth 
 nature had added for Euphorbia a rich dowrv of beauty, a 
 nobleness both of look and stature. The flowing ringlets 
 of her hair, her lofty forehead, her brilliant, eyes, her 
 stately figure, her majestic gait, had enchanted the 
 haughty Ceraunius: and all the Bards told what the 
 inspiring Muses had revealed to them, that Venus more 
 than once had pined with jealousy at the sight of her 
 superior charms. The day of the espousal arrived, and the 
 illustrious Son of Jove was proceeding in pomp to the 
 Temple, when the anguish-stricken wife of Toxaris, with 
 his innocent children, suddenly threw themselves at his 
 feet, and with loud lamentations entreated him to spare 
 the Life of her husband. Enraged by this interruption, 
 
THE FRIEND. 323 
 
 Ceraum'us spurned her from him with his feet and — Irus 
 awaked, and found himself lying on the same straw on 
 which he had lain down, and with his old tattered mantle 
 spread over him. With his returning Reason, Conscience 
 too returned. He praised the (iods and resigned himself 
 to his lot. Ceraunius indeed had vanished, but the 
 innocent Toxaris was still alive, and lrus poor yet 
 guiltless. 
 
 Can my Reader recollect no character now on Earth, 
 who sometime or other will awake from his Dream of 
 Life, poor as lrus, with all the guilt and impiety of 
 Ceraunius ? 
 
 Ante quod est in me, postque- 
 
 Omnis habet geminas kinc atque hinc Janua frontes % 
 Equibus Hsec Popidum spectat, ilia Larem : 
 
 Utque sedens primi vester propelimina tecti 
 Janitor, egressus intfoitusque videt, 
 
 Sic Ego 
 
 Ovid: Fastor: Lib. 1.* 
 
 TO MY SUBSCRIBERS; AND TO THE READERS OF THE 
 FRIEND IN GENERAL. 
 
 I have always looked forward to the present Number 
 of The Friend, as its first proper starting-post ; for the 
 twenty Numbers preceding I regarded as a preparatory 
 heat, in order to determine whether or no I should be 
 admitted, as a Candidate, on that longer course, on which 
 alone the speed and strength of jthe Racer can be fairly 
 proved. But dropping the metaphor, and with it all 
 desire to give dignity to a Subject, which ought to rest 
 wholly on it's propriety and necessity, as 1 am speaking 
 of the Publication rather than of the work, so Jet me speak 
 as the Publisher rather than as the Author. By the 
 exertions of my private acquaintances, aided by the small 
 degree of pubiic interest which attached to my character 
 from my juvenile poems, and still more perhaps from the 
 
 * Intervretation. What is before in me, and behind Every House- 
 floor has two Fronts, the one of which looks to the People in the Road or 
 Street, the other to the family at Home: and as the Porter sitting near the 
 threshold within the Porch, beholds the goings-out and comings-in, (or the 
 txits and the entrances) thus now do I 
 
324 THE FRIEND. 
 
 favourable reception of my Lectures at the Royal Institu- 
 tion, a sufficient number of Names were procured to per- 
 mit me to make the experiment, which it would not only 
 have been imprudent, but absolutely out of my power to 
 have tried at ray own risk : which risk however I have 
 found far less guarded against, than from my estrangement 
 from business, and the habits of business, I had been able 
 to anticipate. Intreating the patience of the Reader solely 
 on the ground of his doing by others as he would himself 
 be done by, I will endeavour to make myself fully intel- 
 ligible; and pxplain first the nature of the lisk, and next 
 my reasons for calling my work an Experiment. It is 
 indeed a matter of blank necessity, that I should do so, if 
 The Friend is to proceed at all with his weekly efforts in 
 the present or any similar form. 
 
 1 was not so ignorant of mankind as to expect that my 
 Essays would be found interesting in the hurry and struggle 
 of active Life. All the passions, which are there at work, 
 it was my object to preclude: and 1 distinctly foresaw, that 
 by rejecting all appeals to personal passions, and party 
 spirit, and all interest grounded wholly on the cravings of 
 curiosity, and the love o*' novelty for it's own sake, I at the 
 same time precluded three-fourths of the ordinary readers 
 of periodical publications, whether Reviews, Magazines, 
 or Newspapers. 1 might however find dispersedly what I 
 could not hope to meet with collectively. I thought it 
 not improbable, that there might be individuals scattered 
 throughout the kingdom, to whom the very absence of 
 such stimilants would prove a recommendation to the 
 work, and that when the existence ot such a work was 
 generally known, a sufficient number of persons able and 
 willing to patronize it might gradually be collected — 
 sufficient, I mean, first to render it possible for the Author 
 so to employ his time and powers, and secondly, to repay 
 the expences of the publication. On this account, and on 
 this only, the Friend was printed on stamped paper, that 
 it might thus go free by the General Post to all parts of the 
 Kingdom, even where there was no communication with 
 London by means of the Booksellers, or a very infrequent 
 one. Could this have been done uniformly, it would have 
 been neither a Loss oraGain to the Author as the Proprietor 
 of the work, as the price of the stamp was no more than the 
 deduction of 30 per cent, made by the Booksellers from 
 the sale-price of every publication that passes through 
 
THE FRIEND. 32,5 
 
 their hands. But as I had to advance the money both 
 for the Paper * and for the Stamps, for at least the first 
 four and twenty numbers, and as the arrival of them from 
 London cannot be calculated upon within less than six 
 weeks, as I have learnt by sad § experience, I ought to have 
 made it a condition that a notice of six weeks must be given 
 of the intention to discontinue the work — a notice less by 
 half the time than what is required by all the Publishers 
 of Newspapers, even in London, where the Stamps can be 
 procured daily, and no necessity exists of a large stock 
 of stamped paper on hand. But this I neglected from un- 
 wise delicacy, an habitual turning away from all thoughts 
 relating to money, and from a self- flattering persuasion, 
 that those who after the perusal of my prospectus had 
 determined on giving the work a trial, would be sensible 
 of the difficulties it had to struggle with, and whether 
 satisfied or not with it's style of execution, yet for the 
 earnest wish of The Friend, not only to please them 
 but to please them in such way as might leave them per- 
 manently better pleased with themselves, would be dis- 
 posed rather to lessen than increase them. If therefore 
 The Friend is permitted to proceed, it must be under- 
 stood, that for the next twenty numbers a notice of six 
 weeks will be expected from those who wish to discon- 
 tinue the publication. At the same time 1 must intreat 
 those who may have sent orders for its discontinuance, 
 with their payment of the Subscription for the numbers 
 preceding, not to be surprized or offended by the receipt 
 of the present number: for neither I nor the Printer have, 
 or possibly can have received their order. 
 
 From the same unacquaintedness with business and 
 delusory hopes, 1 had suggested to the Subscribers, that 
 by desiring their acquaintance in London— not by an 
 especial Letter, but in the course of their other correspon- 
 dence, to pay in the <£l at Mr. G, Ward's instead of in- 
 closing the note in a letter, they would without any loss 
 to themselves very considerably lessen my expences. The 
 Blame be upon myself! But 1 certainly had not anticipa- 
 
 * The paper, of which I am sorry to hear so many, I fear, just complaints, 
 costs me 52s. Qd. a ream, exclusive of the carriage from London to Penrith — . 
 the stamp three-pence halfpenny for each sheet — add the expences of tha 
 printing, &c. 
 
 § According to the professions of the persons concerned, goods delivered. 
 to the Waggon-office, in London, ought to arrive at Penrith on the 10th, 
 day ; but the truth is, as I have stated it, 
 
326 THE FRIEND. 
 
 ted, that this suggestion would have occasioned such a 
 number of letters (and those not post-paid) desiring my 
 friend to call on persons, each residing in some different 
 part of the eight square miles occupied by the metropolis 
 and it's suburb's : for this so far from diminishing any 
 expence, must be double to that of receiving the Xl note 
 by the post— which letter would detract ten per cent from 
 the whole sum payed 1 am not surprized, that my 
 respected Friend hasdeclined so troublesome a commission : 
 greatly as so unexpected a circumstance has embarrassed 
 me. I can only at present request those who have not 
 paid their Subscriptions, to pay it to the Post-master of 
 the place, at or near which they reside, with instructions 
 to forward it to the Post-master at Kendal : when the 
 receipt which they receive from the Post-master, will be a 
 receipt for the Friend. 
 
 One other observation, and I quit for ever a subject 
 which cannot be so tiresome to the Reader, as it is painful 
 and hateful to the Writer. This is, that I must request 
 again, and more earnestly, that all Letters whatsoever, 
 addressed either to Mr. Brown, at Penrith, or to my- 
 self at Grasmere, should be post-paid : indeed, by the 
 united consequences of folly and malignity, 1 have no other 
 resource left, during the publication of the Friend, than 
 to return all not post-paid, unopened; and no Letters will 
 find me, that are not addressed either to Mr. Brown, if 
 they contain orders, or to myself if they contain communi- 
 cations or suggest ions. My private friends will be in- 
 formed of this regulation, and will see, that living as I do, 
 five miles from the place where the Letters are left, and 
 nineteen miles from the Post-office at Kendal, and re- 
 ceiving my letters too by different hands, and neighbourly 
 good offices, it is altogether out of my power to draw any 
 intelligible line of distinction ; and that considering the 
 painful accidents that may take place in consequence of 
 this regulation, no motive short of blank compulsion would 
 have led me to adopt it. Among other things of the kind, 
 a person signing himself " C'arbyol" has addressed a 
 threatening and abusive letter to me from Dover. I shall 
 not tell him, that such an act was ungentlemanly, unmanly, 
 and unchristian, for this would be to him the same " learn- 
 ed nonsence and unintelligible Jargin," for which he abuses 
 nie ; but some other points I may venture to press on his 
 attention. First, that it was a lack of common honesty 
 
THE FRIEND. 327 
 
 in him to write a letter with a fictitious signature, and not 
 pay the postage : secondly, that it was injudicious to 
 address the letter to me, as the Editor of the Courier is 
 alone responsible for the appearance of the passages which 
 have offended him, and the other admirers of Buonaparte, 
 in that paper: thirdly, that tliere is one branch of learning, 
 without which Learning itself cannot be railed at with 
 common decency, namely, Spelling : and lastly, that unin- 
 telligibility is a very equivocal charge. It certainly may 
 arise from the author, especially if he should chance to be 
 deficient in that branch of Erudition, last-mentioned ; but 
 it may likewise, and often does, arise from the Reader, and 
 this from more than one cause. He may have an ideotic 
 understanding, and what is far more common, as well as 
 incomparably more lamentable, — he may have an ideotic 
 heart ! To this last cause must we attribute the commission 
 of such crimes, as provoke the vengeance of the Law, by 
 men who Cannot but have heard from the Pulpit truths 
 and warnings, which, though evident to their understand- 
 ings, were, unhappily for them, religious nonsence and un- 
 intelligible i&tgin to their bad hearts. And 1 feel it my 
 duty to press on my Correspondent's reflection, the 
 undoubted fact, that a man may be quite foci enough to 
 be a rogue, and yet not appear fool enough to save him 
 from the legal consequences of his roguery. 
 
 A few words will explain my reason for having called 
 the present undertaking an experiment. From periodical 
 Literature the general Reader deems himself entitled to 
 expect amusement, and some degree of information, and 
 if the Writer can convey any instruction at the same time 
 and without demanding any additional thought (as the 
 Irishman, in the hackneyed jest, is said to have passed off 
 a light Guinea between two good Halfpence) this supere- 
 rogatory merit will not perhaps be taken amiss. Now 
 amusement in and for itself may be afforded by the grati- 
 fication either of the Curiosity or of the Passions. 1 use 
 the former word as distinguished from the love of know- 
 ledge, and the latter in distinction from those emotions 
 which arise in well-ordered minds, from the perception of 
 Truth or Falsehood, Virtue or Vice, and which are 
 always preceded by Thought, and linked with it. Again, 
 all information sought for without any wish of becoming 
 wiser or better thereby, I class among the gratifications of 
 mere Curiosity, whether it be sought for in a light Novel 
 
32S THE FRIEND. 
 
 
 or a grave History : we may therefore omit the word in- 
 formation, as included either in amusement or instruction. 
 Now my experiment regarded not the two elements them- 
 selves, which serious Readers at least persuade themselves, 
 they pursue, but a change of the usual order, in which 
 periodical Writers have in general attempted to convey 
 them. Having myself experienced that no delight either 
 in kind or degree, was equal to that which accompanies 
 the distinct perception of a fundamental Truth, relative to 
 our moral Being ; having, long after- the completion of 
 what is ordinarily called a learned Education, discovered a 
 new World of intellectual profit opening on me — not 
 from any new opinions, but lying, as it were, at the roots 
 of those which I had been taught in Childhood in my 
 Catechism and Spelling-book ; there arose a soothing hope 
 in my mind that a lesser Public might'be found, composed 
 of Persons susceptible of the same Delight, and desirous 
 of attaining it by the same process, rendered as much 
 easier to them, than it had been to me, as the united 
 efforts of my understanding and imagination were able to 
 render it. In short, I wished to convey not instruction 
 merely, but fundamental instruction ; not so much to 
 shew my Reader this or that Fact, as to kindle his own 
 Torch for him, and leave it to himself to chuse the parti- 
 cular Objects, which he might Avish to examine by it's 
 Jight. The Friend did not indeed exclude from his 
 Plan occasional interludes, and vacations of innocent en- 
 tertainment and promiscuous information, but still in the 
 main to propose to himself the communication, of such 
 delight, as rewards the march of Truth, rather than to col- 
 lect the flowers which diversify it's track, and present them 
 apart from the homely yet foodful or medicinable herbs, 
 among which they had grown. To refer men's opinions 
 to their absolute Principles, and thence their Feelings to 
 the appropriate Objects, and in their due degrees ; and 
 finally, to apply the Principles thus ascertained, first to 
 subjects of Taste or the fine Arts ; then to the schemes of 
 private and national Education ; and last of all, to the par- 
 ticular Duties, Joys, and Afflictions of private Life — these 
 were to be the Objects and the Contents of his Work. 
 Themes like these not even the genius of a Plato or a 
 Bacon could render intelligible, without demanding from 
 the Reader, thought sometimes, and attention 
 generally. By thought 1 here mean the voluntary pro- 
 
THE FRIEND. 529 
 
 duction in our own minds of those states of consciousness, 
 to which, as to his fundamental facts, the Writer has re- 
 ferred us: while attention has for it's object the order 
 and connection of Thoughts and Images, each of which 
 is in itself already and familiarly known. Thus the ele- 
 ments of Geometry require Attention only ; but the 
 analysis of our primary Faculties, and the investigation of 
 all the absolute grounds of Religion and Morals, are im- 
 possible without energies of Thought in addition to the 
 effort of Attention. The Friend never attempted to 
 disguise from his Readers that both Attention and Thought 
 were Efforts, and the latter a most difficult and laborious 
 Effort ; (see Nos. 3. and 4. P 46. 51.) nor from himself, 
 that to require it often or for any continuance of time was 
 incompatible with the nature of a periodical Publication, 
 even were it less incongruous than it unfortunately is with 
 the present habits and pursuits of Englishmen. Accord- 
 ingly after a careful re-perusal of the preceding Numbers, 
 I can discover but four passages which supposed in the 
 Reader any energy of thought and voluntary abstraction, 
 and of these four two should have been (and in the re- 
 printed Numbers will be) placed in the Notes, to be read 
 or passed over ad libitum. But Attention, 1 confess, two 
 thirds of the Work hitherto have required. On whatever 
 subject the mind feels a lively interest, attention, though 
 always an effort, becomes a delightful effort, and I should 
 be quite at ease could I secure for the whole Work as much 
 of it, as a Card Party of earnest Whist-Players often expend 
 in a single Evening, or a Lady in the making up of a 
 fashionable Dress. But where no interest previously 
 exists, attention (as every School-master knows) can be 
 procured only by Terror : which is the true reason, why 
 the majority of mankind learn nothing systematically, 
 except as School-boys or Apprentices. Here then was the 
 experiment : whether throughout the Kingdom the Author 
 could procure four or five Hundred Readers, who were 
 desirous to derive pleasure from the consciousness of being 
 instructed or ameliorated, and who felt a sufficient interest 
 as to the foundations of their own Opinions in Literature, 
 Politics, Morals, and Religion, to afford that degree of 
 .Attention, without which, however men may deceive 
 themselves, no actual progress ever was or ever can be 
 made in that knowledge, which supplies at once strength 
 and nourishment. 
 
330 THE FRIEND. 
 
 During the composition of this last Paragraph I have 
 keen aAvare that 1 shall appear to have been talking ar- 
 rogantly and with an unwarrantable assumption of su- 
 periority, but a moment's reflection will enable my Reader 
 to acquit me of this charge, as far as it. is, or ought to be 
 a charge. He will recollect, that I have been giving the 
 History of my own mind, and that if it had been my duty 
 to believe, that the main obstacle to the success of my un- 
 dertaking existed not in the minds of others, but in my 
 own insufficiency and inferiority, I ought not to have un- 
 dertaken it at all. To a sincere and sensible mind, it can- 
 not but be disgusting to find an Author writing on 
 Subjects, to the investigation of which he professes to 
 have devoted the greater portion of his Life, and yet ap- 
 pealing to all his Readers promiscuously, as his full and 
 competent judges, and thus soliciting their favour by a 
 mock modesty, which either convicts him of gross hypo- 
 crisy or the most absurd presumption. For what can be 
 conceived at once more absurd and presumptuous, than 
 for a man to write and publish Books for the instruction 
 of those who are wiser than himself, more learned, and 
 more judicious! Humility like all other virtues, must 
 exist in Harmony with Truth. My heart bears me witness, 
 that I would gladly give up all the pleasures which 1 can 
 ever derive from literary Reputation, could I receive 
 instead of them a deep conviction, that The Friend has 
 failed in pleasing no one, whose own superiority had not 
 rendered the Essays tiresome because superfluous. And 
 why should that be deemed a mark of self-sufficiency in 
 an Author, which would be thought only common sense 
 in a Musician or a Painter, namely, the supposition that 
 he understands and can practice those arts, to which he 
 has devoted his best faculties during life, in consequence 
 of a particular predilection for them, better than the mass 
 of mankind, who have given their time and thoughts to 
 other pursuits ? There is one species of presumption 
 among Authors which is truly hateful, and which betrays 
 itself when Writers who in their Prefaces have prostrated 
 themselves before the superiority of their Readers, as 
 supreme Judges, will yet in their works pass judgements 
 on Plato, Mdton, Shakespeare, Spenser, and their Com- 
 peers, in blank assertions and a peremptory ipse-dixi, and 
 with a grossness of censure, which a sensible School- 
 master would not apply to the exercises of the youths in 
 
THE FRIEND. 331 
 
 Ilis upper forms. I need no outward remembrances of my 
 own inferiority, but 1 possess them on almost every shelf 
 of my Library ; and ihe very book, which 1 am now using 
 as my writing-desk (Lord Bacon's Novum Organon) inspires 
 an awe and heart-felt humility, which 1 would not ex- 
 change for all the delight which Napoleon can enjoy at the 
 moment that his crowned Courtiers hail him Emperor of 
 Emperors and Lord Paramount of the West ! 
 
 As the week, which is to decide on the continuance 
 of The Friend,' coincides with the commencement of 
 the New Year, the present address has not inappropriately 
 taken its character from the two-fuced God, to whom the 
 first month is indebted for its name : it being in part retro- 
 spective and in part pmspective. Among the various rea- 
 sons, which Ovid in the passage from which 1 have taken 
 my motto, has made Janus himself assign for his bi-front 
 'appearance, he has omitted the most obvious intention of 
 the Emblem, that of instructing his V\ orshippers to com- 
 mence the new Y ear with a religious as well as prudential 
 review of their own conduct and its consequences, during 
 the past year : and thus to look onward to the year before 
 them with wiser plans, and with strengthened or amend- 
 ed resolutions. 1 will apply this to my own conduct as 
 far as it concerns the present Publication, and having al- 
 ready sufficiently informed the Reader of the general idea, 
 which I had proposed to myself, 1 will now with the same 
 simplicity communicate my own calm judgement on the 
 manner in which that idea has been so far realized, and 
 the outline filled up. My first Number bears the marks 
 of the effort and anxiety with which it was written, and is 
 composed less happily than I could wish. It assuredly 
 had not the cheerful and winning aspect, which a door- 
 keeper presenting the bill of Kare ought to possess. Its' 
 object, however was so far answered, as it announced dis- 
 tinctly the fundamental position or grand postulate on 
 which the whole Superstructure, with all its suppoiting 
 beams and pillars, was to rest 1 call it a Postulate, not 
 only because I deferred the Proofs but because, strictly 
 speaking, it was not susceptible of any proof from without. 
 The sole possible question was^-is it, or is it not, a Fact ? 
 and for the answer every human Being must be referred to 
 his own Consciousness. This Postulate is the fact of 
 Free-agencjj ; thence of a moral responsibility ; and thence 
 the existence of Evil; of Evil essentially such, not. by 
 accident of outward circumstances, not derived from it's 
 
332 THE FRli.x\D. 
 
 physical consequences, or from any cause, out of itself. 
 Omnia exeunt in mnstcrium, says a Schoolman : i. e. 
 There is nothing, the absolute ground of which is not a Mys- 
 tery. The contrary were indeed a contradiction in tt rms : 
 for how can that, which is to explain all things, be suscep- 
 tible of an explanation ? It would be to suppose the same 
 thing first and second at the same time. Had I rested 
 here, I should merely have placed my Creed in direct op- 
 position to that of the Necessitarians, who assume (for ob- 
 serve both Parties begin in an Assumption, and cannot do 
 otherwise) that motives act on the Will, as bodies act on 
 bodies ; and that whether mind and matter are essentially 
 the same or essentially different, they are both alike under 
 one and the same Law of compulsory Causation. But 
 this was far from exhausting my intention. 1 meant at 
 the same time to oppose the Disciples of Shaftesbury, 
 and those who have been well called the pious Deists of 
 the hist Century, who substituted one Faith for another, 
 in order to distinguish them from the Infidels of the pre- 
 sent age, who persuade themselves, (for the thing itself is 
 not possible) that they reject all Faith. I declared my 
 dissent from these too, because they imposed upon 
 themselves an Idea for a Reality : a most sublime Idea 
 indeed, and so necessary to human Nature, that without 
 it no Virtue is conceivable, but still an Idea! In con- 
 tradiction to their splendid but delusory Tenets, I pro- 
 fessed a deep conviction that Man was a. fallen Creature, 
 not by accidents of bodily constitution, or any other cause, 
 which human Wisdom in a course of ages might be sup- 
 posed capable of removing ; but diseased in his Will, in 
 that Will which is the true and only strict synonime of 
 the word, 1, or the intelligent Self. Thus at each of these 
 two opposite Roads (the Philosophy of Hobbes and that 
 of Shaftesbury, so call them, not that Hobbes or Shaftesr 
 bury were the original Authors of the opinions) I had 
 placed a directing Post, informing my Fellow-travellers, 
 that on neither of these Roads could they see the Truths 
 to which I was to direct their attention. But the place of 
 starting was at the meeting of four Roads, and one only 
 was the right road. 1 proceeded therefore to preclude 
 the opinion of those likewise, who indeed agreed with me 
 as to the moral Responsibility of Man in opposition to 
 Hobbes and the Anti-MOralists, and that He was a fallen 
 Creature, essentially diseased, in opposition to Shaftesbury 
 and the Misinterpreters of Plato ; but who differ from me 
 
THE FRIEND. 333 
 
 in exaggerating the diseased weakness of the Will into an 
 absolute privation of all Freedom, thereby making moral 
 responsibility, not a mystery above comprehension, but a 
 direct contradiction, of which we do distinctly compre- 
 hend the absurdity. Among the many dreadful con- 
 sequences of this Doctrine (which, as Extremes meet yet 
 preserve their separate identity, is the same notion, intel- 
 lectually considered, as that of Hobbes, but embraced 
 under the influence of very different feelings) among the 
 consequences of this Doctrine, is that direful one of swal- 
 lowing up all the Attributes of the supreme Being in the 
 one Attribute of infinite Power, and thence deducing that 
 Things are good and wise because they were created, and 
 not created through vV'isdom and Goodness. Thence too 
 the awful Attribute of Justice is explained away into a 
 mere right of absolute Property; the sacred distinction 
 between Things and Persons is erased ; and the selection 
 of Persons for Virtue and Vice in this Life, and for eternal 
 Happiness or Misery in the next, is represented as the 
 result of a mere Will, acting in the blindness and solitude 
 of it's own Infinity. The Title of a Work written by the 
 great and pious Boyle is " Of the Awe, which the human 
 Mind owes to the supreme Reason." This, - in the lan- 
 guage of these gloomy Doctors, must be translated into — 
 " the horror, which a Being capable of eternal Pleasure 
 or Pain, is compelled to feel from the idea of an infinite 
 Power, about to inflict the latter on an immense majority 
 of human Souls, without any power on their part either 
 to prevent it or the actions which are (not indeed it's 
 causes but) it's assigned signals, and preceding links of the 
 same iron chain ! 
 
 Against these Tenets I maintained, that a Will con- 
 ceived separate from Intelligence is a Non-entity, and a 
 mere Phantasm of Abstraction ; and that a Will not^ra? 
 is an absolute contradiction. It might be an Instinct, an 
 Impulse, a plastic Power, and, if accompanied with con- 
 sciousness, a desire ; but a Will it could not be ; and this 
 even/ Human Being knows with equal clearness, though 
 different minds may reflect on it with different degrees of 
 distinctness ; for who would not smile at the notion of a 
 Rose willing to put forth it's Buds and expand them into 
 Flowers? That such a phrase would be deemed a poetic 
 Licence proves the difference in the things : for all metaphors are 
 grounded on an apparent likeness of things essentially different. 
 1 concluded therefore, and on this Conclusion rested the whole 
 
334 THE FRIEND. 
 
 rationality of the Work which I had undertaken, that the human 
 Will, though diseased, is yet free, and being at the same time an 
 Intelligence, must be capable of being acted upon by different forms 
 of Intelligence ; that the opposite assertion contradicts the whole 
 Tenor of the Gospel, which informs us, not simply that Christ 
 brought Immortality into the World, but light and Immortality } 
 and by a mystery awfully significant, attributes in the divine 
 Economy the origination and peculiar office of Redemption to the 
 Word, or intelligential Wisdom, which' from all Eternity is with 
 God and is God. I utterly disclaimed the. idea, that any human 
 Intelligence, with whatever power it might manifest itself, was alone 
 adequate to the office of restoring health to the Will : but at the 
 same time I held it impious and absurd to hold, that the Creator 
 would have given us the faculty of Reason, or that the Redeemer 
 would in so many varied forms of Argument and Persuasion have 
 appealed to it, if it had been either totally useless or wholly impotent, 
 and I saw that these Truths were only to be reconciled by the 
 position, that the imperfect human understanding could be exerted 
 effectually only in subordination to, and a dependent alliance with, 
 the means and aidances supplied by the all-perfect and supreme 
 Reason ; but that under these conditions it was not only anadmissible, 
 but a necessary, instrument of ameliorating both ourselves and 
 others. The final deduction was easy. If Man be a free Agent, 
 his Good and Evil must not be judged of according to the nature 
 of his outward Actions, or the mere legality of his Conduct ; but 
 by the final Motive and Intention of the Mind. Now the final 
 Motive of an intelligent Will is a Principle : and consequently to 
 refer the opinions of Men to Principles (that is, to absolute and 
 necessary instead of secondary and contingent, grounds) is the best 
 and only secure way of referring the Feelings of Men to their 
 proper objects. In the union of both consists the Perfection of the 
 human Character. 
 
 The same subject was illustrated in my second Essay, and 
 reasons assigned from the peculiar circumstances of the Age, and the 
 present state of the Minds of Men, for giving this particular 
 direction to the serious Studies of Men, instead of the more easy 
 and attractive mode of Instruction adapted by my Illustrious Prede- 
 cessors in periodical Literature. At the same time being conscious, 
 how many Authorities of recent, but for that reason more influen- 
 cive, reputation, I must of necessity contravene in the support and 
 application of my Principles, both in Criticism and Philosophy, I 
 thought it requisite to state the true nature of presumption and 
 arrogance, and thus, if it were possible, preclude the charge in 
 cases where I had not committed the Offence. (In this Essay 
 I had made a confusion between Arrogance and Presumption, which 
 is corrected in the re-printed Copies.) The object of the four next 
 Numbers was to demonstrate the innoxiousness of Truth, if only the 
 conditions were preserved which the Reason and Conscience dic- 
 tated ; To shew at large what those conditions were which ought to 
 regulate the conduct of the Individual, in the communication of 
 Truth ; and by what Principles the civil Law ought to be governed 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 33 5 
 
 in the Punishment of Libels. Throughout the whole of these 
 Numbers, and more especially in the two latter, I again and again 
 recalled the attention of the Reader, to the paramount importance 
 of principles, alike for their moral and their intellectual, for their 
 private and their national Consequences ; the importance, I say, 
 of Principles of Reason, as distinct from, and paramount to, the 
 maxims of Prudence, even for Prudence sake! Some of my 
 Readers will probably have seen this subject supported by other 
 and additional arguments in my seventh Letter, « on the Grounds 
 of Hope for a People warring against Armies," published during the 
 last month, in the Courier. 
 
 In the mean time I was aware, that in this grounding my opinions 
 in Literature, Morals, and Religion, I should frequently use the same 
 or similar Language as had been applied by Rousseau, the French 
 physiocratic Philosophers, and their Followers in England, to the 
 nature and rightful origin of civil Government. The remainder of 
 my Work therefore, hitherto has been devoted to the purpose of 
 averting this mistake, as far as I have not been compelled by the 
 general Taste of my Readers to interrupt the systematic progress of 
 the Plan by Essays of a lighter kind, or which at least required a less 
 effort of Attention. In Truth, since my twelfth Number I have not 
 had courage to renew any Subject which did require Attention. The 
 way to be admired is to tell the Reader what he knew before, but 
 cloathed in a statelier phraseology, and embodied in apt and lively 
 illustrations. To attempt to make a Man wiser is of necessity to re- 
 mind him of his ignorance : and in the majority of instances, the 
 pain actually felt is so much greater than the pleasure anticipated, 
 that it is natural that men should attempt to shelter themselves from 
 it by contempt or neglect. For a living Writer is yet sub judice : 
 and if we cannot follow his conceptions or enter into his feelings, it 
 is more consoling to our Pride, as well as more agreeable to our in- 
 dolence, to consider him as lost beneath, than as soaring out of our 
 sight above us. Itaque id agitur, ut ignorantia etiam ab ignominia 
 liberetur. Happy is that Man, who can truly say, with Giordano 
 Bruno, and whose circumstances at the same time permit him to act 
 
 on the sublime feeling 
 
 " Procedat nudus, quern non ornant Nubila?, 
 Sol ! Non conveniunt Ouadrupedum Phalerse 
 Humano Dorso ! Pmro Veri species 
 Qucesita, i?ive?ita, et patefacta, me efferat ! 
 
 Etsi nuUus inttiligat, 
 Si cum Naturu sapio et sub numine, 
 
 Id vere plusquam satis est." 
 Should the number of Subscribers remaining on my List be suf- 
 ficient barely to pay the expences of the Publication, I shall assuredly 
 proceed in the present form, at least till I have concluded all the 
 Subjects which have been left imperfect in the preceding Essays. 
 And this, as far as I can at present calculate, will extend the pre- 
 sent Volume to the twenty-eighth or perhaps thirtieth Number. 
 The first place will be given to " Fragments and sketches of the Life 
 of the late Admiral Sir Alexander Ball." I shall next finish the im- 
 
336 ?HE FRIEND. 
 
 portant Subject left incomplete at the 9th No. and demonstrate that 
 Despotism and Barbarism are the natural result of a national attempt 
 to realize anti-feudalism, or the System of philosophical Jacobinism. 
 This position will be illustrated and exemplified at each step by the 
 present state of France, and the Essay will conclude with a detailed 
 analysis of the Character of Buonaparte ( promised by the Author 
 so many years ago in the Morning Post, as a Companion to the 
 Character of Mr. Pitt, which I have been requested, by Men of the 
 highest reputation in the philosophical and literary World, to re- 
 publish in a more permanent form.) In the third place, I shall con- 
 duct the subject of Taxation to a conclusion, my Essay on which 
 has been grossly misunderstood. These misconceptions and misre- 
 presentations I shall use my best efforts to remove ; and then deve- 
 lope the influences of Taxation and a national Debt, on the Foreign 
 Trade of Great Britain : and lastly (the only mournful part of the 
 Tale) on the Principles and intellectual Habits of the Country. 
 And the Volume, whether it be destined to stand alone or as the 
 first of a Series, will conclude with a philosophical examination of 
 the British Constitution in all it's branches separately and collectively. 
 To the next or 21st Number, I shall annex a Note of explanation, re- 
 vested by many intelligent Readers, concerning my use of the Words 
 Reason and Understanding, as far as is requisite for the full compre- 
 hension of the political Essays from the 7th to the 11th Nos. But 
 as I am not likely to receive back my List of Subscribers from Lon- 
 don within less than ten days, and must till then remain ignorant of 
 the Names of those who may have given orders for the discontinu- 
 ance of the Friend, I am obliged to suspend the Publication for one 
 Week. I cannot conclude this Address without expressions of gra- 
 titude to those who have written me Letters of encouragement and 
 respect; but at the same time entreat, that in their friendly efforts 
 to serve the Work by procuring new names for it, they will apply to 
 such only as, they have cause to believe, will be actually pleased with 
 a work of this kind. Such only can be of real advantage to The 
 Friend : and even if it were otherwise, He ought not to wish it. 
 Yet I have no reason to feel shame in adding, that without efforts of 
 this kind, appropriately directed, and by those who have felt them- 
 selves interested, and in some instances perhaps instructed by his 
 Writings, The Friend has little chance of extending his periodical 
 labours beyond the first Volume. An author's success ought always 
 to depend on feelings inspired exclusively by his Writings, and on 
 the sense of their having been useful to the Person who recommends 
 them. On this supposition, and on this only, such recommendation 
 becomes a Duty. 
 
 * t * The numbers wanting will be sent to such Subscribers, vho have inform- 
 ed the Printer what numbers they hace not received, in the course of the next fort- 
 night : and either complete Sets or particular Sumbers may after that time be pro- 
 cured from Messrs. Longman and Co. London, by the usual orders to the Country 
 
 Bt/oksclters. 
 
 PENaiTH: PPINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN". 
 
r 
 
 !/ THIS F1IENU 
 
 * 
 
 4 No. 21, THURSDAY, January 25, 1810. 
 
 A PREFATORY OBSERVATION ON MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 The History of Times representeth the magnitude of Actions 
 and the public faces or deportment of Persons, and passeth over in 
 silence the smaller passages and motions of Men and Matters. But 
 such being the workmanship of God, that he doth hang the 
 greatest weight upon the smallest wires, maxima e minimis suspen- 
 dens : it comes therefore to pass, that Histories do rather set forth 
 the pomp of business than the true and inward resorts thereof. But 
 Lives, if they be well written, propounding to themselves a Person to 
 represent in whom actions both greater and smaller, public and 
 private, have a commixture, must of necessity contain a more true, 
 native, and lively representation. — Lord Bacon. 
 
 Mankind in general are so little in the habit of looking 
 steadily at their own meaning, or of weighing the words 
 by which they express it, that the Writer, who is careful 
 to do both, will sometimes mislead his Readers through 
 the very excellence which qualifies him to be their In- 
 structor: and this with no other fault on his part, than 
 the modest mistake of supposing in those, to whom he 
 addresses himself, an intellect as watchful as his own. 
 The inattentive Reader adopts as unconditionally true, or 
 perhaps rails at his Author for having stated as such, what 
 upon examination would be found to have been duly 
 limited, and would so have been understood, if opaque 
 spots and false refractions were as rare in the mental as in 
 the bodily eye. The motto, for instance, to this Paper 
 has more than once served as an excuse and authority for 
 huge volumes of biographical minutiae, which render the / 
 real character almost invisible, like clouds of dust on a 
 Portrait, or the counterfeit frankincense which smoke-* 
 blacks the favorite idol of a catholic Village. Yet Lord 
 Bacon, by the words which I have marked in italics, 
 evidently confines the Biographer to such facts as are 
 either susceptible of some useful general inference, or tend 
 to illustrate those qualities which distinguished the Sub- 
 ject of them from ordinary men ; while the passage in 
 general was meant to guard the Historian against consider- 
 ing, as trifles, fill that might appear so to those, who 
 recognize no greatness in the mind, and can conceive no 
 dfenitv in anv incident, which does not act on their 
 
338 THE FRIEND. 
 
 senses by it's external accompaniments, or on their curi- 
 osity by.it' s immediate consequences. Things apparently 
 insignificant are recommended to our Notice, not for their 
 own sakes, but for their bearings or influences on things 
 of importance : in other words, when they are insignificant 
 in appearance oniy. 
 
 An inquisitiveness into the minutest circumstances 
 and casual sayings of eminent contemporaries, is indeed 
 quite natural ; but so are all our follies, and the more 
 natural they are, the more caution should we exert in 
 guarding against them. To scribble Trifles even on the 
 perishable glass of an Inn window, is the mark of an Idler ; 
 but to engrave them on the Marble Monument, sacred to 
 the memory of the departed Great, is something worse 
 than Idleness. The spirit of genuine Biography is in 
 nothing more conspicuous, than in the firmness with 
 which it withstands the cravings of worthless curiosity, 
 as distinguished from the thirst after useful knowledge. 
 For, in the first place, such anecdotes as derive their 
 whole and sole interest from the great name of the. Per- 
 son, concerning whom they are related, and neither 
 illustrate his general character nor his particular Actions, — 
 would scarcely have been noticed or remembered except 
 by men of weak minds : it is not unlikely therefore, that 
 they were misapprehended at the time, and it is most pro- 
 bable that they have been related as incorrectly, as they 
 were noticed injudiciously. Nor are the consequences of 
 such garulous Biography merely negative. For as in- 
 significant stories can derive no real respectability from the 
 eminence of the Person who happens to be the subject of 
 them, but rather an additional deformity of disproportion, 
 they are apt to have their insipidity seasoned by the same ■ 
 bad passions, that accompany the habit of gossiping in 
 general ; and the misapprehensions of weak men meeting 
 with the misinterpretations of malignant men, have not 
 seldom formed the ground work of the most grievous 
 calumnies. In the second place, these trifles are subver- 
 sive of the great end of Biography, which is to fix the 
 attention and to interest the feelings of men, on those qua- 
 lities and actions which have made a particular Life 
 worthy of being recorded. It is no doubt, the duty of an 
 honest Biographer, to pourtray the prominent imperfec- 
 tions as well as excellencies of his Hero; but I am at a 
 loss to conceive, how this can be deemed an excuse for heap- 
 ing together a multitude of particulars, which can prove 
 nothing of any man that might not have been safely taken 
 
THE FRIEND. 33£ 
 
 for granted of all men. In the present age (emphatically 
 the age of personality !) there are more than ordinary 
 motives for withholding all encouragement from this mania, 
 of busying ourselves with the names of others, which is 
 still more alarming as a symptom, than it is troublesome 
 as a disease. The Reader must be still less acquainted 
 with contemporary Literature than myself— a case not 
 likely to occur— if he needs me to inform him, that there 
 are men, who trading in the silliest anecdotes, in unpro- 
 voked abuse and senseless eulogy, think themselves 
 nevertheless employed both worthily and honourably, if 
 only all this be done " in good set terms" and from the 
 Press, and of public Characters : a class which has en- 
 creased so rapidly of late, that it becomes difficult to 
 discover vvhat Characters are to be considered as private. 
 Alas! if these wretched misusers of language and the 
 means of giving wings to thought, and of multiplying the 
 presence of an individual mind, had ever known, how 
 great a thing the possession of any one simple Truth is, 
 and how mean a thing a mere Fact is, except as seen in 
 the light of some comprehensive Truth ; if they had but 
 once experienced the unborrowed complacency, the in- 
 ward independence, the home-bred strength, with which 
 every clear conception of the Reason is accompanied, they 
 would shrink from their own Pages as at the remembrance 
 of a crime. For a crime it is (and the Man, who hesitates 
 in pronouncing it such, must be ignorant of what mankind 
 owe to Books, what he himself owes to them in spite of 
 his ignorance) thus to introduce the spirit of vulgar scan- 
 dal, and personal inquietude into the Closet and the 
 Library, environing- with evil passions the very Sanctuaries, 
 to which we should flee for refuge from them ! For to what 
 do these Publications appeal, whether they present them- 
 selves as Biography or as anonymous Criticism, but to 
 the same feelings which the Scandal-bearers and Time- 
 killers of ordinary iife seek to gralify in themselves and 
 their Listeners ? And both the Authors and Admirers of 
 such Publications, in what respect are ihey less Truants 
 and Deserters from their own Hearts, and from their ap- 
 pointed Task of understanding and amending them, than 
 the most garrulous female Chronicler, of the goings-on 
 of yesterday in the Families of her Neighbours and 
 Towns-folk ? — As to myself, and my own present attempt 
 to record the Life and Character of the late Admiral Sir 
 Alexander Ball, 1 have already stated, that 1 consider myself 
 as debarred from all circumstances, not appertaining to his 
 
340 THE FRIEND. 
 
 conduct or character as a public Functionary, that involve 
 the names of the Living for good or for evil. Whatever 
 facts and incidents I relate of a private nature, must for the 
 most part concern Sir Alexander Ball exclusively, and as 
 an insulated Individual. But I needed not this restraint. 
 It will be enough for me, still as 1 write, to recollect the 
 Form and Character of Sir Alexander Ball himself, to re- 
 present to my own feelings the inward contempt, with 
 which he would have abstracted his mind from worthless 
 anecdotes and petty personalities; a contempt rising into 
 indignation, if ever an illustrious Name were used as the 
 thread to string them upon. If this recollection be my 
 Socratic Daemon to warn and to check me, I shall on the 
 other hand derive encouragement from the remembrance 
 of the tender patience, the sweet gentleness, with which 
 he was wont to tolerate the tediousness of well-meaning 
 Men; and the inexhaustible attention, the unfeigned 
 interest, with which he would listen for hours where the 
 conversation appealed to Reason, and like the Bee made 
 Honey while it murmured. 
 
 a onnillllOHIIH W 
 
 SKETCHES AND FRAGMENTS OF THE LIFE AND CHARAC- 
 TER OF THE LATE ADMIRAL SIR ALEXANDER BALL. 
 
 Si partem tacuisse velim, quodcumque relinquam, 
 Majus erit. Veteres aches, primamque juventam 
 Prosequar ? Ad sese mentem prcesentia ducunt. 
 Narrem justitiam ? Resplendet gloria Martis. 
 Armati referam vires ? Plus egit inerviis. 
 
 CL AUDI AN DE LAUD. STIL. 
 
 There is something (says Harrington in the Preli- 
 minaries to his Oceana) first in the making of a Com- 
 monwealth, then in the governing of it, and last of all in 
 the leading of it's armies, which though there be great 
 Divines, great Lawyers, great Men in all Professions, 
 seems to be peculiar only to the genius of a Gentleman. 
 For so it is in the universal series of History, that if any 
 man has founded a Commonwealth, he -was first a Gen- 
 tleman. Such also, he adds, as have got any fame as civil 
 Governors, have been Gentlemen, or persons of known 
 Descents. Sir Alexander Ball was a Gentleman by 
 Birth ; a younger Brother of an old and respectable 
 Family in Gloucestershire. He went into the Navy at an 
 early age from his own choice, and as he himself told me, 
 in consequence of the deep impression and vivid images 
 which were left on his mind by the perusal of Robinson 
 
 I 
 
THE FRIEXD. 311 
 
 Crusoe. It is not my intention to detail the steps of his 
 promotion, or the Services in which he was engaged as a 
 Subaltern. I recollect many particulars indeed, but not 
 the dates, with such distinctness as would enable me to 
 state them (as it would be necessary to do if I stated them 
 at all) ia the order of time. These dates might perhaps 
 have been procured from the Metropolis: but incidents 
 that are neither characteristic nor instructive, even such as 
 would be expected with reason in a regular Life, are no 
 part of my plan ; while those which are both interesting 
 and illustrative I have been precluded from mentioning, 
 some from motives which have been already explained, 
 and others from still higher considerations ; especially in 
 the present state of the Country, and in a Work which, 
 from it's form and price, cannot be secure of being circula- 
 ted exclusively among Men of Reflection, or even in the 
 educated classes of Society. The most important result 
 may be comprised in the reflection with which he himself 
 once concluded a long and affecting narration, that no 
 Body of Men can for any length of time be safely treated 
 otherwise than as rational Beings ; and that, therefore, the 
 education of the lower classes was of the utmost conse- 
 quence to the permanent security of the Empire, even 
 for the sake of our Navy. The dangers apprehended 
 from the education of the lower Classes, arose entirely 
 from it's not being universal, and from the unusualness 
 in the lowest classes of those accomplishments, which Me, 
 like Doctor Bell, regarded as one of the means of Educa-. 
 tion, and not as Education itself. *• If, he observed, the 
 lower Classes in general possessed but one Eye or one 
 Arm, the few who were so fortunate as to possess two, 
 would naturally become vain and restless, and consider 
 themselves as entitled to a higher situation. He illustra- 
 ted this by the faults attributed to learned Women, and 
 that the same objections were formerly made to educating 
 Women at all ; namely, that their Knowledge made them 
 vain, affected, and neglectful of their proper duties. Now 
 that all Women of Condition are well-educated, we hear 
 no more of these apprehensions, or observe any instances 
 to justify them, Yet if a Lady understood the Greek one 
 
 * Which consists in educing, or to adopt Dr. Bell's own expression, elicit- 
 ing the faculties of the Human Mind, and at the same time subordinating 
 them to the Keason and Conscience; varying the means of this common 
 
 end according to the sphere and particular mode, in which the Individual is 
 
 likely to act and become useful. 
 
34S the" friend. 
 
 tenth part as well as the whole circle of her acquaintances 
 understood the french Language, it would not surprize 
 us to find her less pleasing' from the consciousness of her 
 superiority in the possession of an unusual Advantage. 
 Sir \lexander Ball quoted the speech of an old Admiral, 
 one of v\hnse two great wishes was to have a Ship's Crew 
 composed altogether of serious Scotchmen. He spoke 
 with great reprobation of the vulgar notion, the worse 
 Man, the better Sailor. Courage, he said, was the na- 
 tural product of familiarity with Danger, which thought* 
 lessness would oftentimes turn into Fool -hardiness ; and 
 that he had always found the most usefully brave Sailors 
 the gravest and most rational of his crew. The best 
 Sailor he ever had, first attracted his notice by the anxiety 
 which he expressed concerning the means of remitting 1 
 some money which he had received in the \Vest Indies, to 
 his Si&ter in England; and this Man without any tinge of 
 Methodism, was never heard to swear an Oath, and was 
 remarkable for the firmness with which he devoted a part 
 of every Sunday to the reading of his Bible. 1 record this 
 with satisfaction as a testimony of great weight, and in all 
 respects unexceptionable ; for Sir Alexander Ball's opi- 
 nions throughout Life remained unwarpcd by zealotry, 
 and were those of a mind seeking after Truth, in calmness 
 and complete self-possession. He was much pleased with 
 an unsuspicious testimony furnished by Dampier (V r ol. 2. 
 Part 2. Page 89,) " 1 have particularly observed," writes 
 this famous old Navigator, " there and in other places, 
 that such as had been well-bred, were generally most 
 careful to improve their time, and would be very in- 
 dustrious and frugal where there was any probability of 
 considerable gain ; but on the contrary, such as had been 
 bred up in ignorance and hard labour, when they came to 
 have plenty would extravagantly squander away their time 
 and money in drinking and making a bluster." Indeed it 
 is a melancholy proof, how strangely power warps the 
 minds of ordinary men, that there can be a doubt on this 
 subject among persons who have been themselves educated. 
 It tempts a suspicion, that unknown to themselves they 
 find a comfort in the thought, that their inferiors are 
 something less than Men, or have an uneasy half-con- 
 sciousness that, if they were otherwise, they would them- 
 selves have no claim to be their superiors. For a sober 
 Education naturally inspires self-respect, but he, who 
 respects himself, will respect others ; and he who respects 
 both himself and others, must of necessity be a brave 
 
THE FRIEND. 343 
 
 Man. The great importance of this Subject, and the in- 
 creasing interest which good men of all denominations 
 feel in the bringing about of a national Education, must be 
 my excuse for having entered so minutely into Sir Alex- 
 ander Ball's opinions on this head, in which, however, i am" 
 the more excuseable, being on that part of his Life which 
 I am obliged to leave almost a blank. 
 
 During his Lieutenancy, and after he had perfected 
 himself in the knowledge and duties of a practical Sailor, he 
 wascompelled by the state of his health to remain in England 
 for a considerable length of time. Of this he industriously 
 availed himself to the acquirement of substantial know- 
 ledge from books ; and during his whole life afterwards, 
 he considered those as his happiest hours, which, without 
 any neglect of official or professional duty, he could 
 devote to reading. He preferred, indeed he almost con- 
 lined himself to History, political CEconomy, Voyages and 
 Travels, Natural History, and latterly Agricultural Works : 
 in short, to such Books as contain specific Facts, or 
 practical Principles capable of specific application. His 
 active Life, and the particular objects of immediate utility, 
 some one of which he had always in his view, precluded 
 a taste for works of pure Speculation and abstract Science, 
 though he highly honoured those who were eminent in 
 these respects, and considered them as the benefactors of 
 Mankind, no less than those who afterwards discovered 
 the mode of applying their Principles, or who realized 
 them in Practice. Works of Amusement, as Novels, 
 Plays, &c. did not appear even to amuse him : and the 
 only poetical Composition, of which I have ever heard 
 him speak, was a Manuscript Poem written by one of my 
 Friends, which I read to his Lady in his presence. To my 
 surprize, he afterwards spoke of this with warm interest ; 
 but it was evident to me, that it was not so much the 
 poetic merit of the Composition that had interested him, 
 as the Truth and psychological insight with which it re- 
 presented the practicability of reforming the most har- 
 dened minds, and the various accidents which may awaken 
 the most brutalized Person to a recognition of his nobler 
 Being. I will add one remark of his on knowledge 
 acquired from Books, which appears to me both just and 
 valuable. The prejudice against such knowledge, he 
 said, and the custom of opposing it to that which is learnt 
 by practice, originated in • those times when books were 
 almost confined to Theology, and to logical and metaphy- 
 sical Subtleties ; but that at present there is scarcely any 
 
34-4 THE FRIEND. 
 
 practical knowledge, which is not to be found in books ; 
 The press is the means by which intelligent Men now 
 converse with each other, and persons of all classes and 
 all pursuits convey, each the contribution of his individual 
 experience. It was therefore, he said, as absurd to hold 
 book-knowledge at present in contempt, as it would be 
 for a man to avail himself onlv of his own eves and ears, 
 and to aim at nothing which could not be performed ex- 
 clusively by his own arms. The use and necessity of 
 personal experience consisted in the power of chusing and 
 applying what had been read, and of discriminating by 
 the light of analogy, the practicable from the impracticable, 
 and probability from mere plausibility. Without a judge- 
 ment matured and steadied by actual experience, a man 
 would read to little or perhaps to bad purpose ; but yet 
 that experience, which in exclusion of all other knowledge 
 has been derived from one Man's life, is in the present 
 day scarcely worthy of the name — at least for those who 
 are to act in the higher and wider spheres of duty. An 
 ignorant General, he said, inspired him with terror; for if 
 he were too proud to take advice he would ruin himself 
 by his own blunders ; and if he were not, by adopting the 
 worst that was offered. A great Genius may indeed form 
 an exception ; but we do not lay down rules in expecta- 
 tion of wonders. A similar remark I remember to have 
 heard from a gallant Officer, who to eminence in profes- 
 sional Science and the gallantry of a tried Soldier, adds all 
 the accomplishments of a sound Scholar, and the powers 
 of a man of Genius. 
 
 One incident, which happened at this period of Sir 
 Alexander's life, is so illustiative of his character, and fur- 
 nishes so strong a presumption, that the thoughtful hu- 
 manity by which he was distinguished, was not wholly 
 the growth of his latter years, that, though it may appear 
 to some trifling in itself, 1 will insert it in this place, with 
 the occasion on which it was communicated to me. In 
 a large party at the grand Master's Palace, 1 had observed 
 a naval Officer of distinguished merit listening to Sir Alex- 
 ander Ball, whenever he joined in the conversation, with 
 so marked a pleasure, that it seemed as if his very yoice 
 independent of what he said, had been delightful to him : 
 and once as he fixed his eyes on Sir Alexander Ball. I 
 could not but notice the mixed expression of awe and af- 
 fection, which gave a more than common interest to so 
 manly a countenance. During his stay in the Island this 
 Officer honoured me not unfreqiiently with his visits; 
 
THE FRIEND. 345 
 
 and at the conclusion of my last conversation with him, 
 in which 1 had dwelt on the wisdom of the Governor's * 
 conduct in a recent and difficult emergency, he told me 
 that lie considered himself as indebted to the same excel- 
 lent Person for that which was dearer to him than his 
 life. Sir Alexander Ball, said lie, has (I dare say) forgot- 
 ten the circumstance ; but when he was Lieutenant Ball, 
 he was the Officer whom I accompanied in my first boat- 
 expedition, being then a Midshipman and only in my 
 fourteenth year. As we were rowing up, to the Vessel 
 which we were to attack, amid a discharge of musquetrj', 
 I was overpowered by fear, my knees trembled under me, 
 and I seemed on the point of fainting away. Lieutenant 
 Ball who saw the condition 1 was in, placed himself close 
 beside me, and still keeping his countenance directed to- 
 ward the enemy, took hold of my hand, and pressing it in 
 the most friendly manner, said in a low voice " Courage, 
 my dear Boy 1 don't be afraid of yourself! you. will reco- 
 ver in a minute or so — 1 was just the same, when I first 
 went out in this way." Sir, added the officer to me, it 
 was as if an Angel had put a new Soul into me. With 
 the feeling, that 1 was not yet dishonoured, the whole 
 burthen of agony was removed ; and from that moment I 
 wns as fearless and forward as the oldest of the boats crew, 
 and on our return the Lieutenant spoke highly of me to 
 our Captain. I am scarcely less convinced of my own 
 being, than that I should have been what I tremble to 
 think of, if, instead of his humane encouragement, he 
 had at that moment scoffed, threatened, or reviled me. 
 And this was the more kind in him because, as I after- 
 wards understood, his own conduct in his first trial, had 
 evinced to all appearances the greatest fearlessness, and 
 that he said this therefore only to give me heart, and re- 
 store ine to my own good opinion. — This anecdote, I 
 trust, will have some weight with those who may have 
 lent an ear to any of those vague calumnies from which 
 no naval Commander can secure his good name, who 
 knowing the paramount necessity of regularity and strict 
 
 * Such Sir Alexander Ball was in reality, and such was bis general appel* 
 lation in the Mediterranean : I adopt this Title therefore, to avoid the un- 
 graceful repetition of his own name on the one hand, and on the other the con- 
 fusion of ideas, which might arise from the use of his real Title, viz. " Hi» 
 Majesty's civil Cotninissimier for the Island of Malta and it's Dependencies ; 
 and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Order of St. John." This is not the 
 place to expose the timid and unsteady policy which continued the latier 
 Title, or the petty jealousies which interfered to prevent Sir Alexander Ball 
 from having the Title of Governor, from one of the very causes which ren- 
 dered him fittest for the Office. 
 
346 THE FBI END. 
 
 discipline in a Ship of war, adopts an appropriate plan for 
 the attainment of these objects, and remains constant and 
 immutable in the execution. To an Athenian, who, in 
 praising a public Functionary had said, that every one 
 either applauded him or left him without censure, a Phi- 
 losopher replied — " How seldom then must he have done 
 his Duty!" . 
 
 Of Sir Alexander Ball's character, as Captain Ball, of 
 his measures as a Disciplinarian, and of the wise and dig- 
 ni'ied principle on which he grounded those measures, I 
 have already spoken in a former part of this Work, and 
 must content myself therefore with referring the Reader 
 to the 7th No. of The Friend, page 100, entreating him 
 to re-peruse that passage as belonging to this place, and 
 as a part of the present narration. All ! little did I expect 
 at the time 1 wrote that account, that the motives of deli- 
 cacy, which then impelled me to withhold the Name, 
 would so soon be exchanged for the higher duty which 
 now justifies me in adding it ! At the thought of such 
 events the language of a tender superstition is the voice of 
 Nature itself, and those facts alone presenting themselves 
 to our memory which had left an impression on our hearts, 
 we assent to, and adopt the Poet's pathetic complaint : 
 
 " O Sir ! the good die first, 
 
 And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust, 
 Burn to the socket." 
 
 That the humane plan described in the Pages now re- 
 ferred to, that a system in pursuance of which the Captain 
 of a Man of war uniformly regarded his Sentences not as 
 dependent on his own Will, or to be affected by the state 
 of his feelings at the moment, but as the pre-established, 
 determinations of known Laws, and himself as the Voice 
 of the law in pronouncing the sentence, and it's Delegate 
 in enforcing the execution, could not but furnish occa- 
 sional food to the spirit of Detraction, must be evident to 
 every reflecting mind. It is indeed little less than Im- 
 possible, that he who in order to he effectively humane, 
 determines to be inflexibly just, and who is inexorable to 
 his own feelings when they would interrupt the course of 
 justice ; who looks at each particular act by the light of 
 all its' consequences, and as the representative of ulti- 
 mate good or evil, should not sometimes be charged with 
 Tyranny by weak minds : and it is too certain that the 
 calumny will be willingly believed and eagerly propagated 
 by all those, who would shun the presence of an eye keen 
 hi the defection of imposture, incapacity, and misconduct, 
 
THE FRIEND. 347 
 
 and of a resolution as steady in their exposure. We soon 
 hate the Man whose qualities we dread, and thus have a 
 double interest, an interest of passion as well as of policy, 
 in decrying and defaming him. But good men will rest 
 satisfied with the promise made to them by the divine 
 Comforter, that by her children shall wisdom be 
 
 JUSTIFIED. 
 
 At the close of the American War, Captain Ball was 
 entrusted with the protection and convoying of an im- 
 mense mercantile Fleet to America, and by his great 
 prudence and unexampled attention to the interests of all 
 and each, endeared his name to the American Merchants, 
 and laid the foundation of that high respect and predilec- 
 tion which both the Americans and their Government 
 ever afterwards entertained for him. My recollection does 
 not enable me to attempt any accuracy in the date or cir- 
 cumstances, or to add the particulars of his services in the 
 West Indies, and on the Coast of America, 1 now there- 
 fore merely allude to the fact with a prospective reference 
 to opinions and circumstances, which I shall have to men- 
 tion hereafter. Shortly after the genera! Peace was estab- 
 lished, Captain Ball, who was now a married man, passed 
 some time with his Lady in France, and, if I mistake not, 
 at Nantz. At the same time, and in the same Town, 
 among the other English Visitors Lord (then Captain) 
 Nelson, happened to be one. In consequence of some 
 punctilio, as to whose business it was to pay the compli- 
 ment of the first call, they never met, and this trifling af- 
 fair occasioned a coldness between the two naval Com- 
 manders, or in truth a mutual prejudice against each 
 .other. Some years after, both their .->hips being together 
 close off Minorca and near Port Mahon, a violent Storm 
 nearly disabled Lord Nelson's Vessel, and in addition to 
 the fury of the wind, it was night-time and the thickest 
 darkness. Captain Ball however brought his Vessel at 
 length to Nelson's assistance, took his Ship in tow, and 
 used his best endeavours to bring her and his own Vessel 
 into Port Mahon. The difficulties and the dangers en- 
 creased. Nelson considered the case of his own Ship as 
 desperate, and that unless she was immediately left to her 
 own fate, both Vessels would inevitably be lost. He, 
 therefore, with the generosity natural to him, repeatedly 
 requested Captain Bali to let him loose ; and on Captain 
 Ball's refusal, he became impetuous, and enforced his 
 demand with passionate threats. Captain Ball then him- 
 self took the speaking Trumpet, which the fury of the 
 
 s 
 
34-8 THE FRIEND. 
 
 wind and waves rendered necessary, and with great so- 
 lemnity and without the least disturbance of temper, 
 called out in reply: " 1 feel confident that I can bring 
 ■you in safe; 1 therefore must not, and by the help of 
 Almighty God! I will not leave you." What he pro- 
 mised he performed ; and after they were safely anchored, 
 Nelson came on board of Ball's Ship, and embracing him 
 with all the ardour- of acknowledgement, exclaimed — a 
 Friend in need is a Friend indeed ! At this time and on 
 this occasion commenced that firm and perfect friendship 
 between these two great Men, which was interrupted only 
 by the death of the former. The pleasing task of dwel- 
 ling on this mutual attachment 1 defer to that part of the 
 present sketch which will relate to Sir Alexander Ball's 
 opinions of men and things. It will be sufficient for the 
 present to say, that the two Men, whom Lord Nelson es- 
 pecially honoured, were Sir Thomas Troubridge and Sir 
 Alexander Ball ; and once, when they were both present, 
 on some allusion made to the loss of his Arm, he replied : 
 " Who shall dare tell me, that I want an Arm, when I 
 have three right arms — this (putting forward his own) 
 and Ball and Troubridge." 
 
 In the Plan of the Batlle of the Nile it was Lord Nel- 
 son's design, that Captains Troubridge and Ball should 
 have led up the attack. The former was stranded : and 
 the latter by accident of the wind, could not bring his 
 Ship into the line of battle till some time after the en- 
 gagement had become general. With his characteristic 
 forecast and activity of (what may not improperly be call- 
 ed) practical imagination, he had made arrangements to 
 meet every probable contingency. All the shrouds and 
 sails of the Ship, not absolutely necessary for it's immedi- 
 ate management, were thoroughly wetted and so rolled up, 
 that they were as hard and as little inflamable as so many 
 solid cylinders of wood ; every Sailor had his appropriate 
 place and function, and a certain number were appointed 
 as the firemen, whose sole duty it was to be on the watch 
 if any part of the Vessel should take fire :-and to these 
 men exclusively the charge of extinguishing it was com- 
 mitted. It was already dark when he brought his Ship 
 into action, and laid her alongside the l'Orient, One 
 particular only I shall add to the known account of the 
 memorable engagement between these Ships, and this I 
 received from Sir Alexander Ball himself. He had previ- 
 ously made a combustible preparation, but which, from 
 the nature of the engagement to be expected, he had pur- 
 
THE FRIEND. 349 
 
 posed to reserve for the last emergency. But just at the 
 time when from several symptoms he had every reason to 
 believe, that the Enemy would soon strike to him, one of 
 the Lieutenants, without his knowledge, threw in the com- 
 bustible matter : and this it was that occasioned the tre- 
 mendous explosion of that Vessel, which with the deep 
 silence and interruption of the Engagement which suc- 
 ceeded to it, has been justly deemed the sublimest war 
 incident recorded in History. Yet the incident which 
 followed, and which has not, I believe, been publicly 
 made known, is scarcely less impressive, though it's sub- 
 limity is of a different character. At the renewal of the 
 battle Captain Ball, though his Ship was then on fire in 
 three different parts, laid her along side a French eighty- 
 four : and a second longer obstinate contest began. The 
 firing on the part of the FTench Ship having at length for 
 some time slackened, and then altogether ceased, and yet 
 no sign given of surrender, the senior Lieutenant came to 
 Captain Ball and informed him : that the hearts of his 
 Men were as good as ever, but that they were so completely 
 exhausted, that they were scarcely capable of lifting an 
 arm. He asked therefore, whether, as the Enemy had 
 now ceased firing, the Men might be permitted to lie down 
 by their Guns for a short time. After some reflection, Sir 
 Alexander acceded to the proposal, taking of course the 
 proper precautions to rouze them again at the moment he 
 thought requisite. Accordingly, with the exception of 
 himself, his Officers, and the appointed Watch, the Ship's 
 Crew lay down, each in the place to which he was station- 
 ed, and slept for twenty minutes. They were then rouz- 
 ed ; and started up, as Sir Alexander expressed it, more 
 like men out of an Ambush than from sleep, so co-instan- 
 taneously did they all obey the summons! They recom- 
 menced their fire, and in a few minutes the Enemy sur- 
 rendered: and it was soon after discovered, that during 
 that interval, and almost immediately after the French Ship 
 had first ceased firing, the Crew had sunk down by their 
 Guns, and there slept, almost by the side, as it were, of 
 their sleeping Enemy. 
 
 Whatever other incidents, I propose to mention relating 
 to Sir Alexander Ball as a naval Commander, will either 
 appear among the proofs and illustrations with which I 
 shall accompany the analysis of his Character; or will be 
 better related under the head of Malta, as appertaining 
 to the conquest of that Island, and forming a part of those 
 services which secured for himself the devout and filial 
 
^«5Q THE FRIEND. 
 
 attachment of the Maltese. The conduct of Sir Alexan- 
 der Ball in relation to Malta, will be the subject, therefore, 
 of the next Number. 
 
 NOTE in explanation of the assertion in No. 9, that all men possess 
 Reason in the same degree. 
 
 Every Man must feel, that though he may not be ex- 
 erting different faculties, he is exerting his faculties in a 
 different way, when in one instance he begins with some 
 one self-evident truth, (that the radii of a circle, for in- 
 stance, are all equal), and in consequence of this being 
 true, sees at once, without any actual experience, that 
 some other thing must be true likewise, and that this 
 being Irue, some third thing must be equally true, and so 
 on till he comes, we will say, to the properties of the 
 Lever, considered as the spoke of a circle ; which is ca- 
 pable of having all it's marvellous powers demonstrated 
 even to a Savage who had never seen a Lever, and with- 
 out supposing any other previous knowledge in his mind, 
 but this one, that there is a conceivable figure, all possible 
 lines from the middle to the circumference of which are of 
 the same length : or when, in the second instance, he 
 brings together the facts of experience, each of which has 
 it's own separate value, neither encreased nor diminished 
 by the truth of any other fact which may have preceded 
 it ; and making these several facts bear upon some par- 
 ticular project, and finding some in favour of it, and some 
 against it, determines for or against the project, according 
 as one or the other class of facts preponderate : as, for 
 instance, whether it would be better to plant a particular 
 spot of ground with Larch, or with Scotch Fir, or with 
 Oak in preference to either. Surely every Man will 
 acknowledge, that his mind was very differently employed 
 in the first case from what it was in the second ; and all 
 men have agreed to cal. the results of the first class the 
 truths of science, such as not only are true, but which it is 
 impossible to conceive otherwise : while the results of the 
 second class are called facts, or things of experience : and 
 as to these latter we must often content ourselves with the 
 greater probability, that they are so, or so, rather than other- 
 wise — nay, even when we have no doubt that they are so in 
 the particular case, we never presume to assert that they 
 must continue so always, and under all circumstances. On 
 the contrary, our conclusions depend altogether on contin- 
 gent circumstances. Now when the mind is employed, as 
 in the case first-mentioned, I call it Reason, or more defi- 
 
THE FRIEND. 351 
 
 nicely, the pare Reason ; but, in the second case, the 
 Understanding or Prudence. 
 
 This Reason applied to the tnofives of our conduct, and 
 combined with t lie sense of our moral responsibility, is 
 called the Conscience : and as the Reason consists wholly 
 in a man's power of seeing, whether any two idens, which 
 happen to be in his mind, are, or are not in contradiction 
 with each other, it follows of necessity, not only that all 
 men have Reason, but that every man has it in the same 
 degree. For Reason does nol consist in the Ideas, or in 
 their clearness, but simply, when they are in the mind, in 
 seeing whether they contradict each other or no. 
 
 And again as in the determinations of Conscience, the 
 only knowledge required is that of my own intention — ■ 
 whether in doing such a thing, instead of leaving it un- 
 done, I did what I should think right if any other Person 
 had done it ; it follows that in the mere question of guilt 
 or innocence, all men havenotonly Reason equally, but like- 
 wise all the materials on which the Reason, considered as 
 Conscience, is to work . Ru t when we pass out of ourselves, 
 and speak, not exclusively of the agent as meaning \ve\\ or ill* 
 butoftheaction in it's consequences, then of course experi- 
 ence is required, judgment in making use of it, and all those 
 other qualities of the mind which are so differently dispensed 
 to different persons, both by (nature and education) and 
 though the reason itself 'is the same in all men, yet the means 
 of exercising it, and the materials ( i. e the facts and ideas) 
 on which it is exercised, being possessed in very different 
 degrees by different persons, the practical Result is, of 
 course, equally different — and the whole ground work of 
 Rousseau's Philosophy ends in amereNothingism.-- Even in 
 that branch of Knowledge, in which the ideas, on the con- 
 gruity of which with each other, the Reason is to decide, 
 are all possessed alike by all men, namely, in Geometry, 
 (for all men in their senses posses ail the component 
 images, viz. simple curves and straight lines) yet the power 
 of attention required for the perception of linked Truths, 
 even of such Truths, is so- very different in A and in B 
 that Sir Isaac Newton professed that it was in this power 
 only that he was superior to ordinary men. In short, the 
 sophism is as gross as if I should say — The Souls of all 
 men have the faculty of Sight in an equal degree- — for- 
 getting to add, that this faculty cannot be exercised with- 
 out eyes, and that some men are blind and others short- 
 sighted, &c. — and should then take advantage of this 
 omission to conclude against the use or necessity of 
 
352 THE FRIEND. 
 
 spectacles, miscroseopes, &c. or chusing the sharpest- 
 sighted men for our Guides. 
 
 Having exposed the gross sophism, I must warn 
 against an opposite error — namely, that if Reason, as 
 distinguished from Prudence, consists merely in knowing 
 that Black cannot be White — or when a man has a clear 
 conception of an inclosed figure, and another equally clear 
 conception of a straight line, his Reason teaches him that 
 these two conceptions are incompatible in the same object, 
 
 i. e. that two straight lines cannot include a space the 
 
 said Reason must be a very insignificant faculty. But a 
 moment's steady self-reflection will shew us, that in the 
 simple determination " Black is not White" — or, " that 
 two straight Lines cannot include aspace"' — all the powers 
 are implied, that distinguish Man from Animals — first, 
 the power of reflection — 2d. of comparison — 3d. and there- 
 fore of suspension of the mind — 4th. ergo of a controlling 
 Will, and the power of acting, from Notions, instead of 
 mere Images exciting appetites, from Motives, not mere 
 dark instincts. — Was it an insignificant thing to weigh the 
 Planets, and determine all their courses, and prophecy 
 every possible relation of the Heavens a thousand years 
 hence ? Yet all this mighty Pile of Science is nothing but 
 a linking together of the truths of the same kind as, the 
 whole is greater than it s part : — or, if A and B = C, then 
 A = B — or 3 •+- 4 = 7, therefore 7 -f 5 = 12, and so 
 forth. X is to be found either in A or B or C or D : It is 
 not found in A, B, or C, — therefore it is to be found in 
 D. — What can be simpler ? Apply this to an animal — a 
 Dog misses his master where four roads meet — he has 
 come up one, smells to two of the others, and then with 
 his head aloft dirts forward to the third road without any 
 examination.— If this was done by a conclusion, the Dog 
 would have Reason — how comes he then never to shew it 
 in his ordinary habits ? Why does this story excite 
 either wonder or incredulity ? — If the Story be a fact, 
 and not a fiction, I should say — the Breeze brought his 
 Master's scent down the 4th Road, to the Dog's nose, 
 and that therefore he did not put it down to the Road, as 
 in the two former instances. So aweful and almost miracu- 
 lous does the simple act of concluding, that take 3 from 4, 
 there remains one, appear to us when attributed to the most 
 sagacious of all animals. 
 
 This is the whole that is necessary to be understood in order to find no 
 difficulty in comprehending the reasoning ofNos. 7, 6,9, and 10, of The Friend. 
 
 PENRITH: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN. 
 

 
 V 
 
 ■ 
 
 THJS FSlEIE 
 
 -»..- 
 
 No. S3, THURSDAY, JanvartSI, 18 id. 
 
 *"% "Orders for discontinuance received fencefciwarJit, 
 cannot be complied with tUl tf\e sixth Number jhom th e 
 receipt of the Jjetter : end .all such orders, wheiJier ,<jpf- 
 tainmg money, or not, will, it is regne^ed,ibe addressed direetjy 
 to Mr. Brown, Printer, Penrfth. fliose Subscribers who 
 ittoe not remitted the sum fir the first tjpeyty Njimfers, <^%e 
 solicited to pat/ the same either to Mr. G. Ward, Bookseller, 
 Skinner-Street, or to the Post^aiaster of the town at or near 
 which they resiile ; to be repaid by t}ie Post-master at Ken- 
 dal, or inrfesed in & letter (post paid) to J$r. Coleridge, 
 Grasmere, Kendal ; or fifc&tttwniag-erjderfj to jRr. Brown,. 
 Penrith. A mope regular and uniform plan of Receipt will be 
 formed and made hiown six weeks before the next payment. 
 
 ARM ATI REfRRAM TSMS? &LUS Spi? JMERMIS. 
 
 My preceding Number,.in strict correspondence with its' 
 Title, presented merely Sketches and Fragments of the Life 
 and Character of Sir Alexander Ball. The chief 
 causes that withheld me from' attempting a regular Bio- 
 graphy, were the consciousness of a constitutional inability 
 jn myself to retain Names and Dates, joined with a 
 diffidence in the accuracy of my recollection respecting 
 facts and events, which, at the time I heard them narrated, 
 bad not particularly interested me ; or (to speak more 
 correctly) which had faded in my memory in consequence 
 of the vivid impression left by other facts, that appeared to 
 me more illustrative of the Narrator's character, or bearing 
 £ closer reference to scenes and circumstances, in which I 
 had been myself personally present. I resembled a Man 
 who having dug up in separate pieces the greater and more 
 important part of a Mammtith Skeleton, yet through 
 ignorance of all its' anatomy, and having besides forgotten 
 or confused the arrangement, in, which the fragments, were 
 originally presented to hha, becomes incapable of repie- 
 
3.54 THE FRIEND. 
 
 senting a just and coherent figure of the whole animal. 
 Where these causes did not .act, prudential reasons, and 
 motives of personal delicacy, supplied their place. My 
 Readers therefore will kindly consider what I have 
 hitherto related, in the light of a mere introduction to that 
 part of my subject, of which I am more compleatly master ; 
 and which besides, if not more important in itself, yet 
 possesses in a greater degree that species of interest, that 
 
 • connection with general Principles, by which (as far as the 
 public taste will permit) I would wish that every Number 
 
 ' of The Friend should be more or less marked. I pro- 
 ceed therefore to the conduct and character of Sir Alexan- 
 der Ball, as the Conqueror, Governor, and Legislator of 
 Malta. 
 
 * . ■■ * 
 
 Ifisula parva situ sed rebus maxima gestis-, 
 AfriccE "et Europa ac Asice zonterrnina, Pa'uli ■ 
 ■ Hospes, et alborum pr.ocerum. gratissima nutrixf. 
 
 . -, 3Y .'/', ". VlflCENZO LlTTARA. . 
 
 • • For. the r perfect comprehension of Sir Alexander Ball's 
 views and objects,. and in order justly to estimate the 
 nature and extent of his services, as a Man and as a 
 Statesman, relatively both to Malta, and to Great Britain, 
 .it will be useful to prefix a few remarks on the original 
 grounds of the present war ; in what sense Malta is to be 
 considered as the cause of it ; and lastly, in what the real im- 
 portance of the Island consists. I shall do this the more 
 gladly, first, because there are.many erroneous opinions ou 
 this point, still current, and which, if they are suffered to 
 remain unconfuted, may act to the prejudice of our national 
 interests ; secondly, because the facts and arguments, by 
 which they are to be confuted, apply closely to the present 
 assertions and general temper' of a clamourous/and, it is to 
 . be feared, encreasing party among us, and vvill, I hope, 
 throw some additional light on those Principles, by which 
 alone the War can be prosecuted with effect, or a Peace 
 concluded with safety and honor ; and lastly, because the 
 considerations I am about to submit to the Reader, were 
 written by me during my residence at Malta- — were writ- 
 ten at the instance of Sir Alexander Ball, and after many 
 conversations with him on the subject, and when written, 
 
 ' * Ah Island small in size' but great by illustrious exploits, the joint neigh- 
 
 ►.-bour;of Africa, Europe, and. Asia, the hospitable entertainer of St. Paul, and 
 
 the delightful nurse of the Nobles of the white Cross. 
 
THE FRIEND. 3.55 
 
 were read and approved of by him, and must therefore be 
 deemed as a part of his own opinions, and as such not 
 merely preparatory to, but a natural part of, the plan which 
 I first proposed to myself. Little prospective wisdom can 
 that man obtain, who hurrying onward with the cur- 
 rent, or rather torrent, of Events, feels no interest in their 
 importance, except as far as his curiosity is excited by 
 their novelty; and to whom all reflection and retrospect 
 are wearisome. If ever there were a time when the for- 
 mation of jusi public Principles becomes a duty of private 
 Morality ; when the principles of Morality in general ought 
 to be made bear on our public suffrages, and to effect 
 every great national determination; when, in short, his 
 country should have a place by every Englishman's Fire- 
 side ; and when the feelings and truths, which give dig- 
 nity to the Fire-side and tranquillity to the Death-bed, 
 Ought to be present and influencive in the Cabinet and the 
 Senate — that time is now with us. NeVer can Englishmen 
 too often be warned, that where Ambition admits no 
 boundary but that of its' own power, and all the Vices are 
 allied and systematized against us ; there can be no hope 
 of successful resistance, but in 'an equal union of all the 
 . Virtues of the human character : and that this is not possible 
 without a clear insight into those Principles, which mea- 
 sure and reconcile their different claims of different vir- 
 tues, and allot to each its' time, its' place, its' function, 
 and its' degree. If the present Empire of France be 
 rightly considered as one bad great Man wielding the 
 strength and weaponry of millions, in all just proportion 
 the Kingdom, that is to resist him, and which must perish 
 if it does not resist him adequately, ought to be (as Milton 
 with his accustomed grandeur hath expressed it) " but as 
 One vast Personage, one mighty growth and stature of an 
 'honest Man, as big and compact in virtue as in body." 
 Scarcely can that be too often enforced, the practice of 
 which is both necessary and inexhaustible : and the prin- 
 ciple of Evil fights his battles cheap, if he may still use the 
 same Sword, and good Men not employ the same 
 •Buckler. 
 
 In a rich commercial State, a War seldom fails to be- 
 come unpopular by length of continuance. The last War, 
 which toivards its' close, bad become just and necessary, 
 perhaps beyond any former example, had yet causes of 
 unpopularity peculiar to itself. Exhaustion is the natural 
 
3o<5 THE FRIEND. 
 
 consequence of excessive stimulation, in the feelings of 
 Nations equally, as in those of Individuals. Wearied out 
 by overwhelming Novelties ; stunned, as it were, by a 
 series of strange explosions ; sick too of hope long de- 
 layed ; and uncertain as to the real object and motive of 
 the War, from the rapid change and general failure of its' 
 ostensible objects and motives ; the public mind, for many 
 months preceding the signing of the Preliminaries, had 
 lost all its' tone and elasticity. The consciousness of 
 mutual errors and mutual disappointments, disposed the 
 great majority of all Parties to a spirit of diffidence and 
 toleration, which, amiable as it may be in Individuals, yet 
 in a Nation, and above all in an opulent and luxurious 
 Nation, is always too nearly akin to apathy and selfish 
 indulgence. An unmanly impatience for Peace became 
 only not universal. After as long a resistance as the 
 nature of our Constitution and national Character per- 
 mitted or even endured, the Government applied at 
 length the only remedy adequate to the greatness of the 
 Evil, a remedy which the magnitude of the Evil justified, 
 and which nothing but an Evil of that magnitude couid. 
 justify. At a high price they purchased for us the name 
 of Peace, at a lime when the views of France became daily 
 more and more incompatible with our vital interests. 
 Considering ihe Peace as a mere Truce of experiment, 
 wise and temperate Men regarded with complacency the 
 Treaty of Amiens, for the very reasons that would have 
 ensured the condemnation of any other Treaty under am? 
 other circumstances. Its' palpable deficiencies were its' 
 antidote: or rather they formed its' very essence, and, 
 declared at first sight, what alone it was or was meant tq 
 be. Any attempt at that time and in this Treaty, to hav? 
 secured Italy, Holland and the German Empire, would 
 have been in the literal sense of the word, preposterous. 
 The Nation would have withdrawn all faith in the pacific 
 intentions of the Ministers, if the negociation had been 
 broken off on a plea of this kind : for it had taken for 
 granted the extreme desirableness, nay the necessity of a 
 Peace, and, this once admitted, there would, no doubt, 
 Jjavebeen an absurdity in continuing the War for objects, 
 which the War furnished no means of realizing. If the 
 First Consul had entered into stipulations with u^-respect- 
 ing the Continent, they would have been observed only as 
 long as his interest from other, qauses might have dictated ; 
 
THE FRIEND. 3j7 
 
 they would have been signed with as much sincerity and 
 observed with as much good faith, as the article actually 
 inserted in the Treaty of Amiens, respecting the integrity 
 of the Turkish Empire. This article indeed was wisely 
 insisted on by us, because it affected both our national 
 honour, and the interests of our Indian empire immediately ; 
 and still more, perhaps, because this of all others was the- 
 most likely to furnish an early proof of the First Consul's 
 real dispositions. But deeply interested in the fate of the 
 Continent, as we are thought to be, it would nevertheless 
 have been most idle to have abandoned a Peace, supposing 
 it at all desirable, on the ground that the French Govern- 
 ment had refused that, which would have been of no 
 value, had it been granted. 
 
 Indeed there results one serious disadvantage from in- 
 sisting on the rights and interests of Austria, the Empire, 
 Switzerland, &c. in a Treaty between England and France : 
 and, as it should seem, no advantage to counterbalance it. 
 For so, any attack on those rights instantly pledges our 
 character and national dignity to commence a War, how- 
 ever inexpedient it might happen to be, and however hope- 
 less: while if a War were expedient, any Attack on these 
 Countries by France furnishes a justifiable cause of war in 
 its' essential nature, and independently of all positive 
 Treaty. Seen in this light, the Defects of the Treaty of 
 Amiens will become it's real Merits. If the Government 
 of France made Peace in the spirit of Peace, then a friendly 
 Intercourse and the humanizing Influences of Commerce 
 and reciprocal Hospitality, would gradually bring about in 
 both Countries the dispositions necessary for the calm dis- 
 cussion and sincere conclusion of a genuine, efficient, and 
 comprehensive Treaty. If the contrary proved the fact, 
 the Treaty of Amiens contained in itself the principles of 
 it's own Dissolution. It was what it ought to be. If the 
 First Consul had both meant and dealt fairly by us, the 
 Treaty would have led to a true Settlement: but he acting, 
 as all prudent men expected that he would act, it suppli- 
 ed just reasons for the commencement of war — and at it's 
 decease left us, as a legacy, Blessings that assuredly far 
 outweighed our Losses by the Peace. It left us popular 
 Enthusiasm, national Unanimity, and simplicity of Object : 
 and removed one inconvenience, which cleaved to the last 
 War, by attaching to the right objects, and enlisting under 
 their proper Banners, the scorn and hatred of Slavery, tfr<? 
 
5J8 THE FRIEND. 
 
 passion forFreedom, all the high Thoughts and high Feelings, 
 that connect us with the honored names of past Ages, and 
 inspire sentiments and language, to which our Hampderis^ 
 Sidneys, and Russels, might listen without jealousy. 
 
 The late Peace then was negociated by the Govern- 
 ment, ratified by the Legislature, and received by the Na- 
 tion, as an Experiment : as the only means of exhibiting 
 such proof, as would be satisfactory to the People in their 
 then Temper, whether Buonaparte devoting his Ambition 
 and Activity to the re-estiblishment of Trade, colonial 
 tranquillity, and social morals, in France, would abstain 
 from insulting, alarming, and endangering, the British Em- 
 pire. And these thanks at least were due to the First Con- 
 sul, that he did not long delay the Proof. With more 
 than papal Insolence he issued Edicts of Anathema against 
 us, and excommunicated us from all interference in the Af 7 
 fairs of th« Continent. He insulted us still more indecently 
 by pertinacious demands respecting our constitutional 
 Laws and Rights of Hospitality ; by the official publication 
 of Sebastiani's Report ; and by a direct personal outrage 
 offered in the presence of all the foreign Ministers to the 
 King, in the person of his Ambassador. He both insulted 
 and alarmed us by a display of the most perfidious Ambi- 
 tion in the subversion of the Independence of Switzerland, 
 in the avowal of designs against Egypt, Syria, and the 
 Greek Islands, and in the mission' of military Spies to 
 Great Britain itself. And by forcibly maintaining a French 
 Army in Holland, he at once insulted, alarmed, and en- 
 dangered us. What can render a War just (presupposing 
 it's expedience) if Insult, repeated Alarm, and Danger, do 
 not ? And how can it be expedient for a rich, united, and 
 powerful Island-Empire to remain in nominal Peace and 
 unresenting Passiveness with an insolent neighbour, who 
 has proved, that to wage against it an unmitigated war of 
 Insult, Alarm, and Eudangerment is both his Temper and 
 his System ? 
 
 Many attempts were made by Mr. Fox to explain 
 away the force of the greater number of the Facts here 
 ennumerated; but the great fact, for which alone they have 
 either force or meaning, the great ultimate fact, that Great 
 Britain had been insulted, alarmed, and endangered by 
 France, Mr. Fox himself expressly admitted. But the Op- 
 posers of the present W'ar concentre the strength of their 
 cause in the following brief Argument. Supposing, say 
 
THE FRIEND. 3.59 
 
 i . fix '*"" ' 
 
 they, the grievances set forth in our Manifesto to be as rioto- 
 rious as theyjrre assertedto be,'Vet "more notorious they can- 
 not be' than that otherfact, which utterly annuls them as rea- . 
 sons for a War— the fact, tliatMinisterslhernselyes regard 
 them only as the pompous Garnish of the Dish. 1 It stands on 
 record, that Buonaparte mighHiave purchased' 6ur'5i|ehce- 
 for ever, respecting these Irisufis and Injuries, by a mere: 
 acquiescence on his Part in "our Retention of Malta. The . 
 whole-Treaty of Amiens is little more than a perplexed ~ 
 Bend of Compromise respecting* Malta. On Malta we. 
 rested the peace-; for Malta we renewed the War. So 
 say the OppOsers of the present War. As it's Advocates;, 
 we do not deny the fact as stated by them : but we hope to 
 atchieveall, and more than all the purposes of such denial, 
 by an Explanation of the Fact. The difficulty then re- 
 solves itself into two questions : first, in what sense of 
 the words can we be said to go to War for Malta alone I 
 Secondly, wherein does the importance of Malta consist I 
 The answer to the second will be involved in the bio- 
 graphy : while the attempt to settle the first Question, so 
 at the same time elucidate the Law" of Nations and it's 
 identity with the law of Conscience, will occupy the re- 
 mainder of the present Number. 
 
 I. In what sense can we be affirmed to have renewed the War 
 •for Malta alone? 
 
 If we had known or could reasonably have believed, 
 that the Views of France were and would continue to be 
 friendly or negative toward Great Britain, neither the Sub- 
 version of the independence of Switzerland, nor the 
 maintenance of a French Army in Holland, would have 
 furnished any prudent ground for War. For the only 
 way by which we could have injured France, namely, the 
 destruction of her commerce and navy, would increase her 
 means of continental conquests, by concentring all the re- 
 sources and energies of the French Empire in her military 
 powers : while the losses and miseries which the French 
 People would suffer in consequence, and their magnitude, 
 compared with any advantages that might accrue to 
 them from the extension of the name France, were facts 
 which, we knew by experience, would weigh as nothing 
 with the existing Government. Its' attacks on the inde- 
 pendence of its' t continental neighbours, becomes motives 
 for the commencement of hostility to «,?, only as far as 
 
$68 tat p*if»|f/ - " 
 
 they give fruofi, of a hostile intention toward flttrsefve#, 
 ancf facilitate the realizing of such intention. If any 
 events had taken place* increasing the means of injuring 
 this Country, even though these events furnished no moral 
 ground of complaint against France (such, for instance, 
 might be the great extension of he? population and 
 revenue, from freedom and a wise government) much 
 jinore, if they were the fruits of iniquitous ambition, and 
 therefore m themselves involved the probability of an hos- 
 tile intention to us— then, 1 Say, every after occurrence 
 Becomes important, and both a just and expedient ground 
 Of war, in proportion, not to the importance of the thing 
 in itself, but to the quantity of evident proof afforded .by 
 It of an hostile design in the Government, by whose power 
 our interests are endangered. If by demanding the imme- 
 diate evacuation of Malta, when he had himself done 
 away the security of its' actual independence (on his pro- 
 mise of preserving which our pacific promises rested as on 
 their sole foundation) and this too, after he had openly 
 avowed such designs on Egypt, as not only in the opinion 
 of our Ministers, but in his own qpinion, made it of the 
 greatest importance to this Country, that Malta should not 
 be under French Influence ; if by this conduct the First 
 Consul exhibited a decisive proof of his intention to vio- 
 late our rights and to undermine our national interests ; 
 then all his preceding actions on the Continent became 
 firoofs likewise of the same intention ; and any one * of 
 these aggressions involves the meaning of the whole. 
 "Which of them is to determine as to war, must be decided 
 ^v other and prudential considerations. Had the First 
 
 tflm — i — n . 1 ■ ^ • 1 — 
 
 ' An hundred Cases might b# imagined, which would place this assertion 
 in it's true light. Suppose, for instance, a country according to the laws of 
 ■Oliifch a Parent might not disinherit a Sou without having first" convicted him 
 •f some one of sundry crimes enumerated in a specific Statute. Caius, by a 
 series of vicious actions, has so nearly convinced his Father of his utter worth- 
 lessness, that the Father resolves on the next provocation to use the very first 
 Opportunity of legally disinheriting this Son. The provocation occurs, and 
 iu itself furnishes this opportunity: and Caius is disinherited, though, for an 
 aVftlonmuch less glaring and intolerable, than mostof his preceding delinquen- 
 cteshad been. The Advocates of Caius complain, tharhe should be thus punish - 
 edfora comparative trifle, so many worse Misdemeanors having been passed 
 over. The Father replies : this, his last action, is not the cause of the disinheri- 
 tance; buiiherirctmSof disinheriting him. I'punishedhimityit rather than./i>r 
 if. In trulh, it «'as not for any of his actions, that 1 have thus punfehedhim, but 
 for his vices ; that is, not so much for the injuries which I have suffered, a* for 
 the dispositions which these actionsW;?r«/; for the insolent and alarming inten- 
 tions, of which they are protrfs. Now of this habitual.temper, of these dangerous 
 purposes, his last action is as true and complcat a manifestation, as any or all 
 of his preceding offences; arid it therefore may and must be taJccn, as their 
 common representative. 
 
THE ffRIBND. 361 
 
 Consul acquiesced in our detention of Malta, he woulft 
 thereby have furnished such proof of pacific intentions, as 
 would have led to further hopes, as would have lessened 
 our alarm from his former acts of ambition, and relatively 
 to us have altered in some degree their nature. 
 
 It should never be forgotten, that a Parliament of 
 national Council is essentially different from a Court of 
 Justice, alike in its' objects and its' duties. In the latter, 
 the Juror lays aside his private knowledge and his private 
 connections, and judges exclusively according to the evi* 
 dence adduced in the Court: in the former, the Senator 
 acts upon his own internal convictions, and oftentimes 
 upon private information which it would be imprudent of 
 criminal to disclose. Though his ostensible Reason ought 
 to be a true and just one, it is by no means necessary, that 
 it should be his sole or evert his chief reason. In a Court 
 of Justice the Juror attends to the character and general 
 intentions of the accused party, exclusively aS adding to 
 the probability of his having or not having committed the 
 one particular action then in question. The Senator, oft 
 the contrary, when he is to determine on the conduct of a 
 foreign Power, attends to particular actions chiefly in: 
 proof of character and existing intentions. Now thef« 
 were many and very powerful Reasons why, though ap- 
 pealing to the former actions of Buonaparte as confirma- 
 tions of his hostile spirit and alarming Ambition, we should 
 nevertheless make Malta the direct Object and final 
 Determinant of the War. Had we gone to war avowedly 
 for the Independence of Holland and Switzerland, we 
 should have furnished Buonaparte with a colourable pre- 
 text for annexing both countries immediately to the 
 French Empire, which,* if he should do (as if his power 
 continues, he most assuredly will sooner or later) by a 
 mere act of violence, and undisguised tyranny, there will 
 follow a moral weakening of his power in the minds of 
 men, which may prove of incalculable advantage to the 
 independence and well-being of Europe ; but which, un- 
 fortunately, for this very reason, that it is not to be 
 calculated, is too often disregarded by ordinary Statesmen. 
 At all events, it would have been made the plea for banish- 
 ing, plundering, and perhaps murdering numbers of vir- 
 
 . . - , . . - '-"^ 
 
 * The Reader will bear in mind, that this disquisition was written, as ff 
 Hew appears, in the year 1804, [with the exception of the latter paragraphs, 
 •n'hichl have therefore included in crotchets.] 
 
362 THE FRIEXD. 
 
 tuous and patriotic Individuals, as being the Partizans of 4 
 "the Enemy of the Continent." Add to this, that we 
 should have appeared to have rushed into a War for ob- 
 jects, which by war we could not hope to realize; we 
 should have exacerbated the.ifusfortunes of the Countries 
 . of which we had elected ourselves the Champions; and' 
 j the War would have appeared a mere War of Revenge 
 / and Reprisal, a circumstance always to be avoided where 
 / it is possible. The ablest and best men in the Batavian 
 Republic, those who felt the insults of France most 
 acutely, and were suffering from her oppressions the most 
 severely, entreated our Government, through their Minis- 
 ter, that it would not make the state of Holland the great 
 ostensible Reason of the War. The Swiss Patriots too 
 believed, that we could do nothing to assist them at that 
 time, and attributed to our forbearance the comparatively 
 timid use, which. France has made hitherto of her abso- 
 lute power over that conn tty. Besides Austria, whom the 
 changes on the ^Continent much more nearly concerned 
 than England, having refused all co-operation with us, 
 there is reason to fear that an opinion (destructive of the 
 one great blessing purchased by the Peace, our national 
 unanimity) would have taken root in the popular mind, 
 that these Changes were mere pretexts. Neither should 
 we forget, that the last war had left a dislike in our coun- 
 trymen to continental interference, and a not implausible 
 persuasion, that where a nation has not sufficient sensi- 
 bility to its' wrongs to commence a war against the aggres- 
 sor, unbribed and ungoaded by Great Britain, a war begun 
 by the government of such a natron, at the instance of our 
 Government, has little chance of other than a disastrous 
 result, considering the character and revolutionary re- 
 sources of the Enemy. Whatever may be the strength or 
 weakness of this argument, it is however certain, that 
 there was a strong predilection in the British People for a 
 Cause indisputably and peculiarly British. And this 
 feeling is not altogether ungrounded. In practical poli- 
 tics and the great expenditures of national power, we 
 must not pretend to be too far-sighted : otherwise even a, 
 transient Peace would be impossible among the European 
 Nations. To future and distant Evils we may always op- 
 pose the various unforeseen Events that are ripening in 
 the womb of the Future. Lastly, it is chiefly to imme- 
 diate and unequivocal attacks on our own Interests and^ 
 
 
THE FRIEXD. 363 
 
 Honor, that we attach the notion of- Right with a full 
 and efficient feeling. Now, though we may be first stimu- 
 lated to action by probabilities and prospects of Advan- 
 tage, and though there is a perverse restlessness in human 
 nature, which renders almost all wars popular at their 
 commencement, yet a nation always needs a sense of 
 positive Right to steady its' spirit. There is always 
 heeded some one reason, short, simple, and independent 
 of complicated calculation, in order to give a sort of mus- 
 cular strength to the public mind, when the power that 
 results from enthusiasm, animal spirits, and the charm of 
 novelty, has evaporated. 
 
 There is no feeling more honorable to our nature, and 
 few that strike deeper root when our nature is happily 
 circumstanced, than the jealousy concerning a positive 
 Right independent of an immediate Interest. To surren- . 
 der, in our national character, the merest Trifle, that is 
 strictly our Right, the merest Rock on which the waves 
 will scarcely permit the Sea-fowl to lay its' Eggs, at the 
 demand of an insolent and powerful Rival, on a shop- 
 keeper's calculation of Loss and Gain, is in its' final, and 
 assuredly not very distant consequences, a Loss of every 
 thing — of national Spirit, of national Independence, and 
 with these of the very wealth, for which the low calcula- 
 tion was made. This feeling in individuals, indeed and in 
 private life, is to be sacrificed to Religion. Say rather, 
 that by Religion it is transmuted into a higher Virtue, 
 growing on an higher and engrafted Branch, yet nourished 
 from the same root ; that it remains in its' essence the 
 same Spirit, but 
 
 Made pure by Thought, and naturaliz'd in Heaven ; 
 
 and he who cannot perceive the moral differences of na- 
 tional and individual duties, comprehends neither the one 
 or the other, and is not a whit the better Christian for 
 being a bad Patriot. Considered nationally, it is as if the 
 Captain of a Man of War should strike and surrender his 
 colours under the pretence, that it would be folly to risk 
 the lives of so many good Christian Sailors for the sake of 
 a few yards of coarse Canvas! of such reasoners we take 
 an indignant leave in the words of an obscure Poet, 
 
 Fear never wanted arguments : you do 
 Reason yourselves into a careful bondage, 
 Circumspect only to your Misery. 
 
So4 The TUlfiyt). 
 
 I could urge Freedom, Charters, Country, La*?*, 
 Gods, and Religion, and such precious names— 
 Nay, what you vake higher, Wealth ! But that 
 You sue for bondage, yielding to demands 
 As impious as they're insolent, and have 
 Only this sluggish name — TO perish full ! 
 
 CartWright. 
 
 And here we find it necessary to animadvert on a 
 principle asserted by Lord Minto (in his Speech June 6th, 
 1803, and afterwards published at full length) that France 
 had an undoubted Right to insist on our abandonment of 
 Malta," a Right not given, but likewise not abrogated, by 
 the Treaty of Amiens. Surely in this effort of candour 
 his Lordship must have forgotten the circumstances on 
 which he exerted it. The case is simply thus : the 
 British Government was convinced, and the French 
 Government admitted the Justice of the Conviction, 
 that it was of the utmost importance to our interests, that 
 Malta should remain uninfluenced by France. The 
 French Government binds itself down by a solemn Treaty, 
 that it will use its' best endeavours in conjunction with 
 us, to secure this independence. This promise was no act 
 of liberality, no generous free-gift on the part of France. 
 No ! we purchased it at a high price. We disbanded our 
 forces, we dismissed our Sailors, and we gave up the best 
 part of the fruits of our naval victories. Can it therefore 
 with a shadow of plausibility be affirmed, that the Right 
 to insist on our evacuation of the Island, was unaltered by 
 the Treaty of Amiens, when this demand is strictly tanta- 
 mount to our surrender of all the advantages which we 
 had bought of France at so high a price ? tantamount to a 
 direct breach on her part, not merely of a solemn Treaty, 
 but of an absolute Bargain ? It was not only the perfidy 
 of unprincipled Ambition— the demand was the fraudlent 
 trick of a Sharper. For what did France ? She sold us 
 the Independence of Malta : then exerted her power and 
 annihilated tire very possibility of that independence, and 
 lastly, demanded of us that we should leave it bound hand 
 and foot for her to seize without trouble, whenever her 
 ambitious Projects led herj.0 regard such seizure as expe- 
 dient. We bound oursefves to surrender it to the Knights 
 of Malta — not surely to Joseph, Robert, or Nicolas, but to 
 a known order, cioSrthed with certain powers, ami capable 
 pf exerting thetn in consequence of certain Revenues^ 
 We found no such order. The men indeed and the name 
 

 IBS FBIENQ. 365 i 
 
 we found : aod even so, if we had purchased Sardinia of 
 its' Sovereign for so many millions of money, which 
 through our national credit, and from the equivalence of 
 9ur national Paper to Gold and Silver, he had agreed to. 
 receive in Bank Notes, and he had received them — 
 doubtless, he would have the Rank Notes, even though 
 immediately after our payment of them, we had for this I 
 
 very purpose forced the Bank Company to break. But 
 would he have received the Debt due to him ? It is 
 nothing more or less than' a practical Pun, as wicked ( 
 
 though not quite so ludicrous, as the (in all senses) exe- ■ 
 
 crable Pun of Earl Goodwin, who requesting Basium 
 (i. e. a kiss) from the Archbishop, thereupon seized on the 
 Archbishop's Manor of Baseharn. 
 
 A Treaty is a Writ of mutual Promise between two 
 independent States, and the Law of Promise is the same 
 to Nations as to Individuals. It is tQ be sacredly performed 
 by each party in that sense in which it knew and per- 
 mitted the other party to understand it, at the time of the 
 XOHtract. Any thing short of this is criminal deceit ia ; 
 
 Individuals, and in Governments impious perfidy. After 
 the conduct of France in the affair of the Guarantees, and 
 of the Revenues of the Order, we. had the same right t» 
 preserve the Island independent of France by a British 
 Garrison, as a lawful Creditor has to the Household goods 
 of a fugitive and dishonest Debtor. 
 
 One Qlher assertion of his Lordship's, in the same 
 speech, bears so immediately on the plan of The Friend, 
 as far as it proposed to investigate the principle of inter- 
 national, no less than of private morality, that I feel myself 
 in some degree under an obligation to notice it. A Treaty 
 (says his Lordship) ought to be strictly observed by a 
 nation in its' literal sense, even though the utter ruin of 
 that nation should be the certain and fore-known conse- 
 quence of that observance. Previous to any remarks of 
 my own oa this high flight of diplomatic virtue, we win 
 hear what Harrington has said on this subject. " A man 
 may devote himself to Death or Destruction to save a na- 
 tion ; hut no nation will devote itself to Death or Destruc- 
 tion to save mankind. Machiavel is decried for saying, 
 " that no consideration is to be had of what is just or unjust, 
 of what is merciful or cruel, of what is honourable or ig- 
 nominious, in case it be to save a state or to preserve 
 liberty :" which as to the manner of expression may per- 
 
366 THE FRIEND. 
 
 : » ' . - 
 
 haps be crudely spoken. But -to imagine,- that a Natior 
 will devote itself to Death or Destruction any more after 
 Faith given, or an Engagement thereto tending, than if 
 there had been no Engagement made or Faith given, were 
 
 not Piety but Folly." Crudely spoken indeed ! and 
 
 not less crudely thought, nor is the matter much mended 
 by the commentator. Yet every Man, who is at all 
 acquainted with the world and its' past History, know* 
 that the fact itself is truly stated : and what is more im- 
 portant in the present argument, he cannot find in his 
 heart a full, deep, and downright verdict, that it should be 
 otherwise. The consequences of this perplexity in the 
 moral feelings, are not seldom extensively injurious. For 
 men hearing the duties, which would be binding on two 
 individuals living under ths same Laws, insisted on as 
 equally obligatory on two independent states, in extreme 
 cases, where they see clearly the impracticability of 
 realizing such a notion ; and having at the same tirhe- a 
 dim half-consciousness, that two States can never be 
 placed exactly on the same ground as two Individuals; 
 relieve themselves from their perplexity by cutting what 
 they cannot untie, and assert, that national policy cannot 
 in all cases be subordinated to the Laws of Morality: in 
 other words, that a Government may act with injustice, 
 and yet remain blameless. This assertion was hazarded 
 (I record it with unfeigned regret) by a Minister of State, 
 on the affair of Copenhagen. Tremendous 1 assertion ! 
 that would render every complaint, which we make, of the 
 abominations of the French Tyrant, hypocrisy, 6r mere in- 
 cendiary declamation for the simple-headed multitude ! 
 But, thank heaven ! it is as unnecessary and unfounded, 
 as it is tremendous. For what is a Treaty ? J a voluntary 
 contract between two Nations. So we wilFstkte it in the 
 first instance. Now it is an impossible case, that any 
 nation can be supposed by any other to have intended its' 
 own absolute Destruction in a Treaty, which its' interests 
 alone could have prompted it to make. The very thought 
 is self-contradictory. Not only Athens (we will say) 
 could not have intended this to have been understood in 
 any specific promise made to Sparta ; but Sparta could 
 never have imagined, that Athens had so intended it.' 
 And Athens itself must have known, that had she even 
 affirmed the contrary, Sparta could not have believed — 
 nay, would have been under a moral obligation not to have 
 
THE FRIEND. 567 
 
 believed her. — Were it possible to suppose such a case — 
 for instance, such a Treaty made by a single besieged 
 Town, under an independent government, as that of Nu- 
 mantia — it becomes no longer a state, but the act of a 
 certain number of Individuals voluntarily sacrificing them- 
 selves, each to preserve his separate honor. For the state 
 was already destroyed by the circumstances, which alone 
 could make such an engagement conceivable. — But we 
 have said, Nations.— Applied to England and France, 
 relatively to treaties, this is but a form of speaking. The 
 treaty is really made by some half dozen, or perhaps half 
 a hundred individuals, possessing the Government of these 
 countries. Now it is a universally admitted part of the 
 Law of Nations, that an Engagement entered into by a 
 Minister, with a foreign power, when it was known to this 
 Power, that the Minister in so doing had exceeded and 
 contravened his Instructions, is altogether nugatory. 
 And is it to be supposed for a moment, that a whole 
 nation, consisting of perhaps twenty millions of human 
 souls, could ever have invested a few Individuals, whom, 
 altogether for the promotion of its' welfare it had intrusted 
 with its' Government, with the right of signing away its' 
 existence ? 
 
 
 SPECIMENS OF RABBINICAL WISDOM, 
 
 SELECTED FROM THE MISHNA. 
 
 4. 
 
 Conversation of a Philosopher with a Rabbi. 
 
 Your God in his Book calls himself a jealous God 
 who can endure no other God beside him, and on all 
 occasions makes manifest his abhorrence of idolatry. How 
 comes it then that he threatens and seems to hate the 
 worshippers of false Gods more than the false Gods them- 
 selves ?- A certain King, replied the Rabbi, had a dis- 
 obedient Son. Among other worthless tricks, of various 
 kinds, he had the baseness to give his Dogs his Father's 
 name and titles. Should the King shew his Anger on the 
 Prince or the Dogs ?— Well turned, rejoined the Philoso- 
 pher : but if your God destroyed the objects of idolatry 
 he would take away the temptation to it. Yea, retort- 
 ed the Rabbi, if the Fools worshipped such things only 
 as were of no further use than that to which their Folly 
 applied them, if the Idol were always as worthless as the 
 
#6* TJBJE FRIEND. 
 
 Idolatry is contemptible. But they worship the Sun, tb# 
 JMooo, the Host of Heaven, the Rivers, the Sea, Fire, Air 
 ->-and what not ? Would you that the Creator, for the 
 isake of these Fools, should ruin his own Works and dis- 
 turb the Laws appointed to Nature by his own Wisdom ? 
 If ,a Man steals grain and sows it, should the seed not shoot 
 jxpout of the Earth because it was .stolen ? O no ! the wise 
 Creator lets nature run her own course, for her course is 
 1lis own appointment. And what if the Children of Folly 
 abuse it to evil ? The day of reckoning is not far off, and 
 JMen will then learn, that human Actions re-appear in their 
 consequences by as certain a Law as the green Blade rises 
 mp out. of the buried corn seed. 
 
 To the doctrine of retribution after Death, the Philo- 
 sopher made the following objection. When the soul is 
 disunited from the body, to which will belong the guilt of 
 the offences committed during Life ? Certainly not to the 
 l>ody, for this, when the soul takes its departure, lies like a 
 clod of earth, and without the soul would never have been 
 capahle of offending : and as little would the soul have 
 denied itself with aiu but for it's union with the flesh. 
 Which of the two then is the proper object of the divine 
 Justice ? God's Wisdom only, answered the Rabbi, fully 
 comprehends the ways of his justice. Yet the Mortal 
 may without offence, if with humility, strive to render the 
 same intelligible to himserf and his fellows. A House- 
 holder had in his fruit-garden two Servants, the one lame 
 and the other blind. Yonder, said the lame Man to the 
 blind, en those Trees 1 see most delicious fruit hang, take 
 .me on thy shoulders and we will pluck thereof. This 
 they did and thus robbed their Benefactor, who had main- 
 tained them, as unprofitable servants, out of his mere good- 
 ness and compassion. The Master discovered the theft, 
 and called the two Ingrates to account. Each threw off 
 the blame from himself, the one urging in his defence his 
 incapability of seeing the Fruit, and the other the want of 
 power to get at it. What did the Master of the House 
 do ? He placed the lame Man upon the blind, and punish- 
 ed them in the same posture in which they had committed 
 the Offence. So will the Judge of tire world do with the 
 soul and body of Man. 
 
 PENRITH: POINTED USD PUBLISrfBD BY J. SHOWN ; AKD-SOID-IT 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATtENOSTER ROW, AHB 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, ST a AND, .LONDON. 
 
r 
 
 9 
 
 THE FRIEND. 
 
 No. 23, THURSDAY, February 8» 1810* 
 
 O ni -y a few privileged Individuals are authorized to pass 
 into the Theatre without stopping at the Door-keeper's 
 box ; but every man of decent appearance may put down 
 the Play-price there, and thenceforward has as good a right 
 as the Managers themselves not only to see and hear, as 
 far as his place in the House, and his own ears and eyes 
 permit him, but likewise to express audibly his approba- 
 tion or disapprobation of what may be going forward on the 
 Stage. If his feelings happen to be in unison with those 
 of the Audience in general, he may without breach of 
 decorum persevere in his notices of applause or dislike* 
 till the wish of the House is complied with. If he finds 
 himself unsupported, he rests contented with having once 
 exerted his common right, aiad on that occasion at least 
 gives no further interruption to the amusement of those, 
 who feel differently from him. So it is, or so it should be, 
 in Literature. A few extraordinary minds may be allowed 
 to pass a mere opinion : though in point of fact, those who 
 alone are entitled to this privilege, are ever the last to 
 avail thernsejvts of it. Add too, that even the mere opi- 
 nions of such men may in general be regarded either as 
 promissory Notes, or as receipts referring to a former 
 payment. But every man's opinion has a right to pass 
 into the common Auditory, if his reason for the opinion is 
 paid down at the same time : for arguments are the sole 
 current coin of intellect. The degree of influence to 
 which the opinion is entitled, should be proportioned to 
 the weight and value of the Reasons for it : and whether 
 these are shillings or pounds sterling, the man, who has 
 given them, remains blameless, provided he contents him- 
 self with the place to which they have entitled him, 
 and does not attempt by strength of lungs to counter- 
 balance its' disadvantages, or expect to exert as imme- 
 diate an influence in the buck seats of the upper dallery, 
 as if he had paid in gold and been seated in the Stage 
 box. 
 
370 THE FRIEND. 
 
 But unfortunately (and here commence the points of 
 difference between the theatric and the literary Public) 
 in the great Theatre of Literature there are no authorized 
 Door-keepers : for our anonymous Critics are self-elected. 
 I shall not fear the charge of calumny if I add, that they 
 have lost all credit with wise men, by unfair dealing : such 
 as their refusal to receive an honest man's money, (that 
 is, his argument) because fhey anticipate and dislike his 
 opinion, while others of suspicious character and the 
 most unseemly appearance, are suffered to pass without 
 payment, or by virtue of orders which they have them- 
 selves distributed to known Partizans. Sometimes the 
 honest man's intellectual coin is refused under pretence, 
 that it is light or counterfeit, without any proof given 
 either by the money scales, or by sounding the coin 
 in dispute together with one of known goodness. We 
 may carry the metaphor still farther. It is by no means a 
 rare case, that the money is returned because it had a 
 different soundfrom that of acounterfeit, thebrassy blotches 
 on which seemed to blush for the impudence of the silver 
 wash in which they were inisled, and rendered the mock 
 coin a lively emblem of a lie self-detected. Still oftener 
 does the rejection take place by a mere act of insolence, 
 and the blank assertion, that the Candidate's money is 
 light or bad, is justified by a second assertion, that he is 
 a Fool or Knave for offering it. 
 
 The second point of difference explains the preceding, 
 and accounts both for the want of* established Door- 
 keepers in the Auditory of Literature, and for the 
 practices of those, who under the name of Reviewers 
 volunteer this office. There is no royal Mintage for Ar- 
 guments, no ready means, by which all men alike, who 
 possess common sense, may determine their value and 
 intrinsic worth at the first sight or sound. Certain forms 
 of natural Logic indeed there are, the inobservance of 
 which is decisive against an argument ; but the strictest 
 adherence to them is no proof of it's actual (though an 
 indispensible condition of its' possible) validity : In the 
 Arguer's own conscience there is no doubt, a certain 
 value, and an infallible criterion of it, which applies to 
 all Arguments equally : and this is the sincere conviction 
 of the mind itself. But for those, to whom it is offered, 
 these are only conjectural marks ; yet such as will seldom 
 mislead any man of plain sense, who is both honest and 
 
THE FRIEND. 371 
 
 observant. These characteristics The Friend attempted 
 to comprize in the concluding paragraph of his second 
 Number, and has described them more at large in the 
 Essay, which follows, " On the communication ot Truth." 
 If the honest warmth, which results from the strength of 
 the particular conviction, be tempered by the modesty 
 which belongs to the sense of general fallibility ; if the 
 emotions, which accompany all vivid perceptions, are pre- 
 served distinct from the expression of personal passions, 
 and from appeals to them in the heart of others ; if the 
 Reasoner asks no respect for the opinion, as his opinion, 
 but only in proportion as it is acknowledged by that 
 Reason, which is common to all men ; and, lastly, jf he 
 supports an opinion on no subject which he has not pre- 
 viously examined, and furnishes proof both that he pos- 
 sesses the means of enquiry by his education or the nature 
 of his pursuits, and that he has endeavoured to avail him- 
 self of those means ; then, and with these conditions, every 
 human Being is authorized to make public the grounds 
 of any opinion which he holds, and of course the opinion 
 itself, as the object of them, consequently, it is the duty 
 of all men, not always indeed to attend to him, but, if 
 they do, to attend to him with respect, and with a sincere 
 as well as apparent toleration- I should offend against my 
 own Laws, if 1 disclosed at present the nature of my con- 
 victions concerning the degree, in which this virtue of 
 Toleration is possessed and practised by the majority of 
 my Contemporaries and Countrymen, but jf the contrary 
 Temper is felt and shewn in instances where aJJ the con* 
 ditions have been observed, which have been stated ajt 
 full in the second and three following Numbers of this 
 work, and the chief of which I have just now recapitulated j 
 I have no hesitation in declaring that whatever the opinion 
 may be, and however opposite to the Hearer's or Reader's 
 previous persuasions, one or other or all of the following def- 
 lects must be taken for granted. Either the intolerant i J er? 
 son is not master of the grounds on which his own F-*ith is 
 built, which therefore neither is or can oe jus own Faifh, 
 though it may very easily be hjs Liking his imagined Inter-' 
 est, and his Habit of thought : ant! he is angry, not at the 
 opposition to Truth, but at the interruption of his.owja indo- 
 lence and intellectual slumber, or possibly at the apprehen 
 sion, that his temporal advantages are threatened, or at least 
 the ease of mind, in which he had been accustomed fo rai- 
 
379 THE FRIEND. 
 
 joy them. Or, secondly, he has no love of Truth for its' own 
 sake; no reverence for the divine command to seek earnestly 
 after it, which command, if it had not been so often and 
 solemnly given by Revelation, is yet involved and ex- 
 pressed in the gift of Reason, and in the dependence of 
 all our virtues on its' developement ; and no moral and 
 religious awe for freedom of thought, though accompanied 
 both by sincerity and humility ; nor for the right of free 
 communication which is ordained by God, together with 
 that freedom, if it be true that God has ordained us to live 
 in Society, and has made the progressive impromvent of all 
 and eaeh of us depend on the reciprocal aids, which directly 
 or indirectly each supplies to all, and all to each. But if his 
 alarm and his consequent intolerance, are occasioned by 
 his eternal rather than temporal interests, and if as is 
 most commonly the case, he does not deceive himself on 
 this point, gloomy indeed, and erroneous beyond idolatry, 
 must have been his notions of the Supreme Being ! For 
 surely the poor Heathen who represents to himself 
 the divine attributes of Wisdom, Justice, and Mercy, 
 under multiplied and forbidden Symbols in the powers 
 of Nature or the Souls of Extraordinary Men, practises 
 a Superstition which (though at once the cause and 
 effect of blindness and sensuality) is less incompatible 
 with inward piety and true religious feeling, than 
 the Creed of that Man, who in the spirit of his prac- 
 tice though not in direct words, loses sight of all these attri- 
 butes, and substitutes " servile and thrall-like fear instead 
 of the adoptive and chearful boldness, which our new alli- 
 ance with God requires of us as Christians."* Such fear- 
 ridden and thence angry Believers, or rather Acquiescents., 
 would do well to re-peruse the Book of Job, and observe 
 the sentence passed by the All-just on the Friends of the 
 Sufferer, who had hoped, like venal advocates, to purchase 
 the favour of Deity by uttering Truths, of which in their 
 own hearts they had neither conviction nor comprehension. 
 
 * Miltons Reformation in England. " For in every deed, the superstitious 
 Man by his good will is an Atheist; but being scared from thence by the 
 pangs of cooscience, shuffles up to himself such a God and such a Worship, a* 
 is most accordant to his Fear: which Fear of his as also his Hope, being fixed 
 only upon the Flesh, renders likewise the whole faculty of his Apprehension 
 carnal, and ell the inward acts of Worship issuing from the native strength of the 
 Soul, run out lavishly to the upper Shin, and there harden into a crust of Formality. 
 Hence men came to scan the Scriptures by the Letter, and in the covenant of 
 our Redemption magaified the external signs more than the cjuicltening power 
 •tthtSpirii." 
 
 I 
 
the friend. 37$ 
 
 The Truth from the lips did not atone for the 
 Lie in the heart, while the rashness of agony in the 
 searching and bewildered Complainant, was forgiven in 
 consideration of his sincerity and integrity in not disguis- 
 ing the true dictates of his Reason and Conscience, but 
 avowing his incapability of solving a problem by his Rea- 
 son, which before the Christian Dispensation the Almighty 
 was pleased to solve only by declaring it to be beyond the 
 limits of human Reason. Having insensibly passed into 
 a higher and more serious style than I had first intended, 
 I will venture to appeal to these Self-obscurants, whose 
 Faith dwells in the Land of the Shadow of Darkness, these 
 Papists without a Pope, and Protestants who protest only 
 against all protesting ; and will appeal to them in words 
 which yet more immediately concern them as Christians, 
 in the hope that they will lend a fearless ear to the learned 
 Apostle, when he both assures and labours to persuade 
 them, that they were called in Christ to all perfectness in 
 spiritual knowledge and full assurance of ^understanding in 
 the mystery of God. There can be no End withoulrrrreans : 
 and Cod furnishes no means that exempt us from the task 
 and duty of joining our own best endeavours. The origi- 
 nal Stock, or wild olive tree, of our natural powers, was 
 not given us to be burnt or blighted, but to be grafted on. 
 We are not only not forbidden to examine and propose our 
 doubts, so it be done with humility and proceed from a 
 real desire to know the Truth ; but we are repeatedly com- 
 manded so to do : and with a most unchristian spirit must 
 that Man have read the preceding passages, if he can in- 
 terpret any one sentence as having for its' object to excuse 
 a too numerous class, who, to use the words of St. Au- 
 gustine, qucerunt non utfidem sed ut infidelitatem invemant: 
 i. e. such as examine not to find reasons for Faith, but 
 pretexts for Infidelity. 
 
 I have so often suffered from having ventured to avow 
 my doubts concerning the Truth of certain opinions, 
 which had been sanctified in the minds of my Hearers, 
 by the Authority of some reigning great name, even 
 though in addition to my own reasons, I aau ail the great- 
 est Names from the Reformation to the Revolution on my 
 side, that 1 could not summon courage, without some 
 previous pioneering, to declare publicly, that the Princi- 
 ples of Morality taught in the present Work will be in. 
 direct opposition to the System- o£ the late Dr. Paley 
 
S7* THE ERIEND. 
 
 This confession I should have deferred t6 a future time, 
 hut that my present Subject (viz. the grounds of interna- 
 tional Morality) compels me to advert to a fundamental 
 point in Paley's System of moral and political Philosophy, 
 that Chapter, I mean, which treats of general conse- 
 quences, as the chief and best criterion of the Right or 
 Wrong of particular Actions. Now this Doctrine 1 con- 
 ceive to be neither tenable in Reason nor Safe in Practice : 
 and the following are the grounds of my Opinion : 
 
 First ; this criterion is purely ideal, and so far possesses 
 no advantages over the former more rigid systems of Mo- 
 rality : while it labours under defects, with which those 
 are not justly chargeable. It is ideal : for it depends on, 
 aud must vary with, the notions of the Individual, who in 
 determining the nature of an action is to make the 
 calculation of it's general consequences : and, as in all 
 other calculation, the result depends on that faculty of the 
 Soul in the decrees of which men most vary from each 
 other, and which is itself most affected by accidental ad- 
 vantages or disadvantages of Education, natural Talent, 
 and acquired Knowledge — the faculty, I mean, of Fore- 
 sight and systematic Comprehension. But surely Morality, 
 which is of equal importance to all men, ought to be 
 grounded, if possible, in that part of our Nature which in 
 all Men may and ought to be the same : in the Conscience 
 and the common sense. Secondly; this criterion con- 
 founds Morality with Law ; and when the Author adds, 
 that in all probability the divine Justice will be regulated 
 in the final Judgement by a similar rule, he draws away 
 the attention from the Will, that is from the inward mo- 
 tives and impulses which constitute the Essence of Moral- 
 ity, to the outward Act : and thus changes the Virtue 
 commanded by the Gospel into the mere Legality, which 
 was to be enlivened by it. One of the most persuasive, if 
 not one of the strongest, arguments for a future state, Tests 
 on the belief, that although by the necessity of things our 
 outward and temporal welfare must be regulated by our 
 outward actions, which alone can be the objects and guides 
 of human Law, there must yet needs come a juster and 
 more appropriate sentence hereafter, in which our inten- 
 tions will be considered, and our Happiness and Misery 
 made to accord with the grounds of our Actions. Our 
 Fellow-creatures can only judge v/hat we are by what w0 
 do ; but in the eye of our Maker what we da is of no worth, 
 
THE FRIEND. 375 
 
 except as it flows from what we are. Though the Fig- 
 tree should produce no visible Fruit, yet if the living Sap 
 is in it, and if it has struggled to put forth Buds and 
 Blossoms which have been prevented from maturing by 
 inevitable contingencies of tempests or untimely frosts, 
 the virtuous Sap will be accounted as Fruit : and the curse 
 of Barrenness will light on many a Tree, from the Boughs 
 of which hundreds have been satisfied, because the omni 
 scient Judge knows, that the Fruits were threaded to the 
 Boughs artificially by the outward working of base Fear 
 and selfish Hopes, and were neither nourished by the love 
 of God or of man, nor grew out of the graces engrafted on 
 the Stock by Religion. This is not, indeed, all that is 
 meant in the Apostles use of the word Faith, as the sole 
 principle of Justification, but it is included in his meaning 
 and forms an essential part of it: and I can conceive no 
 thing more groundless, than the alarm, that this Doctrine 
 may be prejudicial to outward utility and active well-doing. 
 To suppose that a Man "should cease to be beneficent by 
 becoming benevolent, seems to me scarcely less absurd, 
 than to fear that a fire may prevent heat, or that a peren- 
 nial fountain may prove the occasion of Drought. Just and 
 generous Actions may proceed from bad Motives, and 
 both may, and often do, originate in parts and as it were 
 fragments^ of our Nature. A iascivious Man may sacrifice 
 half his Estate to rescue his Friend from Prison, for he is 
 constitutionally sympathetic, and the better part of his 
 Nature happened to be uppermost: the same Man shall 
 afterwards exert the same disregard of money in an attempt 
 to seduce that Friend's Wife or Daughter. But Faith is 
 a total act of the soul : it is the whole state of the mind, 
 or it is not at all ! and in this consists its' power, as well 
 as its' exclusive worth. 
 
 This Subject is of such immense importance to the 
 "Welfare of all men, and the understanding of it to the 
 present tranquility of many thousands at this time and in 
 this Country, that should there be but one only of all my 
 Readers, who should receive conviction or an additional 
 light from what is here written, I dare hope that a great 
 majority of the rest would in consideration of that solitary 
 effect think these Paragraphs neither wholly uninteresting 
 or altogether without value For this cause 1 w ill endea- 
 vour so to explain this Principle, that it may be intelligible 
 to the simplest capacity. The Apostle tells those, who. 
 
S#6 THE FRIEND. 
 
 #■ 
 
 •would substitute Obedience for Faith (addressing the Man 
 as Obedience personified) " Know that thou bearest not the 
 Moot, but the ROOT thee" — a sentence which, methinks, 
 should have rendered all disputes concerning Faith and 
 . good Works impossible among those, who profess to take 
 the Scriptures for their Guide. }t would appear incre- 
 dible, if the fact were not notorious, that two Sects should 
 ground and justify their opposition to each other, the one 
 on the words of the Apostle, that we are justified by Faith, 
 i. e. the inward and absolute ground of our Actions ; and 
 the other on the declaration of Christ, that he will judge 
 us according to our Actions. As if an Action could be 
 either good or bad disjoined from its' Principle ! as if it 
 could be, in the christian and only proper sense of the word 
 an Action at all, and not rather a mechanic series of lucky 
 or unlucky motions ! Yet it may be well worth the while 
 to shew the beauty and harmony of these twin Truths, or 
 rather of this one great truth considered in its' two princi- 
 pal bearings. God will judge each man before all Men : 
 consequently he will judge us relatively to man. But 
 man knows not the heart of man ; scarcely does any one 
 know his own. There must therefore be outward and 
 visible signs, by which men may be able to judge of the 
 inward state : and thereby justify the ways of God to their 
 own spirits, in the Reward or Punishment of themselves 
 and their Fellow-men. Now good Works are these Signs, 
 and as such become necessary. In short there are two 
 Parties, God and the human Race : and both are to be 
 satisfied ! first, God, who seeth the Root and knoweth the 
 Heart: therefore there must be Faith, or the entire and . 
 absolute Principle. Then Man, who can judge only by 
 the Fruits : therefore that Faith must bear Fruits of 
 Righteousness, that Principle must manifest itself by I 
 Actions. But that which God sees, that alone justifies : 
 what Man sees, does in this life shew, that the justifying 
 Principle may be the root of the thing seen ; but in the 
 final Judgement the acceptance of these actions will shew 
 that this Principle actually was the Root. In this world a 
 good Life is & presumption of a good Man: his virtuous 
 actions are the only possible, though still ambiguous, 
 manifestations of his virtue : but the absence of a good Life 
 is not only a presumption, but a proof of the contrary, as 
 long as it continues. Good Works may exist without 
 saving Principles, and therefore cannot contain in them* 
 
THE FKIENB. 377 
 
 Selves the Principle of Salvation ; but saving Principles 
 never did, never can, exist without good Works. On a 
 subject of such infinite importance, I have feared pro- 
 lixity less than obscurity. Men often talk against Faith, 
 and make strange monsters in their imagination of those, 
 who profess to abide by the words of the Apostle inter- 
 preted literally : and yet in their ordinary feelings they 
 themselves judge and act by a similar Principle. For 
 what is Love without kind offices, wherever they are 
 possible ? (and they are always possible, if not by actions 
 commonly so called, yet by kind Words, by kind Looks; 
 and, where even these are out of our power, by kind 
 Thoughts and fervent Prayers !) yet what noble mind 
 would not be offended, if he were supposed to value the 
 serviceable offices equally with the Love that produced 
 them ; or if he were thought to value the Love for the 
 sake of the Services, and not the Services for the sake of 
 the Love ? 
 
 I return to the question of general consequences, con- 
 sidered as the criterion of moral actions. The admirer 
 of Paley's System is required to suspend for a short time 
 the objection, which, 1 doubt not, he has already made, 
 that general consequences are stated by Paley as the 
 Criterion of the Action, not of the Agent. I will endea- 
 vour to satisfy him on this point, when I have completed 
 my present chain of argument. It has been shewn, that 
 this criterion is no less ideal than that of any former 
 System : that is, it is no less incapable of receiving any 
 external, experimental proof, compulsory on the under- 
 standings of all men, such as the criteria exhibited in 
 Chemistry. Yet, unlike the elder Systems of Morality, 
 it remains in the World of the Senses, without deriving any 
 evidence therefrom: the Agent's mind is compelled to go 
 out of itself in order to bring back conjectures, the proba- 
 bility of which will vary with the shrewdness of the 
 Individual. But this criterion is not only ideal : it is 
 likewise imaginary. If we believe in a scheme of Provi- 
 dence, all Actions alike work for good : there is not the 
 least ground for supposing, that the crimes of Nero were 
 less instrumental in bringing about our present advantages, 
 than the virtues of the Antonines. Lastly ; the criterion 
 is either nugatory or false. It is demonstrated, that the 
 only real consequences cannot be meant. The Individual 
 is to imagine, what the general consequences would be all 
 
378 THE FRIEKD. 
 
 other things remaining the same, if all men were to act as 
 he is about to act. 1 scarcely need remind the Reader, 
 what a source of self delusion and sophistry is here opened 
 to a mind in a state of temptation. vV 7 ill it not say to 
 itself, I know that all men will not act so : and the imme- 
 diate good consequences, which I shall obtain, are real, 
 while the bad consequences are imaginary and improbable ? 
 W hen the foundations of Morality have once been laid in 
 outward consequences, it will be in vain to recall to the 
 mind, what the consequences would be, were all men to 
 reason in the same way : for the very excuse of this mind 
 to itself is, that neither its' action nor its' reasoning is 
 likely to have any consequences at all, its' immediate 
 object excepted. But suppose the mind in its' sanest 
 state. How can it possibly form a notion of the nature of 
 an action considered as indefinitely multiplied, unless it 
 has previously a distinct notion of the nature of the single 
 action itself, which is the multiplicand ? If I conceive a 
 Crown multiplied a hundred fold, the single Crown 
 enables me to understand what a hundred Crowns are ; 
 but how can the notion hundred teach me, what a Crown 
 is ? For the Crown substitute X. Y. or abracadabra, and 
 my imagination may multiply it to infinity, and I remain 
 as much at a loss as before. But if there be any means 
 of ascertaining the Action in and for itself, what further do 
 we want ? Would we give light to the Sun, or look at our 
 own fingers through a Telescope ? The nature of every 
 action is determined by all its' circumstances : alter the 
 circumstances and a similar set of motions may be repeated, 
 but they are no longer the same or similar Action. W hat 
 would a Surgeon say, if he were advised not to cut off a 
 limb, because if all men were to do the same, the conse- 
 quences would be dreadful ? Would not his answer be— - 
 " Y« hoever does the same under the same circumstances, 
 and with the same motives, will do right ; but if the cir- 
 cumstances and motives are different, what have I to do 
 with it ?" I confess myself unable to divine any possible 
 use, or even meaning, in this doctrine of general conse- 
 quences, unless it be, that in all our actions we are bound 
 to consider the effect of our example, and to guard as 
 much as possible against the hazard of their being mis- 
 understood. I will not slaughter a Lamb, or drown a 
 litter of Kittens in the presence of my child of four years 
 old, because the child cannot understand my action, but 
 
THE ?RIEND< 379 
 
 will understand that his Father has inflicted pain, and 
 taken away life from beings, that had never offended him. 
 AH this is true, and no man in his senses ever thought 
 ■otherwise. But methinks it is strange to state that, as a 
 criterion of morality, which is no more than an accessary 
 aggravation of an action bad in its' own nature, or a 
 ground of caution as to the mode and time, in which 
 we are to do or suspend what is in itself good or innocent. 
 
 The duty of setting a good Example is no doubt a 
 most important Duty ; but the example is good or bad, 
 necessary or unnecessary, according as the Action may 
 be, which has a chance of being imitated. I once knew 
 a small, but (in outward circumstances at least) respect- 
 able Congregation, four-fifths of whom professed that they 
 went to Church entirely for the example's sake ; in other 
 words to cheat each other and act a common Lie ! These 
 rational Christians had not considered, that example may 
 encrease the good or evil of an action, but can never con- 
 stitute either* If it was a foolish thing to kneel, when 
 they were not inwardly praying, or to sit and listen to a 
 discourse of which they believed little and cared nothing, 
 they were setting a foolish example. Persons in their re- 
 spectable circumstances do not think it necessary to clean 
 shoes, that by their example they may encourage the shoe- 
 black in continuing his occupation : and Christianity does 
 not think so meanly of herself, as to fear that the poor and 
 afflicted will be a whit the less pious, though they should 
 see reason to believe that those, who possessed the good 
 things of the present life, were determined to leave all 
 the blessings of the future for their more humble inferiors. 
 If I have spoken with bitterness, let it be recollected that 
 my subject is Hypocrisy. 
 
 It is likewise fit, that in all our actions we should have 
 considered, how far they are likely to be misunderstood, 
 and from superficial resemblances to be confounded with, 
 and so appear to authorize, actions of a very different 
 character; But if this caution be intended for a moral 
 Tule, the misunderstanding must be such as might be made 
 by persons who are neither very weak nor very wicked. 
 The apparent resemblances between the good action we 
 were about to do, and the bad one which might possibly be 
 done'in mistaken imitation of it, must be obvious : or that 
 which makes them essentially different, must be subtle or 
 recondite. For what is there which a wicked man blinded 
 

 350 THE FRIEND. 
 
 by his passions may not, and which a madman will not mis- 
 Understand ? It is ridiculous to frame rules of Morality 
 with a view to those, who are fit objects only for the 
 Physician or the Magistrate. The question may be thus 
 illustrated. At Florence there is an unfinished bust of 
 Brutus, by Michael Angelo, under which a Cardinal wrote 
 the following distich : 
 
 Dum Bruti effigiem sculptor de marmore finxit, 
 In mentem selceris venit, et abstinuit. 
 
 \As the Sculptor was forming the Effigy of Brutus, in marble, he re* 
 collected, his act of guilt and refrained. 
 
 An English Nobleman, indignant at this distich, wrote 
 immediately under it the following : 
 
 Brutum effinxisset sculptor, sed mente recursat 
 Multa viri virtus si stit et obstupuit. 
 
 The Sculptor would have framed a Brutus, but the vast and manifold- 
 virtue of the Man fashed upon his thought: he stopped 
 and remained in astonished admiration. 
 
 Now which is the nobler and more moral Sentiment, 
 the Italian Cardinal's, or the English Nobleman's ? The 
 Cardinal would appeal to the doctrine of general conse- 
 quences, and pronounce the death of Caesar a murder, and 
 Brutus an Assassin. For, (he would say) if one man may be 
 allowed to kill another, because he thinks him a Tyrant, 
 religious or political phrenzy may stamp the name of 
 Tyrant on the best of Kings: regicide will be justified 
 under the pretence of tyrannicide, and Brutus be quoted 
 as authority for the Clements and Kavilliacs. From 
 Kings it may pass to Generals and Statesmen, and from 
 these to any Man, whom an enemy or enthusiast may 
 pronounce unfit to live. Thus Ave may have a Cobler of 
 Messina in every City, and Bravos in cur Streets, as com- 
 mon as in those of Naples, with the names of Harmodius, 
 Aristogeiton, and Brutus, on their Stilettos. The tnglish- 
 man would commence his answer by commenting on the 
 words " because he thinks him a Tyrant.'' No ! he would 
 reply, not because the Patriot thinks him a Tyrant ; but 
 because he knows him to be so, and knows likewise, that 
 the vilest of his slaves cannot deny the fact, that he has by 
 
THE FRIEND. 3S1-5 
 
 violence raised himself above the Laws of his Country; 
 because he knows, that all good and wise men equally 
 with himself abhor the fact ! If there be no such state, as 
 that of being broad awake, or no means of distinguishing 
 it when it exists ; if because men sometimes dream that 
 they are awake, it must follow that no man, when awake, 
 can be sure that he is not dreaming ; if because an Hypo- 
 chondriac is positive, that his legs are cylinders of glass, all 
 other men are to learn modesty, and cease to be so positive, 
 that their legs are legs ; what possible advantage can your 
 criterion of general consequences possess over any 
 other rule of direction ? If no man can be sure, that what 
 he thinks a Robber with a pistol at his Breast demanding 
 his purse, may not be a good Friend enquiring after his 
 health ; or that a Tyrant (the son of a cobler perhaps, who 
 at the head of a regiment of perjured Traitors, has driven 
 the representatives of his Country out of the Senate at the 
 point of the bayonet, subverted the Constitution, which 
 had trusted, enriched, and honored him, trampled on the 
 Laws which before God and Man he had sworn to obe} r , 
 and finally raised himself above all Law) may not, in 
 spite of his own and his Neighbours' knowledge of the 
 contrary, be a lawful King, Avho has received his power, 
 however despotic it may be, from the Kings his Ancestors, 
 who exercises no other power, than what had been sub- 
 mitted to for centuries and been acknowledged as the 
 Law of the Country ; on what ground can you possibly 
 expect less fallibility, or a result more to be relied upon, 
 in the same man's calculation of your general consequen- 
 ces ? Would he, at least, find any difficulty in converting 
 your criterion into an authority for his act ? What should 
 prevent a man, whose perceptions and judgements are so 
 strangely distorted, from arguing, that nothing is more 
 devoutly to be wished for, as a general consequence, than 
 that every Man, who by violence places himself above the 
 Laws of his Countrv, should in all Ages and Nations be 
 considered by Mankind, as placed by his own act out of 
 the protection of Law, and be treated by them as any 
 other noxious wild beast would be ? Do you think it 
 necessary to try Adders by a Jury ? Do you hesitate to 
 shoot a mad Dog, because it is not in your power to have 
 him first tried and condemned at the Old Bailey ? On the 
 other hand, what consequence can be conceived more de- 
 testable, than one which would set a bounty on the most 
 
33§ 
 
 ¥HE FRIEKD. 
 
 enormous crime in human nature, and establish it as a 
 law of Religion and Morality, that the accomplishment of 
 the most atrocious guilt, invests the Perpetrator with im- 
 punity, and renders his person for ever sacred and invio- 
 lable ? For madmen and enthusiasts what, avail your moral 
 criterions ? But as to your Neapolitan Bravos, if the act 
 of Brutus when " in pit// to the general wrong of Rome, He 
 slew his best Lover for the good of Rome" authorized by 
 the Laws of his Country, in manifest opposition to all 
 selfish interests, in the face of the Senate, and instantly 
 presenting himself and his cause first to that Senate, and 
 then to the assembled Commons, by them to stand ac- 
 quitted or condemned-— if such an act as this, with all its' 
 vast out-jutting circumstances of distinction, can be con- 
 founded by any mind not frantic with the crime of a cow« 
 ardly skulking Assassin, who hires out his dagger for a 
 few crowns to gratify a hatred not his own, or even with 
 the deed of that Man, who makes a compromise between 
 his revenge and his cowardice, and stabs in the dark the 
 enemy whom he dared not meet in the open field, or 
 summon before the laws of his Co\ixi\.ry~~what actions can 
 be so different, that they may not be equally confounded ? 
 The ambushed Soldier must not fire his musquet, lest 
 his example should be quoted by the Villain, who to 
 make sure of his booty, discharges his piece at the un- 
 suspicious Passenger, from behind a hedge. — The Physi- 
 cian must not administer a solution of arsenic to the 
 leprous, lest his example should be quoted by profes- 
 sional poisoners. If no distinction, full and satisfactory to 
 the conscience and common sense of mankind be afforded 
 by the detestation and horror excited in all men, (even 
 in the meanest and most vicious, if they are not wholly 
 monsters) by the act of the Assassin, contrasted with the 
 fervent admiration felt by the good and wise in all ages, 
 when they mention the name of Brutus ; contrasted with 
 the fact that the honor or disrespect, with which that name 
 was spoken of, became an historic criterion of a noble or 9 
 base Age ; and if it is in vain, that our own hearts answer 
 to the question of the Poet 
 
 " Is there among the adamantine spheres 
 Wheeling unshaken through the boundless void, 
 Aught that with half such majesty can fill 
 The human bosom, as when Brutus rose 
 
THE FRIEND. 385 
 
 Refulgent from the stroke of Csesar's fate 
 Amid the croud of Patriots : and his arm 
 Aloft extending, like eternal Jove, ? 
 When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud 
 On Tully's name, and shook his crimson sword, 
 And bade the Father of his Country, Hail ! 
 For lo the Tyrant prostrate on the dust 
 And Rome again is free \" 
 
 If I say, all this be fallacious and insufficient, can we 
 have any firmer reliance on a cold ideal calculation of ima- 
 ginary general consequences, which, if they were gene- 
 ral, could not be consequences at all : for they would be 
 effects of the frenzy or frenzied wickedness, which alone 
 could confound actions so utterly dissimilar ? No ! (would 
 the ennobled Descendant of our Russells or Sidneys con- 
 elude) No ! Calumnious Bigot, never yet did a human 
 being become an assassin from his own or the general admi- 
 ration, of the Hero, Brutus ; but I dare not warrant, that 
 villains might not be encouraged in their trade of secret 
 murder, by finding their own guilt attributed to the Ro- 
 man Patriot, and might not conclude, that if Brutus be no 
 better than an Assassin, an Assassin can be no worse than 
 Brutus. I request, that the preceding may not be inter- 
 preted as my own settled judgement on the moral nature 
 of Tyrannicide. I think with Machiavel and with Spinosa, 
 for many and weighty reasons assigned by those Philoso- 
 phers, that it is difficult to conceive a case, in which a 
 good man would attempt Tyrannicide, because it is diffi- 
 cult to conceive one, in which a wise man would recom- 
 mend it. In a small State, included within the walls of a 
 single City, and where the tyranny is maintained by foreign 
 Guards, it may be otherwise ; but in a Nation or Empire 
 it is perhaps inconceivable, that the circumstances which 
 made a Tyranny possible, should not likewise render the 
 removal of the Tyrant useless. The pa'noi's sword may- 
 cut of? the Hydra's head; but he possesses no brand to 
 staunch the active corruption of the body, which is sure 
 to re-produce a Successor. 
 
 I must now in a few words answer the objection t« 
 the former part of my argument (for to that part only the 
 objection applies,) namely that the doctrine of general con- 
 sequences was stated as the criterion of the Action, not of 
 the Agent. I might answer, that the Author himself had m 
 
354 THE FRIEND. 
 
 some measure justified me in not noticing this distinction 
 by holding forth the probability, that the supreme judge 
 will prceed by the same rule. The Agent may then 
 safely be included in the Action, if both here and here- 
 after the Action only and its' general consequences will 
 be attended to. But my main ground of justification is, 
 that the distinction itself is merely logical, not real and 
 vital. The character of the agent is determined by his 
 view of the action : and that System of Morality is alone 
 true and suited to human nature, which unites the inten- 
 tion and the motive, the warmth and the light, in one and 
 the same act of mind. This alone is worthy to be called 
 a moral Principle. Such a Principle may be extracted, 
 though not without difficulty and danger, from the ore of 
 the stoic Philosophy ; but it is to be found unalloyed and 
 entire in the christian System, and is there called Faith. 
 A single Paragraph will enable me to apply the result 
 to the question of international Morality and at the same 
 time will establish the true nature and obligation of the 
 Law of Nations, which was a necessary part of my plan, 
 and which I knew no more interesting or shorter method of 
 introducing and accomplishing, than in connection with, 
 the subject of Biography, which I shall re-commence in 
 jfche next number. 
 
 Penrith: piinteb and published by j. brown; and sold i"/ 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
1 y 
 
 v 
 
 Id. 24, THURSDAY, February 15, 1810. 
 
 ON THE LAW OP NATIONS. 
 
 It were absurd to suppose, that Individuals should be 
 under a law of moral obligation, and yet that a million of 
 the same' individuals, acting collectively or through repre- 
 sentatives, should be exempt from all law : for Morality 
 is no accident of human nature, but its' essential charac- 
 teristic. A being absolutely without morality is either a 
 beast or a fiend, according as we conceive this want of 
 conscience to be natural or self-produced; or (to come 
 nearer to the common notion, though with the sacrifice of 
 austere accuracy) according as the being is conceived 
 without the law, or in unceasing and irretrievable rebel- 
 lion to it. Yet were it possible to conceive a man wholly 
 immoral, it would remain impossible to conceive him 
 without a moral obligation to be otherwise : and none, 
 but a madman, will imagine that the essential qualities of 
 any thing can be altered by its' becoming part of an. 
 aggregate ; that a grain of corn, for instance, shall cease 
 to contain flour, as soon as it is part of a peck or bushel. 
 It is therefore grounded in the nature of the thing, and 
 not by a mere fiction of the mind, that wise men, who 
 have written on the Law of Nations, have always con- 
 sidered the several States of the civilized world, as so 
 many Individuals, and equally with the latter under a 
 moral obligation to exercise their free agency within such 
 bounds, as render it compatible with the existence of 
 free agency in others. We may represent to ourselves 
 this original free agency, as a right of commonage, the 
 formation of separate States as an enclosure of this Com- 
 mon, the Allotments awarded severally to the co-proprietors 
 as constituting national Rights, and the Law of Nations as 
 the common Register Office of their title deeds. But in 
 all Morality, though the principle, which is the abiding 
 spirit of the Law, remains perpetual and unaltered, even 
 as that supreme Reason in whom and from whom it has 
 its' being, yet the Letter of the Law, that is, the applica- 
 tion of it to particular instances and the mode of realizing 
 it in actual practice, must be modified by the existing 
 circumstances. What we should desire to do, the con- 
 science alone will inform us ; but how and when we are to 
 
386 THE FRIEND. 
 
 make the attempt, and to what extent it is in our power 
 to accomplish it, are questions for the judgement, and re- 
 quire an acquaintance with facts and their bearings on 
 each other. Thence the improvement of our judgement, 
 and the increase of our knowledge, on all subjects includ- 
 ed within our sphere of action, are not merely advantages 
 recommended by prudence, but absolute duties imposed 
 on us by conscience. 
 
 As the circumstances then, under which men act as 
 Statesmen, are different from those under which they act 
 as Individuals, a proportionate difference must be expect- 
 ed in the practical rules by which their public conduct is 
 to be determined. Let me not be misunderstood: I 
 speak of a difference in the practical rules not in the moral 
 law itself which these rules point out the means of ad- 
 ministering in particular cases, and under given circum- 
 stances. The spirit continues one and the same, though 
 it may vary its' form according to the element into which 
 it is transported. This difference with its' grounds and 
 consequences it is the province of the philosophical Jus- 
 publicist to discover and display : and exactly in this 
 point (I speak with unfeigned diffidence) it appears to me 
 that the Writers * on the Law of Nations, whose works I 
 have had the opportunity of studying, have been least 
 successful. In what does the Law of Nations differ from 
 the Laws enacted by a particular State for its' own Sub- 
 jects ? The solution is evident. The law of nations 
 considered apart from the common Principle of all Moral- 
 ity is not fixed or positive in itself, nor supplied with any 
 regular means of being enforced. Like those duties iii 
 private Life which, for the same reasons, Moralists have 
 entitled imperfect duties (though the most atrocious guilt 
 maybe involved in the omission or violation of them), 
 the law of nations appeals only to the conscience and pru- 
 dence of the Parties concerned. Wherein then does it 
 differ from the moral laws which the Reason, considered 
 as Conscience, dictates for the conduct of Individuals ? 
 This is a more difficult question ; but my answer would 
 be determined by, and grounded on, the obvious differ- 
 
 I rrius 
 
 * Grotius, Bykenshoek, PufFendorf, Wolfe, and Vattel ; to whose Works 
 must add, as comprizing whatever is most valuable >n the preceding Authors, 
 with many Important improvements and additions, kobinson's Reports of the 
 Causes of the Court of Admiralty under Sir W. Scott : to whom international 
 taw is under no less obligation than the Law of commercial proceedings was 
 to the late Lord Mansfield. As I have never even seen SirW. Scott, nor 
 cither by myself or my connections enjoy the honour of the remotest acquain- 
 tance with him. I trust that even by those who may think mr opiiijon eiTOBe- 
 cs;, I shall at least sot be suspected of intentional flattery. 
 
races of the circumstances in the two cases. Remember, 
 then, that we are now reasoning-, not as Sophists or 
 System-mongers, but as Men anxious to discover what is 
 right in order that we may practice it, or at least give our 
 suffrage and the influence of our opinion in recommending 
 its' practice. We must therefore confine the question to 
 those cases, in which honest Men and real Patriots can 
 suppose any controversy to exist between real patriotism 
 and common honesty. The objects of the Patriot are, 
 that his countrymen should, as far as circumstances per- 
 mit, enjoy what the Creator designed for the enjoyment 
 of Animals endowed with reason, and of course deveiope 
 those faculties which were given them to be developed. 
 He would do his best that every one of his Countrymen 
 should possess whatever all men may and should possess, 
 and that a sufficient number should be enabled and en- 
 couraged to acquire those excellencies which, though not 
 necessary or possible for all men, are yet to all men useful 
 and honourable. He knows, that Patriotism itself is a 
 necessary link in the golden chain of our affections and 
 virtues, and turns away with indignant scorn from the 
 false Philosophy or mistaken Religion, which would per- 
 suade him that Cosmopolitism is nobler than Nationality, 
 and the human Race a sublimer object of love than a 
 People; that Plato, Luther, Newton, and their Equals, 
 formed themselves neither in the Market nor the Senate, 
 but in the World and for all Men of all Ages. True! 
 But where and among whom are these giant exceptions 
 produced? In the wide Empires of Asia, where millions 
 of human Beings acknowledge no other bond but that of 
 a common Slavery, and are distinguished on the Map but 
 by a name which themselves perhaps never heard, or 
 hearing abhor? No! In a circle defined by human 
 affections, the first firm sod within which becomes sacred 
 beneath the quickened step of the returning Citizen — 
 'here, where the powers and interests of men spread with- 
 out confusion through a common sphere, like the vibra- 
 tions propagated in the air by a single voice, distinct yet 
 coherent, and all uniting to express one thought and the 
 same feeling! here where even the common Soldier dares 
 force a passage for his Comrades by gathering up the 
 Bayonets of the Enemy into his own breast : because his 
 Country " expected every Man to do his duty ! " and this, 
 not after he has been hardened by habit but, as probably, 
 in his first battle ; not reckless or hopeless, but braving 
 xieath from a keener sensibility to those blessings, which, 
 
388 THE FRIEND. 
 
 make life dear, to those qualities which render himself 
 worthy to enjoy them ! Here, where the royal crown is 
 loved and worshipped as a glory around the sainted head 
 of Freedom ! Where the Rustic at his plough whistles 
 with equal enthusiasm, " God save the King " and 
 " Britons never shall be Slaves ; " or, perhaps, leaves one 
 Thistle unweeded in his Garden, because it is the symbol 
 of his dear native Land 1 * Here, from within this circle 
 defined, as light by shade, or rather as light within light 
 by its' intensity, only within these magic circles rise up 
 the awful Spirits, whose words are Oracles for Mankind, 
 whose love embraces all Countries, and whose voice 
 sounds through all Ages ! Here and here only may we 
 confidently expect these mighty minds to be reared and 
 ripened, whose names are naturalized in foreign lands, 
 the sure Fellow-travellers of Civilization ! and yet render 
 their own Country dearer and more proudly dear to their 
 own Countrymen. This is indeed Cosmopolitism, at 
 once the Nursling and the Nurse of patriotic affection ! 
 This, and this alone, is genuine Philanthropy, which like 
 the Olive Tree, sacred to concord and to wisdom, fattens 
 not exhausts the soil, from which it sprang, and in which 
 it remains rooted. It is feebleness only, which cannot 
 be generous without injustice, or just without ceasing to 
 be generous. Is the morning Star less brilliant, or does a 
 ray less fall on the golden fruitage of the earth, because the 
 Moons of Saturn too feed their lamps from the same Sun i 
 Even Germany, though curst with a base and hatefu 
 brood of Nobles and Princelings, cowardly and ravenous 
 Jackals to the very Flocks entrusted to them as to Shep- 
 herds, who hunt for the Tyger and whine and wag their 
 tails for his bloody offal — even Germany, whose ever- 
 changing boundaries superannuate the last year's Map 
 and are altered as easily as the hurdles of a temporary 
 sheep-fold, is still remembered with filial love and 
 Patriot's pride, when the thoughtful German hears the 
 names of Luther and Leibnitz. "Ah! why, he sighs, 
 
 * I cannot here refuse myself the pleasure of recording a speech of the 
 Poet Burns, related to' me by the Lady to whom it was addressed. Having 
 been asked by her, why in his more serious Poems he had not changed'" the 
 two or three Scotch words which seemed only to disturb the purity of the 
 style! the Poet with great sweetness, and his usual happiness in reply, 
 
 answered ' why in truth it would have been better, but 
 
 The rough bur-thistle spreading wide 
 
 Amang the bearded bear, 
 1 turn'd the weeder-clips aside 
 An' spar'd the symbol dear. 
 An Author may be allowed to quote from his own Poems, whea he does it 
 with as much modesty and felicity, as Burns did in this instance. 
 
THE FRIEND. 389 
 
 why for herself in vain should my Country have produced 
 such a host of immortal minds \" Yea, even the poor 
 enslaved, degraded, and barbarized Greek, can still point 
 to the Harbour of Tenedos, and say — " there lay our Fleet 
 when we were besieging Troy." Reflect a moment on 
 the past History of this wonderful People ! what were 
 they while they remained free and independent ? when 
 Greece resembled a collection of Mirrors set in a single 
 frame, each having its' own focus of patriotism, yet all 
 capable, as at Marathon and Platea, of converging to one 
 point and of consuming a common Foe? What were they 
 then ? The Fountains of light and civilization, of truth and 
 of beauty, to all Mankind ! they were the thinking Head, 
 the beating Heart, of the whole World ! they lost their 
 independence, and with their independence their patrio- 
 tism : and became the Cosmopolites of Antiquity. It has 
 been truly observed (by the Author of the work for which 
 Palm was murdered) that aftei the first acts of severity 
 the Romans treated the Greeks not only more mildly than 
 their other Slaves and Dependants, they behaved to them 
 even affectionately and munificiently. The victor Nation 
 felt reverentially the presence of the visible and invisible 
 Deities that gave sanctity to every Grove, every Fountain, 
 and every Forum. " Think (writes Pliny to one of his 
 Friends) that you are sent into the Province of \chaia, 
 that true and genuine Greece, where civilization, letters, 
 even corn, are believed to have been discovered ; that you 
 are sent to administer the affairs of free States, that is, to 
 men eminently free, who have retained their natural right 
 by valour, by services, by friendship, lastly by treaty and 
 by religion. Revere the Gods their founders, the sacred 
 influences represented in those Gods, revere their ancient 
 glory and this very old age which in Man is venerable, in 
 Cities sacred. Cherish in thyself a reverence of Antiquity, 
 a reverence for their great Exploits, a reverence even for 
 their Fables. Detract nothing from the proud pretensions 
 of any State ; keep before thine eyes that this is the Land 
 which sent us our institutions, which gave us our laws, 
 not after it was subjugated, but in compliance with our 
 petition.* " And what came out of these Men, who were 
 eminently free without Patriotism, because without na- 
 tional Independence? (which eminent Freedom, however, 
 Pliny himself, in the very next sentence, styles the sha- 
 dow and residuum of Liberty.) While they were intense 
 Patriots, they were the benefactors of all Mankind, legisla- 
 
 *~ * Plin. Epist. Lib. VIII. 
 
390 The friend. 
 
 tors for the very Nation that afterwards subdued and en 
 
 slaved them. When, therefore, they became pure Cos 
 
 mopolites, and no partial affections interrupted thei 
 
 Philanthropy, and when yet they retained their Country 
 
 their Language, and their Arts, what noble Works, wha 
 
 mighty Discoveries, may we not expect from them ? 1 
 
 the applause of a little City (a first rate Town of a country 
 
 not much larger than Yorkshire) and the encouragemen 
 
 of a Pericles, produced a Phidias, a Sophocles, and a con 
 
 stellation of other Stars scarcely inferior in glory, wha 
 
 will not the applause of the World effect, and the bound. 
 
 less munificence of the World's imperial Masters ? Alas 
 
 no Sophocles appeared, no Phidias was born ! individua 
 
 genius fled with national Independence, and the best pro 
 
 ducts were cold and laborious copies of what their Falhen 
 
 had thought and invented in grandeur and majesty. At 
 
 length nothing remained, but dastardly and cunning Slaves 
 
 who avenged their own ruin and degradation by assisting 
 
 to degrade and ruin their Conquerors ; and the golder 
 
 Harp of their divine Language remained only as the frame 
 
 on which Priests and Monks spun their dirty cobwebs ol 
 
 Sophistry and Superstition ! 
 
 If then in order to be Men we must be Patriots, and 
 Patriotism cannot exist without national Independence, 
 we need no new or particular Code of Morals to justify us 
 in placing and preserving our Country in that relative 
 situation, which is most favourable to its' independence. 
 But the true Patriot is aware, that this Object is not to be 
 accomplished by a system of general Conquest, such as 
 was pursued by Philip of Macedon and his Son, nor yet 
 by the political annihilation of the one State, which hap- 
 pens to be its' most formidable Rival : the unwise mea- 
 sure recommended by Cato, and carried into effect by the 
 Romans, in the instance of Carthage. Not by the latter: 
 for Rivalry between two Nations conduces to the Indepen- 
 dence of both, calls forth or fosters all the virtues, by 
 which national Security is maintained. Still less by 
 the former : for the victor Nation itself must at length, 
 by the very extention of its' own Conquests, sink into a 
 mere Province ; nay, it will m06t probably become thej 
 most abject portion of the Empire, and the most cruelly 
 oppressed, both because it will be more feared and sus- 
 pected by the common Tyrant, and because it will be tht 
 sink and centre of his luxury and corruption. Even in 
 cases of actual injury and just alarm, the Patriot set* 
 bounds to the reprisal of national vengeance, and content? 
 
 

 THE FRIEND. 391 
 
 himself with such securities as are compatible with the 
 welfare, though not with the ambitious projects of the 
 Nation, whose aggressions had given the provocation : 
 for as Patriotism inspires no super-human faculties, neither 
 can it dictate any conduct which would require such. He 
 is too conscious of his own ignorance of the future, to dare 
 extend his calculations into remote periods ; nor, because' 
 he is a Statesman, arrogates to himself the cares of Pro- 
 vidence and the government of the World. How does he 
 know, but that the very Independence and consequent 
 Virtues of the Nation, which in the anger of cowardice 
 he would faio reduce to absolute insignificance, and rob 
 even of its' ancient Name, may in some future emergence 
 be the destined Guardians of his own Country ; and that 
 the power, which now alarms, may hereafter protect and 
 preserve it. The experience of History authorizes not only 
 the possibility, but even the probability, of such an event. 
 An American Commander, who has deserved and received 
 the highest honours which his grateful Country, through 
 her assembled Representatives, could bestow upon him, 
 once said to me with a sigh: In an evil hour for my 
 Country did the French and Spaniards abandon Louisiana 
 to the United States ; we were not sufficiently a Country 
 before ; and should we ever be mad enough to drive the 
 English from Canada and her other North American Provin- 
 ces, we shallsoon cease to be a Country at all. VV ithout lo- 
 cal attachment, without national honor, we shall resemble 
 a swarm of Insects that settle on the fruits of the Earth to 
 corrupt and consume them, rather than Men who love and 
 cleave to the Land of their Forefathers. After a shapeless 
 anarchy, and a series of civil wars, we shall at last be 
 formed into many countries ; unless the Vices engendered 
 in the process should demand a further punishment, and 
 we should previously fall beneath the despotism of some 
 military Adventurer, like a Lion, consumed by an inward 
 disease, prostrate and helpless, beneath the beak and 
 talons of a Vulture, or yet meaner bird of Prey. 
 
 The same sanity of mind will the true Patriot display, 
 in all that regards the internal prosperity of his Country. 
 He will reverence not only whatever tends to make the 
 component individuals more happy, and more worthy of 
 happiness ; but likewise whatever tends to bind them 
 more closely together, as a People ; that as a multitude of 
 parts and tunctions make up one human body, so the 
 whole multitude of his Countrymen may, by the visible 
 and invisible influences of religion, language, laws,customs, 
 
39* 
 
 TJIE FRIEND. 
 
 and the reciprocal dependence and re-action of trade and 
 agriculture, be organized into one body politic. But 
 much as he desires to see all become a whole, he places 
 limits even to this wish, and abhors that System of Policy, 
 which would blend men into a State by the dissolution of 
 all those virtues, which make them happy and estimable as 
 Individuals. Sir James Stuart (Polit. Econ. Vol. \. P. 88.) 
 after stating the case of the Vine-Dresser, who is Pro- 
 prietor of a bit of Land, on which grain (enough, and no 
 more) is raised for himself and family — and who provides 
 for their other wants of cloathing, salt, &c. by his extra 
 labour, as a Vine-dresser, observes — " From this example 
 we discover the difference between Agriculture exercised 
 0S a trade, and as a direct means of subsisting. We have 
 the two species in the Vine-dresser : he labours the vine- 
 yard as a trade, and his spot of ground for subsistence. 
 We may farther conclude, that as to the last part he is only 
 useful to himself: but as to the first he is useful to the 
 society and becomes a member of it : consequently were 
 it not "tor his trade, the State would lose nothing, although 
 the Vine-dresser and his Land were both swallowed up by 
 an earthquake." 
 
 Now this contains the sublime philosophy of the sect 
 of Economists. They worship a kind of non-entity under 
 the different words, the state, the whole, the society, &c. 
 and to this Idol they make bloodier sacrifices than ever 
 the Mexicans did to Tescalipoca. All, that is, each and 
 every sentient being in a given tract, are made diseased 
 and vicious, in order that each may become useful to all, 
 or the State, or the Society, — that is, to the word, all, the 
 word state, or the word society ! The absurdity may be 
 easily perceived by omitting the words relating to this 
 idol — as for instance — in a former paragraph of the same (in 
 most respects) excellent work : " If it therefore happens 
 that an additional number produced do more than feed 
 themselves, then I perceive no advantage gained 
 from their production." What ? no advantage gained by, 
 for instance, ten thousand happy, intelligent, and immortal 
 Beings having been produced ? — O yes ! but no advantage 
 " to this Society." — What is this Society ? this " whole /" 
 this " State ?" is it any thing else but a word of con- 
 venience to express at once the whole number of confe- 
 derated individuals living in a certain district ? Let the 
 sum, total of each man's happiness, be supposed = 1*00 : 
 and suppose ten thousand men produced, who neither 
 made swords or poison, or found corn or clothes for those 
 
THE FRIENB. 
 
 who did^but who procured by their labour food and 
 raiment for themselves., and fof their children — would not 
 that Society be richer by 10,000,000 parts of Happiness ? 
 And think you it possible, that ten thousand happy 
 human beings can exist together without encreasing each 
 other's happiness ? or that it will not overflow into count- 
 less channels, and * diffuse jtself through the iest of the 
 Society. 
 
 The poor Vine-dresser rises from sweet sleep, worships 
 his Maker, goes with his wife and children into his little 
 plot — returns to his hut at noon, and eats the produce of 
 the similar labour of a former day. Is he useful ? No ! not 
 yet. Suppose then, that during the remaining hours of 
 the day he endeavoured to provide for his moral and in- 
 tellectual appetites, by physical experiments and philoso- 
 phical research, by acquiring knowledge for himself, and 
 communicating it to l his wife and children. Would he be 
 useful then ? " He useful ! The State would lose nothing, 
 although the Vine-dresser, and his Land were both swal- 
 lowed up by an earthquake !" Well then, instead of 
 devoting the latter half of each day to his closet, his 
 laboratory, or to neighbourly conversation, suppose he 
 goes to the vineyard, and from the ground which would 
 maintain in health, virtue, and wisdom, twenty of his 
 fellow-creatures, helps to raise a quantity of liquor that 
 will disease the bodies, and debauch the souls of an 
 hundred — Is he useful now 1 — O yes ! — a very useful Man, 
 and a most excellent Citizen ! ! 
 
 In what then does the Law between State and State 
 differ from that between Man and Man > For hitherto 
 we seem to have discovered no variation. According to 
 the Friend's best understanding, it differs in this one 
 point: that the influence of example in any extraordinary 
 case, as the possible occasion of an action apparently like 
 though in reality very different, is of considerable import- 
 ance in the moral calculations of an Individual ; but of 
 little, if any, in those of a Nation. The reasons are evi- 
 dent. In the first place, in cases, concerning which there 
 can be amy dispute between an honest Man and a true 
 Patriot, the circumstances, which at once authorize and 
 
 * Well, and in the spirit of genuine Philosophy, does the Poet describe 
 such beings as Men 
 
 " Who being innocent do for that cause 
 Bestir them in good deeds"——— 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 Providence, by the ceaseless activity which it has implanted in our nature, 
 has sufficiently guarded against an innocence without virtue. 
 
394 THE FRIEND. 
 
 discriminate the measure, are so marked and peculiar and 
 notorious, that it is incapable of being drawn into a prece- 
 dent by any other State under dissimilar circumstances ; 
 except perhaps as a mere pretext for an action, which had 
 been predetermined without reference to this authority, 
 and which would have taken place, though it had never 
 existed. But if so strange a thing should happen, as a 
 second coincidence of the same circumstances, or of cir- 
 cumstances sufficiently similar to render the prior measure 
 a fair precedent ; then, if the one action was justifiable, so 
 will the other be ; and without any reference to the for- 
 mer, which in this case may be useful, as a light, but can- 
 not be requisite, as an authority. Secondly, in extraordi- 
 nary cases it is ridiculous to suppose, that the conduct of 
 States will be determined by example. We know that 
 they neither will, nor in the nature of things can be deter- 
 mined by any other consideration, but that of the imperi- 
 ous circumstances, which render a particular measure 
 advisable. But lastly, and more important than all, Indi- 
 viduals are and must be under positive Laws : and so 
 very great is the advantage, which results from the regu- 
 larity of legal decisions, and their consequent capability of 
 being foreknown and relied upon, that equity itself must 
 sometimes be sacrificed to it. For the very letter of a 
 positive law is part of its' spirit. But States neither are, 
 nor can be, under positive Laws. The only fixed part of 
 the Law of Nations is the spirit: the Letter of the Law 
 consists wholly in the circumstances, to which the Spirit 
 of the Law is applied. It is mere puerile declamation to 
 rail against a Countiy, as having imitated the very mea- 
 sures for which it had most blamed its' ambitious Enemy, 
 if that Enemy have previously changed all the relative 
 circumstances which had existed for him, and therefore 
 rendered his conduct iniquitous; but which, having 
 been removed, however iniquitously, cannot without ab- 
 surdity be supposed any longer to control the measures of 
 an innocent Nation, necessitated to struggle for its' own 
 safety, especially when the measures in question were 
 adopted for the very purpose of restoring those circum- 
 stances. There are times, when it would be wise to 
 regard Patriotism as a light thai is in danger of being 
 blown out, rather than as a fire which needs to be fanned, 
 by the winds of party spirit. There are times, when party 
 spirit, without any unwonted excess, may yet become fac- 
 tion ; and though in general not less useful than natural 
 in a free Government, may under particular emergencies 
 
tHE FRIEXrJ. 395 
 
 prove fatal to Freedom itself. I trust, I am writing to 
 those who think with me, that to have blackened a 
 Ministry, however strong or rational our dislike may be of 
 the Persons who compose it, is a poor excuse and a miser- 
 able compensation for the crime of unnecessarily blacken- 
 ing the character of our Country. Under this conviction 
 1 request my Reader to cast his eye back on my last 
 argument, and then to favour me with his patient atten- 
 tion while I attempt at once to explain its' purport and to 
 shew its' cooencv. 
 
 Let us transport ourselves in fancy to the Age and 
 Country of the Patriarchs or, if the Reader prefers it, to 
 some small Colony uninfluenced by the Mother Country, 
 which has not organized itself into a State, or agreed to 
 acknowledge any one particular Governor. We will sup- 
 pose this Colony to consist of from twenty to thirty House- 
 holds, or separate Establishments, differing greatly from 
 each other in the number of retainers and in extent of 
 possessions. Each Household, however, possesses its' own 
 domain, the least not less than the greatest, in full right : 
 and its' Master is an independent Sovereign within his own 
 boundaries. This mutual understanding and tacit agree- 
 ment, we may well suppose to have been the gradual 
 result of many feuds, which had produced misery to all, 
 and real advantage to none : and that the same sober and 
 reflecting Persons, dispersed through the different estab- 
 lishments, who had brought about this state of things, had 
 likewise coincided in the propriety of some other prudent 
 and humane regulations, which from the authority of these 
 wise men on points, in which they were unanimous, and 
 from the evident good sense of the rules themselves, were 
 acknowledged throughout the whole Colony, though they 
 were never voted into a formal Law, though the determi- 
 nation of the cases, to which these rules were applicable, 
 had been entrusted to no one recognized judge, or their 
 enforcement of, delegated to any particular Magistrate. 
 The chief of these virtual Laws, we may safely conclude, 
 would be : that as no man ought to interfere in the affairs 
 of another against his will, so if any Master of a household, 
 instead of employing himself in the improvement of his 
 own fields and flocks, or in the better regulation of his 
 own Establishment, should be foolish and wicked enough 
 to employ his children and servants in breaking down the 
 fences and taking possession of the lands and property of a 
 Fellow-colonist, or in turning the bead of the Family out of 
 his House, and forcing those that remained to acknowledge 
 
396 THE FRIEND. 
 
 himself as their Governor instead, and to obey whomever 
 he might please to appoint as his deputy, then that it 
 became the duty and interest of the other Colonists to join 
 against the Aggressor, and to do all in their power to pre- 
 vent him from accomplishing his bad purposes, or to com- 
 pel him to make restitution and compensation. The 
 mightier the aggressor, and the weaker the injured party, 
 the more cogent would the motive become for restraining 
 the one and protecting the other. For it was plain, that 
 he, who was suffered to overpower, one by one, the weaker 
 Proprietors, and render the members of their establish- 
 ment subservient to his will, must soon become an over- 
 match for those who were formerly his equals : and the 
 mightiest would differ from the meanest only by being the 
 last victim. This allegoric fable faithfully pourtrays the 
 Law of Nations and the balance of power among the Euro- 
 pean States. Let us now give the sequel, as the historian 
 of this imaginary Colony, and relate, that in the second or 
 third generation the Proprietors too generally disregarded 
 the good old opinion, that what injured any could be of real 
 advantage to none; and treated those, who still professed it, 
 as fit only to instruct Children in their Catechism. By 
 the Avarice of some, the Cowardice of others, and by the 
 Corruption and want of Foresight in the greater part, the 
 former state of things had been completely changed, and 
 the tacit compact set at nought, the general acknowledge- 
 ment of which had been so instrumental in producing this 
 State and in preserving it, as long as it lasted. The stronger 
 had preyed on the weaker, whose wrongs, however, did 
 not remain long unavenged: for the same selfishness and 
 blindness to the future, which had induced the wealthy to 
 trample on the rights of the poorer proprietors, prevented 
 them from assisting each other effectually, when they were 
 themselves attacked, one after the other, by the most 
 powerful of all : and from a concurrence of circumstances 
 attacked so succesfully, that of the whole Colony few 
 Temained, that were not, directly or indirectly, the Crea- 
 tures and Dependents of this one over-grown Establish- 
 ment. Say rather, of its' new Master, an adventurer whom 
 Chance and Poverty had brought thither, and who in better 
 times would have been employed in the swine-yaid, or the 
 slaughter-house, from his ignorance and stupid aversion to 
 all the Arts that tended to improve either the land or 
 those that were to be maintained by its' produce. He 
 was however eminent for other qualities, which were still 
 better suited to promote his power among those degenerate 
 
THE FRIEND. 597 
 
 colonists : for he feared neither God nor his own Con- 
 science. The most solemn oaths could not bind him ; 
 the most deplorable calamities could not awaken his 
 pity ; and when others were asleep, he was either 
 brooding over some scheme of robbery and murder, or 
 with a part of his Banditti actually employed in laying 
 waste his neighbour's fences, or in undermining the walls 
 of their houses. His natural cunning, undistracted by 
 any honest avocations, and meeting with no obstacle 
 either in his head or heart, and above all having been quick-* 
 ened and strengthened by constant practice and favoured 
 by the times with all conceivable opportunities, ripened at 
 last into a surprizing Genius for oppression and tyranny :• 
 and, as we must distinguish him by some name, we will 
 call him Misetes. The only Estate, which remained 
 able to bid defiance to this common Enemy, was that of 
 Pamphilus, superior to Misetes in wealth, and his equal 
 in strength ; though not in the power of doing mischief, 
 and still less in the wish. Their characters were indeed 
 perfectly contrasted : for it may be truly said, that through- 
 out the whole Colony there was not a single Establishment, 
 which did not owe some of its' best buildings, the encrea- 
 sed produce of its' fields, its' improved implements of in- 
 dustry, and the general more decent appearance of its* 
 Members, to the information given and the encouragements 
 afforded by Pamphilus and those of his household. Who- 
 ever raised more than they wanted for their own estab- 
 lishment, were sure to find a ready purchaser in Pamphi- 
 lus, and oftentimes for articles which they had themselves 
 been before accustomed to regard as worthless, or even as 
 nuisances : and they received in return things necessary 
 or agreeable, and always in one respect at least useful, that 
 they roused the Purchasers to industry and its' accom- 
 panying virtues. In this intercommunion all were bene- 
 fited : for the wealth of Pamphilus was increased by the 
 increasing Industry of his Fellow-colonists, and their In- 
 dustry needed the support and encouraging Influences of 
 Pamphilus's Capital. To this good man and his estimable 
 Household Misetes bore the most inplacable Hatred, 
 had publicly sworn that he would root him out ; the only 
 sort of Oath which he was not likely to break by any want 
 of will or effort on his own part. But fortunately for 
 PamphiluSj his main property consisted of one compact 
 Estate divided from Misetes and the rest of the Colony by 
 a wide and dangerous river, with the exception of one 
 small plantation which belonged to an independent Pro- 
 
598 THE FRIEND. 
 
 prietor whom we will name Lathrodacnus: a man of 
 no influence in the Colony, but much respected by Fam-. 
 philus. They were indeed relations by blood originally 
 and afterwards by intermarriages ; and it was to the power 
 and protection of Pamphilus that Lathrodacnus owed his 
 independence and prosperity, amid the general distress 
 and slavery of the other Proprietors. Not less fortunately 
 did it happen, that the means of passing the River were 
 possessed exclusively by Pamphilus and his above men- 
 tioned Kinsman ; and not only the Boats themselves, but 
 all the means of constructing and navigating; them. As 
 the very existence of Lathrodacnus, as an independent 
 Colonist, had no solid ground, but in the strength and 
 prosperity of Pamphilus ; and as the interests of the one 
 in no respect interfered with those of the other; Pamphi- 
 lus for a considerable time remained without any anxiety, 
 and looked on the river-craft of Lathrodacnus with as little 
 alarm, as on those of his own Establishment. It did not 
 disquiet him, that Lathrodacnus had remained neutral in 
 the quarrel : and though many advantages, which in 
 peaceful times would have belonged to Pamphilus, were 
 now transferred to his Neighbour, and had more than 
 doubled the extent and profit of his concern, Pamphilus, 
 instead of repining at this, was glad that some good at least 
 to some one came out of the general evil. Great then 
 was his surprize, when he discovered, that without any 
 conceivable reason Lathrodacnus had employed himself in 
 •building and collecting a very unusual number of such 
 Boats, as were of no use to him in his traffic, but designed 
 ■exclusively as ferry-boats : and what was still stranger and 
 more alarming, that he chose to keep these in a bay on 
 the other side of the river, opposite to the one small Plan- 
 tation, along side of Pamphilus' Estate, from which plan- 
 tation Lathrodacnus derived the materials for building 
 them. Willing to believe this conduct a transient whim 
 of his Neighbour's, occasioned partly by his vanity, and 
 partly by envy (to whigh latter passion the want of a 
 liberal education and the not sufficiently comprehending 
 the grounds of his own prosperity, had rendered him sub- 
 ject) Pamphilus contented himself for a while with urgent 
 yet friendly remonstrances. The only answer, which 
 Lathrodacnus vouchsafed to return, was : that by the 
 Law of the Colony, which Pamphilus had made so many 
 professions of revering, every Proprietor was an indepen- 
 dent Sovereign within his own boundaries ; that the Boats 
 were his own, and the opposite shore, to which they were 
 
 
THE FRIEND. 399 
 
 fastened, part of a field which belonged to him ; and, in short, 
 that Pamphilus had no right to interfere with the management of 
 his Property, which, trifling as it might be compared with that of 
 Pamphilus, was no less sacred by the Law of the Colony. To this 
 uncourteous rebuff Pamphilus replied with a fervent wish, that 
 Lathrodacnus could with more propriety have appealed to a law, as 
 still subsisting, which, he well knew, had been effectually annulled 
 by the unexampled tyranny and success of Misetes, together with. 
 the circumstances which had given occasion to the law, and made it 
 wise and practicable. He further urged, that this law was not made 
 for the benefit of any one Man, but for the common safety and advan- 
 tage of all : that it was absurd to suppose that either he (Pamphilus) 
 or that Lathrodacnus himself, or any other Proprietor, ever did or 
 could acknowledge this law in the sense, that it was to survive the 
 very circumstances which made it just and proper, much less could 
 they have even tacitly assented to it, if they had ever understood it 
 as authorizing one Neighbour to endanger the absolute ruin of ano- 
 ther, who had perhaps fifty times the property to lose, and perhaps 
 ten times the number of souls to answer for, and yet forbidding the 
 injured person to take any steps in his own defence : and, lastly, that 
 this Law gave no right without imposing a corresponding duty, 
 and therefore if Lathrodacnus insisted on the rights given him by 
 the law, he ought at the same time to perform the duties which it 
 required, and join heart and hand with Pamphilus in his endeavours 
 to defend his independence, to restore the former state of the Colo- 
 ny, and with this to re-enforce the old Law, in opposition to Misetee, 
 who had enslaved the one and set at nought the other. So ardently 
 was Pamphilus attached to the Law, that excepting his own safety 
 and independence, there was no price which he would not pay, no 
 sacrifice which he would not make for its' restoration. His reve- 
 rence for the very memory of the law was such, that the mere ap- 
 pearance of transgressing it would be a heavy affliction to him. In 
 the hope therefore of gaining from the avarice of Lathrodacnus that 
 consent, which he could not obtain from his justice or neighbourly 
 kindness, he offered to give him in full right a Plantation ten times 
 the value of all his boats, and yet, whenever the Colony should once 
 more be settled, to restore the Boats : if he would only permit 
 Pamphilus to secure them during the present state of things, on his 
 side of the River, retaining whatever he really wanted for the 
 passage of his own Household. To all these persuasions and en- 
 treaties Lathrodacnus turned a deaf ear ; and Pamphilus remained 
 agitated and undetermined, till at length he received certain intel- 
 ligence, that Lathrodacnus had called a Council of the chief mem- 
 bers of his Establishment, in consequence of the threats of Misetes, 
 that he would treat him as the Friend and Ally of Pamphilus, if he 
 did not declare himself his Enemy. Partly for the sake of a large 
 Meadow belonging to him on the other side of the River, which it 
 was not easy to secure from the Tyrant, but still more from envy 
 and. the irritable temper of a proud inferior, Lathrodacnus, and 
 with him the majority of his advisers (though to the great dis- 
 content of the few wise heads among them) settled it finally, that 
 if he should be again pressed on this point by Misetes, he would 
 
400 THE FKIEND. 
 
 join him and commence hostilities against his old Neighbour and 
 Kinsman. It is indeed but too probable, that he had long brooded 
 over this scheme, for to what other end could he have strained 
 his income and over-worked his servants, in building and 
 fitting up such a number of passage-boats? As soon as this 
 information was received by Pamphilus, and this from a quar- 
 ter which it was impossible for him to discredit, he obeyed 
 the dictates of self-preservation, took possession of the passage- 
 boats by force, and brought them over to his own grounds ; but 
 without any further injury to Lathrodacnus, and still urging him to 
 accept a compensation and continue in that amity which Was so 
 manifestly their common interest. Instantly, a great outcry was 
 raised against Pamphilus, who was charged in the bitterest terms 
 with having first abused Misetes, and then imitated him in his worst 
 acts of violence. In the calmness of a good conscience Pamphilus 
 contented himself with the following reply : " Even so, if I were out 
 on a shooting Party with a Quaker for my companion, and saw com- 
 ing on towards us an old Footpad and Murderer, who had made 
 known his intention of killing me wherever he might meet me ; 
 and if my companion the Quaker would neither give me up 
 his Gun, nor even discharge it as (we will suppose) I had just before 
 unfortunately discharged my own ; if he would neither promise to 
 assist me nor even promise to make the least resistance to the Rob- 
 ber's attempt to disarm himself; you might call me a Robber for 
 wresting this Gun from my companion, though for no other pur- 
 pose, but that I might at least do for by myself, what he ought to 
 have done, but would not do either for, or with me ! Even so, and 
 as plausibly, you might exclaim : " O the Hypocrite Pamphilus, who 
 has not been deafened with his complaint against Robbers and Foot- 
 pads ? and lo ! he himself has turned Foot-pad and commenced by 
 robbing his peaceful and unsuspecting Companion of his double- 
 barrelled Gun !" It is the business of The Friend to lay down 
 Principles not to make the applications of them to particular, much 
 less, to recent cases. If any such there be, to which these Principle? 
 are fairly applicable, the Reader is no less master of the facts than 
 the Writer of the present Essay. If not, the Principles remain : and 
 the Friend has finished the Task, which the Plan of his Work im- 
 posed on him, of proving the identity of international Law and the- 
 Law of Morality in spirit, and the reasons of their difference in prac- 
 tice, in those extreme cases in which alone they have been allowed 
 to differ. 
 
 PENRITH : PP1NTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN ; AND SOLD »7 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, ANB 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
; 
 
 THE PRlElA 
 — 
 
 t 
 
 No. 25, THURSDAY, February 22, i8iC>; 
 EPITAPHS 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM CHIABR&RA, 
 
 1. 
 
 Perhaps some needful service of the State 
 Drew Titus from the depth of studious bowers; 
 And doomed him to contend in faithless courts; 
 Where gold determines between right and wrong. 
 Yet did at length his loyalty of heart 
 And his pure native genius lead him back 
 To wait upon the bright and gracious Muses 
 Whom he had early lov'd; And not in vain 
 Such course he held ! Bologna's learned schools 
 Were gladdened by the Sage's voice, and hung 
 With fondness on those sweet Nestrian strains. 
 There did he live content ; and all his thoughts 
 Were blithe as vernal flowers.— O human life, 
 That never art secure from dolorous change ! 
 Behold a high injunction suddenly 
 To Arno's side conducts him, and he Charm* d 
 A Tuscan audience • but full soon was call'd 
 To the perpetual silence of the grave. 
 Mourn, Italy, the loss of him who stood 
 A Champion steadfast and invincible, 
 To quell the rage of literary War ! 
 
 2. 
 
 O Thou who movest onward with a mind 
 
 Intent upon thy way, pause though in haste ! 
 
 J Twill be no fruitless moment. 1 was bom ; 
 
 Within Savona's walls of gentle blood, j 
 
 On Tiber's banks my youth was dedicate 
 
 To sacred studies ; and the Roman Shepherd 
 
 Gave to my charge Urbino's numerous Flock, 
 
40? THE FRIEND. 
 
 Much did I watch, much laboured ; nor had power 
 
 To escape from many and strange indignities ; 
 
 Was smitten by the great ones of the World 
 
 But did not fall, for virtue braves all shocks, 
 
 Upon herself resting immoveably. 
 
 Me did a kindlier fortune then invite 
 
 To serve the glorious Henry, King of France, 
 
 And in his hands I saw a high reward 
 
 Stretch'd out for my acceptance — but Death came. — ■ 
 
 Now, Reader, learn from this my fate — how false 
 
 How treacherous to her promise is the World, 
 
 And trust in God — to whose eternal doom 
 
 Must bend the Sceptred Potentates of Earth. 
 
 In this, and some preceding Numbers, has been 
 given a selection of Epitaphs from the Italian Poet 
 Chiabrera ; in one instance imitated, and in the others 
 carefully translated. The perusal of the original collection 
 afforded me so much pleasure that I was induced to think 
 upon the nature of that species of composition with more 
 care than I had previously bestowed upon the Subject : 
 the result of my reflections may perhaps be interesting to 
 the Readers of The Fkiend. An attempt will be made 
 to unfold the Laws of Taste and Criticism systematically, 
 as soon as certain topics, which have already been entered 
 upon, shall be concluded : in the mean while, I wish to 
 avail myself of the present occasion to tempt the more 
 practised Reader into a short prelusive exercise of pow- 
 ers which he will hereafter be called upon to put forth in 
 good earnest ; and, in respect to those Persons who are 
 unfamiliar with such speculations, my labour, in the 
 present Essay, may be likened to that of a Teacher of 
 Geology, who, to awaken the curiosity of his Pupils, and 
 to induce them to prepare for the study of the inner 
 constitution of the Planet, lectures with" a few specimens 
 of fossils and minerals in his hand, arranged in their 
 several classes, and the beauty of which he points out 
 to their attention. 
 
 " To define an Epitaph," says Dr. Johnson, " is use- 
 less ; every one knows that it is an inscription on a Tomb. 
 An Epitaph, therefore, implies no particular character of 
 writing, but may be composed in verse or prose. It is 
 indeed commonly panegyrical; because we are seldom 
 distinguished with a Stone but by our Friends; but it 
 
 
•the triend. 403 
 
 lias no rule to restrain or mollify it, except this, that it 
 Ought not to be longer than common beholders may have 
 leisure or patience to peruse." From this introduction 
 the Critic immediately proceeds to a review of the metri- 
 cal Epitaphs of Pope, This summary opinion is delivered 
 with such laxity that, even on that account, the passage 
 would not have deserved to be quoted, if it had not been 
 forced upon the notice of our Countrymen, by the place 
 which it occupies in the book entitled, " The Lives Of the 
 most eminent English Poets," by the same Writer. I 
 now solicit the Reader's attention to a more compre- 
 hensive view of the subject ; and shall endeavour to treat 
 it with more precision. 
 
 It needs scarcely be Said, that an Epitaph presup- 
 poses a Monument upon which it is to be engraven. 
 Almost all Nations have wished that certain external 
 Signs should point out the places where their Dead are 
 interred. Among savage Tribes unacquainted with Let- 
 ters, this has mostly been done either by rude stones placed 
 near the Graves, or by Mounds of earth raised over them. 
 This custom proceeded obviously from a twofold desire ; 
 'first, to guard the remains of the deceased from irreverent 
 approach or from savage violation ; and, secondly, to 
 preserve their memory. Never any, says Cambden, neg- 
 lected burial but some savage Nations ; as the Bactrians 
 which cast their dead to the dogs; some, varlet Philoso- 
 phers, as Diogenes, who desired to be devoured of fishes ; 
 some dissolute Courtiers, as Mecaenas, who was wont to 
 say, Non tumulum euro ; sepelit natura relictos, 
 
 I'm careless of a Grave: — Nature her dead will save. 
 
 As soon as Nations had learned the use of letters, 
 Epitaphs were inscribed upon these Monuments ; in order 
 that their intention might be more surely and adequately 
 fulfilled. I have derived vlonuments and Epitaphs from 
 two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolve them- 
 selves into one. The invention of Epitaphs, Weever, in his 
 discourse of funeral Monuments, says rightly, " proceeded 
 from the presage or fore-feeling of Immortality, implanted 
 in all men naturally, and is referred to the Scholars of 
 Linus the Theban Poet, who flourished about the year of 
 the World two thousand seven hundred ; who first be- 
 \vailed this Linus their Master, when he was siain, in 
 doleful verses then called of him GElina, afterwards Epita- 
 
404 THE FRIEND. 
 
 phia, for that they were first sung at burials, after engraved 
 upon the Sepulchres." 
 
 And, verily, without the consciousness of a principle of 
 Immortality in the human soul, Man could never have had 
 awakened in himthe desire to live in the remembrance of his 
 fellows ; mere love, or the yearning of Kind towards Kind, 
 could not have produced it. The Dog or Horse perishes in 
 the field, or in the stall, by the side of his Companions, and is 
 incapable of anticipating the sorrow with which his sur- 
 rounding Associates shall bemoan his death, or pine for 
 his loss ; he cannot pie-conceive this regret, he can form 
 no thought of it ; and therefore cannot possibly have a 
 desire to leave such regret or remembrance behind him. 
 Add to the principle of love, which exists in the inferior 
 animals, the faculty of reason which exists in Man alone ; 
 will the conjunction of these account for the desire? 
 Doubtless it is a necessary consequence of this con- 
 junction, yet not I think as a direct result, but only to be 
 come at through an intermediate thought, viz. that of an 
 intimation or assurance within us, that some part of our 
 nature is imperishable. At least the precedence in order 
 of birth, of one feeling to the other is unquestionable. If 
 we look back upon the days of childhood, we shall find 
 that the time is not in remembrance when, with respect 
 to our own individual Being, the mind was without this 
 assurance; whereas, the wish to be remembered by our 
 Friends or Kindred after Death, or even in x\bsence, is, as 
 we shall discover, a sensation that does not form itself till 
 the social feelings have been developed, and the Reason 
 has connected itself with a wide range of objects. Forlorn, 
 and cut off from communication with the best part of his 
 nature, must that Man be, who should derive the sense of 
 immortality, as it exists in the mind of a child, from the 
 same unthinking gaiety or liveliness of animal Spirits with 
 which the Lamb in the meadow, or any other irrational 
 Creature, is endowed ; who should ascribe it, in short, to 
 blank ignorance in the Child ; to an inability arising from 
 the imperfect state of his faculties to come, in any point 
 of his being, into contact with a notion of Death ; or to an 
 unreflecting acquiescence in what has been instilled in to 
 him ! Has such an unfolder of the mysteries of Nature, 
 though he may have forgotten his former self, ever noticed 
 the early, obstinate, and unappeaseable inquisitiveness of 
 Children upon the subject of origination ? This single 
 
THE FRIEND. 405 
 
 fact proves outwardly the monsttousness of those suppo- 
 sitions : for, if we had no direct external testimony that 
 the minds of very young Children meditate feelingly upon 
 Death and Immortality, these enquiries, which we all 
 know they are perpetually making concerning the whence, 
 do necessarily include correspondent habits of interroga- 
 tion concerning the whither. Origin and tendency are 
 notions inseparably co-relative. Never did a Child stand 
 by the side of a running Stream, pondering within himself 
 what power was the feeder of the perpetual current, from 
 what never-wearied sources the body of water was sup- 
 plied, but he must have been inevitably propelled to 
 follow this question by another : " towards what abyss is 
 it in progress ? what receptacle can contain the mighty 
 influx ? and the spirit of the answer must have been, 
 though the word might be Sea or Ocean, accompanied 
 perhaps with an image gathered from a Map, or from the 
 real object in Nature — these might have been the letter, 
 but the spirit of the answer must have been as inevitably, 
 a receptacle without bounds or dimensions, nothing less 
 than infinity. We may, then, be justified in asserting 
 that the sense of Immortality, if not co-existent and twin 
 birth with Reason, is among the earliest of its' Offspring : 
 and we may further assert, that from these conjoined, and 
 under their countenance, the human affections are gra- 
 dually formed and opened out. This is not the place to 
 enter into the recesses of these investigations ; but the 
 subject requires me here to make a plain avowal that, for 
 my own part, it is to me inconceivable, that the sympa- 
 thies of love towards each other, which grow with our 
 growth, could ever attain any new strength, or even pre- 
 serve the old, after we had received from the outward 
 senses the impression of Death, and were in the habit of 
 having that impression daily renewed and it's accompany- 
 ing feeling brought home to ourselves, and to those we 
 love ; if the same were not counteracted by those commu- 
 nications with our internal Being, which are anterior to all 
 these experiences, and with which revelation coincides, 
 and has through that coincidence alone (for otherwise it 
 could not possess it) a power to affect us. I confess, with 
 me the conviction is absolute, that, if the imprtssion and 
 sense of Death were not thus counterbalanced, such a 
 hollowness would prevade the whole system of things, 
 such a want of correspondence and consistency, a dispro- 
 
406 THE FRIEND. 
 
 portion so astounding betwixt means and ends, that ther* 
 could be no repose, no joy. Were we to grow up unfos? 
 tered by this genial warmth, a frost would chiil the spirit, 
 so penetrating and powerful, that there could be no, 
 motions of the life of love; and infinitely less could we 
 have any wish to be remembered after we had passed 
 away from a world in which each man had moved about 
 like a shadow. 
 
 Simonides, it is related, upon landing in a strange. 
 Country, found the Corse of an unknown person, lying 
 by the Sea side ; he buried it, and was honoured through- 
 out Greece for the piety of that Act. Another ancient 
 Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes upon a dead Body, 
 regarded the same with slight, if not with contempt; say- 
 ing, " see the Shell of the flown Bird." But it is not to 
 be supposed that the moral and tender hearted Simonides 
 was incapable of the lofty movements of thought, to which 
 that other Sage gave way at the moment while his soul 
 was intent only upon the indestructible being ; or, on the 
 other hand, that he, in whose sight a lifeless human Body 
 was of no more value than the worthless Shell from which 
 the living fowl had departed, would not, in a different mood 
 of mind, have been affected by those earthly considera- 
 tions which had incited the philosophic Poet to the per- 
 formance of that pious duty with respect to the latter, we 
 may be assured that, if he had been destitute of the capabi- 
 lity of communing with the more exalted thoughts that 
 appertain to human Nature, he would have cared no more 
 for the Corse of the Stranger than for the dead body of a 
 Seal or Porpoise which might have been cast up by the 
 Waves. We respect the corporeal frame of Man, not 
 merely because it is the habitation of a rational, but of an 
 immortal Soul. Each of these Sages was in sympathy 
 with the best feelings of our Nature ; feelings which, 
 though they seem opposite to each other, have another 
 and a finer connection than that of contrast. — It is a con- 
 nection formed through the subtle progress by which,, both 
 in the natural and the moral world, qualities pass insen- 
 sibly into their contraries, ^nd things revolve upon each 
 other. As, in sailing upon the orb of this Planet, a 
 voyage, towards the ' regions where the sun sets, conducts 
 gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomed 
 to behold it come forth at its' rising ; and, in like man- 
 ner, a voyage towards the eastj the birth-place in our 
 
THE FRIEND. 407 
 
 imagination of the morning, leads finally to the quarter 
 where the Sun is last seen when he departs from our eyes ; 
 so, the contemplative soul, travelling in the direction of 
 mortality, advances to the Country of everlasting Life ; 
 and, in like manner, may she eontinue to explore those 
 chearful tracts, till she is brought back, for her advantage 
 and benefit, to the land of transitory things— of sorrow and 
 of tears. 
 
 On a midway point, therefore, which commands the 
 thoughts and feelings of the two Sages whom we have 
 represented in contrast, does the Author of that species of 
 composition, the Laws of which it is our present purpose 
 to explain, take his stand. Accordingly, recurring to the 
 twofold desire which has been deduced from the higher 
 feeling, namely, the consciousness of immortality, it may 
 be said, that a sepulchral Monument is a tribute to a Man 
 as a human Being; and that an Epitaph, (in the ordinary 
 meaning attached to the word) includes this general feel- 
 ing and something more ; and is a record to preserve 
 the memory of the dead, as a tribute due to his individual 
 worth, for a satisfaction to the sorrowing hearts of the 
 Survivors, and for the common benefit of the living : which 
 record is to be accomplished, not in a general manner, 
 but in close connection with the bodily remains of the de- 
 ceased : and these, it may be added, among the modern 
 Nations of Europe are deposited within, or contiguous to 
 their places of worship. In ancient times, as is well 
 known, it was the custom to bury the dead beyond the 
 Walls of Towns and Cities ; and among the Greeks and 
 Romans they were frequently interred bv the way-sides. 
 
 I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the 
 Reader to indulge with me in contemplation of the ad- 
 vantages which must have attended such a practice. I 
 could ruminate upon the beauty which the Monuments, 
 thus placed, must have borrowed from the surrounding 
 images of Nature — from the trees, the wild flowers, from 
 a stream running perhaps within sight or hearing, from the 
 beaten road stretching it's weary length hard by. Many 
 tender similitudes must these objects have presented to 
 the mind of the Traveller, leaning upon one of the Tombs, 
 or reposing in the coolness of it's shade, whether he had 
 halted from weariness or in compliance to the invitation, 
 " Pause Traveller!" so often found upon the Monuments. 
 And to it's Epitaph also must have been supplied strong 
 
4©S THE FRIEND. 
 
 appeals t© visible appearances or immediate impressions, 
 lively and affecting analogies o f Life as a Journey — Death 
 as a Sleep overcoming the tired Wayfarer — of Misfortune 
 as a Storm that falls suddenly upon him — of Beauty as a 
 Flower that passeth away, or of innocent pleasure as one 
 that may be gathered— of Virtue that standeth firm as a 
 Rock against the beating Waves ;— of Hope " undermined 
 insensibly like the poplar by the side of the River that 
 has fed it," or blasted in a moment like a Fine-tree bv the 
 stroke of lightening upon the Mountain top — of admoni- 
 tions and heart- stirring remembrances, like a refreshing 
 Breeze that comes without warning, or the faste of the 
 waters of an unexpected Fountain. These, and similar 
 suggestions must have given, formerly, to the language of 
 the senseless stone a voice enforced and endeared by the 
 benignity of that Nature with which it was in unison. — ■ 
 We in modern times have lost much of these advantages : 
 and they are but in a small degree counterbalanced to the 
 Inhabitants of large Towns and Cities, by the custom of de- 
 positing the Dead within, or contiguous to, their places of 
 worship ; however splendid or imposing may be the ap- 
 pearances of those Edifices, or however interesting or 
 salutary the recollections associated with them. Even 
 were it not true that Tombs lose their monitory virtue 
 When thus obtruded upon the notice 6f Men occupied 
 with the cares of the World, and too often sullied and 
 defiled by those cares, yet still, when Death is in our 
 thoughts, nothing can make amends for the want of the 
 soothing influences of Nature, and for the absence of those 
 types of renovation and decay, which the fields and woods 
 offer to the notice of the serious and contemplative mind. 
 To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man only com- 
 pare in imagination the unsightly manner in which our 
 Monuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, un- 
 clean, and almost grassjess Church-yard of a large Town, 
 with the still seclusion of a Turkish Cemetry, in some 
 remote place, and yet further sanctified by the Grove of 
 Cypress in which it is embosomed. Thoughts in the 
 game temper as these, have already been expressed with 
 true sensibility by an ingenious Foet of the present day. 
 The subject of his Foem is " All Saint's Church, Derby I'* 
 he has been deploring the forbidden and unseemly ap- 
 pearance of its' burial-ground, and uttering a wish, that in 
 past times the practices had been adopted of interring tb.6 
 Inhabitants of large Towns in the Country.— 
 
THE FRIEND. 409 
 
 " Then in some rural, calm, sequestered spot, 
 Where healing Nature her benignant look 
 Ne'*T changes, save at that lorn season, when, 
 Wi'.h tresses drooping o'er her sable stole, 
 She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man, 
 Her noblest work, (so Israel's virgins erst, 
 With annual moan upon the mountains wept 
 Their fairest gone) there in that rural scene, 
 So placid, so congenial to the wish 
 The i 'hristian feels, of peaceful rest within 
 The silent grave, I would have stray' d : 
 
 - — wandered forth, where the cold dew of heaven 
 
 Lay on the humbler graves around, what time 
 
 The pale moon gazed upon the turfy mounds, 
 
 Pensive, as though like me, in lonely muse, 
 
 'Twere brooding on the Dead inhum'd beneath. 
 
 There, while with him, the holy Man of Uz, 
 
 O'er human destiny I sympathiz'd, 
 
 Counting the long, long periods prophecy 
 
 Decrees to roll, ere the great day arrives 
 
 Of resurrection, oft the blue-eyed Spring 
 
 Had met me with her blossoms, as the Dove 
 
 Of old, returned with olive leaf, to cheer 
 
 The Patriarch mourning o'er a world destroy'd : 
 
 And I would bless her visit ; for to me 
 
 'Tis sweet to trace the consonance that links 
 
 As one, the works of Nature and the word 
 
 Of God." JohnEpwards. 
 
 A Village Church-yard, lying as it does in the lap of 
 Nature, may indeed be most favourably contrasted with 
 that of a ' own of crowded Population ; and Sepulture 
 therein combines many of the best tendencies which be- 
 long to the mode practised by the Ancients, with others 
 peeuliar to itself. The sensations of pious chearfulness, 
 which attend the celebration of the Sabbath-day in rural 
 places, are profitably chastised by the sight of the Graves 
 of Kindred and Friends, gathered together in that general 
 Home towards which the thoughtful yet happy Spectators 
 themselves are journeying. Hence a Parish Church, in 
 the stiilness of the Country, is a visible centre of a com- 
 munity of the living and the dead ; a point to which are 
 habitually referred the nearest concerns of both. 
 
iK^ THE FRIEND. 
 
 As, then, bith in Cities and in Villages, the Bead are 
 deposited in close connection with our places of worship, 
 with us the composition of an Epitaph naturally turns still 
 more than among the Nations of Antiquity, upon the most 
 6erious and solemn affections of the human mind ; upon 
 departed Worth — upon personal or social Sorrow and Ad- 
 miration— upon Religion individual and social — upon 
 Time, and upon Eternity. Accordingly it suffices, in ordi- 
 nary cases, to secure a composition of this kind from cen- 
 sure, that it contains nothing that shall shock or be incon- 
 sistent with this spirit. But to entitle an Epitaph to praise 
 more than this is necessary. It ought to contain somer 
 Thought or Feeling belonging to the mortal or immortal 
 part of our Nature touchingly expressed ; and if that be 
 done, however general or even trite the sentiment may be, 
 every man of pure mind will read the words with pleasure 
 and gratitude. A Husband bewails a wife ; a Parent 
 breathes a sigh of disappointed Hope over a lost Child ; 
 A Son utters a sentiment of filial reverence for a departed 
 Father or Mother ; a Friend perhaps inscribes an enco- 
 mium recording the companionable qualities, or the solid 
 virtues, of the Tenant of the Grave, whose departure has 
 left a sadness upon his memory. This, and a pious admo- 
 nition to the Living, and a humble expression of Christian 
 confidence in Immortality, is the language of a thousand 
 Church yards ; and it does not often happen that any 
 thing, in a greater degree discriminate or appropriate to 
 the Dead or to the Living, is to be found in them. This 
 want of discrimination has been ascribed by the Critic 
 above quoted, to two causes ; first, the scantiness of the 
 Objects of human praise ; and, secondly, to the want of 
 variety in the Characters of Men ; or to use his own words, 
 " to the fact, that the greater part of Mankind have no 
 Character at all." This is language which may be holden 
 without blame among the generalities of common conver- 
 sation ; but does not become a Critic and a Moralist 
 speaking seriously upon a serious Subject. The objects 
 Of admiration in Human Nature are not scanty but abun- 
 dant; and every Man has a Character of his own, to the 
 eye that has skill to perceive it. The real cause of the 
 acknowledged want of discrimination in sepulchral memo- 
 rials jsthis : That to analyse the Characters of others, espe- 
 cially of those whom we love, is not a common or natural 
 employment of Men, at any time. We are not anxious 
 
THE FRIEND. 411 
 
 unerringly to understand the constitution of the Minds of 
 those who have soothed, who have cheered, who have 
 supported us ; wilh whom we have been long and daily 
 pleased or delighted. The affections are their own justifi-- 
 cation. The Light of Love in our Hearts is a satisfactory 
 evidence that there is a flame of worth in the minds of our 
 friends or kindred, whence that Light has proceeded. 
 We shrink from the thought of placing their merits and 
 defects to be weighed against each other in the nice ba- 
 lance of pure intellect ; nor do we find much temptation 
 to detect the shades by which a good quality or virtue is 
 discriminated in them from an excellence known by the 
 same general name as it exists in the mind of another ; 
 and least of all do we incline to these refinements when 
 under the pressure of Sorrow, Admiration, or Regret, or 
 when actuated by any of those feelings which incite men 
 to prolong the memory of their Friends and Kindred, by 
 records placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equali- 
 zing Receptacle of the Dead. 
 
 The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should 
 speak, in a tone which shall sink into the heart, the gene- 
 ral language of humanity as connected with the subject of 
 Death — the source from which an Epitaph proceeds, of 
 death and of life. To be born and to die are the two 
 points in which all men feel themselves to be in absolute 
 coincidence. This general language may be uttered so 
 strikingly as to entitle an Epitaph to high praise ; yet it 
 cannot lay clajm to the highest unless other excellencies be 
 {superadded. Passing through all intermediate steps, we 
 will attempt to determine at once what these excellencies 
 are, and wherein consists the perfection of this species of 
 composition. It will be found to lie in a due proportion 
 of the common or universal feeling of humanity to sensa- 
 tions excited by a distinct and clear conception, conveyed 
 to the Reader's mind, of the Individual, whose death is 
 deplored and whose memory is to be preserved ; at least 
 of his character as, after death, it appeared to those who 
 loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy 
 ought to be quickened, provoked, and diversified, by par- 
 ticular thoughts, actions, images, — circumstances of age, 
 occupation, manner of life, prosperity which the Deceased 
 had known, or adversity to which he had been subject ; 
 &nd these ought to be bound together and solemnized into 
 one harmony by the general sympathy. The tAvo powers 
 
412 THE FRIEND. 
 
 should temper, restrain, and exalt each other. The Read- 
 er ought to know who and what the Man was whom he is 
 called upon to think of with interest. A distinct concep- 
 tion should be given (implicitly where it can, rather than 
 explicitly) of the Individual lamented. But the Writer of an 
 Epitaph is not an Anatomist who dissects the internal 
 frame of the mind ; he is not even a Painter who executes 
 a portrait at leisure and in entire tranquillity : his deliena- 
 tion, we must remember, is performed by the side of the 
 Grave ; and, what is more, the grave of one whom he 
 loves and admires. What purity and brightness is that 
 virtue cloathed in, the image of which must no longer 
 bless our living eyes ! The character of a deceased Friend 
 or beloved Kinsman is not seen, no — nor ought to be seen, 
 other than as a Tree through a tender haze or a luminous 
 mist, that spiritualizes and beautifies it ; that takes away 
 indeed, but only to the end that the parts which are not 
 abstracted may appear more dignified and lovely, may im- 
 press and affect the more. Shall we say then that this is 
 not truth, not a faithful image ; and that accordingly the 
 purposes of commemoration cannot be answered ? — It w 
 truth, and of the highest order! for, though doubtless 
 things are not apparent which did exist, yet, the object 
 being looked at through this medium, parts and proportions 
 are brought into distinct view which before had been only 
 imperfectly or unconsciously seen : it is truth hallowed 
 by love— the joint offspring of the worth of the Dead and 
 the affections of the Living! This may easily be brought 
 to the test. Let one, whose eyes have been sharpened by 
 personal hostility to discover what was amiss in the cha- 
 racter of a good man, hear the tidings of his death, and 
 what a change is wrought in a moment ! — Enmity melts 
 away; and, as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, 
 and deformity, vanish ; and, through the influence of com- 
 miseration, a harmony of love and beauty succeeds. Bring 
 such a Alan to the Tomb-stone on which shall be in- 
 scribed an Epitaph on his Adversary, composed in the 
 spirit which we have recommended. Would lie turn from 
 it as from an idle tale ? Ah! no — the thoughtful look, the 
 sigh, and perhaps the involuntary tear, would testify that 
 it had a sane, a generous, and good meaning ; and that on 
 the Writer's mind had remained an impression which was 
 a true abstract of the character of the deceased ; that his 
 gifts and graces were remembered in the simplicity in 
 
THE FRIEND. 413 
 
 which they ought to be remembered. The composition 
 and quality of the mind of a virtuous man, contemplated 
 by the side of the Grave where his body is mouldering, 
 ought to appear and be felt as something midway between 
 vvhathe wason Earth walking about with his living frailties, 
 and what he may be presumed to be as a Spirit in Heaven. 
 
 It suffices, therefore, that the Trunk and the main 
 Branches of the Worth of the Deceased be boldly and un- 
 affectedly represented. Any further detail, minutely and 
 scrupulously pursued, especially if this be done with labo- 
 rious and antithetic discriminations, must inevitably frus- 
 trate it's own purpose ; forcing the passing Spectator to 
 this conclusion, — either that the Dead did not possess 
 the merits ascribed to him, or that they who have raised a 
 monument to his memory and must therefore be. supposed 
 to have been closely connected with him, were incapable 
 of perceiving those merits ; or at least during the act of 
 composition had lost sight of them ; for, the Understanding 
 having been so busy in it's petty occupation, how could 
 the heart of the Mourner be other than cold ? and in either 
 of these cases, whether the fault be on the part of the 
 buried Person or the Survivors, the Memorial is unaffect- 
 ing and profitless. 
 
 Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to 
 pursue it too far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no 
 place are we so much disposed to dwell upon those points, 
 of nature and condition, wherein all Men resemble each 
 other, as in the Temple where the universal Father is 
 worshipped, or by the aide of the Grave which gathers all 
 Human Beings to itself, and " equalizes the lofty and the 
 low." We suffer and we weep with the same heart ; we 
 love and are anxious for one another in one spirit ; our 
 hopes look to the same quarter ; and the virtues by which 
 we are all to be furthered and supported, as patience, 
 meekness, good-will, temperance, and temperate desires, 
 are in an equal degree the concern of us all. Let an 
 Epitaph then, contain at least these acknowledgments to 
 our common nature ; nor let the sense of their impor- 
 tance be sacrificed to a balance of opposite qualities or 
 minute distinctions in individual character ; which if they 
 do not, (as will for the most part be the case) when exa- 
 mined, resolve themselves into a trick of words, will, even 
 when they are true and just, for the most part be griev- 
 ously out of place ; for, as it is probable that few only have 
 
414 THE FRIEND. 
 
 explored these intricacies of human nature, so can the 
 tracing of them be interesting - only to a few. But an 
 Epitaph is not a proud Writing shut up for the studious ; 
 it is exposed to all, to the wise and the most ignorant ; it 
 is condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits re- 
 gard ; it's story and admonitions are brief, that the thought- 
 less, the busy and indolent, may not be deterred, nor the 
 impatient tired ; the stooping Old Man cons the engraven 
 record like a second horn-book - — the Child is proud that 
 he can read it — and the Stranger is introduced by it's 
 mediation to the company of a Friend : it is concerning 
 all, and for all : — in the Church-yard it is open to the day ; 
 the sun looks down upon the stone, and the rains of 
 Heaven beat against it. 
 
 Yet, though the Writer who would excite sympathy 
 is bound in this casf more than in any other, to giye proof 
 that he himself has been moved, it is to be remembered, 
 that to raise a Monument is a sober and a reflective act; 
 that the inscription which it bears is intended to be per- 
 manent and for universal perusal ; and that, for this reason, 
 the thoughts and feelings expressed should be permanent 
 also — liberated from that weakness and anguish of sorrow 
 which is in nature transitory, and which with instinc- 
 tive decency retires from notice. The passions should be 
 subdued, the emotions controlled; strong indeed, but no- 
 thing ungovernable or wholly involuntary. Seemliness 
 requires this, and truth requires it also : for how can the 
 Narrator otherwise be trusted ? Moreover, a Grave is a 
 tranquillizing object ; resignation, in course of time, 
 springs up from it as naturally as the wild flowers, be- 
 sprinkling the turf with which it may be covered, or 
 gathering round the monument by which it is defended. 
 The very form and substance of the monument which has 
 received the inscription, and the appearance of the letters, 
 testifying with what a slow and laborious hand they must 
 have been engraven, might seem to reproach the Author 
 who had given way upon this occasion to transports of 
 mind, or to quick turns of conflicting passion ; though the 
 same might constitute the life and beauty of a funeral 
 Oration or elegiac Poem. 
 
 These sensations and judgements, acted upon perhaps 
 unconsciously, have been one of the main causes why 
 Epitaphs so often personate the Deceased, and represent 
 him as speaking from his own Tomb-stone. The departed 
 
THE FRIEND. 415 
 
 Mortal is introduced telling you himself that his pains ar« 
 gone ; that a state of rest is come ; and he conjures you 
 to weep for him no longer. He admonishes with the 
 voice of one experienced in the vanity of those affections 
 which are confined to earthly objects, and gives a verdict 
 like a superior Being, performing the office of a Judge, 
 who has no temptations to mislead him, and whose deci- 
 sion cannot but be dispassionate. Thus is Death dis- 
 armed of its' sting, and affliction unsubstantialized. By 
 this tender fiction the Survivors bind themselves to a 
 sedater sorrow, and employ the intervention of the imagir 
 nation in order that the reason may speak her own lan- 
 guage earlier than she would otherwise have been enabled 
 to do. This shadowy interposition also harmoniously 
 unites the two worlds of the Living and the Dead by their 
 appropriate affections. And I may observe, that here we 
 have an additional proof of the propriety with which 
 sepulchral inscriptions were referred to the consciousness 
 of Immortality as their primal source. 
 
 I do not speak with a wish to recommend that an 
 Epitaph should be cast in thi3 mould preferably to the still 
 more common one, in which what is said comes from the 
 Survivors directly ; but rather to point out how natural 
 those feelings are which have induced men, in all states 
 and ranks of Society, so frequently to adopt this mode. 
 And this I have done chiefly in order that the laws, which 
 ought to govern the composition of the other, may be 
 better understood. This latter mode, namely, that in 
 which the Survivors speak in their own Persons, seems to 
 me upon the whole greatly preferable : as it admits a 
 wider range of notices ; and, above all, because, excluding 
 the fiction which is the ground-work of the other, it rests 
 upon a more solid basis. 
 
 Enough has been said to convey our notion of a per- 
 fect Epitaph ; but it must be observed that one is meant 
 which will best answer the general ends of that species of 
 composition. According to the course pointed out, the 
 worth of private life, through all varieties of situation and 
 character, will be most honourably and profitably pre- 
 served in memory. Nor would the model recommended 
 less suit public Men, in all instances save those persons 
 who by the greatness of their services in the employments 
 of Peace or War, or by the surpassing excellence of their 
 works in Art, Literature, or Science, have made them- 
 
 
416 THE FRIEND. 
 
 selves not only universally known, but have filled the 
 heart of their Country with everlasting gratitude. Yet I 
 must here pause to correct myself. In describing the 
 general tenor of thought which Epitaphs ought to hold, I 
 have omitted to say, that, if it be the actions ot a Man, or 
 even some one conspicuous or beneficial act of local or 
 general utility which has distinguished him and excited a 
 desire that he should be remembered, then, of course, 
 ought the attention to be directed chiefly to those actions 
 or that act ; and such sentiments dwelt upon as naturally 
 arise out of them or it. Having made this necessary dis- 
 tinction I proceed. — The mighty Benefactors of mankind, 
 as they are not only known by the immediate Survivors, 
 but will continue to be known familiarly to latest Poster- 
 ity, do not stand in need of biographic sketches, in such a 
 place ; nor of delineations of character to individualize 
 them. This is already done by their actions, in the 
 Memories of Men. Their naked names, and a grand com- 
 prehensive sentiment of civic Gratitude, patriotic Love, or 
 human Admiration ; or the utterance of some elementary 
 Principle most essential in the constitution of true Virtue ; 
 or an intuition, communicated in adequate words, of the 
 sublimity of intellectual power ; — these are the only tribute 
 which can here be paid — the only offering that upon such 
 an Altar would not be unworthy ! 
 
 What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones 
 
 The labour of an age in piled stones, 
 
 Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid 
 
 Under a star-y-pointing pyramid ? 
 
 Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame, 
 
 What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ? 
 
 Thou in our wonder and astonishment 
 
 Hast built thyself a live-long Monument. 
 
 And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, 
 
 That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die. 
 
 JENRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN ; AND SOLD BV 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 
 CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON. 
 

 
 
 
 THE FKIEN'©. 
 
 No. 26, THURSDAY, March i, 1810. 
 
 SKETCHES AND FRAGMENTS OF THE LIFE AND CHA' 
 
 RACIER OF THE LATE ADMIRAL 
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL. 
 
 ( Continued from Number 22. J 
 
 An accessibility to the sentiments of others on Subjects 
 of importance often accompanies feeble minds, yet is not 
 the less a true and constituent part of practical greatness, 
 when it exists wholly free from that passiveness to im- 
 pression which renders counsel itself injurious to certain 
 characters, and from that weakness of heart which, in the 
 literal sense of the word is always craving advice. Exempt 
 from all such imperfections, say rather in perfect harmony 
 with the excellencies that preclude them, this openness to 
 the influxes of good sense and information, from what- 
 ever quarter they might come, equally characterized both 
 Lord Nelson and Sir Alexander Ball, though each dis- 
 played it in the way best suited to his natural temper. The 
 former with easy hand collected, as it passed by him, 
 whatever could add to his own stores, appropriated what 
 he could assimilate, and levied subsidies of knowledge 
 from all the accidents of social life, and familiar inter- 
 course. Even at the jovial board, and in the height of 
 unrestrained merriment, a casual suggestion, that flashed 
 a new light on his mind, changed the boon companion 
 into the Hero and the Man of Genius ; and with the most 
 graceful transition he would make his company as serious 
 as himself. When the taper of his genius seemed extin- 
 guished, it was still surrounded by an inflammable 
 atmosphere of it's own, and re-kindled at the first ap- 
 proach of light, and not seldom at a distance which made 
 it seem to flame up self-revived. In Sir Alexander Ball, 
 the same excellence wa6 more an affair of system : and 
 he would listen, even to weak men, with a patience, 
 which in so careful an economist of time, always de- 
 
41S THE FRIEND. 
 
 manded my admiration, and not seldom excited my won 
 der. It was one of his maxims, that a man may suggest 
 what he cannot give : adding, that a wild or silly plan had 
 more than once, from the vivid sense, and distinct per- 
 ception of its folly, occasioned him to see what ought to 
 be done in a new light, or with a clearer insight. There 
 is, indeed, a hopeless sterility, a mere negation of sense 
 and thought, which suggesting neither difference nor con- 
 trast, cannot even furnish hints for recollection. But on 
 the other hand, there are minds so whimsically consti- 
 tuted, that they may sometimes be profitably interpreted 
 by contraries, a process of which the great Tycho Brache 
 is said to have availed himself in the case of the Fool, who 
 used to sit and mutter at his Feet while he was studying. 
 A mind of this sort we may compare to a Magnetic 
 Needle, the poles of which had been suddenly reversed 
 by a flash of lightening, or other more obscure accident of 
 Nature. It may be safely concluded, that to those whose 
 judgement or information he respected, Sir Alexander Ball 
 did not content himself with giving access and attention. 
 No ! he seldom failed of consulting them whenever the 
 subject permitted any disclosure ; and where secreqy was 
 necessary, he well knew how to acquire their opinions 
 without exciting even a conjecture concerning his imme- 
 diate object. 
 
 Yet, with all this readiness of attention, and with all 
 this zeal in collecting the sentiments of the well-informed, 
 never was a man more completely uninfluenced by autho- 
 rity than Sir Alexander Ball, never one who sought less 
 to tranquilize his own doubts by the mere suffrage and co- 
 incidence of others. The ablest suggestions had no con- 
 clusive weight with him, till he had abstracted the opi- 
 nion from its author, till he had reduced it into a part of 
 his own mind. The thoughts of others were always ac- 
 ceptable, as affording him at least a chance of adding to 
 his materials for reflection ; but they never directed his 
 judgement, much less superseded it. He even made a 
 point of guarding against additional confidence in the sug- 
 gestions of his own mind, from finding that a person of ta- 
 lents had formed the same conviction : unless the person, 
 at the same time, furnished some new argument, or had 
 arrived at the same conclusion by a different road. Oh 
 the latter circumstance he set an especial value, and, 
 I may aimo? t say, courted the company and conversation 
 
THE FRIEND. 419 
 
 of those, whose pursuits had least resembled his own, if 
 they were men of clear and comprehensive faculties. Du- 
 ring the period of our intimacy, scarcely a week passed, in 
 which he did not desire me to think on some particular 
 subject, and to give him the result in writing. Most fre- 
 quently by the time I had fulfilled his request, he would 
 have written down his own thoughts, and then, with the 
 true simplicity of a great mind, as free from ostentation, as 
 it was above Jealousy, he would collate the two papers in 
 my presence, and never expressed more pleasure than in 
 the few instances, in which I had happened to light on all 
 the arguments and points of view which had occurred ta 
 himself, with some additional reasons which had escaped 
 him. A single new argument delighted him more than 
 the most perfect coincidence, unless, as before stated, the 
 train of thought had been very different from his own, and 
 yet just and logical. He had one quality of mind, which 
 I have heard attributed to the late Mr. Fox, that of de- 
 riving a keen pleasure from clear and powerful reasoning 
 for its own sake, a quality in the intellect which is nearly 
 connected with veracity and a love of justice in the moral 
 character.* 
 
 Valuing in others merits which he himself possessed, 
 Sir Alexander Ball felt no jealous apprehension of great 
 talent. Unlike those vulgar Functionaries, whose Place 
 is too big for them, a truth which the}' attempt to disguise 
 from themselves, and yet feel, he was under no necessity 
 of arming himself against the Natural Superiority of Ge- 
 nius by factitious contempt and an industrious association 
 of extravagance and impracticability, with every deviation 
 from the ordinary routine ; as the Geographers in the 
 middle ages used to designate on their meagre Maps, the 
 greater part of the World, as Desarts or Wildernesses, in- 
 
 • It may not be amis* to add, that the pleasure from the perception of 
 Truth was so well poised and regulated by the equal or greater delight in Uti- 
 lity, that his love of real accuracy was accompanied with a proportionate dis- 
 like of that hollow appearance of it, which may be produced by turns of phrase, 
 words placed in balanced antithesis, and those epigrammatic points that pas* 
 for subtle and luminous distinctions with ordinary Readers, but are most com- 
 monly translatable into mere truisms or trivialities, if indeed they containany 
 meaning at all. Having observed in some casual conversation, that though 
 there were doubtless masses of matter unorganized, 1 saw no ground for assert- 
 ing a mass of unorganized matter ; Sir A. B. paused, and then said to me, 
 with that frankness of manner which made his very rebukes gratifying, " The 
 distinction is just, and, now I understand you, abundantly obvious; but hardly 
 worth the trouble of your inventing a puzzle of words to make it appea* 
 •fherwise." 1 trust the rebuke was not lost on me. 
 
+20 THE FRIEND. 
 
 habited by Griffins and Chimaeras. Competent to weigh 
 each system or project by its own arguments, he did not 
 need these preventive charms and cautionary amulets 
 against delusion. He endeavoured to make talent instru- 
 mental to his purposes in whatever shape it appeared, and 
 with whatever imperfections it might be accompanied ; 
 but wherever talent was blended with moral worth, he 
 sought it out, loved, and cherished it. If it had pleased 
 Providence to preserve his life, and to place him on the 
 same course on which Nelson ran his race of Glory, there 
 are two points in which Sir Alexander Ball would most 
 closely have resembled his illustrious Friend. The first 
 ie, that in his enterprizes and engagements he would have 
 thought nothing done, till all had been done that was 
 possible : 
 
 " Nil actum reputans, si quid supresset agendum." 
 
 The second, that he would have called forth all the talent 
 and virtue that existed within his sphere of influence, and 
 created a band of Heroes, a gradation of officers, strong in 
 head and strong in heart, worthy to have been his Compa- 
 nions and his Successors in Fame and public Usefulness. 
 
 Never was greater discernment shewn in the selection 
 of a fit agent, than when Sir Alexander Ball was station- 
 ed off the Coast of Malta to intercept the supplies des- 
 tined for the French Garrison, and to watch the movements 
 of the French Commanders, and those of the Inhabitants 
 who had been so basely betrayed into their power. En- 
 couraged by the well-timed promises of the English Cap- 
 tain, the Maltese rose through all their Ca&als (or Country- 
 Town s) and themselves commenced the work of their 
 emancipation, by storming the Citadel atCivita Vecchia, 
 the ancient Metropolis of Malta, and the central height 
 of the Island. Without discipline, without a military 
 Leader, and almost without arms, these brave peasants 
 succeeded, and destroyed the French Garrison by throwing 
 them over the battlements into the trench of the Citadel. 
 In the course of this blockade, and of the tedious siege of 
 Valiette, Sir Alexander Ball displayed til! that strength of 
 character, that variety and versatility of talent, and thai sa- 
 gacity, derived in part from habitual circumspection, but 
 which,' when the occasion demanded it, appeared intuitive 
 and like an instinct ; at the union of which, in the same 
 Man, one of our oldest naval Commander* once told me, 
 
THE FRIEND. 421 
 
 " he could never exhaust his wonder." The Citizens of 
 Vallette were fond of relating their astonishment, and that 
 of the French, at Captain Ball's Ship wintering at anchor 
 out of the reach of the Guns, in %depth of fathom unex- 
 ampled, on the assured impracticability of which the Gar- 
 rison had rested their main hope of regular supplies. 
 Nor can I forget, or remember without some portion of 
 my original feeling, the solemn enthusiasm with which 
 a venerable old man, belonging to one of the distant Ca- 
 sals, shewed me the Sea Coombe, where their Father 
 Ball, (for so they commonly called him) first landed; 
 and afterwards pointed out the very place, on which he 
 first stepped on their Island, while the countenances of 
 his Townsmen, who accompanied him, gave lively proofs, 
 that the old man's enthusiasm was the representative of 
 the common feeling. There is no reason to suppose, that 
 Sir Alexander Ball was at any time chargeable with that 
 weakness so frequent in Englishmen, and so injurious to 
 our interests abroad, of despising the Inhabitants of other 
 Countries, of losing all their good qualities in their vices, 
 of making no allowance for those vices, from their religious 
 or political impediments, and still more of mistaking for 
 vices, a mere difference of manners and customs. But if 
 ever he had any of this erroneous feeling, he completely 
 freed himself from it, by living among the Maltese during 
 their arduous trials, as long as the French continued mas- 
 ters of the Capital. He witnessed their virtues, and 
 learnt to understand in what various shapes and even dis- 
 guises the valuable parts of human Nature may exist. In 
 many Individuals, whose littleness and meanness in the 
 common intercourse of life would have stamped them at 
 once as contemptible aud worthless, with ordinary En- 
 glishmen, he had found such virtues of disinterested pa- 
 triotism, fortitude, and self-denial, as would have done ho- 
 nour to an ancient Roman. 
 
 There exists in England, a gentlemanly character, a 
 gentlemanly feeling, very different even from that, which 
 is the most like it, the character of a well-born Spaniard, 
 and unexampled in the rest of Europe. This feeling pro- 
 bably originated in the fortunate circumstance, that the 
 Titles of our English Nobility follow the law of their 
 Property, and are inherited by the eldest Sons only. 
 From this source, under the influences of our Constitution, 
 and of our astonishing Trade, it has diffused itself in 
 
492 THE FRIEND. 
 
 different modifications through the whole Country 
 The uniformity of our Dress among all classes above that 
 of the day labourer, while it has authorized all classes to 
 assume the appearance of Gentlemen, has at the same 
 time inspired the wish to conform their manners, and still 
 more their ordinary actions in social intercourse, to their 
 notions of a Gentleman, the most commonly received 
 attribute of which, is a certain generosity in trifles. On 
 the other hand, the encroachments of the lower classes 
 on the higher, occasioned, and favoured by this resem- 
 blance in exteriors, and the absence of any cognizable 
 marks of distinction, have rendered each class more 
 reserved and jealous in their general communion, and 
 far more than our Climate, or natural Temper, have 
 caused that haughtiness and reserve in our outward 
 demeanor, which is so generally complained of among 
 Foreigners. Far be it from me to depreciate the value 
 of this gentlemanly feeling : I respect it under all its 
 forms and varieties, from the House of Commons, to 
 the Gentlemen in the one shilling Gallery. It is always 
 the ornament of Virtue, and oftentimes a support; but it 
 is a wretched substitute for it. Its worth, as a moral good, 
 is by no means in proportion to its' value, as a social ad- 
 vantage. These observations are not irrelevant: for to 
 the want of reflection, that this diffusion of gentlemanly 
 feeling among us, is not the growth of our moral excel- 
 lence, but the effect of various accidental advantages pe- 
 culiar to England ; to our not considering that it is unreason- 
 able and uncharitable to expect the same consequences, 
 where the same causes have not existed to produce them ; 
 and, lastly, to our proneness to regard the absence of this 
 character (which, as I have before said, does, for the 
 greater part, and, in the common apprehension, consist in 
 a certain frankness and generosity in the detail of action) 
 as decisive against the sum total of personal or national 
 worth ; we must, I am convinced, attribute a large portion 
 of that conduct, which in many instances has left the In- 
 habitants of Countries conquered or appropriated by Great 
 Britain, doubtful whether the various solid advantages 
 which they derived from our protection and just govern- 
 ment, were not bought dearly by the wounds inflicted on 
 their feelings and prejudices, by the contemptuous and 
 insolent demeanour of the English, as individuals. The 
 Reader who bears this remark in mind, will meet, in the 
 
THE FRIEHD. 423 
 
 course of this narration, more than one passage tHt will 
 serve as its' comment and illustration. 
 
 It was, I know, a general opinion among the English 
 in the Mediterranean, that Sir Alexander Ball thought 
 too well of the Maltese, and did not share in the enthusi- 
 asm of Britons, concerning their own superiority. To the 
 former part of the charge, 1 shall only reply at present, 
 that a more venial, and almost desirable fault, can scarcely 
 be attributed to a Governor, than that of a strong attach- 
 ment to the People whom he was sent to govern. The lat- 
 ter part of the charge is false, if we are to understand by it, 
 that he did not think his Countrymen superior on the whole 
 to the other Nations of Europe: but it is true, as far as 
 relates to his belief, that the English think themselves still 
 better than they are : that they dwelt on, and exagge- 
 rated their National Virtues, and weighed them by the op- 
 posite vices of Foreigners, instead of the virtues, which 
 those Foreigners possessed, and they themselves wanted. 
 Above all, as Statesmen, we must consider qualities by 
 their practical uses. Thus — he entertained, no doubt, 
 that the English were superior to all others in the kind, 
 and the degree of their courage, which is marked by far 
 greater enthusiasm, than the courage of the Germans and 
 northern Nations, and by a far greater steadiness and self- 
 subsistence, than that of the French. It is more closely 
 connected with the character of the Individual. The cou- 
 rage of an English army is the sum total of the courage 
 which the individual Soldiers bring with them to it, rather 
 than of that which they derive from it. When I was at 
 Naples, a Russian and an English Regiment were drawn 
 up together in the same square : " See," said a Neapolitan 
 tome, who had mistaken me for one of his Countrymen, 
 w there is but one face in that whole Regiment, while in 
 that" ( pointing to the English) " every Soldier has a face 
 of his own/') On the other hand, there are qualities 
 scarcely less requisite to the completion of the military 
 character, in which the English are inferior to the Conti- 
 nental Nations ; as for instance, both in the power and 
 the disposition to endure privations ; in the friendly tem- 
 per necessary, when troops of different Nations are to act 
 in concert ; in their obedience to the regulations of their 
 commanding Officers, respecting the treatment of the In- 
 habitants of the countries through which tkey are march- 
 ing, as well as in many other points, not immediately con- 
 
454 THE FRIEND. 
 
 nectedwith their conduct in the field ; but, above all, in 
 sobriety and temperance during the siege of Va I lette, espe- 
 cially during the sore distress to which the Besiegers were 
 for sometime exposed from the failure of provision, Sir 
 Alexander Ball had an ample opportunity of observing and 
 weighing the separate merits and demerits of the Natives, 
 and of the English Troops : and surely since the publica- 
 tion cf Sir John Moore's campaign, there can be no just 
 offence taken, though I should say, that before the walls 
 of Vallette, as well as in the plains of Gallicia an indig- 
 nant Commander might, with too great propriety, have ad- 
 dressed the English Soldiery in the words of an old Dra- 
 matist -r— 
 
 Will you still owe your virtues to your bellies ? 
 And only then think nobly when y'are full ? 
 Doth Fodder keep you honest? Are you bad 
 When out of Flesh ? And think you't an excuse 
 Of vile and ignominious actions, that 
 Y* are lean and out of liking ? 
 
 Caetwright's Love's Convert. 
 
 From the first insurrectionary movement to the final 
 departure of the French from the Island, though the civil 
 a,nd military powers and the whole of the Island, save 
 Vallette, were in the hands of the Peasantry, not a single 
 act of excess can be charged against the Maltese, if we 
 except the razing of one House at Civita Vecchia belong- 
 ing to a notorious and abandoned Traitor, the Creature and 
 Hireling of the French. In no instance did they injure, 
 insult, or plunder, any one of the native Nobility, or em- 
 ploy even the appearance of force toward them, except in 
 the collection of the Lead and Iron from t]ieir Houses and 
 Gardens, in order to supply themselves with bullets : and 
 this very appearance was assumed from the generous wish 
 to shelter the Nobles from the resentment of the French* 
 should the patriotic efforts of the Peasantry prove unsuc- 
 cessful. At the dire command of famine the Maltese 
 Troops did indeed once force their way to the Ovens, in 
 which the Bread for the British Soldiery was baked, and 
 were clamorous that an equal division should* be made. 
 I mention this unpleasant circumstance, because it brought 
 into proof the firmness of Sir Alexander Ball's character, 
 his presence of mind, and generous disregard of danger and 
 personal responsibility, where the slavery or emancipation, 
 
THE FRIEND. 425 
 
 the misery or the happiness, of an innocent and patriotic 
 People were involved ; and because his conduct in this 
 exigency evinced, that his general habits of circumspec- 
 tion and deliberation were the results of wisdom and com- 
 plete self-possession, and not the easy virtues of a spirit 
 constitutionally timorous and hesitating. He was sitting 
 at Table with the principal British Officers, when a certain 
 General addressed him in strong and violent terms con- 
 cerning this outrage of the Maltese, reminding him of the 
 necessity of exerting his commanding influence in the pre- 
 sent case, or the consequences must be taken. " What," 
 replied Sir Alexander Ball, "would you have us do? 
 would you have us threaten death to Men dying with 
 Famine ? Can you suppose that the hazard of being shot 
 will weigh with whole Regiments acting under a common 
 necessity ? Does not the extremity of hunger take away 
 all difference between Men and Animals ? and is it not as 
 absurd to appeal to the prudence of a body of men starv- 
 ing, as to a herd of famished Wolves ? No, General, I will 
 not degrade myself or outrage humanity by menacing 
 Famine with Massacre ! More effectual means must be 
 taken." With these words he rose and left the room, and 
 having first consulted with Sir Thomas Troubridge, he de- 
 termined at his own risk on a step, which the extreme ne- 
 cessity warranted, and which the conduct of the Neapoli- 
 tan Court amplyjustified. For this Court, though terror- 
 stricken by the French, was still actuated by hatred to the 
 English, and a jealousy of their power in the Mediter- 
 ranean : and this in so strange and senseless a manner, 
 that we must join the extremes of imbecility and treachery 
 in the same Cabinet, in order to find it comprehensible.* 
 Though the very existence of Naples and Sicily, as a 
 Nation, depended wholly and exclusively on British sup- 
 
 * It cannot be doubted, that the Sovereign himself was kept in a state of 
 delusion. Both his understanding and his moral principles are far better than 
 could reasonably be expected from the infamous mode of his Education : if 
 indeed the systematic preclusion of all knowledge, and the unrestrained in- 
 dulgence of his passions, adopted by the Spanish Court for the purposes of 
 preserving hijn dependent, can be called by the name of Education. Of the 
 other influencing Persons in the Neapolitan Government, Mr. Lkckie has 
 given us a true and lively account. It will be greatly to the advantage of the 
 present narration, if the Reader should have previously perused Mr. Leckie's 
 Pamphlet on the state of Sicily : the facts which 1 shall have occasion to men- 
 tion hereafter will reciprocally confirm and be confirmed by the documents 
 Furnished in that most interesting Work; in which I see but one blemish of 
 importance, namely, that the Author appears too frequently to consider justice 
 «n«l true policy as capable of being contradistinguished. 
 
4S6 THE FRIEND. 
 
 port ; though the Royal Family owed their personal safety 
 to the British Fleet ; though not only their Dominion* 
 and their Rank, but the Liberty and even the Lives of 
 Ferdinand and his Family, were interwoven with our suc- 
 cess ; yet with an infatuation scarcely credible, the most 
 affecting representations of the distress of the Besiegers, 
 and of the utter insecurity of Sicily if the French remained 
 possessors of Malta, were treated with neglect ; and the 
 urgent remonstrances for the permission of importing corn 
 from Messina, were answered only by sanguinary Edicts 
 precluding all supply. Sir Alexander Ball sent for his 
 senior Lieutenant, and gave him orders to proceed imme- 
 diately to the Port of Messina, and there to sieze and 
 bring with him to Malta the Ships laden with corn, of the 
 number of which Sir Alexander had received accurate in- 
 formation. These orders were executed without delay, to 
 the great delight and profit of the Ship Owners and Pro- 
 prietors ; the necessity of raising the Siege was removed ; 
 and the Author of the measure waited in calmness for the 
 consequences that might result to himself personally. But 
 not a complaint, not a murmur, proceeded from the Court 
 of Naples. The sole result was, that the Governor of 
 Malta became an especial object of its' hatred, its' fear, 
 and its' respect. 
 
 The whole of this tedious Siege, from its' commence- 
 ment to the signing of the Capitulation, called forth into 
 constant activity the rarest and most difficult virtues of a 
 commanding mind ; virtues of no shew or splendour iit 
 the vulgar apprehension, yet more infallible characteristics 
 of true greatness than the most unequivocal displays of 
 enterprize and active daring. Scarcely a day passed, in 
 which Sir Alexander Ball's patience, forbearance, and in- 
 flexible constancy, were not put to the severest trial. He 
 had not only to remove the misunderstandings that arose 
 between the Maltese and their Allies, to settle the differ- 
 ences among the Maltese themselves, and to organize 
 their efforts : he was likewise engaged in the more difficult 
 and unthankful task of counteracting the weariness, dis- 
 content, and despondency, of his own Countrymen — a 
 task, however, which he accomplished by management 
 and address, and an alternation of real firmness with appa- 
 rent yielding. During many months he remained the only 
 Englishman, who did not think the Siege hopeless, and 
 the Object worthless. He often spoke of the time in 
 
THE FRIENB. 427 
 
 which he resided at the country seat of the Grand Master 
 at St. Antonio, four miles from Vallette, as perhaps the 
 most trying period of his Life. For some weeks Captain 
 Vivian was his sole English Companion, of whom, as his 
 partner in anxiety, he always expressed himself with 
 affectionate esteem. Sir Alexander Ball's presence was 
 absolutely necessary to the Maltese, who, accustomed to 
 be governed by him, became incapable of acting in concert 
 without his immediate influence. In the out-burst of 
 popular emotion, the impulse, which produces an insur- 
 rection, is for a brief while its' sufficient pilot : the attrac- 
 tion constitutes the cohesion, and the common provoca- 
 tion supplying an immediate object, not only unites, but 
 directs, the multitude. But this first impulse had passed 
 away, and Sir Alexander Ball was the one Individual who 
 possessed the general confidence. On him they relied 
 with implicit faith : and even after they had long enjoyed 
 the blessings of British government and protection, it was 
 still remarkable with what child-like helplessness they 
 were in the habit of applying to him, even in their private 
 concerns. It seemed as if they thought him made on pur- 
 pose to think for them all. Yet his situation at St. Antonio 
 was one of great peril: and he attributed his preservation 
 to the dejection, which had now begun to prey on the 
 •pirits of the French Garrison, and which rendered them 
 unenterprizing and almost passive, aided by the dread 
 which the nature of the Country inspired. For subdivided 
 as it was into small Fields, scarcely larger than a Cottage 
 Garden, and each of these little squares of land inclosed 
 with a substantial stone wall, and from the necessity of 
 being perfectly level, rising in tiers above each other, the 
 whole of the inhabited part of the Island was an effective 
 Fortification for all the purposes of annoyance and defen- 
 sive Warfare. Sir Alexander Ball exerted himself success- 
 fully in procuring information respecting the state and 
 temper of the Garrison, and by the assistance of the Clergy 
 and the almost universal fidelity of the Maltese, contrived, 
 that the Spies in the pay of the French should be in truth 
 his own most confidential Agents, He had already given 
 splendid proofs that he could out-fight them ; but here, 
 and in his after diplomatic intercourse previous to the 
 recommencement of the War, he likewise out-witted them. 
 He once told me with a smile, as we were conversing on 
 the practice of laying wagers, that he was sometimes in. 
 
428 THE I'RIENU. 
 
 clined to think that the final perseverance in the Siege was 
 not a little indebted to several valuable bets of his own, he 
 well knowing at the time, and from information which 
 himself alone possessed, that he should certainly lose 
 them. Yet this artifice had a considerable effect in sus- 
 pending the impatience of the Officers, and in supplying 
 topics for dispute and conversation. At length, however, 
 the two French Frigates, the sailing of which had been 
 the subject of these Wagers, left the great Harbour on the 
 24th of August, 1S00, with a part of the Garrison, and one 
 of them soon became a prize to the English. Sir Alexan- 
 der Ball related to me the circumstances which occasioned 
 the escape of the other ; but I do not recollect them with 
 sufficient accuracy to dare repeat them in this place. On 
 the 15th of September following, the Capitulation was 
 signed, and after a blockade of two years the English 
 obtained possession of Vallette, and remained masters of 
 the whole Island and its' Dependencies. 
 
 Anxious not to give offence, but more anxious to 
 communicate the truth, it is not without pain that I pro- 
 ceed to give my sentiments on this capitulation, by which 
 Malta was delivered up to his Britannic Majesty and his 
 Allies, without the least mention made of the Maltese. 
 With a warmth honourable both to his head and his heart, 
 Sir Alexander Ball pleaded, as not less a point of sound 
 policy than of plain justice, that the Maltese, by some 
 Representative, should be made a Party in the capitula- 
 tion, and a joint Subscriber in the signature. They had 
 never been the Slaves or the Property of the Knights of 
 St. John, but Freemen and the true landed Proprietors of 
 the Country, the civil and military government of which, 
 under certain restrictions, had been vested in that Order; 
 yet checked by the rights and influences of the Clergy 
 and the native Nobility, and by the Customs and ancient 
 Laws of the Island. This trust the Knights had with the 
 hlackest treason and the most profligate perjury, betrayed 
 a.nd abandoned. The right of Government of course re- 
 verted to the landed Proprietors and the Clergy. Anima- 
 ted by a just sense of this right, the Maltese had risen of 
 their own accord, had contended for it in defiance of death 
 and danger, had fought bravely, and endured patiently. 
 Without undervaluing the military assistance afterwards 
 furnished by Great Britain (though how scanty this was 
 before the arrival of General Pigot is well knovfn) it re- 
 
tfllE FRIEND. 429 
 
 mained undeniable, that the Maltese had taken the greatest 
 share both in the fatigues and in the privations consequent 
 on the Siege ; and that had not the greatest virtues and 
 the most exemplary fidelity been uniformly displayed by 
 them, the English Troops, (they not being more numerous 
 than they had been for the greater part of the two years} 
 could not possibly have remained before the Fortifications 
 of Vallette, defended as that City was by a French Garri- 
 son, that greatly outnumbered the British Besiegers. Still 
 less could there have been the least hope of ultimate suc- 
 cess ; as if any part of the Maltese Peasantry hud been 
 friendly to the French or even indifferent, if they had not 
 all indeed been most zealous and persevering in their hos- 
 tility towards them ; it would have been impracticable so 
 to blockade that Island as to have precluded the arrival of 
 supplies. If the Siege had proved unsuccessful, the Mal- 
 tese were well aware that they should be exposed to all 
 the horrors which revenge and wounded pride could die* 
 tate to an unprincipled, rapacious, and sanguinary Soldiery; 
 and now that success has crowned their efforts, is this to 
 be their reward, that their own Allies are to bargain for 
 them with the French as for a herd of Slaves, whom the 
 French had before purchased from a former Proprietor ? If 
 it be isrged, that there is no established Government in 
 Malta, is it not equally true, that through the whole popu- 
 lation of the Island there is not a single Dissentient ? and 
 thus that the chief inconvenience, which an established 
 authority is to obviate, is virtually removed by the admitted 
 fact of their unanimity ? And have they not a Bishop, and 
 a dignified Clergy, their Judges and municipal Magistrates, 
 who were at all times sharers in the power of the Govern- 
 ment, and now, supported by the unanimous suffrage of 
 the Inhabitants, have a rightful claim to be considered as 
 it's Representatives ? Will it not be oftener said than 
 answered, that the main difference between French and 
 English injustice rests in this point alone, that the French 
 siezed on the Maltese without any previous pretences of 
 Friendship, while the English procured possession of the 
 Island by means of their friendly promises, and by the co- 
 operation of the Natives afforded in confident reliance on 
 these promises ? The impolicy of refusing the signature 
 on the part of the Maltese was equally evident : since 
 such refusal could anwer no one purpose but that of alie- 
 nating their affections by a wanton insult to their feelings. 
 
 
430 THE FRIEND. 
 
 For the Maltese were not only ready but desirous and 
 eager to place themselves at the same time under British 
 protection, to take the oaths of loyalty as Subjects of the 
 British Crown, and to acknowledge their Island to belong 
 to it. These representations, however, were over-ruled: and 
 I dare affirm, from my own experience in the Mediterra- 
 nean, that our conduct in this instance, added to the im- 
 pression which had been made at Corsica, Minorca, and 
 elsewhere, and was often referred to by Men of reflection 
 in Sicily, who have more than once said to me : "A con- 
 nection with Great Britain, with the consequent extension 
 and security of our Commerce, are indeed great blessings : 
 but who can rely on their permanence ? or that we shall not 
 be made to pay bitterly for our zeal as Partizans of England, 
 whenever it shall suit it's plans to deliver us back to our 
 old Oppressors. 
 
 (To be continued.) 
 
 TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
 
 A valued Correspondent objects to the latter part of 
 No. 24. " It might seem," he observes, " that the 
 Friend was afraid of his Opinion, by the attempt to dis- 
 guise it in an Allegory ; at least the application should 
 have been openly avowed/' The following considera- 
 tions will, I trust, remove this objection. 
 
 It was once said to me, when the Copenhagen affair 
 was in dispute, " You do not see the enormity, because 
 it is an affair between State and State : conceive a similar 
 case between Man and Man, and you would both see and 
 abhor it." Now, I. was neither defending or attacking the 
 measure itself, for my arguments were confined to the 
 grounds, which had been taken both in the arraigning of 
 that measure, and in its' defence, because I thought both 
 equally untenable. I was not enough master of facts to 
 form a decisive opinion on the enterprize, even for my own 
 mind ; but 1 had no hesitation in affirming, that the prin- 
 ciples, on which it was defended in the legislature, ap- 
 peared to me fitter objects of indignant reprobation, than 
 the act itself. This having been premised, I answer to the 
 assertion above stated, by asserting the direct contrary ; 
 
THE FRIEND. 431 
 
 namely, that were a similar case conceived between Man 
 and Man, the severest arraigners of the measure, would, 
 «» their grounds find nothing to blame in it. How was I 
 to prove this assertion ? Clearly, by imagining some case 
 between individuals living in the same relations toward 
 each other, in which the several states of Europe exist, or 
 existed. My Allegory, therefore, so far from being a dis- 
 guise, was a necessary part of the main argument, a case ia 
 point, to prove the identity of the Law of Nations with the 
 Law of Conscience. We have only to conceive Indivi- 
 duals in the same relations as States, in order to learn that 
 the rules emanating from international Law, differ from 
 those of private honesty, solely through the difference of 
 the circumstances. 
 
 But why did not the Friend avow the application of 
 the principle to the seizure of the Danish Fleet ? Because 
 I did not possess sufficient evidence to prove to others, or 
 even to decide for myself, that my Principle was applicable 
 to this particular act. In the case of Pamphilus and Lathro- 
 dacnus, the prudence and necessity of the measure was 
 certain ; and, this taken for granted, I shewed it's perfect 
 rightfulness. In the affair of Copenhagen I had no doubt 
 of our right to do as we did, supposing the necessity, or at 
 least the extreme prudence, of the measure ; taking for 
 granted, that there existed a motive adequate to the action, 
 and that the action was an adequate means of realizing the 
 motive. 
 
 But this I was not authorized to take for granted in the 
 real, as I had been in the imaginary, Case. I see many 
 reasons for the affirmative, and many for the negative. For 
 the former, the certainty of an hostile design on the part of 
 the Danes, the alarming state of Ireland, that vulnerable 
 heel of the British Achilles ! and the immense difference 
 between military and naval superiority. Our naval power 
 collectively may ride in defiance of the whoie world ; but 
 it is widely scattered, and a combined operation from the 
 Baltic, Holland, Brest, and Lisbon, might easily bring 
 together a Fleet double to that which we could bring 
 against it at the instant, or for the short time that might be 
 necessary to convey 30 or 40,000 Men to Ireland. On the 
 other hand, it is equally clear that Buonaparte needs 
 Sailors rather than Ships ; and that we took the Ships and 
 left him the Danish Sailors. It appears from the papers 
 lately published, that the French Fleet at Antwerp is in 
 
432 SHE FRIEND. 
 
 fact manned, in part, by those very Sailors. But I repeat, 
 that the Friend had no concern with the Expedition 
 itself; but only with the grounds or principles on which it 
 had been attacked or defended. Those who attacked it 
 denied the right altogether, however imperious the motive 
 might be : and I appear to myself to have shewn, in oppo- 
 sition to such Reasoners, that no such right existed, or is 
 deducible either from international Law or the Law of 
 private morality. Those again, who defended it, conceded 
 that it was a violation of right ; but affirmed, that such 
 violation was justified by the urgency of the motive. It 
 was asserted (as I have before noticed, in the introduction 
 to the subject p. 366) that national policy cannot in all 
 cases be subordinated to the Laws of Morality ; in other 
 Words, that a Government may act with injustice, and yet 
 remain blameless. To prove this assertion as groundless 
 and unnecessary as it is tremendous, formed the chief 
 object of the whole disquisition. I trust then, that my 
 Correspondent will rest satisfied, that it is not only the 
 profession and pretext of the Friend, but his constant 
 plan and actual intention, to establish Principles; that 
 he refers to particular facts for no other purpose, than that 
 of giving illustration and interest to those Principles ; and 
 that to invent Principles with a view to particular cases, 
 whether with the motive of attacking or arraigning a tran- 
 sitory Cabinet, is a baseness which will scarcely be attri- 
 buted to the Fkiend by any one who understands the 
 Work, even though the suspicion should not have been 
 precluded by a knowledge of the Author, s. t. c, 
 
 »r.WRlTH : PPINTED AND Ft. 6LISHED BV !. BiiivS J .AND SOLO Br 
 
 MEBiKS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATLttNOSTER ROW, AND 
 
 CL£MiM,2i'l, il RAM), LONDON. 
 
} 
 
 : 
 
 /. 
 
 
 THE FRIEND. 
 
 No. 27, THURSDAY, March 15, 1810. 
 
 SKETCHES AND FRAGMENTS OF THE LIFE AND 
 CHARACTER OF THE LATE ADMIRAL 
 SIR<ALEXANDER BALL. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 Captain Ball's services in Malta were honoured with 
 his Sovereign's approbation, transmitted in a letter from the 
 Secretary Dundas, and with a Baronetcy. A thousand 
 pounds * were at the same time directed to be paid him 
 from the Maltese Treasury. The best and most appropriate 
 addition to the applause of his King and his Country, Sir 
 Alexander Ball, found in the feelings and faithful affection 
 of the Maltese. The enthusiasm manifested in reveren- 
 tial gestures and shouts of triumph whenever their Friend 
 and Deliverer appeared in public, was the utterance of a 
 deep feeling, and in no wise the mere ebullition of animal 
 sensibility : which is not indeed a part of the Maltese cha- 
 racter. The truth of this observation will not be doubted 
 by any person, who has witnessed the religious Processions 
 
 • I scarce know whether it be worth mentioning, that this Sum remained 
 undemanded till the Spring of the year 1805 : at which time the Writer of 
 these Sketches, during an examination of the Treasury Accounts, observed 
 the circumstance and noticed it to the Governor, who had suffered it to es- 
 cape altogether from his memory, for the latter years at least. The value 
 attached to the Present by the Receiver, must have depended on his con>- 
 struction of its purpofe and meaning : for, in a pecuniary point of view, the 
 sum was not a moiety of what Sir Alexander had expended from his private 
 fortune during the blockade. His immediate appointment to the Govern- 
 ment of the Island, so earnestly prayed for by the Maltese, would doubtless 
 have furnished a less questionable proof that his services were as highly esti- 
 mated by the Ministry as they were graciously accepted by his Sovereign. 
 JBut this was withheld as long as it remained possible to doubt, whether great 
 talents,. joined to local experience, and the confidence and affection of the 
 Inhabitants, might cot be dispensed with in the Person entrusted with that 
 Government. 
 
 .-- # 
 
434 THE FRIEND. 
 
 ] n honour of the favourite Saints, both at Vallette and at 
 Messina or Palermo, and who must have been struck with 
 the contrast between the apparent apathy, or at least the 
 perfect sobriety, of the Maltese, and the fanatical agitations 
 of the Sicilian Populace. Among the-latter each Man's 
 soul seems hardly containable in his body, like a prisoner, 
 whose Jail is on fire, flying madly from one barred outlet 
 to another ; while the former might suggest the suspicion, 
 that their bodies were on the point of sinking into the same 
 slumber with their understandings. But their political De- 
 liveuance wag a thing that came hometso their hearts, and in- 
 tertwined; with their most empassioned recollections, per- 
 sonal and patriotic. To Sir AlexsmjJe* Ball exclusively 
 (with what justice it is not for me to decide) the Maltese 
 themselves attributed their emancipation : on him too they 
 rested their hopes of the future. Whenever he appeared in 
 Vallette, the Passengers on each side, through the whole 
 length of the street stopped, aud remained uncovered till 
 he had passed : the very clamours of the Market Place 
 were hushed at his eutrance, and then exchanged fo*> 
 shouts of joy and welcome. Even after the lapse of years 
 he never appeared in any one of their Casals,* which did: 
 not lie in the direct road between Vallette and St. Anto-. 
 nio, his Summer Residence, but the Women and Chil- 
 dren, with such of the Men who were not at labour in 
 their fields, fell into ranks, and followed, or preceded him,: 
 singing the Maltese Song which had been made in his ho- 
 nour, and which was scarcely less familiar to the Inhabi- 
 tants of Malta andGoza, tlmn God save the King to Britons. 
 When he went to the Qate thiough the City, the young Men 
 retrained talking ; and the Aged arose and stood up. When 
 the ear heard, then It blessed him ; and when the ei/e 
 saw him, it gave witness to him : because he delivered the: 
 Foor that cried, and the Fatherless, mid those that had none 
 to help them. The blessing of them that were ready to perish 
 came upon him ; and he caused the Widow's heart to sing for 
 
 * I'l was the Governor's custom to visit every Casal rttifmgfcont the Island 
 once, if not twice, in the course ol" each Smrrtttcr; and during my residence 
 there, 1 had the honour of being his constant, and most ot'ieri, his only Com- 
 panion in these rides; to which I owe some of the happiest and most instruc- 
 tive hours of my life. In the poorest House of the most distant Casal two rude 
 paintings were sure to be found : A l'idure of the- Vi:gin and Child; and a 
 Portrait of Sir Alexander Ball. 
 
THE FglESB. 433 
 
 These feelings were afterwards amply justified by his ad 
 ministration of the Government ; and the very excesses of 
 their gratitude on their first deliverance, proved in the end, 
 only to be acknowledgements antedated. For some time 
 after the departure of the French, the distress was so ge- 
 neral and so severe, that a large proportion of the lower 
 classes became Mendicants, and one of the greatest tho- 
 roughfares of Valfette still retains the name of the " Nia? 
 Mangiare Stairs," from the crowd who used there to assail 
 the ears of the Passengers with cries of " nix mangiare," or 
 nothing to eat," the former word nix, being the low German 
 pronunciation of melds-, nothing. By what means it was 
 introduced into Malta, I know not ; but it became the 
 common vehicle both of solicitation and refusal, the Mal- 
 tese thinking it an English word, and the English sup- 
 posing it to be Maltese. I often felt it as a pleasing re- 
 membrancer of the evil day gone by, when a tribe of little 
 children, quite naked, as is the custom of that climate, and 
 each with a pair of gold ear-rings in his ears, and all fat and 
 beautifully proportioned, would suddenly leave their play, 
 and, looking round to see that their Parents were not in 
 sight," change their shouts of merriment for " nix man- 
 giare ! awkwardly imitating the plaintive tones of mendi- 
 cancy; while the white teeth in their little swarthy faces 
 gave a splendor to the happy and confessing laugh, with 
 which they received the good-humoured rebuke or refusal, 
 and ran back to their former sport. 
 
 In the interim between the capitulation of the French 
 Garrison and Sir Alexander Ball's appointment as his Ma- 
 jesty's civil Commissioner for Malta, his zeal for the Mal- 
 tese was neither suspended nor unproductive of important 
 benefits. He was enabled to remove many prejudices and 
 misunderstandings ; and to persons of no inconsiderable in- 
 fluence gave juster notions of the true importance of the 
 Island to Great Britain. He displayed the magnitude of 
 the Trade of the Mediterranean in it's existing state; 
 shewed the immenae extent to which it might be carried, 
 and the hollowness of the opinion, that this Trade was at-r 
 tached to the south of France by any natural or indissolu- 
 ble bond of connection. I have some reason likewise 
 for believing, that his wise and patriotic representations 
 prevented Malta from being made the seat and pretext for 
 a nurnexo.us^ivil establishment, in hapless imitation pf Cos- 
 
436 THE FRIEND. 
 
 sica, Ceylon, and the Cape of Good Hope. It was at least 
 generally rumoured, that it had been in the contemplation 
 of the Ministry to appoint Sir Ralph Abercrombie as Go- 
 vernor, with a salary of ^10,000 a year, and to reside in 
 England, while one of his Countrymen was to be the Lieu- 
 tenant Governor at ,£5,000 a year ; to which were to be 
 added a long et cetera of other Offices and Places of propor- 
 tional emolument. This threatened appendix to the State 
 Calendar may have existed only in the imaginations of the 
 Reporters, yet inspired some uneasy apprehensions in the 
 minds of many well-wishers to the Maltese, who knew 
 that — for a foreign Settlement at least, and one too possess- 
 ing in all the ranks and functions of Society, an ample 
 Population of it's own such a stately and wide-branch- 
 ing Tree of Patronage, though delightful to the Individu- 
 als who are to pluck it's golden Apples, sheds, like the 
 Manchineel, unwholesome and corrosive dews on the 
 multitude who are to rest beneath it's shade. It need not 
 however be doubted, that Sir Alexander Ball would exert 
 himself to preclude any such intention, by stating and evin- 
 cing the extreme impolicy and injustice of the plan, as well 
 as it's utter inutility, in the case of Malta. With the ex- 
 ception oftheGovernor, and of the Public Secretary, both of 
 whom undoubtedly should be natives of Great Britain, and 
 appointed by the British Government, there was no civil 
 Office that could be of the remotest advantage to the Island 
 which was not already filled by the Natives, and the func- 
 tions of which none could perform so well as they. The 
 number of Inhabitants (he would state) was prodigious 
 compared with the extent of the Island, though from the 
 fear of the Moors one fourth of it's surface remained un- 
 peopled and uncultivated. To deprive therefore the mid- 
 tile and lower Classes of such Places, as they had been ac- 
 customed to hold, would be cruel : while the Places held 
 by the Nobility, were, for the greater part, such as none 
 but Natives could perform the duties of. By any innova- 
 tion we should affront the higher classes and alienate the 
 affections of all, not only without any imaginable advan- 
 tage but with the certainty of great loss. Were English- 
 men to be employed, the salaries-must be encrcased four- 
 fold, and would yet be scared)' worth acceptance ; and in 
 higher offices, such as those ot the civil and criminal judges, 
 the Salaries must be augmented more than ten-fold. I'or, 
 
 I 
 
THE FRIEND. 437 
 
 greatly to the credit of their patriotism and moral character, 
 the Maltese Gentry sought these Places as honourable dis- 
 tinctions, which endeared them to their Fellow-country- 
 men, and at the same time rendered the yoke of the Order 
 somewhat less grievous and galling. With the exception 
 of the Maltese Secretary, whose situation was one of incess- 
 ant labour, and who at. the same time performed the du- 
 ties of Law Counsellor to the Government, the highest sala- 
 ries scarcely exceeded ^lOO. a year, and were barely suf- 
 ficient to defray the encreased expences of the Functiona- 
 ries for an additional equipage, or one of more imposing 
 appearance. Besides, it was of importance that the Person 
 placed at the head of that Government, should be looked 
 up to by the Natives, and possess the means of distin- 
 guishing and rewarding those who had been most faithful 
 and zealous in their attachment to Great Britain, and hos- 
 tile to their former Tyrants. The number of the employ- 
 ments to be conferred would give considerable influence 
 to his Majesty's civil Representative, while the trifling 
 amount of the emolument attached to each, precluded ail 
 temptation of abusing it. 
 
 Sir Alexander Ball would likewise, it is probable, urge, 
 that the commercial advantages of Malta, which were 
 most intelligible to the English Public, and best fitted to 
 vender our retention of the Island popular, must necessarily 
 be of very slow growth, though finally they would become 
 great, and of an extent not to be calculated. For this 
 reason, therefore, it was highly desirable, that the Posses- 
 sion should be and appear to be, at least inexpensive. 
 After the British Government had made one advance for a 
 stock of Corn sufficient to place the Island a year before- 
 hand, the sum total drawn from Great Britain need not 
 exceed 25, or at most ,,£'30,000. annually ; excluding of 
 course the expenditure connected with our own Military 
 and Navy, and the repair of the Fortifications, which lat- 
 ter expence ought to be much less than at Gibraltar, from 
 the multitude and low wages of the Labourers in Malta, 
 and from the softness and admirable quality of the stone. 
 Indeed much more might safely be promised on the as- 
 sumption, that a wise and generous system of policy were 
 adopted and persevered in. The monopoly of the Mal- 
 tese corn Trade by the Government, formed an exception 
 to a general rule, and by a strange, yet valid, anomaly iu 
 
4& TSE flUlTNfi. 
 
 the operations of political Economy, wars not more neces- 
 sary than advantageous to the Inhabitants. Tlie chief 
 reason is, that the produce of the Island itself barely suf- 
 fices for one-fourth of it's Inhabitants, although fruits and 
 Vegetables form so large a part of their nourishment. Mean- 
 time the Harbours of Malta, and it's equi-distance from 
 Europe, Asia, and Africa, gave it a vast and unnatural im- 
 portance in the present relations of the great European 
 Powers, and imposed on it's Government, whether native 
 or dependent, the necessity of considering the whole Island 
 as a single Garrison, the provisioning of which could not 
 be trusted to the casualties of ordinary commerce. What 
 is actually necessary is seldom injurious. Thus in Malta 
 bread is better and cheaper on an average than in Italy of 
 the Coast of Barbary : while a similar interference with 
 the corn Trade in Sicily impoverishes the Inhabitants and 
 keeps the Agriculture in a state of Barbarism. But the point 
 in question is the expence to Great Britain. Whether 
 the Monopoly be good or evil in itself, it remains true, 
 that in this established usage, and in the gradual inclosure 
 of the uncultivated district, such resources exist as with- 
 out the least oppression might render the civil Government 
 in Vatlette independent of the Treasury at home, finally 
 taking upon itself even the repair of the Fortifications, and 
 thus realize one instance of an important possession that 
 cost the Country nothing. 
 
 But now the time arrived, which threatened to frustrate 
 the patriotism of the Maltese themselves and all the zealous 
 efforts of their disinterested Friend. Soon after the War 
 had for the first time become indisputably just and neces- 
 sary, the People at large and a majority of independent 
 Senators, incapable, as it might seem, of translating their 
 fanatical anti- jacobinism into a well-grounded, yet equally 
 impassioned, anti-Gallicanism, grew impatient for Peace 
 or rather for a name, under which the most terrific of all 
 War would be incessantly waged against us. Our con- 
 duct was not much wiser than that of the weary Traveller, 
 who having proceeded half way on his journey procured 
 a short rest for himself by getting up behind a Chaise 
 which was going the contrary road. In the strange Treaty 
 of Amiens, in which we neither recognized our former re- 
 lations with France or with the other European Powers, 
 nor formed any new oiies, the compromise concerning 
 
 
THE FRIES-D. 459 
 
 Malta formed the prominent feature : and it's nominal re- 
 delivery to the Order of St. John was authorized in the 
 minds of the People, by Lord Nelson's opinion of it's 
 worthlessness to Great Britain in a political or naval view. 
 It is a melancholy fact, and one that must often sadden a 
 reflective and philanthropic mind, how little moral consi- 
 derations weigh even with the noblest Nations, how vain 
 are the strongest appeals to justice, humanity, and national 
 honour, unless when the public mind is under the imme- 
 diate influence of the cheerful or vehement passions, indig- 
 nation or avaricious hope. In the whole class of human in- 
 firmities there is none, that makes such loud appeals to pm* 
 dence, and yet so frequently outrages it's plainest dictates, 
 as the spirit of Fear. The worst cause conducted in Hope, 
 is an overmatch for the noblest managed by Despondence : 
 in both cases an unnatural conjunction that recals the old 
 Fable of Love and Death, taking each the arrows of the 
 others by mistake. When Islands that had courted British 
 protection in reliance upon British honour, are with their 
 Inhabitants and Proprietors abandoned to the resentment 
 which we had tempted them to provoke, what wonder, if 
 the opinion becomes general, that alike to England as to 
 France, the fates and fortunes of other Nations are but the 
 Counters, with which the bloody Game of War is played : 
 and that notwithstanding the great and acknowledged dif- 
 ference between the two Governments during Possession, 
 yet the protection of France is more desirable because it rs 
 more likely to endure ? for what the French take, they 
 keep. Often both in Sicily and Malta have I heard the 
 case of Minorca referred to, where a considerable portion 
 of the most respectable Gentry and Merchants (no provi- 
 sion having been made for their protection on the re-deli- 
 very of that Island to Spain) expiated in Dungeons the 
 warmth and forwardness of their predilection for Great 
 Britain. 
 
 It has been by some Persons imagined, that Lord Nel- 
 son was considerably influenced, in his public declaration 
 concerning the value of Malta, by ministerial flattery, and 
 his own sense of the great serviceableness of that opinion 
 to the Persons in Office. This supposition is however 
 wholly false and groundless. His Lordship's opinion was 
 indeed greately shaken afterwards if not changed, but at 
 that time he spoke in strictest correspondence with his ex- 
 
440 
 
 THE FRIEND. 
 
 isting convictions. He said no more than he had often 
 previously declared to his private Friends : it was the 
 point on which, after some amicable controversy, his Lord- 
 ship and Sir Alexander Ball had " agreed to differ'' 
 Though the opinion itself may have lost the greatest part 
 of it's interest, and except for the Historian is, as it were, 
 superannuated ; yet the grounds and causes of it, as far as 
 they arose out of Lord Nelson's particular character, and 
 may perhaps tend to re-enliven our recollection of a Hero 
 so deeply and justly beloved, will for ever possess an in- 
 terest of their own. In an Essay too, which purports to 
 be no more than a series of Sketches and Fragments, the 
 Reader it is hoped, will readily excuse an occasional di- 
 gression, and a more desultory style of narration than could 
 be tolerated in a Work of regular Biography. 
 
 Lord Nelson was an Admiral, every inch of him. He 
 looked at every thing, not merely in its' possible relations 
 to the Naval Service in general, but in its' immediate 
 Bearings on his own Squadron ; to his officers, his men, to 
 the particular Ships themselves, his affections were as strong 
 and ardent as those of a Lover. Hence, though his tem- 
 per was constitutionally irritable and uneven, yet never 
 was a Commander so enthusiastically beloved by men of 
 all ranks, from the Captain of the Fleet to the youngest 
 Ship-boy. Hence too the unexampled Harmony which 
 reigned in his Fleet, year after year, under circumstances 
 that might well have undermined the patience of the best 
 balanced Dispositions, much more of men with the impe- 
 tuous character of British Sailors. Year after year, the 
 same dull duties of a wearisome Blockade, of doubtfui 
 Policy — little if any opportunity of making Prizes ; and 
 the few Prizes, which accident might throw in the way, of 
 little or no value — -and when at last the occasion presented 
 itself which would have compensated for all, then a dis- 
 appointment as sudden and unexpected as it was unjust 
 and cruel, and the cup dashed from their lips! —Add to 
 these trials the sense of enterprizes checked by feebleness 
 and timidity elsewhere, not omitting the tiresomeness of 
 the Mediterranean Sea, Sky, and Climate ; and the un- 
 jarring and chearful Spirit of affectionate Brotherhood, 
 yvhich linked together the Hearts of that whole Squadron, 
 will appear not less wonderful to us than admirable and 
 
 affecting. 
 
 When the resolution was taken of commencing 
 
THE FRIEXD. 441 
 
 hostilities against Spain, before any intelligence was sent 
 to Lord Nelson, another Admiral, with two or three Ship3 
 of the line, was sent into the Mediterranean, and stationed 
 before Cadiz, for the express purpose of intercepting the 
 Spanish Prizes. The Admiral dispatched on this lucrative 
 service gave no information to Lord Nelson of his arrival 
 in the same Sea, and five weeks elapsed before his Lord- 
 ship became acquainted with the circumstance. The 
 Prizes thus taken were immense. A month or two suf- 
 ficed to enrich the Commander and Officers of this small 
 and highly-favoured Squadron : while to Nelson and his 
 Fleet the sense of having done their duty, and the con- 
 sciousness of the glorious services which they had perform- 
 ed, were considered, it must be presumed, as an abundant 
 remuneration for all their toils and long suffering ! It was 
 indeed an unexampled circumstance, that a small Squad- 
 ron should be sent to the Station which had been long 
 occupied by a large Fleet, commanded by the Darling of 
 the Navy, and the Glory of the British Empire, to the 
 Station where this Fleet had for years been wearing away 
 in the most barren, repulsive, and spirit-trying service, in 
 which the Navy can be employed ! and that this minor 
 Squadron should be sent independent of, and without any 
 communication with the Commander of the former Fleet, 
 for the express and solitary purpose of stepping between it 
 and the Spanish Prizes, and as soon as this short and plea- 
 sant service was performed, of bringing home the unshared 
 Booty with all possible caution and dispatch. The substan- 
 tial advantages of naval service were perhaps deemed of 
 too gross a nature for Men already rewarded with the 
 grateful affections of their own Countrymen, and the ad- 
 miration of the whole YVorld ! They were to be awarded, 
 therefore, on a principle of compensation to a Commander 
 less rich in Fame, and whose Laurels, though not scanty, 
 were not yet sufficiently luxuriant to hide the golden 
 crown, which is the appropriate ornament of Victory in the 
 bloodless war of commercial capture ! Of all the wounds 
 which were ever inflicted on Nelson's feelings, (and there 
 were not a few) this was the deepest ! this rankled most! 
 "I had thought, (said the gallant Man, in a letter written 
 on the first feelings of the affront) " I fancied — but nay, it 
 must have been a dream, an idle dream-^-yet, 1 confess it, I 
 did fancy, that 1 had dope my Country service — and thus 
 
442 THE FRIRMJ. 
 
 they ase me. It was not enough to hare robbed me once be- 
 fore of my West India Harvest — now they have taken away 
 the Spanish — and under what circumstances, and with what 
 pointed aggravations ! Yet, if I know my own thoughts, 
 it is not for myself, or on my own account chiefly, that I 
 feel the sting and the disappointment; no! it is for my 
 brave Officers ; for my noble-minded Friends and Com- 
 rades— such a gallant set of Fellows ! such a band of 
 
 Brothers! My heart swells at the thought of them ! " 
 
 This strong attachment of the heroic Admiral to his 
 Fleet, faithfully repaid by an equal attachment on their 
 ■part to their Admiral, had no little influence in attuning 
 their hearts to each other; and when he died it seemed as 
 if no Man was a Stranger to another : for all were made 
 Acquaintances by the rights of a common anguish. In 
 the Fleet itself, many a private quarrel was forgotten, no 
 more to be remembered ; many, who had been alienated, 
 became once more good Friends ; yea, many a One was 
 reconciled to his veiy Enemy and loved, and (as it were) 
 thanked him, for the bitterness of his grief, as if it had 
 been an act of consolation to himself in an intercourse of 
 private sympathy. The tidings arrived at Naples on the 
 day that I returned to that City from Calabria : and never 
 can I forget the sorrow and consternation that lay on every 
 Countenance. Even to this day there are times when I 
 seem to see, as in a vision, separate groupes and individual 
 faces of the Picture. Numbers stopped and shook hands 
 with me, because they had seen the tears on my cheek, 
 and conjectured, that I was an Englishman ; and several, 
 as they held my hand, burst, themselves, into tears. And 
 though it may awake a smile, yet it pleased and affected 
 me, as a proof of the goodness of the human heart strug- 
 gling to exercise its' kindness in spite of prejudices the 
 most obstinate, and eager to carry on its' love and honour 
 into the Life beyond Life, that it was whispered about 
 Naples, that Lord' Nelson had become a good Catholic 
 before his Death. The absurdity of the Fiction is a sort 
 of measurement of the fond and affectionate esteem which 
 had ripened the pious wish of some kind Individual 
 through all the gradations of possibility and probability into 
 a confident assertion believed and affirmed by hundreds. 
 The feelings of Great Britain on this awful event, have 
 t«een described well and worthily by a living Poet, who 
 
THE FRIEND. 443 
 
 has happily blended the passion and wild transitions of 
 lyric song with the swell and solemnity of epic narration. 
 
 — —Thou art fall'n ! fall'n, in the lap 
 
 Of Victory. To thy country thou cam'st back 
 
 Thou, Conqueror, to triumphal Albion, cam'st 
 
 A corse ! I saw before thy hearse pass on 
 
 The comrades of thy perils and renown. 
 
 The frequent tear upon their dauntless breasts 
 
 Fell. I beheld the pomp thick gather' d round 
 
 The trophy' d car that bore thy grac'd remains 
 
 Thro' arm'd ranks, and a nation gazing on. 
 
 Bright glow'd the sun, and not a cloud distain'd 
 
 Heav'ns areh of gold, but all was gloom beneath. 
 
 A holy and unutterable pang 
 
 Thrill'd on the soul. Awe and mute anguish fell 
 
 On all. — Yet high the public bosom throbb'd 
 
 With triumph. And if one, 'mid that vast pomp, 
 
 If but the voice of one had shouted forth 
 
 The name of Nelson : Thou hadst past along, 
 
 Thou in thy hearse to burial past, as oft 
 
 Before the van of battle, proudly rode 
 
 Thy prow, down Britain's line, shout after shout 
 
 Rending the air with triumph, ere thy hand 
 
 Had lanc'd the bolt of victory. 
 
 Soiheby (Saul, p. 80.) 
 
 I introduced this digression with an apology, yet have 
 extended it so much farther than I had designed, that I 
 must once more request my Reader to excuse me. Both 
 for what has preceded and what is to follow, he will, I 
 trust, consider it as some small excuse, that though I 
 should have taken a long circuit in arriving at the particu- 
 lar point in view, the objects, which have tempted me 
 from the straight road, are either more interesting than the 
 point itself from which I have turned aside ; or such, as I 
 should have introduced elsewhere in the course of this 
 Sketch, and which are therefore to be blamed rather as a 
 defect in my arrangement than as digressions wholly irrele- 
 vant and impertinent. 
 
444 THE FRIEND. 
 
 It was to be expected (I have said) that Lord Nelson 
 would appreciate the Isle of Malta from it's relations to 
 the British Fleet on the Mediterranean Station. It was the 
 fashion of the day to style Egypt the Key of India, and 
 Malta the Key of Egypt. Nelson saw the hollowness of 
 this metaphor: or if he only doubted it's applicability in 
 the former instance, he was sure that it was false in the 
 latter. Egypt might or might not be the key of In- 
 dia ; but Malta was certainly not the key of Egypt. It 
 was not intended to keep constantly two distinct fleets 
 in that Sea ; and the largest naval force at Malta would 
 not supersede the necessity of a Squadron oflf Toulon. 
 Malta does not lie iri the direct course from Toulon to 
 Alexandria : and from the nature of the winds, (taking one 
 time with another) the comparative length of the Voyage 
 to the latter port will be found far less than a view of the 
 map would suggest, and in truth of little practical impor- 
 tance. If it were the object of the French Fleet to avoid 
 Malta in it's passage to Egypt, the Port-admiral at Vallette 
 would in all probability receive his first intelligence of it's 
 course from Minorca or the Squadron off Toulon, instead 
 of communicating it. In what regards the refitting and 
 provisioning of the Fleet, either on ordinary or extraordi- 
 nary occasions, Malta was as inconvenient as Minorca was 
 advantageous, not only from it's distance, (which yet was 
 sufficient to reuder it almost useless in cases of the most 
 pressing necessity, as after a severe action or injuries of 
 tempest) but likewise from the extreme difficulty, if not 
 impracticability, of leaving the Harbour of Vallette with 
 a N. W. wind, which often lasted for weeks together. In 
 all these points his Lordship's Observations were perfectly 
 just: and it must be conceded by all persons acquainted 
 with the situation and circumstances of Malta, that it's 
 importance, as a British Possession, if not exaggerated on 
 the whole, was unduly magnified in several important 
 particulars. Thus Lord Minto, in a Speech delivered at a 
 County Meeting and afterwards published, affirms, that 
 supposing that no one wili consider as unlikely to take 
 place, that the Court of Naples should be compelled to act 
 under the influence of France, and that the Barbary Powers 
 were unfriendly to us either in consequence of French In- 
 trigues or from their own caprice and insolence, there 
 would not be a single Port, Harbour, Bay, Creek, or Road- 
 
THE FRIEND. 445 
 
 stead, ill the whole Mediterranean, from which our men of 
 war could obtain a single Ox or an Hogshead of fresh Wa- 
 ter: unless Great Britain retained possession of Malta. The 
 noble Speaker seems not to have been aware, that un- 
 der the circumstances supposed by him, Odessa too being 
 closed against us by a Russian War, the Island of Malta 
 itself would be no better than a vast almshouse of 75,000 
 persons, exclusive of the British Soldiery, all of whom 
 must be regularly supplied with Corn and Salt Meat from 
 Great Britain or Ireland. The population of Malta and 
 Goza exceeds 100,000 : while the Food of all kinds pro- 
 duced on the two Islands would barely suffice for one 
 fourth of that number. The deficit is procured by the 
 growth and spinning of Cotton, for which Corn could not 
 be substituted from the nature of the Soil, or were it at- 
 tempted, would produce but a small proportion of the 
 quantity, which the Cotton raised on the same fields and 
 spun * into thread, enables the Maltese to purchase, not 
 to mention that the substitution of Grain for Cotton would 
 leave half of the Inhabitants without employment. As to> 
 live stock, it is quite out of the question, if we except the 
 Figs and Goats, which perform the office of Scavengers in 
 in the Streets of Vallette and the towns on the other side 
 of I he Porto Grande. 
 
 Against these arguments Sir A. Ball placed the fol- 
 lowing considerations. It had been long his Conviction, 
 that the Mediterranean Squadron should be supplied bv 
 regular Store Ships, the sole business of which should be 
 that of Carriers for the Fleet. This he recommended as 
 by f.tr the most economic plan, in the first instance ; se- 
 condly, beyond any other it would secure a system and 
 regularity in the arrival of Supplies ; and lastly, it would 
 conduce to the discipline of the Navy, and prevent both 
 Ships and Officers from being out of the way on any sud- 
 
 * The Maltese Cotton is naturally of a deep Buff, or dusky Orange colour, 
 and, by the Laws of the Island, must be spun before it can be exported. I 
 have heard it asserted, by persons apparently well informed on the Subject, 
 that the raw mattrial would fetch as high a price as the thread, weight for 
 weight: the thread from it's coarseness being applicable to few purposes. It 
 is manufactured likewise for the use of the natives themselves into a coarse 
 nankin, which never loses it's colour by washing, and is durable beyond anv 
 eloathing, I have ever known or heard of. The Cotton Seed is used as a food 
 fur the Cattle, that are not immediately wanted for the market: it is very 
 nutritious, but changes the fat of the animal into a kind of suet, congealing 
 quickly, and of an adhesive substance. 
 
446 THE FRIEND. 
 
 den emergence. If this system were introduced, the Ob- 
 jections to Malta, from its great distance, &c. would have 
 little force. On the other band, the Objections to Mi- 
 norca he deemed irremoveable. The same disadvantages 
 which attended the getting out of the harbour of Vailette, 
 applied to Vessels getting into Port Mahon ; but while 
 fifteen hundred, or two thousand British Troops might be 
 safely entrusted with the preservation of Malta, the Troops 
 for the defence of Minorca must ever be in proportion to 
 those which the enemy may be supposed likely to send 
 against it. It is so little favoured by Nature ox by Art, 
 that the PosBeasocs stood merely .on the level with the In- 
 vaders. Caeteras paribus, if $here 12,000 of the enemy 
 landed, there must be an eq*iisl number to repel them ; nor 
 could the Garrison, or any part of it be spared for any sud- 
 den emergence without risk of losing the Island. Pre- 
 Tiously to the battle of Martengo, the most earnest repre- 
 sentations were made to the Governor and Commander at 
 Minorca, by the British Admiral,, who offered to take on 
 himself the whole responsibility -4$F „tbe measure, if he 
 would* permit the Troops at Minorca to join our Allies. 
 The Governor felt himself compelled to refuse his assent. 
 Doubtless, he acted wisely, for responsibility is not trans- 
 ferable. The fact is introduced in proof of the defence- 
 less State of Minorca, and its constant liability to attack. 
 If the Austrian Army had stood in the same relation to 
 eight or nine thousand British Soldiers at Malta, a single 
 regiment would have precluded all alarms, as to the Island 
 itself, and the remainder have perhaps changed the des- 
 tiny of Europe. What might not, almost 1 would say, 
 what mast not 8000 Britons have accomplished at the 
 Battle of Marengo, nicely poised as the fortunes of the 
 two Armies are now known to have been. Minorca too is 
 alone useful or desirable during a war, and on the supposi- 
 tion of a fleet off Toulon. The advantages of Malta are. 
 permanent and national. As a second Gibraltar, it mast 
 tend to secure Gibraltar itself: for if by the loss of that ; 
 one place we could be excluded from the Mediterranean, it 
 is difficult to say what sacrifices of blood and treasure the 
 Enemy would deem too high a price for it's conquest. 
 Whatever Alalia may or may not be respecliug Egypt, it's 
 high importance to the independence of Sicily cannot be 
 doubted, or it'? advantages, as a central station, for any 
 
TUE FRIEND. 44? 
 
 portion of our disposable force. Neither is the influence i 
 which it will enable us to exeft on the Barbary Powers, tx» 
 he vvbolly neglected. I shall only add, that during the 
 plague at Gibraltar, Lord Nelson himself acknowledged 
 that he. began to see the possession of Malta in a, different 
 Light. 
 
 Sir Alexander Ball looked forward to future contingen- 
 cies as likely to increase the value of Malta to Great Britain. 
 He foresaw that the whole of Italy would because a FFeneh 
 Province, and he knew, that the French Government had 
 been long intriguing on the Coast of Barbery. TheDey of 
 Algiers, was believed to have accumulated a treasure (A 
 fifteen million sterling, and Bounaparte bad actually duped 
 him into a Treaty, by which the French were to be per- 
 mitted to. erect a fort on the very spot where the Ancient 
 Hippo stood, the choice between which and the Helles- 
 pont as the site of New Rome, is said to have perplexed 
 the judgement of Constantine. To this he added an addi- 
 ti nal point of connection with Russia, by means of Odessa, 
 and on the supposition of a War in the Baltic, a still more 
 interesting relation to Turkey, and the Morea, and the 
 Greek Islands. — It has been repeatedly signified to the 
 British Government, that from the Morea and the Coun- 
 tries adjacent, a considerable supply of Ship-timber and 
 naval stores might be obtained, such as would at least 
 greatly lessen the pressure of a Russian War. The agents 
 of France were in full activity in the Morea and the Greek 
 Islands, the possession of which, by that Government, 
 would augment the naval resources of the French to a 
 degree of which few are aware, who have not made the 
 present state of commerce of the Greeks, an object of par- 
 ticular attention. In short, if the possession of Malta 
 were advantageous to England solely as a convenient 
 Watch tower, as a centre of Intelligence, it's importance 
 would be undeniable. 
 
 Although these suggestions did not prevent the sign- 
 ing away of Malta at the Peace of Amiens, they doubtless 
 were not without effect, when the Ambition of Buona- 
 parte had given a full and final answer to the grand Ques- 
 tion : Can we remain in Peace with France? I have like- 
 wise reason to believe, that Sir Alexander Ball, baffled,by 
 exposing an insidious proposal of the French Government, 
 during the negotiations that preceded the recommencement 
 
448 THE FRIEND. 
 
 of the War— that the fortifications of Malta should be en- 
 tirely dismantled, and the Island left to it's Inhabitants. 
 Without dwelling on the obvious inhumanity and flagitious 
 injustice of exposing the Maltese to certain Pillage and 
 Slavery, from their old and inveterate enemies, the Moors, 
 he shewed that the plan would promote the interests of 
 Buonaparte even more than his actual possession of the 
 Island, which France had no possible interest in desiring, 
 except as the means of keeping it out of the hands of Great 
 Britain. This was indeed an interest, which Buonaparte 
 regarded as vital, as connected closely and by many links 
 both with the commercial and the military prospects of his 
 Empire, : and this of itself furnishes a stronger argument 
 in presumption of it's ultimate importance to us, even 
 though Malta should only negatively assist us by preven- 
 tion of evils, than all the facts that have been adduced in 
 presumption of the Contrary. 
 
 (To be concluded in the next Number.) 
 
 N r 
 
 UNRITH : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY I. 5S3WN; AND SOLD BY 
 MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 
 ■ CLEMENT, 201, STRAND, LONDON- 
 
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