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LITERARY STUDIES 
 
LITERARY STUDIES: 
 
 A COLLECTION OF 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 W. A. JONES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 3i ■« . * 
 
 NEW YORK; 
 EDWARD WALKER, 114 FULTON STREET. 
 
 1847. 
 

 ah, 
 
 n. «UAl(!HKAH, nilN'IKU. )\2 FI'I.TON HTKEKT, N- Y. 
 
TO 
 
 MY FATHER AND BEST FRIEND, 
 
 IN ADMIRATION OK 
 
 IIIM MANY NOBLK QUAMTIKl 
 
 THESE VOLUMES 
 
 ARK RKSPKCTFUM.Y DKDICATKP 
 
 HIS SON. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. NEW-OLD ESSAYS OF ADDISON AND STEELE, ... 1 
 
 II. TYRONE POWER, 13 
 
 III. A FEW HOMERIC NODS IN MR. HALLAM, .... 17 
 
 IV. RELIGIOUS NOVELS, 22 
 
 V. LITERARY AMBASSADORS, 31 
 
 VI. THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS, 38 
 
 VIl. THE MORALITY OF POVERTY, • . , 47 
 
 VIII. CHAPTER ON SOME OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS, 56 
 
 IX. JEREMY TAYLOR, THE SPENSER OF DIVINITY, ... 75 
 
 X. CHURCH MUSIC, 81 
 
 XI. MR. BRAHAM, 88 
 
 XII. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL, . 91 
 
 XIII. Walton's lives, 105 
 
 XIV. ELIJAH FENTON, HI 
 
 XV. SWEDENBORGIANISM, 119 
 
 XVI. RELIGIOUS SATIRE, 130 
 
NEW-OLD ESSAYS 
 
 ADDISON AND STEELE. 
 
 It is not an unfrequent occurrence in the case of volumi- 
 nous writers, that a proportional moiety of their productions 
 become after a short period succeeding to their decease, lit- 
 tle known : and in the progress of a century, or even a still 
 briefer space of time, almost obsolete. After the enthusi- 
 asm of party feeling, or the excitement of novelty has gra- 
 dually cooled down into a sober appreciation of real merit, 
 from a previous extravagant estimate of it — we begin to 
 learn the true secret of excellence, to discriminate the pe- 
 culiar and characteristic traits of the author and award him 
 the palm which shall continue fresh and green in the eyes 
 of posterity. Of many copious authors, how little is now 
 generally read — a few versified translations, an ode, some 
 satires, and a prose essay or two, with one playof Dryden ; 
 only two or three, out of the score of volumes that complete 
 the edition of Swift. Of Voltaire's three score, a few sa- 
 tirical tales and historical compends : some two or three 
 dialogues of Plato : the Essays and Advancement, of Bacon : 
 the Essay of Locke : a play, here and there, of the Old 
 Dramatists : an occasional sonnet of a writer of a volume of 
 sonnets. .These are illustrations at hand: a very long 
 
 1 
 
2 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 list might be made of the very fertile authors who have 
 . been popularly known as the writers of but one work of 
 , pre-eminent ability. Bunyan, Defoe and Butler are strik- 
 ing instances. For the gratification of personal amuse- 
 ment, or the curious eye of the diligent antiquary, we 
 might add a copious appendix of this sort, but such might 
 not be so generally acceptable, as these occasional reflec- 
 tions illustrated by fewer examples. 
 
 The writers of the present century, this age of authors 
 and books, will in all probability experience a very great 
 diminution in the extent and character of their fame with 
 the cominor ao;e. Countless volumes of fiction will soon be 
 laid on the shelf for ever; whilst a class of writers, read by 
 few and whose names have not yet gone abroad into gene- 
 ral esteem, will, we venture to predict, become classical, 
 not only or so much from the capacity of their genius, as 
 from its direction to the permanently classical forms of writ- 
 ing. Except Scott (a vast deal of whose writings, it has 
 been confessed by more than one even cautious critic, can- 
 not last) what novelist will gain in fame, as the Critic and 
 Essayist Hazlitt ? We have had, for more than a century, 
 no humorist like Lamb ; and Hunt treads closely upon the 
 heels of Steele. Many authors too will become famous 
 in spite of their elaborate attempts at avoiding fame : the 
 squib, the pamphlet, the newspaper editorial, will throw in 
 the shade, heavy Epics and dull histories ; a picturesque 
 sketch of manners, a fresh and spirited portrait of charac- 
 ter, true and genial criticism, speculations on life and the 
 principles and motives of human actions ; these form the 
 favorite reading of the best class of readers in all ages — 
 and although the readers of Addison and Steele may, at 
 the present day, comprise a small body, still they have 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. 3 
 
 admirers, and there are also readers and lovers of them who 
 have succeeded them in the same form of composition. 
 What style or range of speculation does it not embrace ? 
 It is too didactic for the mass of readers, who, like children 
 or ignorant people, must be entertained the same time they 
 are taught : but for the scholar and philosopher it is inva- 
 luable. From the prose lyric, a poetic confession, to the 
 loftiest hymn of adoration, it is full of varied music ; and 
 personal as it appears in its very essence, it may even be 
 made dramatic. 
 
 Myself a reader and writer of Essays, I must confess to 
 a special fondness for the very name ; and I have contract- 
 ed a feeling of affectionate interest for the essayist and cri- 
 tic. As I run my eye over the shelves of my small collec- 
 tion, I find few books it rests upon with such pleasure as 
 upon the essayists, moral painters and historians of man- 
 ners and fashions. There are Bacon and Temple, and 
 Cowley, with the admirable writers whose names are pla- 
 ced at the head of this paper. There too are Goldsmith 
 and Shenstone and Mackenzie. Nor may I omit that trio 
 of masterly essayists, Lamb and Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. 
 Of the French, I especially cherish Rochefoucald and La- 
 bruy^re — writers with more thinking in their maxims and 
 sentences, than you find in whole pages of weaker writ- 
 ers. Among quite recent instances, Carlyle and Macaulay 
 in England ; Guizot and Cousin (though more scholastic 
 than strictly belongs to general essayists) in France : and at 
 home, Channing, Emerson, and Dewey. Indeed, the best 
 writing of the present day is to be found in periodical lite- 
 rature ; though we have lost much in pure classicality and 
 in certain traits of the essay, that have become merged in 
 other forms of writing. Thus, owing to the necessity of 
 
4 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 rapid and copious production, inaccuracies are not so rare 
 as they should be ; and evident marks of haste are to be 
 found. The humorous painting of the Addisonian school 
 has become the property of two or three capital novelists. 
 We have nowadays no pictures of manners, merely in es- 
 says ; and since Hazlitt, no prose satirist of decided abili- 
 ty has arisen. The Lecturers and Reviewers occupy a 
 large portion of the province formerly allotted to the Essay. 
 Moral speculation and criticism ; analysis of character, 
 historical painting, satirical description, the peculiar cha- 
 racteristics of the Essay, have, for the most part, passed 
 into other forms. Yet a taste for this sort of writing is re- 
 tained bj^ a circle, which is rapidly widening, and in con- 
 sequence the demand is as evidently increased for more 
 of literature, of the pleasantest kind — for something brief, 
 pointed and pithy — something of a practical bearing, and 
 yet which is to be considered as valuable in a purely lite- 
 rary estimate of the matter. 
 
 A kind of Literature is needed for the busy man and the 
 o;entleman, as well as for the recluse scholar ; a tone of 
 fresh vigor, real knowledge of life, wide and original expe- 
 rience is requisite. The authors of this must be men, 
 scholars, and gentlemen. It is not by any means the most 
 ambitious department of authorship, but, perhaps, next to 
 fine poetry, it is the most stable ; the staple is life and 
 books : feeling and passion ; without inclining to system or 
 method, it is grave and philosophical : without descending to 
 tarce or burlesque, it admits of pleasantry and good-natur- 
 ed ridicule. It is not exact or mechanical science, but the 
 science of human nature and the art of criticism (not of books 
 and authors only but) of principles, and theories, and fa- 
 shions, and contemporary manners. It is strictly histori- 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. O, 
 
 cal, though it contains little narrative, for it points out the 
 sources of historical truth. It is experimental philosophy, 
 though without any settled rules of art. In brief, it is the 
 kind of writing most particularly addressed to all, who, 
 while they read, think and feel ; and not to those who 
 read to accumulate and display knowledge. 
 
 Addison and Steele have been more fortunate than most 
 writers of magazines, not only as they are among the best 
 as they were among the earliest. Priority is, in fact, as 
 important a thing in Literature, as precedence is thought 
 to be in life. The first writers are generally the best ; at 
 all events they are freshest and most original. In point 
 of delicate humor, Addison is unsurpassed, though his se- 
 rious writing, which is sometimes almost tame, has been 
 equalled. Steele is more unique : such naturalness, so 
 easy and uniform a style, a vein of sentiment so fresh 
 and manly, such charming pleasantry, such elegance of 
 compliment and heartiness at the same time, we find in no 
 one other essayist. Not a few periodical writers might be 
 mentioned, more brilliant, more ingenious, with greater 
 learning and capacity, more profound, more exact, yet none 
 who are so delightful as Steele is invariably. Happy on 
 any topic, he is perfectly delicious where he is most at 
 home, and writes from his heart. The greater fame of 
 Addison has arisen in part from higher pretensions and as 
 much from the serious nature of his moral essays. Addi- 
 son, too, aimed more at being the censor ; Steele was con- 
 tent with the reputation of sociality, and to be loved rather 
 than be admired. Addison was perhaps a more cultivated 
 man, yet Steele had wit and spirit, that needed slight aids 
 from scholarship — yet he would, at the present day, be call- 
 ed a scholar. Steele had less art and policy than his as- 
 
t) LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 sociate, was more open and credulous, a generous dupe, 
 though deceived by no lack of sense, but of stratagem. 
 Addison was author all over ; Steele was more of the man 
 than of the writer. Both were admirable in their respec- 
 tive manners — Addison's elegance and humor gave an ad- 
 ditional beauty to the subjects fullest of it, naturally ; while 
 Steele's fine sense and airy style played with easy grace 
 upon the most barren theme. 
 
 Besides the Spectator, Tattler and Guardian, Addison was 
 concerned in other periodical publications. He was not 
 only the creator of Sir Roger de Coverly, the satirist of the 
 beau-monde, the elegant sermonizer, the tasteful critic ; 
 but also, the warm partizan and leading political writer. 
 " The Freeholder " was a strong whig paper, edited and 
 conducted by Addison, who furnished all the papers, under 
 that title, which are collected into a single volume. It 
 consists of fifty-five essays, and was commenced in the 
 year '15, celebrated for the first rising in favor of the Pre- 
 tender — and is filled with arguments in favor of the House 
 of Hanover, the Protestant succession, and a number of 
 elegant artifices (compliments garnished with eloquent flat- 
 tery) to bring in the fair portion of the inhabitants of Great 
 Britain to the side of the existing government. These 
 papers are the best of the series — as a specimen of the 
 work we make the following extracts from it, and which 
 are in the Freeholder's happiest vein. They are tran- 
 scribed from the fourth number, entitled, " P.easons why the 
 British Ladies should side with the Freeholder :" " It is 
 with great satisfaction I observe that the women of our 
 island, who are the most eminent for virtue and good sense, 
 are in the interest of the present government. As the fair 
 sex very much recommend the cause they are engaged in. 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. 7 
 
 it would be no small misfortune to a sovereign, though he 
 had all the male part of a kingdom on his side, if he did 
 not find himself king of the most beautiful half of his sub- 
 jects. Ladies are always of great use to the party they 
 espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. 
 
 " Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, 
 make at best the third part of the sensible men of the Bri- 
 tish nation ; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in 
 all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn 
 sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his 
 mistress. By this means it Jies in the power of every fine 
 woman to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to 
 his majesty's service. The female world are likewise in- 
 dispensably necessary in the best cause, to manage the 
 controversial part of them, in which no man of tolerable 
 breeding is ever able to refute them. Arguments out of a 
 pretty mouth are unanswerable. There are many reasons 
 why the women of Great Britain should be on the side of 
 the Freeholder, and enemies to the person who would bring 
 in arbitrary government and Popery. As there are several 
 of our ladies who amuse themselves in the reading of tra- 
 vels, they cannot but take notice what uncomfortable lives 
 those of their own sex lead where passive obedience is pro- 
 fessed and practised in its utmost perfection. In those 
 countries the men have no property but in their wives, who 
 are the slaves to slaves ; every married woman being sub- 
 ject to a domestic tyrant who requires from her the same 
 vassalage that he pays to his sultan. If the ladies would 
 seriously consider the evil consequences of arbitrary power, 
 they would find that it spoils the shape of the foot in China, 
 where the barbarous politics of the men so diminish the 
 basis of the human figure, as to unqualify a woman for an 
 
LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 evening walk or a country dance. In the East Indies, a 
 widow who has any regard to her character throws herself 
 into the flames of her husband's funeral pile, to show, for- 
 sooth, that she is faithful and loyal to the memory of her 
 deceased lord. In Persia, the daughters of Eve, as they 
 call them, are reckoned in the inventory of their goods and 
 chattels : and it is a usual thing when a man sells a bale of 
 silk, or a drove of camels, to toss half a dozen women into 
 the bargain. Through all the dominions of the great Turk, 
 a woman thinks herself happy if she can but get the twelfth 
 share of a husband, and is thought to be of no use in the 
 creation, but to keep up a proper number of slaves for the 
 Commander of the Faithful. I need not set forth the ill- 
 usage which the fair ones meet with in those despotic go- 
 vernments that lie nearer to us. Every one hath heard of 
 the several ways of locking up women in Spain and Italy; 
 where, if there is any power lodged in any of the sex, it is 
 not among the young and the beautiful, whom nature seems 
 to have formed for it, but among the old and withered 
 matrons, known by the frightful names of Gouvernantes 
 and Duennas. If any should allege the freedoms indulged 
 to the French ladies, he must own that these are owing to 
 the natural gallantry of the people, not to their form of go- 
 vernment, which excludes by its very constitution every 
 female from power, as naturally unfit to hold the sceptre of 
 that kingdom. Women ought in reason to be no less averse 
 to Popery than to arbitrary power. Some merry authors 
 have pretended to demonstrate, that the Roman Catholic re- 
 ligion could never spread in a nation where women would 
 have more modesty than to expose their innocent liberties 
 to a confessor. Others of the same turn have assured us 
 that the fine British complexion, which is so peculiar to our 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. 9 
 
 ladies, would suffer very much from a fish diet ; and that 
 a whole Lent would give such a sallowness to the celebrated 
 beauties of this island as would scarce make them distin- 
 guishable from those of France. I shall only leave to the 
 serious consideration of my fair countrywomen, the danger 
 any of them might have been in (had Popery been our na- 
 tional religion) of being forced by their relations to a state 
 of perpetual virginity. The most blooming toast in the 
 island might have been a nun ; and many a lady who is 
 now a mother of fine children, condemned to a condi- 
 tion of life disagreeable to herself, and unprofitable to the 
 world. To this I might add the melancholy objects 
 they would be daily entertained with, of several sightly 
 men delivered over to an unavoidable celibacy. Let a 
 young lady imagine to herself the brisk embroidered offi- 
 cer, who now makes love to her with so agreeable an air, 
 converted into a monk ; or the beau, who now addresses 
 himself to her in a full-bottomed wig, distinguished by a 
 little baldpate covered with a little leather black scull-cap. 
 I forbear to mention many other objections, which the ladies, 
 who are no strangers to the doctrines of Popery, will easily 
 recollect ; though I do not in the least doubt but those I 
 have already suggested will be sufficient to persuade my 
 fair readers to be zealous in the Protestant cai^se." We 
 read no such political writing at the present day ; elegance 
 of style is considered as quite a subordinate matter, and 
 pleasantry rarely passes from a paragraph into an article. 
 The Lover, of Steele, is concerned with the policy of 
 Passion, and the strategy of Love. It is a work of senti- 
 ment, and peculiarly a lady's journal. The passion of 
 Love in all its multiplied forms ; the affections of the heart 
 with all their subtle windings j the various aspects of 
 
 1* 
 
10 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 friendship, are painted with masterly skill. Tales of real 
 life, and characters so natural as to seem almost living, 
 occupy a large space, with a rich fund of sense and unpre- 
 tending sincerity of feeling. The purest sentiment, a facile 
 wit, and polished gallantry, are its marked features. The 
 Lover is an avowed imitation of the Tattler, which is a 
 surety for the style of its author. Like that delightful 
 collection, it contains its club, and had letters written to its 
 author, Marmaduke Myrtle, gent. Thoroughly acquainted 
 with city life, and the ways of the town, the book is full of 
 good advice of the kind most needed in a great city. It is, 
 besides this, a chart of the shoals and quicksands of the 
 tender passion, that should be studied by all youthful navi- 
 gators. Beyond this, it has the additional attraction of de- 
 lightful illustrative matter, incidental to the main design. 
 It contains many admirable suggestions of the highest 
 practical value, and delicate satire, with jfine irony une- 
 qualled but in the pages of his friend and associate. Of 
 these various fine qualities we shall endeavor to present 
 examples, though necessarily brief and few. Here is the 
 portrait of a Lover Vagabond, as he calls the representa- 
 tion of a certain class of speculative rakes. " He has the 
 language, the air, the tender glance ; he can hang upon a 
 look, has most exactly the veneration of face when he is 
 catched ogling one whose pardon he would beg for gazing ; 
 he has the exultation at leading off a lady to her coach ; 
 can let drop an indifferent thing, or call her servants with 
 a loudness and a certain gay insolence rare enough ; nay, 
 he will hold her hand too fast for a man that leads her, and 
 is indifferent to her, and yet come to that gripe with such 
 slow degrees, that she cannot say he squeezed her hand, 
 but for anything further he had no inclination.'' We wish 
 
ADDISON AND STEELE. 11 
 
 we could find room for certain delicious papers, that would 
 be mutilated by mere extracts. Such are, the Battle of 
 Eyes ; the Lover, containing the tragical history of Pen- 
 ruddock, with the affecting correspondence that passed 
 between the husband and his wife ; the story of the Vene- 
 tian Count ; the humorous family picture of the Crabtrees ; 
 the refined thoughts on making presents ; the account of 
 the Ladies of^ consideration ; and of the young student who 
 was so artfully taught to speak and act for himself; and a 
 number of elegant episodes. Instead of these we can only 
 copy a passage or so, at random — generally selecting such 
 as Labruyere might have written, from their nicety and 
 refinement ; and maxims with regard to good breeding, as 
 judicious as anything in Chesterfield, at the same time 
 that they have ten-fold the heart in them. 
 
 " Women dissemble their passions better than men, but 
 men suhdue their passions better than women." 
 
 " There are no inclinations in women which more sur- 
 prise me than their passions for chalk and china. The 
 first of these maladies wears out in a little time; but when 
 a woman is visited with the second, it generally takes pos- 
 session of her for life. China vessels are playthings for 
 women of all ages. An old lady of four score shall be as 
 busy in cleaning an Indian Mandarin as her great-grand- 
 daughter is in dressing her baby." 
 
 " A too great regard for doing what you are about with 
 a good grace, destroys your capacity for doing it at all." 
 
 " The best way to do a thing as you ought, is to do it 
 only because you ought." 
 
 " As for my own part, I always approve those who 
 make the most of a little understanding, and carry that as 
 far as they can, than those who will not condescend to be 
 
12 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 perfect, if I may so speak, in the vndcr parts of their cha- 
 racter." 
 
 " ugly is a woman's word for knavish.'"' 
 
 *' Some silly particle or other, as it were to tack the 
 taking leave with the rest of the discourse, is a common 
 error of young men of good educaticn." 
 
 " A good judgment will not only supply, but go beyond 
 experience ; for the latter is only a knowledge that directs 
 us in the dispatch of matters future, from the consideration 
 of matters past of the same nature ; but the former is a 
 perpetual and equal direction in everything that can hap- 
 pen, and does not follow, but makes the precedent that 
 guides the other." 
 
 The reader will do well to turn to the beautiful dedica- 
 tion to the Lover, a masterpiece of composition, as well as 
 a noble eflusion of friendship : the whole work is of the 
 same texture, and so uniformly attractive as to appear 
 more to advantage read continuously, than cut up into 
 shreds and patches ; a test to be applied only to works of 
 standard merit, since most modern writers gain by the 
 transcription of their most elaborate passages. 
 
II 
 
 TYRONE power; 
 
 Is certainly the prince of Irish actors. Indeed we never 
 saw the Irishman even decently personated before we saw 
 this admirable performer, nor do we conceive it possible 
 for any future rival to disturb our opinion of him. Irish 
 Johnstone is with the past : he may have equalled Power, 
 but we doubt it — we are sure he could not have surpassed 
 him. Power, beyond any actor we ever saw, and we have 
 seen the best that have graced the boards of our old Drury, 
 unites in himself the most literal fidelity with the richest 
 humor this side of burlesque. He is always natural ; he 
 is the most picturesque of actors. The elder Mathews had 
 far finer wit, knowledge of character and invention ; his 
 son a more sparkling fancy, wonderful quickness, and a 
 keener wit. Jack Reeve was John Bull in grotesque, and 
 Keeley is nature's self in little. In quiet humor, the last 
 mentioned actor beats them all. Dowton, whom we saw 
 in his decline, was a serious old gentleman of the senti- 
 mental school. Charles Kemble was the perfection of the 
 genteel comedian. All of these performers were gifted 
 with a universality to which Power can lay no claim, and 
 yet we reiterate, in his single walk of Irishman, whether 
 gentle or simple, the attorney or the tailor, the country 
 
 * 1840. 
 
14 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 gentleman or the rustic, the ambassador or the valet, he is 
 the finest, most natural, most attractive actor the stage now 
 possesses. 
 
 When we first sat down to sketch the character of 
 Power's acting, we thought to compare him with Keeley ; 
 a close analysis gives Power the palm. We say this with 
 a genuine relish of the delicious quaintness, grave humor 
 of Peter Spyk and Euclid Facile : both actors are men of 
 excellent sense, but their humor and fancy are different. 
 Powers is a Rubens in his rich colors, and Keeley a Te- 
 niers in his scrupulous exactness. Keeley is a Flemish 
 painter among actors ; cautious, thorough, elaborate. The 
 effect of his acting proves this, though it may not be dis- 
 covered while he is acting ; he leaves a clear, fixed 
 impression on the mind. This Power does not aim to 
 create, or cannot ; he is more the actor of impulse, not 
 without study. He has too much nicety and neatness for 
 that : what we mean is, there is more of a riant spirit, an 
 overflow of soul in his acting than in Keeley's, which 
 might almost tempt one to say he was a careless actor, 
 Keeley, on the contrary, is the most careful of actors, and 
 gradually unfolds a character; Power displays it in the 
 first scene. Both are admirable actors, with quite opposite 
 temperaments ; and the most we can say is, that the breadth 
 of Power's humor is of a more sympathetic nature than 
 the depth of Keeley's. 
 
 An undoubted proof of the genius of Power, for such he 
 certainly possesses, is his constant freshness. Acting in a 
 single line, one might regard him as liable to monotony, 
 and that line comprehending but two ranges of character, 
 diversify them as you will. New incidents, a new story, 
 new characters may come in, but in every varying light, 
 
TYRONE POWER. 15 
 
 you can find only either the Irish gentleman, or the Irish 
 peasant; most delicately shaded, most nicely discrimi- 
 nated, yet only these two. It has been disputed whether 
 Power can act the Irish gentleman ; there is no doubt he 
 is one. It is said, he carries into a genteel character the 
 farcical conceits and low cunning that distinguish his Rory 
 O'More, his Irish Lion, Teddy the Tiler, Looney M'Twol- 
 ter, and Dr. O'Toole. We wish such critics to go and 
 see his Irish Attorney. If that be not a portrait of the 
 Irish gentleman of a past date, a harum-scarum rattlepate, 
 but a genuine, humane-hearted gentleman withal, a man 
 of sense to boot, then we know not what such a character 
 should be. When Power chooses, he can assume 
 the port and bearing of a finished gentleman. He 
 always discovers the feelings of one. In this last-men- 
 tioned character, he is the exact picture of a country gen- 
 tleman, who has lived much among his inferiors, and 
 caught something of their slang and style. His Irish Am- 
 bassador is not so good. In O'Callaghan again we see the 
 gentleman plainly, though clad in a rusty suit and worn 
 beaver. His Sir Lucius O'Trigger we never saw ; but 
 the Park company could not sustain such a comedy as the 
 Rivals. Where would be the Acres, Sir Anthony, the 
 Captain Absolute, the Lydia Languish ? To be sure we 
 would have the best of Mrs. Malaprops, in Mrs. Wheatley. 
 We would have a judicious actor in Mr. Chippendale, 
 whatever part he assumed ; and a tolerable one in Placide, 
 whose powers have been far overstated. But we want 
 Charles Kemble, Jack Reeve, Farren, and Mrs. Jordan, or 
 Miss Chester, or Miss Kelly, if the play were to be cast as 
 it deserved. 
 
 Excellent as is Mr. Power's Irish gentleman, his peasant 
 
16 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 must be confessed beyond all praise : it is perfection. In 
 the White Horse of the Peppers, he leaves for a time his 
 original character, which is that of an Irish cavalier, and 
 assumes that of a bog-trotter. The vast difference is seen 
 at once. If he were good in the first, and such he cer- 
 tainly was, he was excellent in the last. 
 
 Another proof of Mr. Power's merit is, that he is the piece. 
 In all the plays he performs, his character is not only the 
 main character, but the only character of importance ; and 
 yet he so fills up the stage and the play, that he makes 
 poor actors play well in his company. Other stars shine 
 by themselves alone ; Power shines in his own person, and 
 through the rest of the company by a reflected light. In 
 a word. Power is the herald of mirth and good humor 
 wherever he comes ; we greet his honest face with joy on 
 the stage, or in the street, and cannot help regarding him 
 as a much greater and better friend to humanity than a 
 score of professed moralizers who never touch the heart. 
 
Ill 
 
 A FEW HOMERIC NODS IN MR. HALLAM. 
 
 Histories of literature in general prove very unsatisfac- 
 tory. The ground they cover is too wide ; the topics dis- 
 cussed too multifarious ; the space for each very limited. 
 There is more of the narrative talent employed in them 
 generally than critical acumen. A historical line of 
 writers is deduced, and the genealogy of the various 
 schools of literature and the mutations of taste and fashion 
 are presented ; but the individual traits of single writers, 
 unless those of the first class, are too often overlooked, and 
 the rare merits of minor writings, which are in less regard 
 because less known, cast almost entirely in the shade, 
 or else unfaithfully noticed. This general fault applies to 
 the three most prominent histories of literature with which 
 the modern scholar is acquainted — the work of Schlegel, 
 Sismondi, and Bouterwek. The late Introduction to the 
 literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries, by Mr. Hallam, is open to the same ob- 
 jections, and, if we are not greatly mistaken, to a wider 
 and more prejudicial extent. 
 
 The capacity and requisite attainments on the part of a 
 historian of European letters, would, if rigorously tested in 
 the person of Mr. Hallam, incline one to place his preten- 
 
18 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 sions and to rate his pertorniance rather lower tlian the 
 press and the reading public generally have thought proper 
 to ascribe to him. The true position of this author in the 
 literary republic, has been well detined by Macaulay, as 
 that of a most liberal, fair and accurate political historian. 
 But it will be readily seen that the very qualities that best 
 fit Hallam for this department, are the least appropriate to 
 him in his new character. The cool decisions and rigidly 
 impartial statements of the narrator of civil and military 
 occurrences, and of the speculatist on the political aspects 
 of states and nations, diminish the influence of a literary 
 spirit cherished with enthusiasm and kept fresh by a natu- 
 ral and healthy sympathy with men of genius. Hence we 
 find the statesman and political economist has here got the 
 better of the literary critic and the genuine man of lettei*s. 
 Mr. Hallam is a man of varied acquirements, much indus- 
 try, and a correct judgment on points where lie is well 
 versed ; but his work is, after all, little better than a cata- 
 ii)gue raisoiuU, and in that section of it most interesting to 
 the English reader — the department of old English prose 
 and jx>eiry — lamentably deficient, not only in a just ap- 
 preciation of the glories of the reigns o{ Elizabeth, of 
 James, and of Charles I., but also in some of the common 
 details with which every gentleman of moderate reading is 
 supjx)sed to be acquainted. All questions of speculative 
 theology and theoretical politics, the antiquarian historj- of 
 the fii'st editions of the classics, and the eaily translations 
 of the Bible, the pmgress of oriental learning, and similar 
 heads, are well and learnedly handled. The great defect 
 of the writer is seen when he comes to speak of the minor 
 prose literature of England in tlie sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries, and where those recondite niceties and 
 
A FEW HOMERIC NODS IN MR. HALLAM. 19 
 
 delicate traits that test the fine critic, pass either without 
 observation or are ignorantly and ahiiost insolently treated. 
 A feeling of the beauties of an obscure author of merit is 
 as rare in the world of books, as the honest appreciation of 
 a worthy man, who lives out of the world, and is, perhaps, 
 underrated by the few to whom he is known, is in the 
 circles of society. Not only candor but also ingenuity is 
 wanted, in a critic of this description. The critic has 
 candor, but is by no means an ingenious man in any of his 
 works, and, we apprehend, not so well informed on these 
 very topics as he ought to be. On this latter suggestion 
 alone can we account for several false reports and very 
 inadequate decisions. We have marked many instances, 
 but shall at present quote but a few. 
 
 Mr. Hallam writes thus of Jeremy Taylor : " His sen- 
 tences are of endless length, and hence not only altogether 
 unmusical, but not always reducible to grammar." Of 
 Donne and Cowley, he gives the old Johnsonian criticism, 
 which has been amply refuted over and over again. He 
 speaks of South as he is currently mentioned, merely a 
 witty court preacher, and says not a word of his vigorous 
 eloquence. Of Hammond's biblical annotations he treats 
 at length, but adds not a syllable of the sermons of the 
 English Fenelon. Of Marvell, says Hallam — " His satires 
 are gross and stupid ;^^ (!) while the critic writes this sen- 
 tence of Crashaw, "It is dilHcult in general to find any- 
 thing in Crashaw that bad taste has not deformed"(!!) 
 Among the Shaksperian commentators he mentions Mrs. 
 Montague, and others inferior even to her, but omits alto- 
 gether any reference to Hazlitt or Lamb. One of the 
 most flagrant instances of a want of proper reverence for 
 the finest writers of the finest period of English literature, 
 
20 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 is to bo seen in his notice of tlie Mermaid tavern: "the 
 oldest and not tlie worst of clubs." The circle in which 
 Mr. ITallani moves is perhaps more courtly and aristocra- 
 tical. His idol, Mr. Hookham Frere, possesses ''admira- 
 ble liumor," but poor Owen Feltham, forsooth, who wrote 
 the first century of his Resolves at the age of eighteen, and 
 lived the life of a dependant, is a harsh and quaint writer, 
 full of sententious commonplaces. This young man, who 
 was also poor, oflers a striking example of an early matu- 
 rity of judgment, and of the union of genuine pathos and 
 fanciful humor. His little volume will be read with grati- 
 fication a century hence, and by a larger class than now 
 peruse it, and we dare atVirm with more pleasure than the 
 long and inaccurate volumes of Hallam. 
 
 Mr. Ilallam's judgments, often assuredly caught from 
 second sources, are, when original, those of a critic with 
 the taste of Dr. Blair ; a strange union of French criticism 
 and reverence for classic models current in the early part 
 and until almost the close of the last century. He gives 
 an opinion of Addison, to which no reader of varied acqui- 
 sition, or of broad views of the present day, could by any 
 possibility assent. After Lamb and Hazlitt's admirable 
 criticisms, we cannot read with patience the labored cau- 
 tiousness of Mr. Hallam, on tlie old English dramatists. 
 Our author's notices of the old divines are too much a 
 history of their polemical works, and the views of their 
 pulpit eloquence either borrowed or else confused. 
 
 Lest the popular admiration for genius of the popular sort 
 should run wild, he sneeringly alludes to a certain class 
 of critics, who would erect the John Bunyans and Daniel 
 Defoes into the gods of an idolatry. The historian would 
 himself peradventure substitute Dr. Lingard and Sharon 
 
A FEW HOMERIC NODS IN MR. HALLAM. 21 
 
 Turner, his brother historians, or a pair of biblical critics, 
 or High Dutch commentators. There are critics who 
 measure an author^s works by the company he keeps, or 
 the clothes he wears. We suspect Mr. Hallam to be one 
 of tiiem, who would treat Sir Harris Nicholas or the head 
 of a college with unfeigned respect, but not allow himself 
 to be ensnared into the vulgar society at Lamb's Wednes- 
 day evening parties, where Coleridge, Wordsworth, Haz- 
 litt, Godwin, Hunt, and a host of the most brilliant men of 
 the age, met to converse freely, like men, and not like litte- 
 rateurs or namby-pamby followers of noble lords. 
 
 The history of English literature alone is much too 
 comprehensive a subject for any one man. Mr. D'lsraeli, 
 who advertised his intention of attempting it, lias been 
 wisely disappointed. The curiosities of literature he has 
 a more real love of, than for the simple beauties of prose 
 or poetry. He might have compiled merely a collection 
 of rare facts and curious fragments, valuable for their sug- 
 gestive matter to the student, but quite inadequate for a phi- 
 losophical history of literature. The best criticisms are 
 contained in classic lives, in letters, and the ablest review 
 articles, in the lectures of Hazlitt, and the essays of Lamb 
 and Leigh Hunt. With these writers Mr. Hallam may in 
 nowise compete, and we trust he will follow the bent of 
 liis natural inclinations, in turning over state papers and 
 government documents, and display his peculiar ability in 
 sifting the measures of a party, and following up the con- 
 sequences of a bill or a statute. For literary criticism, his 
 cold temperament and negative taste are ill adapted. They 
 incline him to look on the frank relation of an author's 
 feelings as offensive egotism, and wholly obscure his per- 
 ception of characteristic individuality or marked personal 
 traits. 
 
IV. 
 RELIGIOUS NOVELS 
 
 A CERTAIN class of prosc fictions is included under the 
 above general term, which, from Bunyan to Brownson, is 
 and ever has been exceedingly popular. They are, for 
 this reason, to be closely scrutinized, as their scope and 
 tendency may prove productive either of jjreat good or con- 
 siderable injury, not only to the cause of literature, but 
 even to the cause of vital religion and Christian morality. 
 Tile phrase, " Religious Novels," comprehends equally 
 those works written professedly to favor or satirize particu- 
 lar sects and creeds, and tiiose works wliich, with a more 
 general and popular interest, still aim to take a high stand 
 on all questions of morality, and to be, in eflect, text-books 
 of ethics and political casuistry. 
 
 A general objection that strikes us at once, on the very 
 face of the matter, is with regard to the intention and spirit 
 of these and similar productions. Is a novel, we would 
 ask, the proper vehicle for religious sentiment and moral 
 instruction ? We would not be misunderstood. We sin- 
 cerely believe that every good book, even of the lightest 
 character, should carry its moral with it, and that a good 
 moral. What we doubt is, whether the morality of the 
 book should be made offensively prominent, — should stand 
 foremost, casting all its other merits into the background ; 
 
RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 23 
 
 or whether it should not lie covert and unpretendingly 
 under a cheerful face of humble docility. Pope has 
 wisely advised us that 
 
 " Men should be taught as if we taught them not; 
 And things unknown, d.s things /or^g-o/"." 
 
 The skilful man of the world — the Sir Politic Would-be 
 of this generation, — always reminds and never informs 
 directly. " The agreeable man is he who agrees." So 
 the judicious moralist, if at the same time a writer of fic- 
 tion, conceals his moral under a veil of fancy's weaving, 
 and impresses a solemn truth on our hearts, whilst he is 
 delighting the imagination or instructing the reason. This 
 palpable error of overdoing the matter, being " too moral 
 by half" (always smacking of hypocrisy), has been re- 
 marked by the ablest critical and sesthetical philosophers ; 
 but it is a vulgar error of such frequent occurrence as to 
 call for as frequent animadversion. It is not necessary 
 that every book should contain a confession of faith, nor 
 comprehend a code of religious precepts. Every biogra- 
 phy is not of a good man ; some histories must relate the 
 successes of bad men and evil principles. Novels, of all 
 books, are permitted to be least didactic and hortatory (to 
 employ a Johnsonian phrase). We hate misnomers. A 
 book of devotion, a tract of controversial divinity, a sermon, 
 a moral essay, are all well in their proper place ; but a book 
 professing to be a novel, but which is, in fact, a sham novel, 
 a mere cover for the introduction of a work of another 
 class, under its name, is a forgery, a falsehood, a contempti- 
 ble piece of deception. The title may be assumed to gain 
 a wider circle of readers (it may be a fetch of the author's, 
 or a trick of the publisher's), but that affords no just excuse 
 
24 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 for falsifying its character by giving it a name that means 
 something directly the reverse. Lord Peter, in the Tale 
 of the Tub, endeavored to make a loaf of bread to stand for 
 " fish, flesh and fowl," but such is now a stale cheat. It 
 is for bread, giving a stone, in the language of Scripture. 
 It is virtually telling a falsehood. No honest man could 
 countenance such an imposition, evidently a piece of Jesuit- 
 ical policy. The defender of the practice would argue, 
 probably, the purity of his intention and the goodness of 
 the end to be reached : for " a verse may take him whom 
 a sermon flies;" shielding himself under these batteries 
 from the charge of employing unfair means. 
 
 We have a word more to say on this head. We urge, 
 a novel is not, as a matter of course, to be a moral treatise 
 or ecclesiastical Iiorn-book (all good works of fiction pre- 
 suppose the essentials of religion and the reality of vir- 
 tue) ; but, — and here we join with the strictest religionists, 
 — if it pretend directly to icaclt morals or religion at all, 
 it must teach pure doctrine and sound ethics. It is essen- 
 tial, primarily, that it be consistent with itself and faithful 
 to nature. Let an exact picture of life, and manners, and 
 character be presented, without any formal comment or 
 prefatory analysis ; give character, and feeling, and prin- 
 ciple fair play ; let opposites contend,* and then good will 
 be apparent, evil will be manifest. Allurements will be 
 offered to virtue, and vice be her own corrector. No dan- 
 ger need be apprehended from too close fidelity of descrip- 
 tion, for in that case the evil will correct itself. Grossness 
 is repulsive enough ; it is the elegant voluptuousness of 
 polished vice that is so baleful and pernicious. By all 
 means to be avoided is the hateful paradox of painting 
 good infidels, or cold skeptics with all the virtues of huma- 
 
RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 25 
 
 nity. And some who pass for mere skeptics, have a 
 natural religion and a pious benevolence in their hearts, 
 which they do not dream of, and do not profess. Such 
 was " the good David" (Hume), the friend and almost the 
 idol of Adam Smith, and Macintosh, and Mackenzie. 
 
 We have mentioned two classes of religious novels. 
 Under the first denomination would fall Bunyan's Pilgrim 
 and Holy War, Patrick's Imitation (taken by Gray as a 
 standard of dulness), the Spiritual Quixote, Walker's Vag- 
 abond, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, and later fictions of a 
 somewhat similar character by De Wette and Brownson. 
 These are but a few. Of the second description are the 
 novels of Defoe, Richardson, Dr. Moore, Johnson's Rasse- 
 las, and a vast collection of moral tales, by Marmontel, and 
 Cottin, and De Genlis, and Chateaubriand, and St. Pierre, 
 with a thousand others. 
 
 A striking defect is common to the above works, and the 
 religious biographies, — the heroes are made perfect ; they 
 are morally and intellectually accomplished, and unite the 
 piety of the saint to the polish of the gentleman. They are 
 literally "just men, that need no repentance." Instead of 
 being represented as human and fallible, they are painted as 
 so pure and immaculate as to preclude us from sympathy 
 with weakness or failure, and have nothing left for the mind 
 but stupid admiration. We are called by the creator of 
 these models of superhuman excellence to fall down and do 
 homage to the idols of their fancy, the gods of their idolatry, 
 as to our liege exemplars. The characters themselves, by 
 their monotony of merit, into which no particle of folly is 
 allowed to intrude, are made tiresome and unnatural. 
 They are flattered into the most disgusting form of vanity, 
 — that is, spiritual conceit. They are moral and religious 
 
 2 
 
LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 coxcombs. " It is the man, Sir Charles Grandison," is the 
 constant exclamation of praise. The morality of these 
 novels is moral jpedantry . It is as different from true moral 
 wisdom as genuine learning is different from the pedant- 
 ry of books and colleges. The morality of ethical novels 
 is generally a conventional mannerism : the pretensions to 
 piety savor of puritanical assumption. The religious con- 
 versations are often blasphemous, from their absurd and 
 presumptuous familiarity. We read a sort of religious 
 SLANG, too often found even in the pulpit ; by which we 
 intend to express, a stereotyped repetition of phrases, em- 
 ployed without any definite meaning, and in an indifferent, 
 careless spirit. The most serious Christian cannot avoid 
 allowing the existence of cant, which is more injurious in 
 religion than anywhere else. In religious novels, any ex- 
 pression of this kind exposes the work to the sneers of wick- 
 ed men, as well as to the intelligent censure of the critic, 
 who is no scoffer. 
 
 One description of religious novels, that might be better 
 styled moral satires, if not carried out into burlesque or 
 disfigured by illiberality, may be the vehicle of sound ar- 
 gument and pointed rebuke. The Vagabond, by Walker, 
 is a book of this nature. Such, also, we conceive the Spir- 
 itual Quixote to be ; a satire directed against the Methodists 
 and their extravagances. 
 
 Bunyan, the first of religious writers, was an allegorical 
 painter with little of the satirist. He has nothing in com- 
 mon, as a mere writer, with later writers of religious fic- 
 tion, — Hannah More, for instance. Pilgrim's Progress is 
 dramatic and spiritual ; Coelebs is a tract on the art of se- 
 lecting a wife, transformed into the shape, the figure " ex- 
 tern," of a novel. Bunyan gives us pictures ; Hannah 
 
RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 27 
 
 More furnishes us with sermons and moral dissertations. 
 Bunyan is a poet ; Mrs. More is a proser. Hannah More's 
 true field — and there she was admirable — (for, in spite of 
 many drawbacks, she had great talent), was, prose fiction 
 in the shape of moral tracts (good Sunday reading) for the 
 plainer class of people, and which would impress many 
 wholesome truths on readers of all classes. She was also a 
 good writer for children beyond infancy and on the confines 
 of boyhood or girlhood. She wanted genius to open the 
 minds and address the fancy of very young children ; and 
 she wanted breadth and originality for maturer men and 
 women of education and experience. 
 
 We come, finally, to this conclusion, with regard to the 
 morality of the novel as a work of art ; and we find our 
 idea so justly and distinctly enunciated by Hazlitt,* that 
 we borrow his language : " The most moral writers, after 
 all, are those who do not pretend to inculcate any moral. 
 The professed moralist unavoidably degenerates into the 
 partizan of a system ; and the philosopher is too apt to 
 warp the evidence to his own purpose. But the painter of 
 manners gives the facts of human nature, and leaves us to 
 draw the inference ; if we are not able to do this, or do it 
 ill, at least it is our own fault." In the same way, a phi- 
 losophic historian will prefer the transcript from contem- 
 porary records to any fine-spun dissertations of his own ; 
 and an effective orator will allow a clear and spirited 
 statement of facts to do the work of a labored declamation. 
 There have been warm discussions on this point, to wit, 
 whether every work of art should have a direct moral ? 
 Goethe and his disciples contended that it should not; 
 that, questionless, a deep lesson was to be learnt, not ap- 
 • Lectures on the Comic Writers. 
 
28 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 pearing, however, on the surface of the work, but to be 
 educed and evolved after study and earnest meditation. 
 Coleridge boasted that a principal beauty of his " Ancient 
 Mariner" consisted in its being without an avowed moral, 
 at which good Mistress Barbauld was mightily shocked. 
 Not having a formal moral, did not impair the essential 
 morality of the poem. This speech of the poet was analo- 
 gous to his praise of Shakspeare's women, that they were 
 characterless ; recipients of virtue, and reflectors of it, but 
 not stiff, moral, heartless prudes. The great poet de- 
 tested pretence, and most of all moral pretences. He saw 
 a great and deep truth, which the mass can never compre- 
 hend, or, if they did, could not appreciate, and which must 
 ever remain a dark problem to many well-meaning and 
 well-taught (in other respects), but pragmatical persons. 
 For a man can only see with what eyes he has, and with 
 none other. Optical aids furnish optical delusions ; and 
 thus truth is perverted, because the percipient wants a true 
 vision. 
 
 The novel is a classic form of composition ; it has proved 
 the vehicle for consummate knowledge of life and charac- 
 ter ; it comprehends and includes exquisite descriptions of 
 nature, and beauty, and comic traits, and pathetic situa- 
 tions ; it paints the manners, and developes the sentiments. 
 It is familiar history and popular philosophy ; but we 
 apprehend it is not the proper form of writing to be selected 
 for the propagation of religious opinions, or the instilling, 
 in a didactic manner, of moral sentiments. We would be 
 very far from excluding either ; but we maintain that they 
 should be subsidiary rather than glaring ; incidental and 
 not prominent. Palpable display only invites attack, and 
 stimulates rude jests. 
 
RELIGIOUS NOVELS. 29 
 
 With all the love in the world for good litel-ature, and 
 none the less for novels of the good old stamp, as a portion 
 of literature, we yet confess religion is too holy a thing to 
 be bandied about in lively dialogue, or defended with the 
 supercilious condescension of arrogant eloquence. Other 
 forms of composition are better adapted to impress moral 
 precepts, or warm by pure devotion, or excite by passion- 
 ate appeals, or enlighten by the inductions of reason. The 
 divine muse of sacred poesy is reviving from the lethargy 
 in which she lay buried for the greater part of the eight- 
 eenth century. The rich strains of the minor religious 
 poets of the seventeenth century are now reproduced, and 
 rising from a new choir of contemporary bards. The songs of 
 Zion fascinate the sense, while they purify the heart. The 
 well of life requires no such filtering as the poisoned foun- 
 tain of Helicon, to drink only of the pure essence of poesy. 
 The pulpit is more especially the source whence should 
 flow invigorating streams of the water of the River of Life, 
 to cheer and fortify the soul. That these ends are not in 
 all cases so answered, is a crying evil. The history of 
 good men, who have actually lived and struggled with 
 temptation and fortune, if truly and dramatically related, 
 should at least equal a fictitious narrative of the ideal good 
 man. The history of the church is a history of human 
 nature, and full of rich instruction. For direct precept or 
 discussion, the moral essay, the I'eview, the religious peri- 
 odical, are always open. Aud it is indeed matter of espe- 
 cial wonder how, with«lhe rich theological literature of 
 England, any poverty should be felt of religious reading 
 for the most fastidious scholar ; or the necessity of resort 
 to novels for doctrinal or practical instruction. Perhaps 
 the best thing to be done, is, with all humility and respect 
 
30 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 for the great names and greater minds of the elder English 
 writers, to point out the several excellences of each, and 
 thereby persuade to a study and contemplation of them. 
 This we have always honestly endeavored to do, however 
 feeble or imperfect may have been the execution of our 
 purpose. 
 
LITERAM AMBASSADORS.^ 
 
 The recent appointment of two of the most elegant-minded 
 men our country has yet produced, as foreign ministers to 
 two of the most powerful courts of the old world, has led 
 us to the consideration of the many great authors, some- 
 times poets, who have heretofore graced the same honora- 
 ble office, and thence our subject has carried us into 
 incidental reflections on the connection subsisting between 
 politics and literature. Our country, we may remark in 
 passing, is not only safe, as certain cautious writers observe, 
 in such hands as those of the accomplished Everett and the 
 tasteful Irving, but it is even highly honored by such re- 
 presentations. Since her earliest connection with us, 
 England has never given us so fair a specimen of her race 
 as we now present her with ; except perhaps when the 
 amiable enthusiast, the eloquent Bishop of Cloyne, visited 
 our shores. And Spain, since the days of Cervantes, has 
 been unable to exchange with us the equal of Washington 
 Irving. Our two great countrymen may compare in lite- 
 rary merit and social worth with the lettered statesmen of 
 an earlier age in England's literary history, and are, with 
 the Sidneys, the Wottons, the Herberts, of a purer epoch. 
 
 * 1S4'2. 
 
32 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 From the earliest dawn of civilisation, the ruler has been, 
 in the noblest instances, always something more than a 
 mere ruler. He has been, also, a priest ; frequently, an 
 orator ; and sometimes a poet. Moses, and David, and So- 
 lomon, among the Jews — Pericles was an orator and a critic : 
 Demosthenes a great orator : Cicero, a moralist and rheto- 
 rician : Ca3sar, a general, an author, an orator, and indeed 
 an universal genius. But to confine ourselves to great 
 Englishmen alone, and to those of that nation employed in 
 embassies, — Dan Chaucer, the morning star of English 
 poetry, was sent abroad on a political errand, and passed 
 the greater part of his life at the courts of Edward III. and 
 Richard II. In the lime of Henry VIII. we meet the 
 names of the courtly Surrey, the poet and lover, as well as 
 the knight and courtier, and the all-accomplished Lord 
 Herbert (elder brother to George Herbert). Spenser was, 
 if we are not mistaken, entrusted with a commission of sta- 
 tistical survey, or something of the sort, which led to his 
 work on Ireland. All the great prose writers and poets of 
 Elizabeth's time took a deep interest in policy, except the 
 dramatists. At home. Bacon, and Burleigh, and the Cecils, 
 and Selden, and Hooker, and Coke : " abroad, in arms," 
 Sidney and Raleigh (twin brothers in genius and glory), 
 and those gay rivals for the favor of the maiden queen , 
 Essex and Leicester. The great dramatists seem to have 
 been too deeply and too delightfully engrossed by creating 
 fair visions of their own, to trouble their heads much with 
 the concerns of this sublunary planet. 
 
 The reigns of the first two Stuarts were highly favora- 
 ble to letters, both in church and state. Then were the 
 high loyalist divines well rewarded for their learned devo- 
 tion and eloquent zeal. Then arose that galaxy of brilliant 
 
LITERARY AMBASSADORS. OO 
 
 names, Taylor, and South, and Barrow, and Donne ; and 
 that rare class who combined the elegant scholar, the high 
 churchman, the accurate man of business, the high-toned 
 royalist, and the fine gentleman, in a proportion and degree 
 we have seldom seen since. Of this class was Sir Henry 
 Wotton, who was sent abroad on three several missions of 
 an important nature, and finally ended his days as provost 
 of Eton coUeore. His name is embalmed for ever in the 
 epitaph of Cowley, and his fame perpetuated in the artless 
 gossip of Izaak Walton. Howell, the letter-writer, was 
 employed in the same way. So, too, was Dr. Donne, who 
 went to France as secretary to his noble patron ; Cowley 
 filled a similar station ; and Quarles, who at one period 
 was cup-bearer to the famous and beautiful queen of Bo- 
 hemia. The list of great names might be much length, 
 ened by reference to books ; but we are quoting from 
 memory. 
 
 During the commonwealth the claims of literature were 
 by no means overlooked. The parliamentary leaders were 
 men of education, as well as of great natural abilities ; 
 Pym, Hampden, and Sir Harry Vane. The sagacious 
 Protector himself selected the best men for his own service. 
 The greatest poet of all time was the private secretary of 
 Cromwell, and his assistant Marvell was a true patriot and 
 man of fine genius. Howe and Owen, the two greatest di- 
 vines of that day, were the Protector's chaplains. The 
 former of these Robert Hall pronounced to be superior to 
 all the divines he had ever read, and to have given him 
 more just ideas on theological subjects. The latter was 
 the champion of the Independents, and is still regarded by 
 his sect as a Hercules in controversial theology. 
 
 On the restoration of Charles II., those divines, and law- 
 
34 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 yers and scholars, who had given their support to his cause 
 by their passive sutlerings, as well as by their active exer- 
 tions with tongue or pen, were in general amply rewarded. 
 The noble historian of the great rebellion was created Lord 
 Chancellor. The imprisoned divines were restored to their 
 pulpits. Defenders of the faith and adherents of the king 
 suddenly rose from the condition of country curates to the 
 offices of bishop and archbishop : court poets were enno- 
 bled, and wits were in the ascendant. 
 
 But at the revolution arose another change ; the whigs 
 then came into power, and whig wciters were favored ac- 
 cordingly. Addison and Steele were favorites with their 
 party from their political tracts, as they were with the pub- 
 lic from their wit, and humor, and style, and knowledge of 
 life. Garth, the favorite whig physician, was also a popu- 
 lar poet. The same claim gave reputation even to the 
 prosy blockhead, Blackmore ; and both were knighted for 
 their loyalty. The English La Fontaine (with greater 
 licentiousness). Prior, was sent to France. Newton was 
 made master of the mint, and the rest were well provided 
 for. The great tory writers were continually depressed, 
 and gained no fovor from the public save that which their 
 brilliant poems extorted. Among these were Pope ; Swift, 
 who never got beyond his deanship, because he could not 
 stoop for a bishopric ; the amiable humorist, Arbuthnot ; 
 the charming Gay ; the pensive Parnell. Two tory lead- 
 ers, Bolingbroke and Atterbury, were even driven into 
 exile, from which the latter never returned. 
 
 Coming down to our own time, we may observe the close 
 alliance between politics and law, and politics and litera- 
 ture. The great public characters of the state, of this 
 century, have been for the most part originally lawyers : 
 
LITERARY AMBASSADORS. 35 
 
 the Cannings, and Peels, and Broughams of England, and 
 the Adamses, the Pinckneys, and the Websters of America. 
 Of letters, the chiefs too, the Scotts, and Wordsworths, the 
 Coleridges, and Carlyles, the Hazlitts, and the Macauleys, 
 have taken a deep interest in the issue of certain political 
 questions, too often mere party questions. In many cases, 
 the leaders in literature have held prominent offices in some 
 one of the departments of government. The connection 
 of poetry with politics is not hard to make out. The ardor 
 of devotion, whether to a king or to a great abstract prin- 
 ciple of right, in either case exerts a most important effect 
 upon the imagination. Where power is embodied and per- 
 sonified, as in a kingly government, more outward pomp is 
 exhibited, but less by far of a high moral elevation of sen- 
 timent, than is seen in the severe beauty and stern dignity 
 of republicanism. Cato is a nobler character for the mind 
 to dwell upon than Charles of England ; and George 
 Washington is a greater name than Frederick or Catharine. 
 
 A natural alliance is also easily formed between high 
 churchmanship and royalty, and that poetry which is cap- 
 tivated by the splendor of both ; and yet the finest descrip- 
 tion of cathedral music has come from the pen of a puritan 
 poet (vide II Penseroso) : and the most eloquent passage on 
 the French revolution from the tory poet Wordsworth. 
 
 The common objection, that literary pursuits incapacitate 
 a man for business, has been long since refuted by Bacon 
 and a host of writers down to the time of Addison. The 
 accuracy and nicety that certain studies impart fit one ad- 
 mirably for the employment of legislation and diplomacy. 
 The invariably good effects of meditation and study on men- 
 tal discipline, and the growth of the intellectual powers, are 
 also discernible in every human employment, and can unfit 
 
36 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 a man for nothing. Poets alone, it may be conceded, if 
 not originally gifted with a robust moral constitution, may 
 easily allow an effeminate sense of beauty to obscure their 
 sense of rugged truths. The greatest poets, however, 
 Dante and Milton, have been the firmest political philoso- 
 phers and patriots. The Moores and Cornwalls of the 
 time, might easily sink and faint beneath the heat and bur- 
 den of the day. In our own country, Bryant and Dana 
 would fight to the last for the principles of justice and 
 liberty : our butterfly versifiers only would become inti- 
 midated by the frown, and quail beneath the glances of 
 power. American authors of the first rank are, without 
 exception, warm advocates of the principles of a pure de- 
 mocracy, untainted by any mixture of radicalism. There 
 are Bancroft, the first historian ; Channing, the finest moral 
 essayist ; Dewey, the greatest pulpit orator, and Hawthorne, 
 the most original prose-poet, not only of our day, and of 
 American literature, but of our age, and of English litera- 
 ture. These are all devoted to the cause of truth, liberty, 
 justice, and public, as well as private honor. 
 
 Generally the selection of an ambassador at a foreign 
 court is a matter left to mere hireling politicians, or deter- 
 mined on insufficient or impartial grounds. But the repre- 
 sentative of a great nation should be a great man. Ingenuity 
 is not so much wanted as innate tact directing solid wisdom. 
 A gentleman is to be preferred before what is commonly 
 called a genius. Where there are many ceremonials, less 
 talent is wanted. Occasions arise, nevertheless, where 
 profound sagacity is needed, and where the weight of cha- 
 racter is invaluable. Still, where elegance of mind and 
 of manners may both be found united ; where a talent for 
 negotiation and public business is farther set off by a bril- 
 
LITERARY AMBASSADORS. 
 
 37 
 
 liant elocution, with a fund of intellectual resources and 
 personal accomplishments, — there, we have a finished pub- 
 lic character, and such we conceive to be no more than a 
 just, though rough sketch, of our minister to England. Mr. 
 Irving, we suspect, is less of a man of business, but he has 
 other claims to prefer. He is the historian of Columbus : 
 he has charmed thousands by his romantic tales and pic- 
 turesque descriptions of Spain. His state duties will be 
 in all probability much less arduous than those of his illus- 
 trious compeer, and consequently demand less of the diplo- 
 matic talent. 
 
 We conclude then, as we began, by congratulating our 
 countrymen on the possession of such representations 
 abroad : men to be honored and reverenced now, and to be 
 known as classical writers and elegant gentlemen, to all 
 future posterity. 
 
VI . 
 
 THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 
 
 Hazlitt's view is, that poets write bad prose for a variety 
 of reasons, which we will consider in order. In the course 
 of his essay,* he lays down certain positions that we cannot 
 regard as tenable, and shall consequently attempt to show 
 their unsoundness. The paper was probably written to 
 attract attention rather than to decide the dogma ; it is 
 brilliant and half true, but only half true. It contains 
 some very fine special pleading, and certainly many valu- 
 able hints ; but it is written to suit a theory, in defiance of 
 facts, and from too narrow a generalization. We shall try 
 to avoid doing injustice (even while advocating the opposite 
 side) to the real merits of the essay ; to dwell upon the 
 beauty, acuteness and eloquence of which, might alone oc- 
 cupy the space of a separate criticism. 
 
 The principal arguments our critic employs to confirm 
 his decision are these : Poets, in writing prose (strange as 
 it seems), display a want of cadence, have no principle of 
 modulation in the musical construction of their periods ; but 
 missing rhyme or blank verse, the regular accompaniment 
 to which their words are to be said or sung, fall into a 
 slovenly manner, devoid of art or melody. The prose 
 
 * On the same subject, and bearing the same title. 
 
THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 39 
 
 works of Sydney, Milton, Cowley, Dryden, Goldsmith and 
 Dana, afford instances sufficient to disprove this assertion. 
 At the same time it must be confessed, that rhyme has 
 helped out many a bold thought and expanded (by rhetori- 
 cal skill) many a half formed idea. It is no less true that 
 certain eminent poets have as assuredly failed in attaining 
 a first rate prose style, as certain capital prose writers have 
 failed in writing even tolerable verse. We agree with 
 Hazlitt, that Byron's prose is bad, inasmuch as he aims to 
 make it too effective ; trying to knock down and stun an 
 antagonist with the latter end of a sentence, as with the 
 butt-end of a coach whip. Coleridge's prose, too, is not 
 inaptly compared to the cast-off finery of a lady's wardrobe. 
 The poet's prose muse being a sort of hand-maiden to his 
 poetical (and true) mistress, and tricked out in the worn- 
 out trappings of the latter, and ornaments at second hand. 
 The Ancient Mariner, Love, the sonnets, tragedies, and 
 occasional poetry of this author, are master-pieces : but his 
 Watchman and Conciones ad Populum have been honestly 
 censured as mere trash. 
 
 Hazlitt is very caustic in his remarks on poetical prose, 
 and with great justice. It is the weakest of all sorts of 
 prose ; we prefer to it the very baldest expression, so it is 
 only precise and clear. And so far from manifesting rich- 
 ness of fancy or imagination, it is proof only of a good 
 memory and a liberally stocked wardrobe of metaphorical 
 commonplaces. It is the style of most sentimental writers, 
 of the majority of orators, of fashionable preachers, and 
 mystical philosophers. It is not the style of a manly 
 thinker, of a man who has anything to say, or of a man of 
 genius. No great orator or logician employs it ; we find 
 it in no popular manuals of philosophy or politics. It is 
 
40 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 never used by a good historian or a great novelist, nor in- 
 deed by any one who can write anything else. 
 
 The critic gives a further reason for the bad prose style 
 of the poets. He says, the same liberty of inversion is not 
 to be allowed in prose that prevails in poetry : that there is 
 more restraint and severity in prose composition. Yet 
 what can be more rigorous than the laws of verse ; what 
 style so compressed and close, yet so pithy and " matter- 
 full," as the style of the finest poets? Truth, adds the 
 author of Table-Talk, is the essential object of the prose- 
 man (we suspect he meant the philosopher, from the au- 
 thorities that follow) : but beauty is the supreme intent of 
 the poet. At the present day, have we not learnt a better 
 lesson than this, after the teaching of centuries ? Is not 
 the poet the moralist and "right popular philosopher?" 
 Do we not learn the truest and deepest metaphysics (so far 
 as we can learn that internal and individual science from 
 books) from the best poets : do we not obtain our highest 
 ethical maxims and our truest aesthetical views from the 
 same sources ? Doth not the poet impress our hearts and 
 arouse our inmost sympathies, with a skill far superior to 
 that of the priest or seraphic doctor ? But we need not 
 dilate upon that head, nor repeat in plain terms, the com- 
 prehensive and philosophical picture of the true poet, 
 drawn by one* of the greatest and most eloquent of the 
 craft, in the rich and glowing colors of fancy. 
 
 Hazlitt has very strangely fallen into the obsolete doc- 
 trines of Johnson and the Anglo-Gallic school of criticism 
 (the English pupils of Dubos, Bossu and Bouhours) ; that 
 pleasure is the highest aim of the poet : that his noblest 
 
 * Sidney. 
 
THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 4l 
 
 powers tend only to amuse or recreate. This is true of 
 the minor and ligliter poets, but not of poets of the first 
 class. It holds with regard to Swift and Prior, not to 
 Milton or Young. It refers more correctly to purely fan- 
 ciful poets, than grandly imaginative writers. To restrict 
 ourselves to a single nation — the Hebrews. Is David, or 
 Job, or Solomon, a " pretty " poet : do their writings fur- 
 nish merely entertainment ? Are they not rather pro- 
 foundly instructive, as well as sublime and impassioned ? 
 Is Homer, or Dante, a trifler : or are we to estimate Shak- 
 speare and jEschylus as ordinary playwrights? Every 
 critical tyro knows better. But our critic reduces the 
 question to one of metaphysical morality. He says, in 
 part truly, as others have written before him, that forti- 
 tude is not the characteristical virtue of poets. This, too, 
 is a hasty assertion : it is not the virtue of the majority of 
 the poets, nor of the mass of mankind, but it is a distin- 
 guishing trait of the largest souls. If Milton and Dante, 
 Johnson and Scott, possessed not this noble virtue, there 
 were none ever did. And look at the manly resolution of 
 Burns, of Elliott, of Bryant, of Dana, of Cowper, and 
 Wordsworth. If these are not teachers of long suffering 
 and patient endurance, we know not where such are to be 
 found. 
 
 From the want of sufficient self-command, reasons Haz- 
 litt, the poets have been unable to conquer a sense of 
 beauty, by which they were fascinated and had become 
 enslaved. Nor need they to conquer it, save when opposed 
 to truth, a higher and rarer form of intellectual beauty. 
 Truth is more beautiful than what we ordinarily style 
 beauty, or rather the highest truth is beauty itself in the 
 abstract. Sensual beauty is truth materialized, and de- 
 
42 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 rives its charms from the union of proportion, fitness, utility, 
 and an innate harmony — what Hazlitt meant is, that poets 
 too much regard ornament, and fall in love with their own 
 figurative fancies, worshipping the idols they have set up 
 in their own imaginations, of their own creation, like the 
 heathen of old. They seem to mistake fiction for fact, and 
 rather dally with fancy than are filled with faith. They 
 accumulate beautiful metaphors without regard to their 
 connection or logical sequence. They do not hunt for 
 illustrations to the general text, so much as for striking 
 analysis of any description, whether suited to the subject 
 in hand or not. This, again, we conceive to be palpably 
 a misrepresentation. Where are the reasoning Pope and 
 Dryden; that master of the argumentum ad absurdum, 
 Butler; those logicians of the parlor. Swift and Prior, and 
 Wolcot and Moore ? Where is the whole race of meta- 
 physical poets placed ? Then, too, the large class of pro- 
 fessedly didactic or speculative poets from Hesiod to Words- 
 worth, what becomes of them ? Where is the critical 
 Churchill, the moral Johnson, the religious Cowper ? In 
 fact, the poets are the greatest reasoners, the most accurate, 
 brief and pointed, conveying an argument in a couplet, and 
 a syllogism in a line. The Germans and Coleridge have 
 settled the doctrine of the losjical method of imagination, in 
 her (apparently) wildest career, and that she lias a law and 
 sequence of her own, not to be measured by mechanical 
 reasons. It must be conceded, besides, that poetical teach- 
 ing is more beautiful than the lessons of the prose-m.an ; 
 that fancy's illustrative coloring afiords a grateful relief to 
 the over-worked reason. In effect, too, the most captivat- 
 ing pictures afford the strongest arguments; an illustration 
 is always an argument by analogy, a descriptive syllogism, 
 or reasoning by picture. 
 
THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 43 
 
 We have thus concisely and categorically responded to 
 the different points of objection, but we lay very little 
 stress on any remarks of our own, except they be con- 
 firmed by a bulwark of testimony. Fortunately, we 
 have a strong defence of this kind, behind which to en- 
 trench ourselves from sudden assaults, and we shall not 
 hesitate to avail ourselves of the forces we have been able 
 to collect. Sydney, our earliest prose writer, of classic 
 rank, who was also a poet, was almost equally successful 
 in both departments, and in his Defence of Poesy, at least, 
 a writer of pure, clear, sweet Virgilian prose. Hall's con- 
 templations rival his versified satires, and are equally excel- 
 lent ; the magnificent declamation of Milton and the natural 
 eloquence of Cowley are celebrated, yet the sermons of 
 Donne, and the prose characters of Samuel Butler, are not 
 to be forgotten. Quarles was no less close and pointed in 
 his Enchiridion than in his Emblems. -There are the let- 
 ter-writers. Pope, Gray and Cowper, with Burns, Charles 
 Lamb, and our own Willis. Even Hazlitt allows the per- 
 fect prose style of Dryden ; yet the name of Goldsmith has 
 been singularly overlooked. 
 
 Respectability in poetry is intolerable ; yet we allow 
 many degrees of excellence in prose. Third-rate poets 
 sometimes have been converted into prose writers of the 
 second class. Swift and Addison are known chiefly by 
 their prose : they wrote clever verse also ; no one would 
 call either a great poet, yet they were great writers. 
 Johnson's Rasselas, and the Lives of the Poets, place the 
 prose writer where neither Irene nor London could by any 
 possibility have placed him. Shenstone's maxims and 
 essays more than counterbalance all his poetical works, 
 with the exception of the Schoolmistress. 
 
44 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Where poets fail in prose, it is from a want of the more 
 prosaic elements of composition. Coleridge, for instance, 
 had little practical shrewdness, though an imagination 
 second only to Milton's, and much as Campbell's prose is 
 at present censured (the causes of the weakness of which 
 and of his ill-success in book-making, latterly, are evident), 
 let any one turn to his early essay on English Poetry, if 
 he would find a model of beauty supported by strength and 
 judgment, refined by art. 
 
 The poets are not, moreover, the best prose writers, but 
 incomparably the best critics, especially of each other. 
 The vulgar error of the envy existing among men of 
 genius, is as baseless as is the opinion that a fine poet 
 is necessarily a weak critic, or the supposition that his 
 imagination is too strong for his judgment. The greatest 
 poets are not ignorant oracles of wisdom, but elaborate 
 artists, who can give a reason for most of their works, 
 though the very rarest melodies of their lyre are struck by 
 a divine impulse above and beyond their command. There 
 existed a crude and narrow notion of the profession of the 
 critic formerly : that he was a spiteful, malicious libeller, 
 rather than an honest judge and admiring advocate. The 
 Queen Anne wits appeared to consider a good critic to be 
 the reverse side of a bad poet, as the best vinegar was 
 made out of the vilest cider. To pick flaws in reputations 
 and writings, once made a man's fame. Now, we know a 
 litile better. We can believe genuine criticism to be a 
 labor of love, and the fruit of enthusiastic reverence. 
 
 Philosophical poetry is the deepest criticism, in the hands 
 of the master-bards, Horace, Pope, Wordsworth, and Dana. 
 We entirely believe with Owen Felltham, that " a grave 
 poem is the deepest kind of writing." Dramatic composi- 
 
THE PROSE STYLE OF POETS. 45 
 
 tion is, of all others, the most artificial form of writing — 
 and we find the first tragic and comic writers profoundly 
 conversant with the principles of their art, learned Ben, 
 the judicious Beaumont, witty Congreve. So, too, the 
 early classical translators into English, were philologists 
 and critics of necessity, Fairfax and Chapman. The 
 musing Drummond has left his judgment of books behind 
 him — Dryden has written the best characters of Beaumont, 
 and Fletcher, and rare Ben, that any critic has yet done ; 
 and he has left nothing for later writers to impair or add 
 to his portrait of Shakspeare. " Glorious John's" prefaces 
 are models of their kind, and the earliest specimens of good 
 criticism in England. Shakspeare and Milton, from the 
 perfection of their works, we naturally infer to have been 
 exquisite critics. 
 
 Butler, by his satire on the abuse of learning, and ridi- 
 cule of the French, has disclosed a vein of caustic criti- 
 cism. Cowley was a critic and philosopher, even more 
 than a poet ; he thoroughly appreciated the most opposite 
 styles of poetry, the Pindaric and Anacreontic. " The 
 Phenix Pindar," he has truly written, " is a vast species 
 alone," and consequently, he is himself little more than an 
 able follower, a capital imitator ; but the spirit of Anacreon 
 he has caught with wonderful felicity, and paraphrased 
 him in a style immeasurably beyond Tom Moore. In 
 truth, the Anacreontics of Cowley surpass even the gay 
 flashes of Anacreon, in spirit and effect. Charles Second's 
 wits were shrewd, sharp men of the world, satirists, and 
 critics, not to be imposed upon by pretension. Of this 
 assertion, the Duke of Buckingham's Rehearsal is a proof, 
 and an inimitable satire — Rochester, Waller, St. Evre- 
 mond, Roscommon, were all clear and discriminating 
 critics ; but their judgment did not reach very far. 
 
46 " LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Pope's finest philosophical poem is his Essay on Criti- 
 cism ; and the hcst imitators of Pope — Johnson and Rogers 
 — are essentially critics with widely different tastes : 
 Johnson rudely masculine, and Rogers delicate and fastidi- 
 ous to effeminacy. 
 
 To come to the present century ; where do we read 
 finer critical fragments than in Coleridge's Table Talk, 
 and the notes to Lamb's Dramatic Specimens ? Shelley 
 was a metaphysical critic. Hunt and Lamb are perhaps 
 the most delicate. The papers on Lear and on Shak- 
 speare's tragedies are the very finest criticisms ever 
 penned on that most fertile theme of eulogy — the Shak- 
 spearean Drama. Leigh Hunt has written a body of the 
 most agreeable, if not the profoundest, criticism of his 
 time. Mr. Dana has produced articles on Kean's acting 
 and Shakspeare that entitle him to rank even with Lamb 
 and Hunt. 
 
 As a general rule, the best prose writers are the safest 
 critics for ordinary reading, if only from the absence of - 
 any possible competition. Where they rank with the 
 greatest critics, it is from the large share they possess of 
 the poetical temperament, and of fancy. The critic should 
 be half poet, half philosopher ; with acute powers of analy- 
 sis, a lively fancy, deep sensibility, and close reasoning 
 faculties. This is a very rare combination : yet Hazlitt, 
 Rousseau, and Emerson, might be placed in this category, 
 with a score or two of names besides, taken from the vast 
 array of miscellaneous authors. The poet ranks first, the 
 critic immediately below him ; and the two united, each 
 first of his class, combine to form the highest instance of 
 imagination and intellectual power. 
 
VII 
 
 THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 
 
 Poverty is a comparative term. Between the extremities 
 of pauperism and that moderate competence, which the 
 wealthy speak of with contempt, as a poor pittance, and 
 which is certainly trifling in comparison with their " un- 
 sunn'd heaps," the interval is very wide. The condition 
 of the very poor we do not take into consideration, at pre- 
 sent, as the main topic of our inquiry, though we shall by 
 no means omit to speak of them in turn ; but we shall en- 
 deavor to present a picture of simplicity and moderation in 
 living, and the advantages of a sufficient competence (para- 
 doxical as it may be thought) over an overgrown and 
 superfluous income. 
 
 Poverty has many significations, with a wide range, 
 embracing the pauper and the poor gentleman, aye, and 
 the poor noble, in some countries. Kings even have been 
 beggars, and have subsisted on casual bounty. The mil- 
 lionaire thinks all men poor, who are not possessed of equal 
 wealth with himself; while the day laborer regards the 
 small trader and master mechanic as rich men. In towns, 
 one standard of wealth prevails ; in the country it is much 
 lower. Thus we find an ever varying measure of the 
 goods of fortune. Of a nobler species of wealth, it is not 
 
48 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 SO difficult to ascertain the true value. An excellent book 
 is yet to be written for the rich, which should inform them 
 of their duties towards their poorer neighbors; which 
 should resolve the claims the poor have upon them, from 
 the claims of nature, as well as from conventional position ; 
 which should confirm them in habits of benevolence and in 
 the practice of " assisting the brethren." By assistance, 
 we refer not merely to alms-giving, that being regarded as 
 a fundamental part of charity. But we also include under 
 that phrase, the giving of wise and disinterested counsel : 
 defending from oppression and slander : persuading to the 
 practice of right and justice : warning from evil, by instil- 
 ling good principles and generous sentiments : and in the 
 comprehensive language of Scripture, loving our neighbor 
 as ourself, and consequently acting for him as if for ourself. 
 Higher charity than this, is none : a charity the richest 
 may be too poor to bestow ; a charity the poorest may 
 prove rich in dispensing. If love abounded, what a rich 
 world would not this planet become ! If man was to man 
 a brother and a friend (at the same time increasing the 
 world's gear not a copper, and neither introducing any 
 fantastical schemes of agrarian equality), in all the rela- 
 tions of life and family, as master and servant, father and 
 son, brother and companion, artist and artisan, in sickness 
 and in health, at home or abroad, there could be no poverty, 
 no disappointment, and none but natural sorrows. For 
 though many sources of grief would still continue fresh 
 and open, as sickness, death, loss of friends and family, 
 and failure in favorite plans of life and action, yet they 
 would be so mitigated by an universal tenderness, and so 
 suffered by a general sympathy, as to lose half their sharp, 
 ness in losing all their repulsive features. No disappoint- 
 
THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 49 
 
 merits could then occur, because sincerity and plain dealing 
 would take the place of falseness and deceit. None but a 
 self- tormentor could then be unhappy, where all would be- 
 come companions in good and evil seasons, and through 
 every changing round of fortune's wheel. But this is an 
 ideal not soon to be recognized. 
 
 A man without a penny has yet what all the wealth in 
 the world cannot purchase — the human form and the hu- 
 man nature. With these, if he has health and resolution, 
 he may become anything, except what can be reached only 
 by innate genius or a higher order of mental gifts than his 
 own. Give him education, you make him a scholar; 
 brfeeding, you train him a gentleman ; religion and mora- 
 lity, and you fill him with the sentiments of a Christian, 
 Let no one say, the poor scholar or the poor gentleman is 
 hurt by his education and manners. Pride often distorts 
 those characters, but they ought to be above pride. A 
 cultivated mind, so far from being trammelled by a narrow 
 income, flies beyond it, and taste, the quality of the fine in- 
 tellect, is a faculty of selection. The wisest economy is 
 the nicest taste. Profusion is tasteless. A man of fine 
 judgment and small income will actually live in a more 
 genteel style, than a rich, coarse-minded nabob. He may 
 have fewer articles of expense, but they will be choice and 
 delicate. His style of living will be frugal, yet elegant ; 
 which is more pleasing than extravagance without judg- 
 ment. A genteel taste in living eschews extravagance, 
 pomp, and all superfluity, as essentially vulgar. There is 
 not a more pitiful sight than a mean-spirited man in a splen- 
 did house. His soul is too small for it. On the other hand, 
 the great heart cannot be contained within the most mag- 
 nificent palace, and yet may content itself in the most 
 
 3 
 
56 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 humble mansion. The great and good poor man, in his 
 modest and retired parlor, affords a nobler spectacle than a 
 king or a pyramid. 
 
 Riches too often excite absurdity of conduct : the giver 
 of the gorgeous feast gets only a rich harvest of ridicule 
 for liis pains and anxiety. The master of an immense es- 
 tablishment is little better than the landlord of a great 
 hotel. Guests enter and depart : he is pushed aside as a 
 stranger and in the way. All this while his personal gra- 
 tifications are limited. The poor soul ! he lives for others, 
 his wealth is for others. He is nobody himself — but go to 
 the house where the man is greater than the mansion, and 
 you forget the bare walls unhung with admirable paintings, 
 for his face and the countenances of a loving circle are the 
 finest portraits in the world ; you tread on a carpet with- 
 out reflecting it is no Brussels pattern, and you sit easily 
 on a chair that has no satin cushions for the indolent par- 
 venus of fashion. If a man is not rich, how much he 
 avoids : from how many petty distractions is he not free ? 
 Plutus is even a severer master than Necessity. 
 
 In point of respectability the difference is great. Hardly 
 without an exception, the ancient families of this country, 
 the descendants of the statesmen, and lawyers, and heroes 
 of the revolution (our only real aristocracy), are poor. The 
 rich class are, in the great majority of cases, sprung ori- 
 ginally from the lowest class, who have acquired wealth 
 by cunning and pernicious habits ; without education, with- 
 out sentiment ; governed by no laws of courtesy, subserv- 
 ient to no dictates of the Spiritual Philosopliy ; coarse-minded 
 and coarse-mannered, but clothed in purple and fine linen, 
 and faring sumptuously every day. With such as these, 
 poverty of spirit and want of pelf are synonymous terms. 
 
THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 51 
 
 The poor rich man and the rich poor man are the most per- 
 plexing problems. 
 
 Authors and professed scholars, excluded as in great 
 measure they are from amassing a fortune, and ill paid for 
 their elaborate labors, are among the objects of especial 
 pity, not to say contempt (pitiable truly, and returning upon 
 the contemner) of these bloated minions of Dives. They 
 would patronize merit, and condescend to take genius by 
 the hand. Contemptible arrogance ! ye meanest of the 
 mean, ignoble souls, whose highest privilege it is to be im- 
 mortalized to posterity by the classic scorn of the indignant 
 human creature you would protect ; the true joys of the 
 scholar, the calm life of the thinker, the grateful occupa- 
 tions of the author are unknown to you. Thriftless men, 
 who in any other occupation would have succeeded as ill, 
 and incapables, who should as soon have attempted shoe- 
 making as authorship, have managed to reflect a most un- 
 deserved odium on those pursuits, which adorn wealth and 
 elevate poverty, which beautify science and invigorate bu- 
 siness. Worthily and in sincerity pursued, what occupa- 
 tion is so full of utility, as well as of delight, as literature. 
 A mode of life that leads to reflection and self-denial ; that 
 fosters humanity and begets an enlarged curiosity ; that 
 inclines equally to serious, resolved action, and to a gay, 
 cheerful temper ; which teaches to confine our wants and 
 limit our desires, but at the same time to expand the affec- 
 tions, and to fortify the will ; a mode of life that consecrates 
 its followers as a select body of liberal spirits ; that unites 
 the cultivation of the highest faculties with the performance 
 of the commonest duties ; that inspires a sense of reverence 
 in the dullest souls, and fascinates the roving eye of plea- 
 sure ; employments, in fine, which form alone the worthi- 
 
52 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 est labors of the wisest and best — these constitute the 
 occupations and fill the hours of the scholar. 
 
 The literary life is never so happily spent as in a condi- 
 tion of moderate competence and in the enjoyment of social 
 liappiness. The wealthiest scholar, even if a man of genius, 
 is obliged, from the nature of his position, and to avoid the 
 scandal of meanness, or the odium of an unsociable dispo- 
 sition, to live in a manner abhorrent to his tastes and lite- 
 rary habits. He must live splendidly, when he would 
 prefer elegance and quiet ; he must entertain the inditlerent 
 and the inquisitive, where he liad rather be surrounded by 
 the chosen friends of his youth. In a word, the rich scho- 
 lar must live like a mere rich man, and is in danger of 
 sinking the first character in the second. Wealth has 
 obscured genius which would have been drawn out by 
 exertion ; at least as often as talent has been obscured by 
 misfortune. 
 
 A great error, though a very frequent one, is, tliat utter 
 solitude and celibacy are suited to the man of letters. 
 That the greatest works require long meditation and per- 
 fect repose is true. No less true is it that the periodical 
 critic and essayist must pursue his labors in a state of se- 
 renity and partial retirement. The true literary life is a 
 quiet existence. No genuine scholar ever yet loved a 
 crowd. Yet he loves society for conversation, and masses 
 for observation of manners. He loves chiefly domestic 
 pleasures ; the good wife has often assisted, and never yet 
 impeded, the occupations of her husband. The inmates of 
 his dwelling learn to respect his hours of solitude and study. 
 A judicious disposal of his time will leave the master his 
 own master, and the experiences of domesticity will prove 
 more rich and abundant than the knowledge of the hack- 
 ney courtier or politician. 
 
THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 
 
 53 
 
 Privacy may boast of its heroes and heroism that a pub- 
 lie scene cannot display. We look in the wrong place 
 for truly great characters ; we seek them in high stations, 
 but seldom find them there. Magnanimity, like eloquence, 
 is often found where we least expect it. There are more 
 heroical actions occurring every day in the retirement of 
 private life than are to be seen on the great public stage 
 of the world. There is more of fortitude exhibited, more 
 of patience in suffering, more true benevolence, a nobler 
 charity, a wider and wiser generosity, deeper affection, and 
 higher aims than the mind of a mere worldling can con- 
 ceive. The reason is plain. The greatest intellects seek 
 repose from vain struggles of ambition and inefficient plans 
 of improvement. The gravest business of life, rightly 
 viewed, is a mere farce, and those pleasing labors and en- 
 dearing adversities, that make up a private life of contented 
 trial and consequent happiness, are in fact higher and of 
 more real importance. Domestic life is the only field for 
 a certain class of virtues, by no means the least in value. 
 These are of the softer and milder kind, amiable and 
 attractive. Home is the school of the afTections, as the 
 world affords the test of the will and intellect. In that em- 
 bowered valley bloom the sweet flowers of heart's-ease and 
 contented joy. 
 
 The life of Wordsworth might be proposed as a model to 
 the author who loves letters rather than a literary reputa- 
 tion, who prefers fame to fashion — not only to the poet but 
 to the humblest prose writer, do we propose it. His fine 
 maxim should be engraven on the heart of every true stu- 
 dent — " Plain living, and high thinking." De Quincy, 
 who published his recollections of the late poets some years 
 since, in Tait's Magazine, has described the life of the Mil- 
 
54 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 tonic Bard, as simple to frugality. He resided in a small 
 cottage with his wife and sister ; his guest was conducted 
 into the largest room in the house, smaller than an ordinary 
 bed room, and which had another occupant, Wordsworth's 
 eldest boy. The common sitting room was half parlor and 
 half kitchen. The great poet, like a good man, a lover of 
 simple pleasures, delighted in his kettle's " faint undersong." 
 His library was very small within doors, but without, what 
 immense folios were his daily reading — the grand moun- 
 tain scenery of his neighborhood. Nature is Wordsworth's 
 library, or at least wisest commentator. Were he never so 
 rich he could possess no pictures like the landscape around 
 him. Even his friend, the fine painter. Sir George Beau- 
 mont, might only copy this original. And for company, 
 what more needed he, to whom grand thoughts in rich abun- 
 dance came flocking at his call ; who possessed such an 
 admirable sister and so excellent a wife. Southey was 
 but a few hours' journey distant. Coleridge was some- 
 times his guest. There too came Hazlitt and Charles 
 Lamb, and there ever abided guardian angels of the poet, 
 the spirits of humanity and philosophy, in strict alliance 
 with the Genius of Poesy ! 
 
 None but a poor spirited fool ever esteemed a man the 
 less for his poverty, and pity, in such cases, is insult. The 
 compassion is a glozing apology for the indulgence of purse 
 pride, the meanest form of Satan's favorite sin, and which 
 he must heartily despise. He who devotes a life to letters 
 cannot expect wealth : competency is the most he can look 
 for, a thorough education, in its widest sense, for his children, 
 and a comfortable, though confined maintenance for those 
 dearest to him and least fitted to struggle with misfortune. 
 A fair example and an honorable fame is a richer legacy 
 
THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. 55 
 
 than a large fortune without either. Most fortunate he, 
 who can unite all. But the spirit of study is adverse to 
 the spirit of accumulation. A man with one idea, and that 
 of money-making, can hardly fail, from one dollar, of real- 
 izing a million. But a man of many ideas, of a compre- 
 hensive spirit, and of aspiring views, can never contract 
 his manly mind to the circumference of a store or factory. 
 In his fixed and awful gaze at the wonders of creation, or 
 in his rapt ecstasy at the celestial harmony of poesy, oppor- 
 tunities of profit will slip by, the golden moments of barter 
 escape. His purse is lighter, it must be confessed ; but he 
 has gained a richer accession of fancies and feelings than 
 the world can give or take away. 
 
VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER ON 
 
 SOME OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 
 
 The Sonnet is of Italian origin, and was first imported into 
 England from that country by the Earl of Surrey, 
 
 " that reno'.vned lord, 
 Th' old English glory bravely that restor'd, 
 That prince and poet (a name more divine)," 
 
 as Drayton enthusiastically writes. Originally a pupil of 
 Petrarch, he left the metaphysical style of his master for a 
 more gallant and courtly manner. He was " the bright 
 particular star " of the court of Henry YIIL, as Sidney 
 was of that of Elizabeth, and resembled his famous suc- 
 cessor in that dangerous post of favorite in more than one 
 trait of his character. Like him he was an accomplished 
 gentleman, a graceful poet, an elegant scholar, and a gal- 
 lant knight. Like him he chanted soft, amorous lays to 
 his chosen fair, and has immortalized the source of his in- 
 spiration in strains of melting beauty. Surrey is the first 
 classic English poet (we place Chaucer at the head of the 
 romantic school, before the era of Spenser and Shakspeare); 
 and he was the first writer of English sonnets. He is said 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 57 
 
 to have been the introducer of blank verse into our poetry. 
 For these two gifts to our literature, if for none others, we 
 should hold his reputation in honorable remembrance. 
 We recollect no one sonnet of surpassing beauty (Mrs. 
 Jameson, in her Loves of the Poets, has culled the finest 
 lines) : they will bear no comparison with succeeding 
 pieces in the same department. And as we wish to secure 
 space for certain fine specimens of Sidney, Shakspeare, 
 Drummond, and Milton, we must not encumber our page 
 with any but the choicest productions of the Muse. 
 
 We pass then to the all-accomplished Sidney. His son- 
 nets are chiefly " vain and amatorious," yet full of " wit 
 and worth." We agree heartily in Lamb's admiration for 
 them, as well as for their admirable author, deprecating 
 entirely the carping and illiberal spirit in which Hazlitt 
 criticized them. The acutest and most eloquent English 
 critic of this century was sometimes prejudiced and occa- 
 sionally partial. We find him so here. For delicacy, 
 fancy, and purity of feeling, Sidney is the finest of English 
 writers of the Sonnet, He is certainly less weighty and 
 grand than Milton, less pathetic than Drummond, far less 
 copious and rich than Wordsworth, yet in the graceful 
 union of the Poet and Lover surpassing all. He is 
 here, as in his life and actions, the Knight " sans peur et 
 sans reproche." Stella, the goddess of his idolatry, was at 
 once his mistress and his muse ; anciently, a very frequent 
 combination of characters. We know not, but believe the 
 Sonnets of Sidney are little known. This, and the intrin- 
 sic beauty of the poem, must serve to excuse us for the 
 following extract : 
 
 Because I oft in dark abstracted guise 
 Seem most alone in greatest company, 
 3* 
 
58 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 With dearth of words, or answers quite awry 
 To them that would make speech of speech arise. 
 They deem, and of their doom the rumor flies, 
 That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie 
 So in my swelling breast, that only I 
 Fawn on myself, and others do despise. 
 For Pride I think doth not my soul possess, 
 Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass ; 
 But one worse fault, Ambition, I confess. 
 That makes me oft my best friends overpass. 
 Unseen, unheard, while thought to highest place 
 Bends all his powers, even unto Stella's grace. 
 
 In a further beautiful sonnet occurs this fanciful apos^ 
 trophe to Sleep : 
 
 Come, Sleep, Sleep, the certain knot of peace. 
 The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe. 
 The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release. 
 The indifferent judge between the high and low. 
 
 This reminds us strongly of Shakspeare's famous excla- 
 mation of Macbeth, bent on his murderous errand : 
 
 the innocent sleep ; 
 
 Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, 
 The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath. 
 Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course. 
 Chief Nourisher in life's feast. 
 
 The sonnets of Sidney are highly characteristic. They 
 combine contemplation and knightly grace. They were 
 written in the heyday of his blood (he died at the age ot 
 thirty-four) : and cannot be fairly compared with the later 
 productions of a greater and more mature genius. Sidney, 
 it must not be forgotten, was a courtier and chivalrous sol- 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 59 
 
 dier, no less than the admired poet of his time, and we 
 should allow accordingly in our estimate of his poetry. 
 He filled a brief career with monuments of literary glory 
 and military honor : he endeared himself to a nation by 
 his graces and worth, and drew friends and followers to 
 his heart, by its sincerity and virtues. He died " with his 
 martial cloak about him," and full of fame. It was reck- 
 oned an honor to have been his friend. History records 
 not his enemy. 
 
 The little we know of Shakspeare is to be learnt from a 
 perusal of his Sonnets, which afford a glimpse of poetical 
 autobiography. The main particulars are his devoted gra- 
 titude to his noble patron, the generous Earl of Southamp- 
 ton, and his romantic attachment to a " fair personne," 
 who is supposed to have been a beautiful specimen of an 
 unfortunate class of females. Our " myriad-minded " bard, 
 far above the general order of humanity, as he was, from 
 his vast intellectual superiority, was yet a very man (and 
 for that we love him all the better) in his affections and 
 passions, like to one of us. The most profound of philo- 
 sophers, the noblest of humorists, the grandest Painter of 
 the passions, was a lover and gallant gentleman. Perhaps 
 his constancy was unable to stand the test of temptation on 
 all occasions (but that we may allow to a roving and ex- 
 cited youth) : though after middle life we hear of his quiet 
 life as a landholder and paterfamilias. Doubtless " the 
 roaming swaats that drank divinely " at the Mermaid, and 
 his lively associates at the Globe Theatre, were sometimes 
 too much for any prudential plan of life. But in those 
 scenes the great teacher learnt many an instructive lesson, 
 which he has taught us ; nor shall we dare to arraign the 
 venial follies of the selectest spirit of our race. We find 
 
60 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 numerous single lines and couplets in some of these sonnets 
 that develope the character of their author more fully than 
 any labored biographical or critical commentary. He 
 gives us pictures of his own feelings, his desiring " this 
 man's art and that man's scope :" he apologizes for his 
 profession as an actor, insinuating that it degrades him not 
 (as it never should degrade any, but as it too often tends to 
 degradation). He fairly speaks out a lofty self-estimate, 
 none the less true for its candor : 
 
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 
 
 Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; 
 
 But you shall shine more bright in these contents 
 
 Than unwept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. 
 
 When wasteful war shall statues overturn, 
 
 And broils root out the work of masonry, 
 
 Nor Mars's sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn 
 
 The living record of your memory. 
 
 The vulgar error of Shakspeare's reserve must have 
 arisen with those who never saw his miscellaneous poems. 
 It is true, amid the varied characters that stud his dramatic 
 page, it is impossible to fasten any upon him, who painted 
 them all. But we find self-confession enough in the son- 
 nets, and we are much surprised at the nature of it, so much 
 of melancholy and repining, utterly unlike our idea of the 
 robust genius and vigorous heart of the creator of FalstafF 
 and of Lear. 
 
 Shakspeare's best sonnets, and indeed nearly all of them, 
 are devoted to the expression of an apparently hopeless 
 passion. They form a love history, mysterious and ob- 
 scure, which we shall not attempt to penetrate. It is 
 enough to add, that (which might be premised as impossi- 
 ble) they do not raise Shakspeare to a higher rank than he 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 61 
 
 before attained : that perhaps we idolize his fame Jess 
 where we are admitted (too freely) into certain secrets of 
 his personal history, and it must also be confessed that he 
 has dallied with the muse in these offerings at her shrine, 
 rather than put forth his Samson strength in lofty triumph. 
 On no one occasion does he attempt to reach a higher 
 pitch than was attained by the general attempts in the same 
 form of poetry. It is true even the lightest trifles are im- 
 pressed with a nameless spirit from his exuberant genius 
 and subtle individuality. It is true his phrases, his expres- 
 sive language, are eminently Shakspearean. Yet are they 
 comparatively wasted on trivial themes, or levelled to a 
 moderate keynote of passion. They contain none of the 
 deep contemplativeness of Wordsworth, or the spirited yet 
 condensed power of Milton. We speak thus of these pro- 
 ductions in comparison with similar attempts of other great 
 poets ; and more especially in comparison with the other 
 works of Shakspeare — his dramas, the richest legacy ever 
 bequeathed to mankind by a single individual. For any 
 other bard, it would be praise enough to have equalled the 
 least valuable works of Shakspeare, and these sonnets 
 would make the reputation of almost any one else. The 
 two finest occur in one of his plays ;* that on Study, be- 
 ginning, " Study is like heaven's glorious sun,*' and that 
 more tender passage of self-expostulation and apology, 
 for which we must make room: 
 
 Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, 
 'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, 
 Persuade my heart to this false perjury ? 
 Vows for thee broke, deserve not punishment. 
 
 * Love's Labor Lost 
 
62 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 A woman I forswore ; but I will prove. 
 Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee : 
 My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love ; 
 Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me. 
 My vow was breath, and breath a vapor is ; 
 Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, 
 Exhal'st this vapor vow ; in thee it is : 
 If broken, then it is no fault of mine. 
 If by me broke, what fool is not so wise 
 To break an oath, to win a Paradise ? 
 
 His picture of his mistress forms a fair pendant to the 
 above, and should not therefore be omitted. 
 
 Fair is my love, but not as fair as fickle, 
 
 Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty. 
 
 Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle, 
 
 Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty, 
 
 A little pale, with damask dye to grace her, 
 
 None fairer, nor one falser to deface her. 
 
 Her lips to mine how often hath she join'd, 
 
 Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing ! 
 
 How many tales to please me hath she coin'd. 
 
 Dreading my love, the loss whereof still fearing ! 
 
 Yet in the midst of all her pure pretestings. 
 
 Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all, were jestings. 
 
 She burnt with love, as straw with fire flameth. 
 
 She burnt with love, as soon as straw outburneth ; 
 
 She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing. 
 
 She bade love last, and yet she fell a turning. 
 
 Was this a lover, or a lecher whether ? 
 
 Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.* 
 
 Passing over the slight effusions of forgotten versifiers, 
 our list brings us next to Drummond of Hawthornden, the 
 
 * A somewhat similar history is to be read in the " Modern Pyg- 
 malion " of a late brilliant critic and metaphysician. 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 63 
 
 best representative of the Scottish muse before Allan Ram- 
 say's time, and the friend of Ben Jonson. The record of 
 their famous conversations has been made public of late 
 years, through the researches of one of the Antiquarian 
 Societies. Like all of the early sonneteers, who copied 
 their master Petrarch in this, as in other respects, Drum- 
 mond had his mistress for a muse — but the specimen we 
 shall present of his sonnets, is one of a more general de- 
 scription. It is addressed to Sleep, and discovers a close 
 resemblance to the verses of Sidney and Shakspeare, be- 
 fore quoted : 
 
 Sleep, silence' child, sweet father of soft rest, 
 Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings, 
 Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings, 
 Sole comforter of minds which are opprest ; 
 Lo by thy charming rod all breathing things 
 Lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness possest, 
 And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings 
 Thou sparest (alas !) who cannot be thy guest. 
 Since I am thine, come, but with that face 
 To inward light which thou art wont to show. 
 With fancied solace ease a true-felt woe ; 
 Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace. 
 
 Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath : 
 
 I long to kiss the image of my death. 
 
 This poet is distinguished for a sweet and elegant pathetic 
 vein ; his line is " most musical, most melancholy." He 
 writes thus of his prevalent manner, in a sonnet on his 
 Lute : 
 
 What art thou but a harbinger of woe ? 
 
 Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more. 
 
 But orphan's wailings to the fainting ear. 
 
 Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear, 
 
64 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 For which be silent as in words before ; 
 Or if that any hand to touch thee deign. 
 Like widow'd turtle still her loss complain. 
 
 For this lugubrious coloring he accounts by the absence 
 of " that dear voice," which did thy sounds approve : 
 
 Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow, 
 Is reft from earth to tune those spheres above. 
 
 Milton is the last great name of the elder bards we shall 
 presume to invoke. He is the second sonnet writer in 
 English ; we place Wordsworth at the head. Some half 
 dozen of Milton's (he wrote altogether only fourteen, we 
 believe) are unequalled. But though our great living poet 
 rarely rises as high as Milton, yet his copiousness and un- 
 matched volubility of expression combine to give him the 
 precedence. Shakspeare we place out of comparison, since 
 he attempted no sonnets of the reflective kind. Few of 
 Wordsworth's bear any mention of love, and where they 
 do speak of it, it is a holy thing, not the libertine passion 
 of courtly versifiers. Milton's grandest sonnets, each of 
 them a small epic in itself, have been sufficiently noticed, 
 but there is one less referred to, that we think deserves the 
 more regard, from its personal nature, referring to himself 
 with a certain sublime self-consideration and Grecian en- 
 thusiasm, that bespeak the builder of the loftiest of epics. 
 
 When the assault was intended on the city — 
 
 Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms, 
 
 Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, 
 
 If deed of honor did thee ever please. 
 
 Guard them, and him within protect from harms. 
 
 He can requite thee ; for he knows the charms 
 
 That call fame on such gentle acts as these. 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 65 
 
 And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas. 
 
 Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms. 
 
 Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower : 
 
 The great Emathian conqueror bid spare 
 
 The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower 
 
 Went to the ground : and the repeated air 
 
 Of sad Electra's Poet had the power 
 
 To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. 
 
 The Sonnet is, perhaps, the most artificial form of 
 poetry, and, in consequence, the most difficult to execute 
 with spirit. The chief difficulty appears to lie in preserv- 
 ing the unity and integrity of the single thought or senti- 
 ment which it is intended to express and convey. It is 
 essential that the idea be not departed from, though various 
 shades of meaning may be introduced with effect. It is no 
 less important that the idea be completely filled out ; a 
 meagre sketch being equally faulty with a superfluous 
 abundance of thoughts. The restriction to just fourteen 
 lines is an obstacle of itself to the prosecution of a genial 
 poetic design. Rapt in his visions of beauty, the poet must 
 still not stray beyond this fixed limit, which appears arbi- 
 trary enough. Yet these very restrictions tend to compact- 
 ness and symmetrical beauty. To a cultivated ear, the 
 music of a fine sonnet is not the least pleasing adjunct to 
 this form of verse ; nor should we overlook the advantage 
 gained to the thought itself by such an harmonious yet 
 concise utterance of it. 
 
 Like those minor forms of prose writing, the Letter and 
 the Essay, the Sonnet is happy in an unlimited range of sub- 
 ject and variety of style, of martial or sentimental, amorous, 
 philosophic, familiar and pathetic. It is a miniature ode, 
 with less of variety and more formal design ; but it enjoys in 
 
66 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 common with the Ode, the characteristic of a susceptibility 
 of conveying strong personal traits, and of rendering itself 
 instinct with the most individual subtleties of personal cha- 
 racter. But why do we enlarge upon this theme, when 
 we have the noble sonnet of Wordsworth^s at hand, at once 
 the highest defence and purest eulogium upon sonnets and 
 the writers of them ? 
 
 Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned. 
 
 Mindless of its just honors ; with this key 
 
 Shakspeare unlocked his heart ; the melody 
 
 Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; 
 
 A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; 
 
 Camoens soothed with it an exile's grief; 
 
 The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 
 
 Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 
 
 His visionary brow ; a glow-worm lamp. 
 
 It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land 
 
 To struggle through dark ways ; and when a damp 
 
 Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 
 
 The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 
 
 Soul-animating strains — alas, too few ! 
 
 Since the time of Milton, sonnet- writing has been little 
 in vogue, until the commencement of the present century. 
 The wits of Charles's days were too much occupied with 
 libertine songs or political epigrams, to pen thoughtful and 
 elaborate poetry. The wits of Queen Anne were too 
 courtly and artificial to relish musings on nature, or philo- 
 sophical meditations, or amorous conceits, after the old 
 fashion. And though it may seem paradoxical to remark 
 it, the sonnet was too artificial a form of writing even for 
 the most artificial of English Poets, Dryden and Pope. Bui 
 its art evinced higher principles of harmony than the 
 polished couplet required. We do not recollect a single 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 67 
 
 sonnet of the first, or even second class of excellence, from 
 Milton to Thomas Warton. Butler, Rochester, Denham, 
 Waller, Roscommon, wrote none : neither did any of the 
 religious poets of that age, Quarles, Herbert, Donne, or 
 Crashaw. Cowley, in his fine-spun reveries, comes near- 
 est to the matter of the best sonnet-writers, but his manner 
 is different. If we come to the next epoch of English 
 verse, we find not a single sonnet in the writings of Dryden, 
 Pope, Swift, Gay, Addison, Steele, &c. It is only in a 
 thoughtful and tasteful character, by a lover of meditative 
 leisure, an admirer of nature, that the sonnet is ever likely 
 to be cultivated. It presents no brilliant points for the 
 man of wit; it is tedious and diffuse for the gay man 
 of lively talent. It is a form of poetry that would never 
 strike the lovers of satire or pictures of artificial manners 
 agreeably ; unless, as the pastoral struck the Queen Anne 
 poets, as a subject for burlesque. A true reader of the 
 sonnet loves not the glare of what passes for strong lines ^ 
 brilliant passages. This may be readily seen in the differ- 
 ence of taste, and in conception of the poetical character, 
 that distinguishes the followers of Wordsworth and of 
 Byron. 
 
 Before the time of the Lake Poets and their followers, 
 both together, including the finest poets this century has 
 produced, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Lamb, and Leigh 
 Hunt, we can point to but one true poet who wrote good 
 sonnets, almost worthy of Drummond — Thomas Warton. 
 Warton was a man of elegant fancy and fine sensibility, 
 but without any vigorous imagination or peculiar indivi- 
 duality. Yet Hazlitt, much to the surprise of his readers, 
 says, that he cannot help preferring his sonnets to any in 
 the language. Now, paralleled by Milton or Wordsworth, 
 
68 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Warton is feeble; though he is forcible in comparison 
 with Bowles. We annex his very best sonnet, as it reads 
 to us ; so much superior to the remainder, that it appears 
 to have been the work of another hand. 
 
 Written in a blank leaf of Dugdale's Monasticon. 
 
 Deem not devoid of elegance, the sage, 
 
 By fancy's genuine feelings unbeguil'd 
 
 Of painful pedantry the poring child. 
 
 Who turns, of these proud domes, th' historic page, 
 
 Now sunk by time and Henry's fiercer rage. 
 
 Think'st thou the warbling muses never smil'd 
 
 On his lone hours ? Ingenuous views engage 
 
 His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely styl'd. 
 
 Intent. While cloister'd piety displays 
 
 Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores 
 
 New manners, and the pomp of elder days. 
 
 Whence culls the pensive bard his pictur'd stores. 
 
 Nor rough, nor barren are the winding ways 
 
 Of hoar antiquity, but strown with flowers. 
 
 During what may be called the Hayley rage, when the 
 author of the Triumphs of Temper was esteemed a great 
 poet (so barren was the vineyard of genial laborers), a 
 band of sonneteers arose, who have deservedly been for- 
 gotten. For of all imbecilities, to use a Carlyleism, that 
 of writing weak poetry is at once the most pitiable and 
 the most reprehensible. The poetic offspring, worthily 
 begotten, thrives even amid the bleak freezings of Neglect: 
 but a puny poem, like a puny child, rarely lives long, and 
 only usurps the place of something better. We may 
 speak thus, at the present time, of the attempts of Miss 
 Seward and Charlotte Smith, since we have been treated 
 to more delicate cates and fed on heavenly food. Later 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 69 
 
 Still, and nearer to our own time, we have instances of 
 men of poetic taste, though utterly devoid of all poetic ge- 
 nius, who have failed signally in the sonnet, and who are 
 only known from their general connection with literature. 
 The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles is better known from Cole- 
 ridge's early admiration of his sonnets, and from his stake 
 in the Pope controversy, than from any one other reason. 
 In the latter he failed to gain his cause, though on the right 
 side. Coleridge is said to have transcribed his sonnets 
 forty times in the course of eighteen months in order to 
 make presents of them to his schoolfellows ; we can only 
 account for it by the fact, that many inferior authors have, 
 sometimes, been more suggestive than their masters, and 
 it may have been a mere vagary of a boy of genius. 
 Coleridge's own sonnet, addressed to Bowles, is richly 
 worth the whole of Bowles's sonnets put together. George 
 Dyer, the friend of Lamb the antiquary (whose character 
 Lamb has so admirably depicted), the historian of Cam- 
 bridge, the scholar and gentle companion, will be known 
 to posterity solely through the medium of his friend's ori- 
 ginal humor and delicious irony, which he so widely mis- 
 took. Leigh Hunt, though a graceful narrator, a charming 
 essayist, and a lively critic ; a friend of poets, and in other 
 walks, a pleasing poet himself, has yet been unable to do 
 justice to his fine genius in the sonnet. His friend, Charles 
 Lamb, too, has done his best things in prose. But among 
 the few sonnets left by the inimitable Elia, occur three 
 perfect specimens — that on Cambridge, and those on Work, 
 and Leisure. 
 
 Lamb's latest publisher, Moxon, has written some very 
 tolerable sonnets — for a bookseller ; though they are tainted 
 with the general defect of feebleness. The Hon. R. Monck- 
 
70 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 ton Milnes, the parliamentary poet, may be ranked in the 
 same category. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, are 
 the writers of the genuine sonnet, in this nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and by far the best poets. The majestic tone and 
 deep feeling of the first, the learned invention and univer- 
 sality of talent of the second, and the exuberant fancy of 
 the third, can fitly be measured by none but the same 
 standards that we apply to the old Elizabethan poets and to 
 Milton. 
 
 Wordsworth is now confessedly the finest sonnet writer 
 in the world, equalling in many sonnets, even the majesty, 
 the tenderness and Attic grace of Milton in a few. Words- 
 worth's copiousness is remarkable, and at the same time 
 his richness of thought and expression. A mechanical wri- 
 ter might turn out sonnets by the dozen, but of what value, 
 we would inquire. Wordsworth's are admirable, perfectly 
 appropriate, and harmonious as the breathings of Apollo's 
 flute. Occasionally, he blows a noble blast, as from a silver 
 trumpet of surpassing power ; but his favorite style may 
 be likened to the music of a chamber-oro-an, thouj^h he can 
 also make the massive pealing organ of the cathedral blow. 
 His range is universal ; moral, patriotic, tender, domestic. 
 He is meditative, playful, familiar. We should be ashamed 
 to quote specimens of Wordsworth, were he not really still 
 a poet unknown to the mass, even of educated readers. 
 There are ten times the copies of Byron, Moore, or Scott, 
 sold (at least) to where there is one of Wordsworth, who 
 is worth all three. 
 
 Of the different series, we prefer the Miscellaneous Son- 
 nets, and next to them, the sonnets dedicated to Liberty ; 
 the Ecclesiastical sonnets are less interesting to the gene- 
 ral reader, and written with less power, but they add a 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 71 
 
 new and peculiar grace to the history of the British Church, 
 and ought to he enshrined in the hearts of its members. 
 
 The following should form the guiding maxims of the 
 patriot, and evince a noble sympathy with political liberty 
 and individual greatness. 
 
 Milton ! thou should'st be living at this hour ; 
 England hath need of thee ; she is a fen 
 Of stagnant waters ; altar, sword and pen, 
 Fireside, the heroic wreath of hall and bower, 
 Have forfeited their ancient English dower. 
 Of inward happiness, we are selfish men ; 
 Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 
 And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
 Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free. 
 So didst thou travel on life's common way. 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 The lowliest duties on herself did lay, 
 
 XV. 
 
 Great men have been among us : hands that penned 
 
 And tongues that uttered wisdom better none : 
 
 The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington, 
 
 Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend. 
 
 These moralists could act and comprehend : 
 
 They knew how genuine glory was put on ; 
 
 Taught us how rightfully a nation shone 
 
 In splendor ; what strength was, that would not bend 
 
 But in magnanimous meekness. France, 'tis strange 
 
 Has brought forth no such souls as we had then. 
 
 Perpetual emptiness ! unceasing change ! 
 
 No single volume paramount, no code, 
 
 No master spirit, no determined road ; 
 
 But equally a want of books and men ! 
 
72 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Of the Miscellaneous Sonnets, two-thirds of which are 
 pure gold, we quote only the beautiful sonnet on the depar. 
 ture of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples. 
 
 A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain, 
 
 Nor of the setting Sun's pathetic light 
 
 Engender'd, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height. 
 
 Spirits of power, assembled there, complain 
 
 For kindred power departing from their sight ; 
 
 While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain, 
 
 Saddens his voice again, and yet again. 
 
 Lift up your hearts, ye mourners ! for the might 
 
 Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes : 
 
 Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue 
 
 Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, 
 
 Follow this wondrous potentate. Be true. 
 
 Ye winds of ocean and the midland sea. 
 
 Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope ! 
 
 Coleridge wrote but few sonnets, but they are among the 
 most admirable of the fragments of his poetic genius. 
 Most of them are political, celebrating some one of his fa- 
 vorite heroes, Burke, Priestley, Erskine, Sheridan, Koscius- 
 ko, Lafayette. The remainder are of a wholly personal 
 nature, full either of early aspiration, or maturer despon- 
 dency ; cheerful and ardent, or instinct with a mild yet 
 manly melancholy. The two we extract, are typical of 
 the different traits we have mentioned. 
 
 Here is that noble address, 
 
 To the Author of the Robbers. 
 
 Schiller ! that hour I would have wished to die. 
 If through the shuddering midnight I had sent. 
 From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, 
 That fearful voice, a famished father's cry — 
 Lest in some after moment, aught more mean 
 
OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS. 73 
 
 Might stamp me mortal ! A triumphant shout 
 Black horror screamed, and all her goblin rout 
 Diminished shrunk from the more withering scene ! 
 Ah, bard ! tremendous in simplicity ! 
 Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood 
 Wandering at eve with finely-frenzied eye 
 Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood ! 
 Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood : 
 Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy. 
 
 This in a different vein. It is in reply "to a friend 
 who asked, how 1 felt when the nurse first presented my 
 infant to me." 
 
 Charles ! my slow heart was only sad, when first 
 I scanned that face of feeble infancy : 
 For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst 
 All I had been, and all my child might be ! 
 But when I saw it on its mother's arm, 
 And hanging at her bosom (she the while 
 Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile), 
 Then I was thrilled, and melted, and most warm 
 Impressed a father's kiss : and all beguiled 
 Of dark remembrance and presageful fear, 
 I seemed to see an angel form appear — 
 'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild ! 
 So for the mother'' s sake the child was deaVy 
 And dearer was the mother for the child. 
 
 With Keats we close our very slight sketch of writers of 
 the sonnet. A late article in Arcturus Magazine (Dec, 
 1841), has done him true poetic justice. To this delicate 
 appreciation of the young English Poet, as Hunt affection- 
 ately calls him, we can add nothing, but only contribute a 
 hearty assent. The hour has come at last for Keats, that 
 always comes to the true poet. A brother bard (J. R. 
 
 4 
 
74 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Lowell), whose first volume contains passages and poems 
 Keats would have been willing to acknowledge, and whose 
 own delicate genius enables him to appreciate a cognate 
 talent, has done honor to the English bard in stanzas, that 
 put to the blush all prose criticisms. Poets should criticize 
 each other, or rather be the most intelligent admirers of 
 their respective talents. A critic is " of understanding all 
 compact," and wants imagination to relish the finest 
 touches. " The words of Mercury are harsh after the 
 songs of Apollo." 
 
IX. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR, 
 THE SPENSER OF DIVINITY, 
 
 A POET should be the critic of Jeremy Taylor, for he was 
 one himself, and hence needs a poetic mind for his inter- 
 preter and eulogist. Bald criticism becomes still more 
 barren (by contrast) when exercised on the flowery genius 
 of the prince of pulpit orators. Taylor thought in pictures, 
 and his ideas were shadowed out in lively images of beauty. 
 His fancy colored his understanding, which rather painted 
 elaborate metaphors, " long drawn out," than analyzed the 
 complexity of a problem, or conducted the discussion of a 
 topic, by logical processes. The material world furnished 
 his stock of similes. He drew on it for illustrations, rather 
 than seek them in the workings of his own mind. His 
 descriptions are almost palpable. They have an air of 
 reality. His landscape is enveloped in a warm and glow- 
 ing atmosphere ; his light is " from heaven." His style 
 is rich and luxuriant. He is all grace, beauty, melody. 
 He does not appear so anxious to get at the result of an ar- 
 gument, to fix the certainty of a proposition, as to give the 
 finest coloring to a received sentiment. He is more descrip- 
 tive and less speculative. He reposes on the lap of beauty. 
 
76 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 He revels in her creations. The thirst of his soul was for 
 the beautiful. This was with him almost synonymous 
 with the good — "the first good and the first fair." Is it 
 not so ? Is not the highest truth the highest form of 
 beauty ? Our common idea of beauty is more sensual and 
 tinged with earthliness. But the platonic and spiritual 
 conception is nobler and truer. 
 
 There was a period when the volumes of Taylor lay 
 comparatively neglected : when the Blair taste was dominant. 
 This sensible but cold critic does not even refer to Taylor 
 in his lecture on pulpit eloquence. The present race of 
 critics, unlike Blair, are for elevating Taylor as the very 
 first of orators. Of pulpit orators, he is, indeed, the Chry- 
 sostom ; but Burke holds the first, the highest place of all 
 orators. With the poet's imagination, he had also the 
 logician's art and the deep reflection of the philosopher. 
 Burke had less multifarious acquisition, and his intellect 
 worked all the better. Taylor had a vast quantity of use- 
 less learning, which had the ill-effect of inducing a certain 
 laxity of belief. I mean laxity in a good sense. He was 
 too credulous. His faith as well as his memory was 
 equally tenacious of all statements, whether well or ill- 
 founded. Bishop Heber notices this individual character 
 of Taylor in his life. 
 
 Undoubtedly, Taylor is a first-rate genius of the descrip- 
 tive kind. His strengtli lay in that ; and his range, too, 
 was universal. He painted every scene and every vary- 
 ing phase of any one. He is Claude, Rubens, Rembrandt 
 and Raphael combined. He unites softness, richness, 
 depth of shadow, and pure beauty. 
 
 Taylor has been called the " Shakspeare of Divinity" — 
 a parallel that requires some limitation. If, by this, it be 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. 77 
 
 meant that, compared with other preachers, he had a richer 
 fancy, greater copiousness of poetic sentiment, and an un- 
 equalled profusion of beautiful metaphor, the praise is just ; 
 but if it be intended to express that, like Shakspeare, he 
 was gifted with an union of wonderful and various powers, 
 almost superhuman, the criticism is extravagant, if not ab- 
 surd. For, in his printed works, we can find not a gleam 
 of wit or humor — scarcely any talent for portrait-painting 
 — no profound depth of reflection — no nice observation of 
 real life. We say this with no intention of undervaluing 
 Taylor ; but only to show the folly of any close comparison 
 between him and Shakspeare. We would rather say, Tay- 
 lor was the Spenser of Divinity. In a former criticism, 
 we have called Temple a sort of prose Spenser. This 
 phrase would apply with much greater force to Taylor, 
 who was really a poet in prose. With Spenser, Taylor is 
 eminently a descriptive writer. His imagination is pic- 
 torial ; and, although without the allegory of Spenser, he 
 has the same bland amenity of sentiment — the same untir- 
 ing particularity of description — the same angelic purity 
 of thought — the same harmonious structure of composition. 
 Taylor is the painter : inferior to Barrow in point of 
 reason, and to Clark in reasoning ; without a tithe of South's 
 wit or epigrammatic smartness : less ingenious than Donne : 
 he has a fancy and style far more beautiful than any prose 
 writer before his time, and perhaps since. It has been 
 called " unmeasured poetry." The Edinburgh Review 
 and Coleridge (critics wide apart) have joined in pro- 
 nouncing his writings more truly poetic than most of the 
 odes and epics that have been produced in Europe since 
 his day. And Hazlitt (surest critic of all) quotes a fine 
 passage from Beaumont, which is apparently a translation 
 
78 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 of Taylor's prose into verse, and made, too, merely by 
 occasional transposition of the words from the order in 
 which they originally stood. Taylor is, therefore, con- 
 fessedly a master of poetical prose. This term is sometimes 
 used by way of dubious praise, since most writing of the 
 kind is a wretched farrago of such tinsel and faded orna- 
 ment as would disgrace Rag Fair. Taylor's composition 
 is of quite a different grain. His style is naturally poetic, 
 from the character of his mind j he had that poetic sensi- 
 bility of feeling that saw beauty and deep meaning in 
 everything. His imagination colored the commonest 
 object on which it lighted, as the bow of promise throws 
 its tints over all creation ; through this, as a veil, every 
 object appeared bright and blooming, like the flowers of 
 spring, or dark and terrible, like the thunder-cloud of sum- 
 mer. Its general hue was mild and gentle ; he had a 
 more genial feeling for beauty than for grandeur, though 
 his awful description of the Last Judgment is stamped with 
 the sublime force of Michael Angelo, or rather, like Rem- 
 brandt's shadows, terrible with excess of gloom. In this 
 grand picture are collected all the images of terror and 
 dismay, fused into a powerful whole by his so-potent art. 
 It is first a solemn anthem — a version of the monkish can- 
 tide : then you hear (in imagination) the deep bass note 
 of the last thunder that shall ever peal through the sky. 
 You are almost blinded by the lightnings that gleam in his 
 style. Presently, a horrid shriek of despair (the accumu- 
 lated wailing of millions of evil spirits) rises on the 
 aftrighted ear. And anon, the trumpet with a silver 
 sound is blown several times, and all is still. With what 
 a subtle power this master plays on the conscience of his 
 readers ! He makes the boldest tremble : he magnifies, he 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. 79 
 
 reiterates, until the best of men shall think himself a fellow 
 of the vilest ! 
 
 Such, however, is not a scene congenial to Taylor's 
 temper. In his description he most affects the tender and 
 pathetic notes of humanity. He plays admirably on every 
 chord of passion, but on some much oftener and more art- 
 fully than on others. He is both " a son of thunder and a 
 son of consolation." With all his powers of terrifying the 
 soul, he most loves to entreat its gratitude to God and the 
 practice of religion. He takes delight in painting the in- 
 nocence of childhood, the purity of virgins, the sacred 
 mystery of marriage, the gentle voice of pity, the mercy of 
 our Father, the love of his Son. 
 
 His landscape is oftener quiet and in repose, than savage 
 or deserted. His favorite breezes are rather zephyrs, than 
 
 The wind Euroclydon — 
 The storm wind. 
 
 His florid genius, like his sweet disposition, delighted in 
 heavenly lays, and doubtless his piety was not a little the 
 offspring of his temperament and genius. 
 
 Taylor, in his pictures, further resembled Spenser in 
 the prolixity of his style — dwelling on minute points and 
 carefully finishing every trait. He had none of Milton's 
 concise force, that painted a picture by an epithet or a line. 
 If Taylor had the building of Pandemonium, he would 
 have occupied six times the space Milton took for its con- 
 struction. Milton made it to "arise like an exhalation;" 
 Taylor would have expanded the line into a page, wliere 
 each member of the sentence would have formed a series 
 of steps leading from the foundation to the dome of the In- 
 fernal Hall. 
 
80 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 It may be proper here to notice a peculiarity of Taylor's 
 illustrations — they are almost always for ornament ; he 
 does not employ a simile to clench his argument ; he does 
 not make even his fancy logical ; but describes and paints 
 for the pleasure of the picture. His similes, so delightful 
 in the reading, must have been intolerably long for delivery. 
 Public speaking requires greater compactness of mind than 
 Taylor possessed, and yet we hear of his wonderful suc- 
 cess, which was not slightly heightened by a beautiful 
 person, a face " like an angel," and an elocution that 
 ravished all hearers with its swelling cadences and sweet 
 intonations. 
 
 Taylor, in his frequent and curious quotations, is almost 
 a Burton. A reason for this deference to foreign testimony 
 may be gathered from the fact of the respect for authority 
 cherished by the early divines. Just loosed from the 
 Church of Rome, it was but natural they should cling to 
 the first vouchers of the truth, the primitive defenders of 
 the faith. Modern free-thinking and the fashionable doc- 
 trine of independency of opinion had not yet made those 
 morning stars of the church to rely too completely on their 
 own internal light — they rather reflected and gave back 
 the light from above. 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 
 
 " I think he hath not a mind well-tempered, whose zeal is not inflamed by i 
 heavenly anthem." — Owen Feltham. 
 
 There is no music like church music, nor any songs of 
 equal excellence with the songs of Zion. Light, airy- 
 strains delight the ear and enervate the sense, but reach 
 not the soul ; dull, mournful tones induce melancholy and 
 sadness ; but the songs of praise and thanksgiving, of ex- 
 ultant hope and religious joy, of repentance and gratitude, 
 touch the heart more nearly, affect the soul in her inmost 
 recesses, and descend into the very depths of a troubled 
 and contrite spirit. The hopeful Christian, too, is cheered 
 by devout music, breathing peace and rest. And he must 
 be a most indifferent auditor who can listen, unmoved, to 
 any species of church music, of whatever sect, or to what- 
 ever degree of refinement it attains. For my own part, I 
 love all, from the simplest Methodist hymn to the richest 
 cathedral vesper of the Roman Catholic Church : and I 
 believe there is a species of pure, devotional feeling that 
 cannot fitly be told in language, nor manifested in any 
 other way, that is exhibited in music. Prayer and preach- 
 ing have their fit place, and are of essential importance in 
 divine worship ; but praise must not be absent. Psalmody 
 
 4* 
 
82 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 is prayer set to music ; and the majestic anthem is no less 
 than a more elevated form of address to the Almighty Fa- 
 ther. External harmony is but the exponent of a finer 
 internal sense of order and design ; and that, we are taught, 
 is " Heaven's first law." Without organ music, and the 
 vocal accompaniment of a choir, the services of the church 
 appear shorn of a large portion of their dignity and beauty, 
 and wanting in an important feature. This feeling we 
 are happy to share with the master spirits of our church, 
 the testimonials of some of whom, to the efficacy and fasci- 
 nation of this Christian Art, we shall presently enumerate. 
 We call this a Christian Art, and such it certainly is. 
 In the middle age, and just before the revival of learning, 
 when the modern arts first took their rise and origin, all of 
 the arts at present styled the fine arts, were consecrated 
 wholly to the service of the Church. The architecture of 
 that period was the Gothic, especially adapted to churches, 
 though afterwards employed in other buildings, the castel- 
 lated mansion of the noble, and the palace of the king. 
 The first modern paintings were of our Saviour, and 
 the Virgin Mary, and the Apostles, and the scenes and 
 incidents of the Old and New Testaments. The music 
 was choral and religious ; the orisons of the monk, the 
 matins of the friar, the mass and vespers of the chapel. 
 The eloquence was purely and almost restrictedly Episco- 
 pal, or Missionary. Even the early Drama had its first 
 beginning in the representation of Mysteries and Moralities. 
 And to bring down the illustrations to our own day, we 
 find Christianity the prominent symbol of tiie Arts ; or 
 rather the Arts, the peculiar ministers of Religion. Thus 
 we still see no nobler edifices than those consecrated to the 
 worship of the true God ; St. Peter's, St. Paul's, N6tre 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 83 
 
 Dame, the Madelaine, York Minster, and the noble churches 
 of Gernmany. The finest paintings of Raphael, of Guido, 
 of Corregio, of Titian, of Murillo, of Rubens, of Rem- 
 brandt, and of Leonardo da Vinci, are from Scripture sub- 
 jects, and themes sacred to the Christian. Sacred music, 
 in the hands of Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven, is beyond 
 all other music ; and it should be our peculiar pride, that 
 much of our noble church music came fresh from the 
 glowing hand and seraphic ear of the immortal Handel. 
 In point of eloquence, no oratory yet has equalled that of 
 the pulpit. We speak advisedly (with Taylor, and Massil- 
 lon, and Whitfield, and, greatest of all orators, St. Paul, in 
 our eye). We can say, as we know, nothing, of the fa- 
 thers and Roman Catholic doctors ; but unless a general 
 conspiracy has arisen to pervert the truth, their writings 
 must contain a mine of rich thoughts, elaborate reasonings, 
 and brilliant fancies. But of the English divines we can 
 speak from some acquaintance ; and feel amply warranted 
 in declaring, that they have (as a body) never been equal- 
 led, in kind or degree, in point of natural or acquired gifts; 
 embracing the wide circle of eloquence, argument, wit, 
 fancy, erudition, and research. The noblest poetry of not 
 only modern times, but of all times, is deeply devout. The 
 greatest epic the world has produced, is founded on sacred 
 story ; and the writings of all true poets have ever been 
 instinct with a spirit of awful reverence, of charity, and 
 comprehensive love, and of sympathy with the good, the 
 beautiful, and the true ; and this is Christianity. We have 
 digressed from the main point, and yet not wandered into 
 any very irrelevant train of thought. For the whole sub- 
 ject is closely connected, in all its parts : and what is true 
 
84 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 of music as a Christian art, is equally true of the other arts ; 
 of architecture, painting, eloquence, and poetry. 
 
 The elegant Home has left a sermon on Church Music, 
 which we have not been able to procure ; but which we 
 recommend to our readers. The finest thing, however, we 
 have met with on this subject, is that magnificent passage 
 of Hooker,* which may be readily turned to, but is too long 
 for transcription. 
 
 Feltham, and Sir William Temple, have both hit upon 
 the same quotation, a notion of the Fathers, that God loves 
 not him who loves not music ; and they taught, that a love 
 of music was a species of predestinated assurance of a 
 man's acceptance with heaven. Of music, and hymns, 
 and lyres, and the trumpet, and golden harps, we read in 
 Scripture ; and that there are hallelujahs in heaven : 
 and though some blaspheming wit sneeringly asked if 
 heaven were a singing-school, we may affirm that, amidst 
 the choicest incense offered to the adorable Trinity, may 
 very reasonably be included a celestial harmony of voice 
 and instrument, such as mortal ears have never heard, and 
 such as human imaginations may not dare to conceive. 
 But let us see what others, and great names too, have to 
 say on this topic. We shall adduce only those instances 
 occurring to us readily, and omit many fine passages from 
 authors whose books we may not happen to have at hand. 
 
 Of Church Music, thus spoke that fine poet and true 
 Christian, Dr. Donne : "And oh, the power of church mu- 
 sic ! that harmony, added to this hymn, has raised the af- 
 fections of my heart, and quickened my graces of zeal and 
 gratitude ; and I observe, that I always return from paying 
 
 * Book v., § 38. 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 85 
 
 this public duty of prayer and praise to God, with an inex- 
 pressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave 
 the world." Herbert truly loved church music. We are 
 told by Izaak Walton, that " His chiefest recreation was 
 music ; in which heavenly Art he was a most excellent 
 master ; and did himself compose many divine hymns and 
 anthems, which he set and sung to his lute or viol. And 
 though he was a lover of retiredness, yet his love to music 
 was such, that he went usually twice every week, on cer- 
 tain appointed days, to the cathedral church in Salisbury ; 
 and at his return would say, ' That his time spent in prayer 
 and cathedral music, elevated his soul, and was Jus heaven 
 upon earth.' " Nor was he content with a mere conversa- 
 tional declaration of this feeling ; but has given a perma- 
 nent form to the feeling in a strain of pure, devotional har- 
 mony : 
 
 CHURCH MUSIC. 
 
 Sweetest of sweets, I thatik you. When displeasure 
 
 Did through my body wound my mind, 
 You took me thence : and in your house of pleasure 
 
 A dainty lodging me assign'd. 
 
 Now I in you, without a body move. 
 
 Rising and falling with your wings. 
 We both together sweetly live and love, 
 
 Yet say sometimes, " God help poor kings," 
 
 Comfort, I'll die ; for if you part from me. 
 
 Sure I shall do so, and much more ; 
 But if I travel in your company, 
 
 You know the way to heaven's door. 
 
 The author of Paradise Lost, of Comus, and the Areo- 
 pagitica, has left on record his admiration of church music. 
 
86 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 He was a master of the art of music, and played daily on 
 the organ ; and one of the chief traits of his glorious epic 
 is the admirable adaptation of sound to sense, an exquisite 
 sense of harmony and rhythm. Who can forget that rich 
 passage in II Penseroso, rising like " a steam of rich dis- 
 tilled perfumes." 
 
 But let my due feet never fail. 
 
 To walk the studious cloisters pale, 
 
 And love the high embowered roof. 
 
 With antic pillars massy proof. 
 
 And storied windows richly dight. 
 
 Casting a dim religious light. 
 
 There let the pealing organ blow 
 
 To the full voicd quire below. 
 
 In service high and anthems clear. 
 
 As may ivith siveetness, through mine ear, 
 
 Dissolve me into ecstasies. 
 
 And bring all heav'n before mine eyes. 
 
 Truly Milton, though in his creed a Puritan, or rather 
 an Independent (of his own sort), and in his politics a Re- 
 publican, was still, in his poetry, captivated by the romance 
 and splendor of the Roman Catholic Church. Macaulay 
 has, with great nicety, hit off the distinction. "The illu- 
 sions," says that brilliant declaimer, " which captivated 
 his imagination, never impaired his reasoning powers. 
 The statesman was proof against the splendor, the solem- 
 nity, and the romance, which enchanted the poet. Any 
 person who will contrast the sentiments expressed in his 
 Treatises on Prelacy, with the exquisite lines (above 
 quoted) on Ecclesiastical Architecture and Music, in the 
 Penseroso, which was published about the same time, will 
 understand our meaning. This is an inconsistency which, 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 87 
 
 more than anything else, raises his character in our esti- 
 mation, because it shows how many private tastes and 
 feelings he sacrificed in order to do what he considered his 
 duty to mankind. It is the very struggle of the noble Othello, 
 His heart relents ; but his hand is firm. He does naught 
 in hate, but all in honor. He kisses the beautiful deceiver 
 before he destroys her." Four excellent witnesses, admir- 
 able as Poets and Christians, are enough to confirm the 
 integrity of our proposition ; and we have adduced the 
 testimony of Hooker, of Donne, of Herbert, and of Milton. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, there is a nobler music than what is 
 commonly recognized as such ; we mean " the music of 
 speech," the music of a rich, varied, and expressive elocu- 
 tion. Man has not been able to contrive any instrument 
 of equal power and versatility, with that natural organ 
 bestowed upon him by his Maker. The human voice is 
 more complicated and exquisite than the great Harlsem 
 Organ, or the finest Cremona Violin. It is the mastery of 
 art to approach nature ; but here we have nature above 
 the imitation of art. We are old-fashioned enough to love 
 good reading, which is much rarer than good singing. 
 We have now-a-days few Duchets (the name of the clergy, 
 man of whom Wirt wrote witli such enthusiasm) : and it 
 must be confessed that, to the generality of clergymen, 
 liowever learned or eloquent, or amiable for private vir- 
 tues, the censure of Addison still applies, which was 
 levelled at the slovenly, careless, and irreverent perform- 
 ance of the most sacred duty of the priest — Prayer. 
 
XI. 
 
 MR, braham; 
 
 When we first heard Mr. Braham in his opening Sacred 
 Concert at the Tabernacle, we were sadly disappointed. 
 We thought then, as we do now, that he overlaid the majes- 
 tic simplicity of sacred music with a profusion of useless 
 and unmeaning flourishes, mere tricks of voice and execu- 
 tion, cadences, trills, and absurd repetitions. Wonderful 
 power, the more astonishing at his advanced age, and 
 equally wonderful science we could not help acknowledg- 
 ing, but his pathos appeared labored and his enthusiasm 
 mechanical. We did recognize a portion of the fine scorn 
 Lamb spoke of in that magnificent piece, " Thou shalt 
 dash them to pieces," wherein his contemptuous tones 
 were jerked out with the same force that the fretted waves 
 break and storm upon a rock in the raging sea. After- 
 wards at the theatre, on each occasion of our visits there, 
 we were equally dissatisfied. The very indifferent acting 
 was not relieved by any very extraordinary singing. It was 
 the extravagance and (paradoxical, yet true) the constraint 
 of the Italian opera. But a few evenings ago, at the Stuy ve- 
 sant Institute, we at last discovered the secret of Braham's 
 
 * 1841. 
 
MR. BRAHAM. 89 
 
 powers. It is not only the amazing extent, or clearness, or 
 melody of his voice, nor the rapid execution, nor the bril- 
 liant expression merely, but (as in all men of true genius) 
 it lies in the harmonious sympathy between the spirit of 
 the man and the talent of the singer. He sang admirably, 
 the noble heroic songs from Scott and Burns, not only be- 
 cause he sang with power, but also with love. He then 
 and there sang out himself, to speak after the manner of 
 the Germans. The honest, hearty, manly old strains, 
 heroic or naval, or even moral, of England and Scotland, 
 are the true songs for Braham to sing. Before we heard 
 Braham, we fancied to our eye a sort of poetical High 
 Priest in Israel, a majestic figure of a man uttering tones 
 of unearthly depth and beauty, in a style austere, grand, 
 and solemn. But Old Hundred was the only specimen of 
 the kind Mr. Braham gave of himself to any advantage. 
 To hear Braham in " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," 
 or " the Blue Bonnets are over the Border," in which his 
 frequent animated calls sound like the acute report of a 
 rifle ; or " The Last Words of Marmion," where he displays 
 the greater variety, from great force to fine tenderness, 
 slowness and vivacity, spirit and sentiment, we say, to 
 hear these is to hear the finest singing that is to be heard 
 at the present day. The rich philosophy and fine poetry 
 of " A Man's a Man for a' that," was delivered in a proud 
 strain, evincing the generous spirit of the singer. The 
 hearty naval songs of old England are great favorites 
 with Braham. He sings them with all the joyaunce of a 
 jolly Jack Tar, that creature of impulse and heart, and 
 with a spirit of defiance at fortune, and a manly cordiality 
 of feeling, that smack of the children of the sea. Mere 
 sentimental songs Mr. Braham sings badly. He has a 
 
90 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 taste and a faculty above them ; he should " chaunt the 
 old heroic ditty o'er," and leave Moore and Haynes Bay- 
 ley to the lesser lights of the hour. He has force and 
 elevation, but little of mere elegance or softness — he is 
 the Jupiter Tonans, and not the graceful Mercurius. 
 
XII. 
 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 PHILIP QUARLL. 
 
 This delightful story, the favorite of the child's library 
 about a century ago, has now fallen into almost entire 
 obscurity, from which we trust a late London re-publica- 
 tion of the book may revive it. It is a designed and pal- 
 pable imitation of Robinson Crusoe, the popularity of 
 which led to a swarm of imitations, amongst which the 
 above and the Adventures of Peter Wilkins are by far the 
 most ingenious, and so full of freshness and invention as to 
 deserve to pass for originals. 
 
 ^' The Adventures of the English Hermit" were first 
 published, in chapters, in a weekly newspaper, called the 
 Public Intelligencer, shortly after the appearance of Robin- 
 son Crusoe, which, in like manner, had been printed in a 
 paper with which Defoe was connected. So we see our 
 supposed modern fashion of continuing a work of fiction 
 through successive numbers of a periodical is by no means 
 so original a plan as we had supposed in the hands of 
 Hook, Dickens, Marryatt, and a host of their copyists. 
 Our own impression had led us to believe that Launcelot 
 
92 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Greaves, Smollett's least admirable work, was the first 
 ' English novel that had appeared in the pages of a periodi- 
 cal, but here we have a precedent a hundred years pre- 
 vious. Like Peter Wilkins, and Gaudentio di Lucca, the 
 author of Philip Quarll is unknown. One who signs him- 
 self Edward Dorrington, a nom du plume, we suppose, is 
 the apparent compiler of the book ; but we have, now-a- 
 days, seen revealed all the arts of publication, and know 
 very well that Editor often means an author who palms off 
 his own writings as the lucubrations of other people. 
 These scanty facts we glean from the preface to the late 
 edition, and they afford all the actual information we have 
 been able to collect on the subject. Dunlop is entirely 
 silent, in his history of Fiction, as to the very existence of 
 Philip Quarll, though he mentions Peter Wilkins with 
 praise ; in which said history he has finished the depart- 
 ment of English fiction with comparative indifference and 
 in the briefest manner. 
 
 To confess the truth, we have ourselves only a short 
 time since met with the Adventures, and feel that we have, 
 by so late a reading, been deprived of the pleasant retro- 
 spections to which the reperusal of a book of this sort al- 
 ways gives rise. There are classic works which, if not 
 read in early childhood, lose their principal charm, which 
 consists of a pleasure connected with early associations, 
 such as are peculiar in themselves, and which no other 
 period of our life may afford us. In this class of books we 
 place all the fairy tales and voyages imaginaires, as Gulli- 
 ver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Peter Wilkins, and Philip 
 Quarll (Gaudentio di Lucca is the single book of the kind 
 above a mere childish imagination, but worth a text-book 
 on ethics for the boyish youtli). Pure allegory is best 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL. 93 
 
 relished then. We read Pilgrim's Progress with con- 
 stant delight before the age of ten years, but have never 
 been able to get through five pages since ; and the Holy 
 War we give up in despair, being quite past relishing the 
 glories of that mortal combat between the Flesh and the 
 Devil. Oriental tales, as the Arabian Nights and Persian 
 Tales, are very captivating to a fancy delighted with gaudy 
 pictures, and a taste adulterated by the crudities of igno- 
 rance ; so, too, for a different reason, are startling matter- 
 of-fact relations — as the adventures of Munchausen, or 
 Baron Trenck. All of these are really beneficial to 
 young minds ; but the class of books we consider most 
 useful for children are combinations of books of adventures 
 and matter-of-fact relations, as Quarll's adventures, where 
 a child is not only impressed with generous sentiments, 
 and taught to follow a manly model of character, but also 
 learns, and in the pleasantest manner, something of geo- 
 graphy and of natural history. A book like this is better 
 than a sermon or a moral lecture, for with delight it instils 
 truth, and gives an impulse to the affections, while it 
 stimulates the perceptions of the understanding. 
 
 To instruct children to advantage, we must charm their 
 imaginations and touch their hearts ; through these ave- 
 nues we excite the natural piety instinct in the most falli- 
 ble of human creatures, and awaken the dormant love of 
 virtue, which (and not that accursed doctrine of natural 
 depravity), is the true birthright of man. By these means, 
 too, we invigorate and enlighten the reason, the master 
 faculty, and thus in effect gain far more, and in a more 
 pleasing manner, than if we had gone directly to work, and 
 frightened or stupified our little pupils into the practice of 
 a decorous behavior and the acquisition of the mere signs 
 
94 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 of knowledge. We are sorry to see the present race of 
 writers of books for children adopting the unwise course 
 of pragmatically insisting upon a didactic manner in works 
 of fiction. In the midst of all the cants of the day, we are 
 in danwr of beinir surfeited with the cant of useful know- 
 ledge, and the cant of human perfectibility. Certainly all 
 knowledge (even of the worst sort) has its uses ; but for 
 the love of variety, my masters, let us have a little (so 
 called) jiselcss knowledge. It will at least serve as a 
 relief to the mind ; and of goodness, though we cannot 
 have too much, we beg there may be less talking and more 
 performance. We did not wonder that Harriet Martineau 
 could bore children with tirades upon frugality and the 
 circle of domestic virtues, but we are sorry to see even 
 Miss Sedgwick and charming Mary Howitt getting to be 
 too moral by half; and, to crown our surprise. Captain 
 Marryatt is overriding the useful knowledge hobby at such 
 a pace, that we fear he will soon be found floundering in 
 the dirt. In the midst of all this, we are gratified to bring 
 into notice an old work with a new interest, to present our 
 juvenile acquaintance with a new treasure to their former 
 literary store, an accession they will not readily renounce. 
 Our first acquaintance with Philip Quarll arose out of 
 the encomiums we met upon it in two or three passages of 
 Leigh Hunt's writings, and the favor with which it was re- 
 ceived by that glorious circle which met at Lamb's Wednes- 
 day evening parties. What fascinated three generations of 
 children might, we logically inferred, attract a fourth ; and 
 so we took up the work with the intention of saying some- 
 thing about it, if we were so fortunate as to catch the spirit 
 of it. This intention was confirmed and excused (for we 
 foolishly enough imagined the readers of the Boston Mis- 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL. 95 
 
 cellany might consider a notice of an old child's book too 
 trifling for their regard), by the article of Hunt* on Peter 
 Wilkins, a work of similar character, and of which we 
 have something to say before we stop. Of Philip Quarll, 
 beyond a couple of sentences or so, we have seen a criti- 
 cism nowhere, and have the ground, a virgin soil, entirely 
 to ourselves. 
 
 Let us premise that in our critical capacity we write to 
 the parents ; genius alone can write up to the purity of the 
 innocent child. We may have our say, and talk learnedly 
 enough, but it is Mr. Hawthorne who can present his 
 Fancy's Show-box, and fix the roving eye of childhood as 
 by a magic spell. As we love children, however, we shall 
 be glad to act even as subordinate to their best teachers, 
 the father and mother, they to whom they owe life and the 
 fostering care of it, gratitude inferior only to that we all 
 owe to the Father of our fathers, and the merciful protector 
 of their offspring. 
 
 To make an end of what seems to be getting intermina- 
 ble, we come at once to our new acquaintance. The Ad- 
 ventures of Philip Quarll are prefaced by a long and very 
 agreeable account of the discovery of the same Philip 
 Quarll, by the aforesaid Mr. Dorrington. Our present no- 
 lice might be entitled a discovery of the discovery of Philip 
 Quarll, to which is added the adventures, &c. Mr. Dor- 
 rington, we are told, was a British merchant, who on his 
 return to England from a voyage of mercantile adventure, 
 by accident made the discovery of an island in the South 
 Sea, which had been supposed uninhabited, and even unap- 
 proachable for landing, on account of the difficulties of 
 
 * The Seer, xxxi,. Part First. 
 
96 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 access to it ; but on which was found an English hermit, 
 who had lived there solitary and alone (as Mr. Benton 
 might add), not only conveniently, and with comfort, but 
 perfectly resigned and happy, for the space of fifty years. 
 The account of the discovery includes a description of the 
 dress, habitation, and utensils of Quarll, and a long report 
 of the conversation held with him. Of the dress, manner 
 of life, &c., we will only remark a close similarity to the 
 minuteness and particularity of the descriptions and narra- 
 tive of Robinson Crusoe. This, and the internal evidence 
 of the story, and its conduct, induces us to suspect Defoe, 
 himself, of the authorship of the book; a supposition highly 
 probable, when we consider the demand for that class of writ- 
 ings, excited by the Crusoe of the same author, his wonderful 
 copiousness, and his natural desire to enhance the value of 
 the first book, by an imitation of it. This is a mere supposi- 
 tion of our own ; yet analogous circumstances, a repetition 
 of incidents even, lead us to suspect that by chance we 
 may have hit upon the real author. The very conceal- 
 ment of the author's name might be employed as an argu- 
 ment on our side of the question. Defoe had nothing to 
 gain after writing Robinson Crusoe, by copying himself; 
 and then the similarity is so strong in all points, down to 
 the very homeliness, and yet expressiveness of the style, 
 that we cannot think it a mere copy, since, at the same 
 time, it discovers so much internal force and naturalness, 
 which a mere copyist could not be likely to possess. Be 
 that as it may, Quarll is Crusoe slightly altered. He is 
 older, naturally more devout, and a greater lover of soli- 
 tude ; but equally a lover of animals, and of nature, 
 equally expert as a mechanic, and planter ; like Robinson 
 Crusoe, cast by a shipwreck on a desert island, like him 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL. 97 
 
 recovering the most necessary articles from the wreck. 
 There are a few points of dissimilarity. Crusoe is trans- 
 ported at the thought of returning home, while Quarll will 
 not leave his beloved retreat. The former hermit is con- 
 tinually in dread of the Anthropophagi, while the latter is 
 only once visited by two thievish Indians, who fly at his 
 approach. Quarll has no man Friday, but a favorite mon- 
 key, Beaufidelle. The coincidences are much more nu- 
 merous ; Quarll finds a turtle, like Crusoe, turns it on its 
 back to keep it, uses the shell for a dish and a kettle com- 
 bined, preserves his fresh fish, flesh, and fowl, in the salt 
 water. His building, and furnishing, are of a piece with 
 Robinson Crusoe's ; so too his daily rounds, his devotional 
 exercises. These last were somewhat particular ; Quarll 
 was a man of a religious turn, never forgot to ask a bless- 
 ing, return thanks at his meals, nor his daily devotions. 
 His evening exercises are picturesquely described ; he re- 
 gularly resorted to a place where echoes were wonderfully 
 multiplied and prolonged, and being gifted with a noble 
 voice, which had been highly cultivated, he filled the val- 
 ley or cavern with a thousand melodious airs. In this 
 book, as in its prototype, we find the same ceaseless requi- 
 sitions and provisions for the appetite. Quarll is always 
 getting in his fish and chestnuts, and pickling his mush- 
 rooms, and entrapping a hare or a duck. We get a little 
 tired of this, when reading on a full stomach, or in a large 
 town ; but on a deserted island the three meals must be 
 the chief objects of worldly thoughts. Quarll's monkeys 
 play an important part in the narrative, and fill a large 
 place in his benevolent affections. His long beard is as 
 characteristic as Robinson's fur cap, which made us re- 
 gard him as a grenadier, in our childish days: the old man, 
 
 5 
 
98 LITERAKY STUDIES. 
 
 thouo-h eighty-eight when discovered, could sneeze like a 
 man of thirty : had a powerful voice, and an uncommonly 
 viiTorous frame. He was almost a giant in his muscular 
 power, yet mild as an humble Christian. The only defects 
 about Quarll are those of clotiiing : from his waist up he 
 is naked ; he has no sort of covering for his head, and his 
 feet are bare of shoes and stockings. We think the author 
 oucht to have furnished him, at least, with an umbrella, 
 and a pair of buckskin slippers ; he might have sent them 
 ashore on a wave from the wreck, or have prevailed on the 
 voyagers to leave them for future use. As it is, our vene- 
 rable friend looks as if a severe winter would give him a 
 bad cold, from wet feet, and in summer there was imminent 
 danger of a sun stroke. To leave this trifling, and add to 
 tlie force of our former argument, we annex a short pas- 
 san^e from an account of Mr. Dorrington's voyage home, 
 which is as like Defoe's style as Moll Flanders is like the 
 History of the Plague, in point of manner, or as any one 
 work of the same author is like any other : 
 
 " Having refreshed ourselves very well on this island 
 (Juan Fernandez), we resolved to steer for Cape Verde in 
 Chili. On the 12th we made the island of St. Jago, where 
 -vve anchored, and sent our boat ashore. Here we bought 
 some hogs and black cattle for our voyage round Cape 
 Horn to the Brazils, as also some corn and maize. 
 
 " We weighed anclior on the 20th, and sailed from hence 
 round Cape Horn. Round the Cape the weather favored 
 us extremely ; and nothing happened that was material, 
 only that we were chased by a pirate ship, for about twelve 
 hours on the 29th ; but the niglit coming on, it favored us, 
 so that we lost her. On the 4th of September we made 
 Falkland's Islands, and Cape St. Antonio, near the mouth 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL. 99 
 
 of the River de la Plata, in Paraguay, on the 25th ; when 
 we stood out to sea, and made the island of Grande, on the 
 coast of Brazil, on the 29th. We here received a letter 
 from our owners, commanding us home, and not to sail for 
 New England, as designed. Here we got beef, mutton, 
 hogs, fowls, sugar, rum, oranges, and lemons, so that now 
 we did not want for good punch." 
 
 Does not this read like a page out of a veritable log-book 
 from the hand of Daniel Defoe ? 
 
 The account of Quarll is written in the third person, in- 
 stead of being an autobiography. For this reason we con- 
 ceive that it loses a portion of its spirit. It is a work no 
 less cui'ious than interesting, and contains much valuable 
 matter of a miscellaneous character. It is interspersed 
 with judicious reflection, and enlivened by agreeable pic- 
 tures, it relates singular facts. It is withal highly cha- 
 racteristic of the subject of it, and full of a personal 
 interest. To confirm this criticism, we must not delay 
 giving the reader specimens under each head. Previously 
 to doing this we will extract a longer passage than the pre- 
 ceding, to give the reader a better taste of our author's 
 general manner. It is all over Defoe. It relates a passage 
 in the solitary existence of Quarll : 
 
 " About forty paces farther he found a chest in a cleft 
 of the rock, which had been washed up there by the vio- 
 lence of the storm. After thanking heaven for its mercy 
 in sending this gift, he tried to lift it, but could not ; he 
 was therefore obliged to fetch his hatchet to break it open, 
 that he might take away what was in it by degrees. Hav- 
 ing taken as much of the sail cloth as he could conveniently 
 carry, with the few oysters he had got, he went home and 
 fetched the tool, wherewith he wrenched open the chest, 
 
 LofC. 
 
100 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 from which he took a suit of clothes and some fine linen. 
 ' These,' said he, ' neither the owner nor I want ;' so laid 
 them down. The next thing he took out was a roll of 
 parchment, being blank indentures and leases ; * these.' 
 said he, ' are instruments of law, and are often applied to 
 injustice ; but I'll alter their mischievous properties, and 
 make them records of Heaven's mercies, and Providence's 
 wonderful liberality to me ; instead of being the ruin of 
 some, they may chance to be the reclaiming of others.' 
 At the bottom of the chest lay a runlet of brandy, a 
 Cheshire cheese, a leather bottle full of ink, with a parcel 
 of pens, and a penknife ; 'as for these,' said he, 'they are 
 of use ; the pens, ink, and parclmient, have equipped me 
 to keep a journal, which will divert and pass away a few 
 anxious hours. By degrees he took home the chest and its 
 contents ; and now having materials to begin his journal, 
 he immediately fell to work ; that for want of otiier books, 
 he might at his leisure peruse his past transactions, and the 
 many mercies he had received from heaven ; and that after 
 his decease whoever might be directed hither by Provi- 
 dence, upon reading his wonderful escapes in the greatest 
 of dangers, his miraculous living when remote from human 
 assistance, in the like extremity he should not despair. 
 Thus he began from his being eight years old, to the day 
 of his being cast away, being then twenty-eight years of 
 age, resolving to continue it to his death." 
 
 It can hardly be expected that we should attempt the 
 barest outline of incidents in a nvagazine article. We can 
 only touch a few points in a very cursory manner. 
 
 The hero of the adventures is a philosopher by nature 
 and from circumstances : he has got a habit of reflection, 
 and is perpetually moralizing on the most familiar aspects 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL. 101 
 
 of nature, and the most ordinary occurrences of life. 
 Thus, walking along the sea shore, he perceives at the foot 
 of a rock, " an extraordinary large whale, which, cast there 
 by the late high wind, had died for want of water. There 
 were shoals of small fishes swimming about it in the shal- 
 low water wherein it lay, as rejoicing at its death." Upon 
 this he remarks, " Thus the oppressed rejoice at a tyrant's 
 fall. Well, happy are they who, like me, are under hea- 
 ven's government only." He then with his knife cut 
 several slices of the whale and threw them to the small 
 fishes, saying, " It is just ye should, at last, feed on that 
 which so long fed on you;" a homily which admits of a 
 political construction. Here recurs another instance of 
 his philosophic turn. " One day, having walked the island 
 over and over, he proceeded to view the sea, whose fluid 
 element being ever in motion, affords new objects of admi- 
 ration. The day being very fair, and the weather as calm, 
 he sat down upon the rock, taking pleasure in seeing the 
 waves roll, and, as it were, chase one another ; the second 
 pursuing the first, and being itself overtaken by a succeed- 
 ing, until they sunk altogether. ' This,' said he, ' is a true 
 emblem of ambition ; men striving to outdo one another 
 are often undone.' " 
 
 As he was making reflections on the emptiness of vanity 
 and pride, and returning thanks to heaven that he was sepa- 
 rated from the world, which abounds in nothing so much, a 
 ship appeared at a great distance, a sight he had not seen since 
 his shipwreck. "Most unlucky invention," said he, "that 
 ever came into a man's thoughts. The ark, which gave 
 the first notion of a floating habitation, was ordered for the 
 preservation of man ; but its fatal copies daily expose him 
 to destruction." Notwithstanding liis philosophy, Quarll 
 
102 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 is thrown into deep distress by the failure of an attempt to 
 reacli the island, on the part of the sailors. This was, 
 however, brief. Again, he misses an opportunity of escape. 
 On a third occasion, an endeavor is made to carry him off 
 by force, for exhibition. This was unsuccessful. A fourth 
 chance of release is repulsed by him, having determined 
 to spend the remnant of his life in his (now) beloved re- 
 treat. 
 
 Our hermit has a lively talent for coloring, an agreea- 
 ble, descriptive fancy. The following present a few ex- 
 amples : 
 
 Antelopes. " Having a majestic presence, body and 
 limbs representing a stag, and the noble march of a horse." 
 A beautiful unknown bird. " He contemplated with de- 
 light on the inexpressible beauty of the feathers, which on 
 the back were after the nature of a drake's, every one dis- 
 tinguished from the other by a rim round the edge, abou 
 the breadth of a large thread, and being of a changeable 
 color, from red to aurora and green ; the ribs were of a 
 delightful blue, and the feathers pearl-color, speckled with 
 a bright yellow ; the breast and belly, if they might be 
 said to be of any particular color, were that of a dove's 
 feathers, rimmed like the back, diversely changing ; the 
 head, which was like that of a swan for make, was purple, 
 changing as if moved ; the bill like burnislied gold ; the 
 eyes like a ruby, with a rim of gold around them ; the feet 
 the same as the bill ; the size of the bird was between that 
 of a middling goose and a duck, and in shape it somewhat 
 resembled a swan." 
 
 Can this be a veritable picture or a fanciful extrava- 
 gance ? A little farther on is the description of a bird 
 somewhat similar, but still more gorgeous in its plumage. 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL. 103 
 
 The sea monster he paints a horrible creature, and with 
 the Gorgon terrors of Behemoth himself. It is evidently 
 an imaginary phantasm. " A form without likeness, and 
 yet comparable to the most terrible part of every frightful 
 creature ; a large head, resembling that of a lion, bearing 
 three pair of horns ; one pair upright, like that of an ante- 
 lope, another pair like wild goats', two more bending back- 
 wards ; its foce armed all round with darts, like a porcu- 
 pine ; with great eyes sparkling like a flint struck with a 
 steel ; its nose like a wild horse, always snarling ; the 
 mouth of a lion and teeth of a panther, the jaws of an ele- 
 phant, and the tusks of a wild boar, shouldered like a 
 giant, with claws like an eagle, bodied and covered with 
 shells like a rhinoceros, and the color of a crocodile." In 
 this fertile region, Quarll meets with numberless instances 
 of the prodigality of nature ; the rarest fruits, fowls, and 
 fishes ; forests of beautiful trees, sometimes of miraculous 
 size, one covered with its branches a whole acre ; while ano- 
 ther grew for the same extent, so closely interwoven in its 
 branches, which seemed almost to spring from the roots, as 
 to form an impenetrable barrier, a sort of natural picket or 
 palisade. Monkeys were the hermit's pets, and he would 
 sometimes excite a quarrel between two varieties, the 
 green and grey species, to induce reflections on the folly 
 of brawling and fighting. For invariably a third party 
 came in and stole away the spoils for which they were 
 contending. 
 
 A pleasant instance of our hermit's loyalty is mentioned 
 in the introduction to the adventures by the compilers of 
 them, in whose hands Quarll left his MSS. ; which, at the 
 same time, fixes the general date of the work. At the re- 
 past given by the old man to Dorrington, the health of 
 
104 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 George III. was drank ; and an eulogiuni passed upon his 
 character, to which some dissenting criticism might be of- 
 fered. 
 
 We liave now endeavored to give the reader a general 
 idea of Philip Quarll's adventures, but trust he will 
 speedily consult that history itself to verify our conjectures 
 in })art, but more particularly for the amusement and pro- 
 fit of an entire perusal. 
 
 Peter Wilkins we can hardly pretend to write upon af- 
 ter Hunt. But we may retain a remembrance, and haz- 
 ard a conjecture. It was our first play (tlie story drama- 
 tized) and hence can by no possibility be forgotten, as such 
 an occasion forms an epoch in the life of every individual. 
 We cannot think the author of Philip Quarll and Peter 
 Wilkins are one and the same person, for with a great simi- 
 larity, an element entirely original is introduced into the 
 latter, the author of which displays a more copious inven- 
 tion and a more spiritual fancy tlian the author of the first 
 work. Botli are admirable of their kind, a class now quite 
 extinct, and to tlic reproduction of which, our present race 
 of story-tollers appear quite inadequate from a want of 
 faith, a want of invention, a want of simplicity, and a want 
 of exact truth and fidelity of imagination. 
 
XIII . 
 
 WALTON'S LIYES 
 
 "There are no colors in the fairest sky 
 So fair as these. 7'he feather whence the pen 
 Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, 
 Dropped from an Angel's wing. With moistened eye 
 We read of Faiitli and purest Charity 
 In Statesman, Priest, and humble citizen : 
 could we copy their mild virtues, then 
 What joy to live, what blessedness to die ! 
 Methinks their very names shine still and bright ; 
 Apart, like glow-worms on a summer night, 
 Or lonely tapers when from far they fling 
 A guiding ray; or seen, like stars on high. 
 Satellites burning in a lucid ring 
 Around meek Walton's heavenly memory." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 In the whole circle of Englisli Literature, a volume more 
 unique and attractive to the best class of readers cannot 
 easily be found, than the Lives of Walton. The most en- 
 thusiastic praises of the acutcst critics have conferred an 
 enviable immortality on their admirable author, which, 
 added to the sweet and manly character of Honest Izaak, 
 have united to give his book a place on tlie shelf above 
 that of many writers of greater reputation and more bril- 
 liant genius. On a work of such excellence and so well 
 known, we shall not now dwell with much particularity. 
 
106 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Our object at present will be, to consider the principal 
 features common to the Lives, and the personal as well as 
 literary character of Walton himself. A certain family 
 likeness exists between all the different heroes of Walton, 
 and a similar mode of handling the relation of their lives. 
 Thus all of them — Donne, Wotton, Herbert, Hooker, San- 
 derson — were remarkable for their early studies as well as 
 precocity of genius : each was a liberal scholar and de- 
 voted to his calling : each was a firm and zealous church- 
 man : all of them but Wotton were divines, and he was a 
 sort of lay preacher : they were all most fortunate in their 
 deaths, regular and happy in their lives, even Hooker, not- 
 withstanding his domestic trials. In their tempers and 
 dispositions, they were men of great mildness and modera- 
 tion : of a charitable turn, given to hospitality and the 
 company of their friends, liberal thinkers, inclined to inno- 
 cent pleasantry, utterly devoid of cunning or deceit, sin- 
 cere Christians and unpretending philanthropists. Yet 
 with all these points in common, each was possessed of a 
 marked individuality of character and genius. Though 
 both of them poets and fine poets, the sentiment of Herbert 
 is quite different from the fancy of Donne, and that again 
 from the reflection of Wotton. Hooker and Sanderson, 
 able on the same topics, displayed talents quite diverse ; 
 the one being more of a general philosophical inquirer, 
 the other more of a theoretical casuist. — There can be no 
 stronger argument for the purity and innocence of Walton's 
 life, than the fact that these were his personal friends — com- 
 panions of his choice, who thought it no want of dignity in 
 them to associate with the simple-hearted author of the 
 Complete Angler. The Lives are written with considera- 
 ble minuteness, and are yet very general, minute in par- 
 
Walton's lives. 107 
 
 ticular instances, but general in the main outlines. They 
 uniformly commence with an apology for his unfitness for 
 the task of historical narrative, and excuses for the defects 
 of style and manner. This was not, in all probability, an 
 affectation, but real diffidence. 
 
 The youth and prime of Walton having been passed in 
 the pursuit of trade and commerce, his education had been 
 of a very miscellaneous character, picked up from desul- 
 tory reading and the conversation of the divines with whom 
 he was a great favorite, and of whom he was a decided ad- 
 mirer. Commencing authorship, too, late in life, he felt 
 the clogs of business and the want of freedom in his ideas 
 and composition. This he soon attained, and if his style 
 never became perfect, yet it was original of its kind, and 
 such as no art of rhetoric could teach. 
 
 Prefixed to the Lives is a biography of Walton, by Dr. 
 Zouch, the same who wrote the life of Sir Philip Sidney. 
 He has made a better preface of the first, than his stupid 
 volume on the latter personage, though his passing criti- 
 cisms on Donne and Fuller smack of the trained critic of 
 the formal French school of criticism of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 The profession of Walton is known to have been that of 
 a wholesale linen-draper or Hamburgh merchant. His 
 first initiation into trade is thought to have been in one of 
 the shops where, in company with other industrious young 
 men, he was placed by the munificence of Sir Thomas 
 Gresham (the English Medici, and founder of the Royal 
 Exchange), who had erected several in the upper part of 
 his celebrated building. After a course of prudent manage- 
 ment, of frugality and assiduous labor, Walton, at the age 
 of fifty years, retired from business, resolving to spend the 
 
108 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 rest of his years in the practice of his social and religious 
 duties, and to cultivate his powers by reading, conversation 
 and reflection. A moderate independency satisfied the 
 simple desires of this contented Christian philosopher, and 
 he W3ls too wise a man not to leave the turmoil of business 
 as soon as his circumstances warranted the removal. Un- 
 like our modern money-seekers, he preferred ease and 
 a quiet conscience to extravagance and display, and the 
 laborious tasks requisite to meet large demands. Immedi- 
 ately on leaving trade, he turned author, and he affords 
 one example more of the good writers who have arisen, not 
 from the peasantry alone (which class boasts a Burns, an 
 Elliott, a Hogg, and a Bloomfield), but from the middling 
 classes of society, as Richardson the novelist, who was a 
 printer ; Defoe, a hosier ; and even lower, Ben Jonson, a 
 bricklayer, and Doddsley, a footman, who became a writer 
 and publisher. We think we can perceive the effects of 
 his business habits in the writings of Walton, in his method 
 and accuracy, which it is becoming the fashion to impeach, 
 his speciality, and honest dealing. 
 
 The literary character of Walton is distinguished by the 
 same sincerity and pure feeling, that mark his personal 
 disposition. Good sense, a reverence for the wise and 
 good, a natural piety, and unfeigned simplicity, are the 
 principal characteristics of the author as well as of the 
 man. His garrulity (in some cases the effect of age, he 
 wrote the life of Sanderson in his eighty-fifth year) is the 
 innocent, free talk of a familiar friend ; yet it must be 
 confessed this inclination to gossip and to accept reports 
 and traditions as true history, has led him, in some cases, 
 to statements that have been charged with being one-sided 
 and partial. 
 
WALTON S LIVES. 
 
 109 
 
 Beside those features of his personal character already 
 mentioned, one occurs, and exceedingly prominent, his 
 loyalty. This feeling grew out of his natural reverence 
 for authority and superiors. He was also a zealous 
 churchman for the same reason, and warmly opposed the 
 covenant — and for this he suffered considerably in his tem- 
 poral affairs, as well as in the trials to which his mild tem- 
 per was subjected. A fast friend to royalty and the church, 
 circumstances, as well as his natural bent, led him to em- 
 brace that particular side. His mother was the niece of 
 Archbishop Cranmer, and his wife the sister of Bishop 
 Ken, who has wi'itten some fine hymns, and whom James 
 II. reckoned the first among the Protestant preachers of 
 his time. 
 
 The divines of that day, with whom Walton was inti- 
 mately associated, greatly influenced his mind and charac- 
 ter, and may be said, by their works and conversation, to 
 have formed his mind and leading opinions — Donne, Her- 
 bert, Sanderson, Fuller, Ken, King, Usher, Chillingworth, 
 and three poets, at that period the natural defenders of 
 monarchy and nobility, Drayton, Shirley, the dramatist, 
 and ChalkhiU. 
 
 From the multitude of eulogiums and affectionate allu- 
 sions to Walton, living, and his memory after death, we 
 have selected the following nervous lines of Flatman, a 
 forgotten poet, who has shown genius in two or three short 
 pieces. 
 
 Happy old man ! whose worth all mankind knows. 
 Except himself; who charitably shows. 
 The ready road to virtue and to praise. 
 The road to many long and happy days, 
 The noble acts of generous piety. 
 
110 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 And how to compass true felicity. 
 Hence did he learn the art of living well ; 
 The bright Thealma was his oracle : 
 Inspired by her he knows no anxious cares. 
 Through near a century of pleasant years ; 
 Easy he lives, and cheerful shall he die, 
 Well spoken of by late posterity. 
 
 How correctly the poet has prophesied, the readers and 
 admirers of Walton at the present day may answer. The 
 name occurs but once beside in our literature, and then in 
 a work of fiction, the enchanting volume of Mackenzie ; 
 and apart from the melancholy sentiment and pathetic 
 sweetness of that character, it is a magic name, conse- 
 crated to the respect of all scholars, and the love of all 
 good men throughout the world. 
 
XIV. 
 
 ELIJAH FENTON 
 
 In a former article, on Religious Biography, the very im- 
 perfect list of English biographies that rank as classic pro- 
 ductions in that department of writing there inserted, in- 
 cludes the lives of Milton and Waller, by Fenton, an 
 author so estimable as a man, and affording so agreeable 
 an instance of one class of writers, that, although little 
 known himself, and author of no very important efforts, we 
 are inclined to pause at his name, and sketch his personal 
 and literary character. Fenton was emphatically a man 
 of letters, a title of dubious meaning, and that ought to 
 have a settled character. In its most enlarged sense, it 
 may convey the idea of a general scholar and miscellane- 
 ous author, as the term lawyer, in this country, includes 
 every department in the profession, uniting the contrary 
 pursuits of barrister, special pleader, conveyancer, and 
 equity draughtsman, which in England are separately fol- 
 lowed as distinct professions. Or it may be taken in the 
 sense of D'Israeli, as that body of readers and students 
 standing between the great body of authors and the larger 
 body of mere readers ; aiding the first as critics, or by 
 counsel and research, or else acting the part of interpreters 
 or commentators for the last. The very highest order of 
 
112 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 genius are above this class, and also the first class, of men 
 of talent. A poet almost inspired, yet comparatively un- 
 lettered, as Burns or Elliott, is not called a man of letters, 
 since not a book-man or scholar. Yet he may be much 
 superior to the mere scholar. Neither is the true man of 
 letters purely a student, but also an author. He is not 
 often a voluminous author, unless he is poor, for the deli- 
 cacy of his taste will curb the facility of production, and 
 give the last finish to his style. If obliged to live by his 
 pen, he will write much, but miscellaneously, as Hazlitt 
 and Hunt. It is not likely he will ever attempt a long 
 work, for, if blessed with a competence, he will be too in- 
 dolent, and, if pressed to write often, he cannot write at 
 length. There are, then, two distinct divisions of the 
 class. Gray and Warton, and, we may add, Fenton, were 
 representatives of the first, and the miscellaneous authors, 
 by profession, of the present and past age, of the last, as 
 Goldsmith, Johnson, Cumberland, Southey, the regular 
 reviewers and critics, and the ablest modern lecturers, 
 Guizot, Cousin, Carlyle, etc. Fenton, though poor, was 
 almost always attached to some great man or wealthy 
 patron, who was glad to exchange a moderate pension for 
 the pleasure of his society and conversation, and, at least 
 for the latter part of his life, though his circumstances 
 were narrow, yet he was placed above want and the im- 
 portunate calls of necessity. He could write or read, as 
 he pleased, and he cared to do little else. '- He is," says 
 Pope,* " a right honest man and a good scholar : he sits 
 within and does nothing but read and compose." This is 
 the true picture. Mere amateurs of authorship, petty 
 
 * Spence. 
 
ELIJAH FENTON. 113 
 
 (occasional) scribblers, or deliverers of an annual address 
 or a quarterly lecture; collectors of rare rhymes, they 
 have not the taste to read or capacity to comprehend ; 
 gentlemanly, fashionable smatterers of learning ; rich pa- 
 trons, may call themselves " literary characters," or " men 
 of letters," but it is not their proper designation ; they are 
 more worthily styled pretenders, shallow coxcombs, arro- 
 gant fools. We have met with more than one character 
 of this sort. They are generally on lecture committees, 
 or appointed as corresponding secretaries to literary socie- 
 ties. They haunt public libraries and reading-rooms. 
 Their names are in all the newspapers. These are pre- 
 tenders, with full pockets. A more unfortunate pretender, 
 is a poor author — one destitute in a pecuniary view, who 
 takes up the trade of authorship without the means or abili- 
 ties to carry it on. Such a person might as well profess 
 alchemy as literature. We are willing to take the experi- 
 ence of the best judges, when we conclude that a good scholar 
 and able writer, if not unfortunate in other respects, must 
 eventually succeed in obtaining a respectable livelihood, 
 as well as the lawyer or physician, above whom he un- 
 questionably ranks. For he works with the finest tools, 
 on the most exalted and purifying materials. Never let 
 him foro-et the sentence of a master of authorship.* 
 " Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess 
 above every other occupation, that even he who attains hit a 
 mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that 
 excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.^^ Of 
 the gentility of literature, as a pursuit (not to say of its 
 noble aristocracy), a paper might be written, demonstrat- 
 
 * Hume. 
 
114 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 ing conclusively its generous scope and noble elevation ; 
 but we believe we have pursued the subject sufficiently 
 for the present. 
 
 Of the works of Fenton, a brief criticism may serve. 
 His prose is sweet and elegant : his poetry pleasing, but 
 verging towards feebleness. In the high sense he was no 
 poet, but only an agreeable versifier. His lives are agree- 
 able abridgments of what a common writer would have 
 swelled into books of twelve times the size ; but, as a mis- 
 cellaneous scholar, and chiefly a classical scholar, was he 
 reputed to rank high. He translated for Pope, the first, 
 fourth, nineteenth, and twentieth books of the Odyssey ; 
 and so smoothly, that they are not generally distinguished 
 from those of Pope's translation. He was often engaged as 
 private tutor — for a time he was secretary to the Earl of 
 Orrery, in Flanders, and tutor to his son, who ever after- 
 wards mentioned him with esteem and tenderness. He 
 was at one time assistant in a school, and afterwards kept 
 a school for himself. Bolingbroke persuaded him to give 
 this up, for more honorable employment (as it was thought), 
 and court favor. Pope stood by him under all circum- 
 stances, and procured him an enviable situation as instruc- 
 tor and companion to Secretary Craggs, who died too soon 
 for the successful prosecution of the scheme. With South- 
 erne, the dramatic poet, Fenton preserved a close inti- 
 macy. At his house he wrote his tragedy of Mariamne, 
 which brought its author one thousand pounds. The 
 widow of Sir William Trumbull, at Pope's recommenda- 
 tion (who loved to make his friends happy), invited Fenton 
 to educate her son, whom he accompanied to Cambridge. 
 Fenton died at the seat of this excellent woman, in the 
 capacity of auditor of her accounts a species of gentleman- 
 
ELIJAH FENTON. 
 
 115 
 
 steward and agent. Pope wrote his epitaph, a monument 
 of his taste and affection. 
 
 The personal character of Fenton was delightful — a 
 temper sweet, yet not insipid ; a judgment manly and 
 liberal ; a taste refined, but not fastidious ; a talent for 
 conversation, lively, entertaining and instructive ; integrity 
 of the purest dye ; the gentlest consideration ; — these were 
 the peculiar characteristics of one of the noblest of human 
 creatures. " None knew him but to praise." His merits 
 have softened the severity of Johnson, and disarmed the 
 satire of Pope. For the brevity of his life, Johnson apolo- 
 gizes ; he says, " it is not the effect of indifference or 
 negligence." Fenton was a non-juror, and hence "a 
 commoner of Nature ;"* but, though friendless and poor 
 (in his early career), his biographer adds, " he kept his 
 name unsullied, and never suffered himself to be reduced, 
 like too many of the same sect, to mean arts and dishonor- 
 able shifts. Whoever mentioned Fenton, mentioned him 
 with honor." In the lives of Milton and Waller, Johnson 
 refers with respect and eulogy to our author ; and in the 
 life of Pope he repeats his former praises — •' The character 
 of Fenton was so amiable, that I cannot forbear to wish 
 for some poet or biographer to display it more fully for the 
 advantage of posterity. If he did not stand in the first 
 rank of genius, he may claim a place in the second ; and, 
 whatever criticism may object to his writings, censure 
 could find very little to blame in his life." No man may, 
 with truth, assail Johnson for want of heart ; he had, in 
 fact, a truly humane disposition. Eulogy of a man from 
 whom he could expect nothing if living, and to whom, 
 dead, he owed no debt of gratitude, bespeaks a generous 
 nature. The only defect in Fenton (a most venial fault in 
 
 * Johnson. 
 
116 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 him, though not in others) was a physical indolence, the 
 effect of constitutional debility. He was tall and corpu- 
 lent, sluggish, a late riser, and took little exercise. An 
 attendant, where he once lodged, used to say he would 
 " lie a-bed and be fed with a spoon." Pope said he died 
 of indolence ; but his distemper was the fruit of physical 
 indolence — the gout. A story is told much to his credit, 
 that we ought not to omit repeating : — " At an entertain- 
 ment, made for the family by his elder brother, he observed 
 that one of his sisters, who had married unfortunately, was 
 absent ; and found, upon inquiry, that distress had made 
 her thought unworthy of invitation. As she was at no 
 great distance, he refused to sit at table till she was called, 
 and when she had taken her place was careful to show her 
 particular attention." 
 
 Such was Elijah Fenton, a man who exhibited, in a pri- 
 vate scene, and on a limited stage, the virtues of the philo- 
 sopher and of the Christian hero ; evincing, in his patient 
 forbearance, his firm integrity and honorable poverty, a 
 resolution and high tone of principle, that more ennobles 
 human nature than the dazzling victories and gaudy tri- 
 umphs of the conqueror. This excellent man had the 
 tastes, the habits, the acquisitions, the pure aspirations of 
 the genuine scholar, united to the calmness, the sagacity 
 and moderation of the philosopher. A better tribute to his 
 memory than a polished and epigrammatic epitaph, may 
 be read in the following letter of Pope to the Rev. Mr. 
 Broome, the mutual friend of Pope and Fenton, and their 
 associate in the translation of the Odyssey. We annex it 
 entire, with the complete details : — 
 
ELIJAH FENTON. 117 
 
 " To the Rev. Mr. Broome, 
 
 " At Pulham, near Harlestone, Nor., 
 " [By Beccles, Bag.] SufFolke. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I intended to write to you on this melan- 
 choly subject, the death of Mr. Fenton, before yrs came ; 
 but stay'd to have informed myself and you of ye circum- 
 stances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a gradual decay, 
 tho' so early in life, & was declining for 5 or 6 months. 
 It was not as I apprehended, the gout in his stomach, but I 
 believe rather a complication first of gross humors, as he 
 was naturally corpulent, not discharging themselves, as he 
 used no sort of exercise. No man better bore ye ap- 
 proaches of his dissolution (as I am told) or with less 
 ostentation yielded up his Being. The great modesty 
 which you know was natural to him, and ye great con- 
 tempt he had for all sorts of vanity and Parade, never ap- 
 peared more than in his last moments ; he had a conscious 
 satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, and feeling himself 
 honest, true, and unpretending to more than was his own. 
 So he dyed, as he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient, 
 contentment. 
 
 " As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can 
 be but few ; for this reason, he never wrote out of vanity, 
 or thought much of the applause of men. I know one 
 instance where he did his utmost to conceal his own merit 
 that way ; and if we join to this his natural love of ease, 
 I fancy we must expect little of this sort ; at least I hear 
 of none except some few further remarks on Waller 
 (which his cautious integrity made him leave an order to 
 be given to Mr. Tonson), and perhaps, though 'tis many 
 years since I saw it, a Translation of ye first Book of 
 
118 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Oppian. He had begun a tragedy of Dion, but made 
 small progress in it. 
 
 "As to his other affairs he dyed poor, but honest, leaving 
 no debts or legacies ; except of a few pounds to Mr. 
 Trumbull and my Lady, in token of respect, gratefulness, 
 and mutual esteem. 
 
 " I shall, with pleasure, take upon me to draw this amia- 
 ble, quiet, deserving, unpretending Christian and philoso- 
 phical character, in his epitaph. There truth may be 
 spoken in a few words : as for Flourish, and Oratory, and 
 Poetry, I leave them to younger and more lively writers, 
 such as love writing for writing sake, and wd rather shew 
 their own Fine Parts, yn report the valuable ones of any 
 other man. So the Elegy I renounce. 
 
 " I condole with you from my heart on the loss of so 
 , worthy a man, and a Friend to us both. Now he is gone, 
 I must tell you he has done you many a good office, and 
 set your character in ye fairest light to some who either 
 mistook you, or knew you not. I doubt not he has done 
 the same for me. 
 
 " Adieu : Let us love his memory, and profit by his 
 example — I am, very sincerely, 
 
 "DrSir, 
 " Your affectionate & real servant, 
 
 " A. Pope. 
 
 "Aug. 29, 1730." 
 
 Thus wrote, not the just censor, the keen satirist, the 
 brilliant moral painter, the gay, elegant, courtly letter- 
 writer, the arch critic of the artificial school of poetry and 
 of criticism ; but the humane, the affectionate, the friend- 
 ly Pope, out of his very heart of hearts, with earnestness 
 and undoubted zeal. To question the truth of this were 
 to insult humanity. 
 
XV . 
 
 SWEDENBORGIANISM 
 
 We have here two accredited expositions of the character 
 and tenets of the Swedenborgian sect, by respectable cler- 
 gymen of that denomination ; and, in order to satisfy the 
 minds of those inquiring into the truth and genuineness of 
 these doctrines, in ever so slight a degree, we shall present 
 a brief abstract of them ; but first, it may be necessary to 
 lay before the reader some account of that extraordinary 
 man, Emmanuel Swedenborg ; for such, all who study his 
 life and system must allow him to have been, however 
 they may refuse to admit his apostolical or prophetic cha- 
 racter. 
 
 Swedenborg was the son of a Lutheran bishop, and edu- 
 cated with, perhaps, something of sectarian rigor. We 
 conceive we see, in this fact, an explanation of those vision- 
 ary theories, and that " largest liberty," which occupied 
 the thoughts of his later years. From a restricted bigotry 
 to unbounded freedom of belief, the transition is neither 
 uncommon nor unnatural. Yet, true to his early education, 
 
 * "A Course of five Lectures on the fundamental Doctrines of the 
 New Jerusalem Church," by Richard De Charms, 92 pp., 12mo., 
 Philadelphia. " Barrett's Lectures," 12mo. John Allen. 
 
120 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Swedenborg never left the communion of the Lutheran 
 Church, but remained a member to the day of his death. 
 Many of his sentiments, of a nobler morality, and much of 
 the spiritual interpretation, which he vulgarized by its too 
 frequent use, might safely be introduced into every sect, 
 and into the bosom even of the true Church ; but then, 
 purely in an episodical manner, and not as the only saving 
 truth. Though writing and teaching as " a man sent from 
 the Lord," yet it was not until after his death that his fol- 
 lowers united together to form, what they assumed to style 
 (with sufficient humility to be sure) The New Church. 
 Sectarian arrogance and spiritual conceit have rarely 
 transcended this. 
 
 Swedenborg was early distinguished for quickness, in- 
 dustry, memory and enthusiasm. He had a rich, luxuriant 
 fancy, and some poetical talent. He was a chemist, lin- 
 guist, and mathematician : understood metallurgy and 
 anatomy, and possessed an inventive spirit, and an original 
 vein, in all of these. He was more than this, a clear, exact, 
 methodical man of business ; drew up the best financial 
 reports, succeeded in embassies, and made himself a useful 
 statesman. Altogether, he was a man of rare natural 
 abilities, with much and various culture. He filled nume- 
 rous offices of high trust, was ennobled and honored with 
 distinguished attentions ; at one time the favorite of Charles 
 Xn. ; and, if we are not in error, he converted a later 
 sovereign to his peculiar views. Swedenborg, from all 
 accounts, must have been an honest man, a pure man, a 
 sincere Christian, but essentially a religious enthusiast ; 
 and, as we cannot help thinking, possessed with a mono- 
 mania, not fierce and turbulent, but gentle and spiritual. 
 It has been said, that the study of the Book of Revelations 
 
SWEDENBORGIANISM. 121 
 
 would turn any man's head who attempts to translate that 
 mystical allegory into plain prose. Newton (says a great 
 authority) wrote nonsense on the Revelations. Wise Dan 
 Chaucer, long since, told his readers that 
 
 The greatest clerks are not the wisest men. 
 
 And Swedenborg adds another illustrious name to the list 
 of those who attempt impossible things ; ranking, with the 
 inquirers after the longitude, those who seek to square the 
 circle, or discover perpetual motion. It were as wise to 
 hunt after the art of transmuting the baser metals into 
 gold, as to aim at a new (and true, at the same time) com- 
 mentary on the Christian scheme and the Holy Scriptures. 
 From one of the best accounts of the life of Swedenborg, 
 in the Encyclopasdia Americana, to which our attention has 
 been directed by a Svvedenborgian, we adopt a conclusion 
 of the critic, that Swedenborg was rather a religious poet 
 than a scientific theologian : that, though a man of a truly 
 devotional spirit, he had more of fancy in his piety and his 
 so-called visions, than he himself imagined. His country, 
 his temperament, his very name, smacks of mysticism. 
 His followers deny this : but we want no other proof of it, 
 than some of his own pretensions, and the titles of some of 
 his works.* What man but he, save Quevedo in satire, 
 and Virgil, with Dante and Milton, in epic poesy, ever pre- 
 tended a picture of Hell ? Swedenborg gives, also, a mi- 
 nute description of Heaven and the Angelic Spirits. We 
 have heard the Swedish Apostle compared to Jacob Boeh- 
 men, and we suspect a close parallel : it is said that the 
 former was obliged to the earlier mystic, for many ideas 
 
 * Arcana Celestia, the Apocalypse, and Angelic Wisdom. 
 6 
 
122 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 and images. Even Emerson, very lately, spoke of Swe- 
 denborg as the greatest poet since Dante, thereby greatly 
 alloying liis prophetic character. For, the introduction of 
 fancy into religion leaves too much room for the exercise 
 of human invention. A poetical religionist is likely to be 
 an unsafe biblical critic. We see this exemplified in the 
 strange mixture of ancient Christianity and Neo-Platon- 
 ism, where the distinctive doctrines of each were so con- 
 fused as to impair the verisimilitude of the former, and give 
 too high authority to the visions of tlie latter. This grew 
 to so great an evil, that after the separation of the two di- 
 verse elements, the doctrine of the Trinity itself, the very 
 corner-stone of Christianity, came to be considered, by some, 
 a relic of Platonism. The prophets of old spake from a 
 celestial inspiration ; the impostors of modern days (we do 
 not rank Swedenborg among conscious impostors), the 
 Mother Ann Lees, of the Shakers ; the Joe Smiths, of the 
 Mormons, etc., seek the light of their own unenlightened 
 reason, and the vain boastings of a copious, but ill-regulated 
 fancy. The Apostles of old were, most of them, plain, 
 unlettered men. Modern pscudo-apostlcs are men of some 
 acquirements, and a ready invention. To make a genuine 
 Christian disciple, Faith and Love only are wanting (both, 
 how rare !) ; but, to make a fashionable and popular, vulgar 
 saint, some vigor of cliaracter and physical constitution is 
 necessary ; but more of a dazzling showy species of talent, 
 with a vast fund of impudence and imperturbable self- 
 reliance. We believe Swedenborg to have been a good 
 man, in most respects ; and in some particulars, a great 
 man ; but like many men, both great and good, he was 
 vain, or worse ; and enthusiastic (in the sense of weak- 
 ness, not a manly, vigorous enthusiasm) to an extraordina- 
 
SWEDENBORGIANISM. 123 
 
 ry degree. Neither of these qualities is incompatible 
 with great sincerity, and even elevation of mind ; and for 
 these traits we reverence his character. Swedenborg is 
 represented as a man of uncommonly clear judgment, 
 which we must either wholly deny, or else impugn his 
 cliaracter for veracity, for humility, and for philosophical 
 consistency. Regarding him in the light of a herald of a 
 new day, the forerunner of a purer age, we can only 
 speak of Swedenborg as the dupe of his own fancies, and 
 without a particle of respect for his spiritual and charac- 
 teristic pretensions. In those passages where he exhorts to 
 spiritual love, and purity of life and thought, he displays a 
 noble spirit. Mr. De Charms has a section (pp. 47, 8), that 
 unfolds this divine principle. But, in doctrinal points, he 
 is sometimes far wrong ; often perfectly at variance with 
 well ascertained Christian Doctrine ; sometimes crude, 
 sometimes almost blasphemous. 
 
 Of this doctrine we shall attempt a faint sketch. The 
 Swedenborgian believes his to be the (New Jerusalem) 
 Church ; that the final judgment took place somewhere in 
 the middle of the last century ; that a new, and truer, and 
 purer dispensation, commenced with Swedenborg ; and al- 
 though they speak of him as merely a herald of a new 
 era, and interpreter of the Scriptures, as a servant of the 
 Lord ; still they assume for his interpretation and teaching 
 (as it seems to us) equal weight and value with that at- 
 tached to the precepts and parables of our Saviour, or (at 
 the least) to that commonly conceded to his disciples and 
 immediate followers. We add some of their peculiar 
 views. Their notion of the Trinity differs from that of the 
 only true Church. They imagine it to include a trinity of 
 principles, and not of persons ; the principles of Love and 
 
124 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Wisdom, with the operation of both ; or, as they define it, 
 an intimate, or middle, and an ultimate principle. They 
 assert the non-existence of a Trinity before the Incarnation 
 of the Word ; that then it arose out of the union of the 
 Divine and Human Natures, with the operation of both ; 
 just as in Man, there is the Soul, and Body, and Life. 
 
 Carrying out a spirit of independent inquiry, they also 
 choose to differ from the received acceptation of the Atone- 
 ment, or, as they quaintly term it, at-one-ment. They 
 deny that God the Father was propitiated by the vicarious 
 suffering of God the Son ; since, on the ground of their 
 different notion of the Divine Trinity, they cannot reconcile 
 the idea to their minds. (Vide Barrett's IX. Lecture.) 
 Both of these most important heads require a fuller discus- 
 sion than we are theologians enough to give, or than, if we 
 were, we have space, in this rapid outline, to include. 
 
 In this desultory notice, we do not pretend to preserve 
 any formality of method, much less thoroughness of analy- 
 sis, but only to touch on the most striking points. One of 
 these is, the presumption of speaking of a peculiar sect 
 (much as they avoid the name, they yet form a sect), as 
 the New Church, or the New Jerusalem ; applying the 
 phraseology of the Revelations, and implying a degree of 
 holiness and immaculate purity in its members. What- 
 ever is neiv, we might remind these sectaries, is not, there- 
 fore, true ; and we may quote the remark of Sheridan, of 
 a popular speaker, that of what he said, " the new was 
 not true, and the true not new." There is much elevated 
 sentiment and acute metaphysical reasoning in the Sweden- 
 borgian writers ; but the morality is the best morality of 
 the New Testament. Better there is none. Human 
 genius cannot improve tlie precepts or spiritual teaching 
 
SWEDENBORGIANISM. 125 
 
 of pure Christianity ; and human invention alters only for 
 the worse. The new interpretation, the new vouchers, 
 we hesitate to accept ; nay, more, we reject them altoge- 
 ther, whenever they contradict the old. Mr. Barrett sup- 
 poses, like many others, most unphilosophically (as it ap- 
 pears to us), and most illogically, by an entirely false 
 analogy, that theology must advance with the physical 
 sciences. We find the earliest commentators most re- 
 garded, and for many dark sayings we may find no ade- 
 quate version. Mystery must ever hang over portions of 
 the Holy page. What is essential to be known, is plain. 
 But there are many things we see " through a glass 
 darkly," and which, we are reminded, are to be seen in no 
 clearer light, while an earthly film overspreads the vision. 
 No improved theological optics can make us see all things 
 clearly, until our eyes (the eyes of the mind) are touched 
 by that Divine Hand that opened the eyes of the blind 
 Bartimeus. Spiritual truths can be discerned only in a 
 spiritual manner ; and we cannot now, save where a 
 miracle is granted, see with a pure spiritual vision. All 
 the aids of critical opticians, when conducted in a wrong 
 spirit, afford rather optical delusions than any real benefit. 
 We are truly told, that sensuality, self-love, worldliness, 
 and pride, so becloud our spiritual perceptions, as to pre- 
 vent our recognizing the truth as it is, or loving it as we 
 should ; and, undoubtedly, the spirits of most men are too 
 much immersed in sense ', but, then, no refinement of 
 spirituality will make a prophet out of every ordinary 
 individual. This is as absurd as the notion of another 
 sect, with regard to speaking the Unknown Tongue, which 
 is equally ridiculoys and blasphemous ; and means a dia- 
 lect that none can controvert to be what it professes, since 
 
126 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 no one can recognize it. The followers of Swedenborg 
 deny this mysticism ; but it is palpably evident in his life 
 and habits of mind, as well as in his version of Scripture. 
 He taught a science of correspondencies (we see no good 
 reason for prefixing the definite article, since we are not 
 prepared to receive it) ; he has published visions of the 
 world of spirits. He attempts to expound the mysteries 
 of the Book of Revelations. He expressed himself by 
 symbol and allegory. His style is an imitation of the 
 Scriptures, and, like the Book of Jasher, reads like a close 
 imitation. This style of composition, we conceive, by an 
 uninspired writer (whose credentials were not most clear), 
 to be taking a most reprehensible and audacious liberty 
 with the Word of God. 
 
 His science of correspondencies, which it is pretended 
 was lost by Job, and only revived by Swedenborg himself, 
 is a species of figurative -allegory. It shows acuteness and 
 fancy ; but we can find in it, no innate force compelling 
 the conviction of the understandinij. It is also singular in 
 this respect, that it translates figurative allegories into the 
 most literal phraseology, whilst it gives a symbolic trans- 
 lation to the simple records of history. Mr. Barrett speaks 
 thus of it : " The Science of Correspondencies, as revealed 
 in the writings of Swedenborg, furnishes us with a rule, 
 and the only rule, as we have before said,ybr interpreting 
 aright the word of GodJ' Yet this species of comment 
 and translation is full of the most startling assumptions. 
 It denies the historical accuracy of Genesis, defining the 
 limits of true history, which is declared to have commenced 
 at the calling of Abraham. The first eleven chapters are 
 taken as one continued allegory. Adam is tliought to 
 typify the first Church : the Flood, to mean a flood of 
 
SWEDENBORGIANISM. 127 
 
 ignorance and sin over the moral world. The Waters 
 
 o 
 
 are understood as truths or fables, as they relate to good 
 or evil. By Noali, and the creatures preserved in the 
 Ark, are rendered the preservation of good principles and 
 sound doctrine, by the Divine Providence. All this is 
 very ingenious and plausible ; we can hardly assign it a 
 worthier title. Speculation and fancy may run on, in this 
 manner, ad libitum. Pure allegory, on the other hand, is 
 construed into an exact and liberal narrative of futurity — 
 a prophetic relation, in part accomplished. The New Je- 
 rusalem is localized ; the Judgment Day is identified with 
 a past epoch. Parable is considered synonymous with 
 matter of fact history. A wise man often discovers the 
 most wisdom in letting some things alone ; in leaving moot 
 points at rest. Swedenborg could not abstain from a rash 
 curiosity of gazing upon the Holy of Holies ; he must 
 needs intrude into the awful precincts of the Apocalypse. 
 And here in his daring rashness, he evinced equal folly. 
 
 His visions, and publications of an intercourse with the 
 spiritual world, are of a piece with the rest. It is painful 
 to see the state into which that man's mind must have 
 fallen, who could write out such accounts as we find in 
 Lecture xii. (pages 415, 416-418, in particular.) We 
 arc almost tempted to exclaim, 
 
 Lo ! what a noble mind was here o'erthrown. 
 
 Had Swedenborg lived a century earlier, he would have 
 been cited as a memorable instance in old Burton's chapter 
 on Religious melancholy. A few sentences will comprise 
 all the criticism on the Lectures we have to offer. Mr. 
 De Charms is the clearest writer : Mr. Barrett is more 
 ambitious and flowery. Both are sensible thinkers, yet 
 
128 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 fall iuto gross blunders whenever they attempt to exalt 
 their Hero and Master. A rather presumptuous parallel 
 is here drawn. " We would therefore beg all who are dis- 
 posed to ridicule and reject the writings of Swedenborg, on 
 account of the alleged visions which they contain, to pause 
 and consider, whether they do not, in their hearts, if not 
 with their lips, mock at the views of ike Apostles and Prophets^ 
 and reject the Scriptures as a revelation from GodJ' We can, 
 by no supposition, conceive how a rejection of Sweden- 
 borg's mission invalidates the genuineness of the Scrip- 
 tures, or can pre-suppose such invalidation. 
 
 The followers of this fanciful theorist (for as such, in the 
 History of Religion, the character of Swedenborg, we sus- 
 pect, will finally rest) are, in the majority of cases, pure- 
 minded and honest men ; in some cases guided by a poeti- 
 cal temperament in the choice of a religion ; in others, 
 governed by the specious " rationality " of the Sweden- 
 borgian scheme. Very few eminent men are numbered in 
 its ranks. Dr. Hartley, the metaphysician, we believe, 
 was one ; Kant appears to have been, and Coleridge was 
 for a while, attracted by Swedenborgianism, as indeed he 
 was by every current fashionable novelty, and curious an- 
 cient heresy. American would-be Coleridges assume the 
 doctrines, as a fair text for imposing rhetoric. It must be 
 allowed, as we have admitted more than once, that parts of 
 the teachings of the Swedish Apostle are imbued with tlie 
 loftiest Christian morality ; that his spirit bathed in an at- 
 mosphere of the purest refinement ; that he saw keenly 
 into much of the spiritual part of our nature. Here we 
 stop in our eulogium. As a moralist, Swedenborg is above 
 our praise ; as a religious teacher, a biblical critic, an ex- 
 pounder of mysteries, we regard him as unsafe, dangerous, 
 
SWEDENBORGIANISM. 129 
 
 and rash. His sect is still very small, and its polity being 
 nearer to the Congregational form of Church government 
 than to any other, tends continually to independency, and 
 disunion among its members. It is without an abiding 
 principle of unity ; and its excessive spirit of liberty is 
 liable to run into licentiousness of doctrine. In Sweden 
 there are very few of this belief; more in England, and 
 on the continent. In this country they have .several con- 
 gregations : but we apprehend no stability in Swedenbor- 
 gianism as a Church ; but that it will gradually die out 
 like the Quakers and the Unitarians. Still the Church 
 may derive excellent hints from some of the strictures of 
 Swedenborg ; and, indeed, from more than one of the spi- 
 ritual Christian philosophers of modern Europe. 
 
XVI 
 
 llELIGIOUS SATIRE 
 
 Many well-intentioned, but not very deep-thinking people, 
 are mightily frightened by anything approaching to the ar- 
 gunientmn ad absurdum, in matters of religion or morality. 
 They fancy a disrespect, at least, if not a secret contempt 
 of Christianity from satirical assaults on those who profess, 
 only to disgrace it. Tiiey apprehend evil from the air of 
 levity with which such subjects are treated ; an apprehen- 
 sion rarely verified, except in the case of tlie very weak, 
 who arc sure to go wrong in almost every possible event. 
 No man but a fool or a radically bad character, ever could 
 conceive of universal hollowness, because there were many 
 demure and sly hypocrites in the world. A total want 
 of faith is the unerring sign of a temper not to be trusted ; 
 of a fickle heart and a false tongue. But satire of the pre- 
 tenders to true religion is, in etfect, an eulogy of the sin- 
 cerely good ; indiscriminate praise and universal censure 
 being alike in this respect, that finally they tend to nothing, 
 as they nullify each other by opposite extravagances. It 
 is true, that satirists have sometimes transcended the pro- 
 per limits of truth and discretion ; have calumniated where 
 they should have calmly censured ; and have written a 
 libel instead of a criticism. The most piquant satire is, 
 
RELIGIOUS SATIRE. 131 
 
 necessarily, one sided, and carried to the extreme verge of 
 truth ; at times overpassing it. Epigrams lose in point 
 where they approach the truth. A moderate thinker is 
 rarely to be found among professed wits. For, when a 
 man comes to ponder and weigh opposite qualities and con- 
 flicting statements, to admit this excuse and allow that 
 apology, when circumstance and occasion are considered ; 
 and, in a word, when he endeavors to strike a just balance 
 of the actions and characters of men, he rarely can escape 
 a trite conclusion or a mediocrity of argument. In a know- 
 ledge of most elementary truths and general propositions, 
 the philosopher and the peasant are on a par ; the differ- 
 ence between them consists in a knowledge of the interme- 
 diate chain of thought and reasoning on the part of the 
 first, and ignorance in the case of the last. It is only 
 when a point is driven home, when to paint one trait 
 vividly, the rest of the features are thrown in the shade, 
 that brilliancy is attained at the expense of fidelity and a 
 liberal construction. To a reader of sense, however, a 
 defect of this nature makes itself apparent at once, and 
 he sifts out the false from the fair: to all other readers 
 it matters little, for they might misconstrue the most 
 irreproachable writer. We have frequent proof that the 
 best book in the world has fared the worst in this respect. 
 
 Religious satire has generally been directed either 
 against the extravagances or the hypocrisy of reformers ; 
 and when just and intelligent, it has certainly been of es- 
 sential service. It may not benefit the immediate objects 
 of it. It may harden or dishearten proselytes and late- 
 converts, re-changing the self-styled elect into viler sin- 
 ners than they were before ; but it is productive of benefit 
 
132 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 to those who are not intimately connected with either any- 
 specific reformation itself or those conducting it. 
 
 The very idea of undertaking to convert the world, at 
 the present time of day, discovers, in him who cherishes it, 
 a palpable defect of judgment and common precaution, and 
 will induce compassion where it does not provoke ridicule. 
 Such innovators appear to forget how much benefit may be 
 accomplished by the thorough performance of individual 
 duties, to say nothing of every man's natural and (as it 
 were) hereditary influence in his own walk and circle of 
 society, which may be turned to the best account possible. 
 They leave the obvious and natural claims of their Maker, 
 their own souls, and their fellow-creatures, for the vain 
 prosecution of fantastic projects. Like the alchemist, they 
 think they possess a talisman, unknown to all others, for 
 converting sinners ; a talisman, that too often fails in 
 its pretended effects when employed upon themselves. 
 
 To say that no good has accrued to society from zealous 
 yet prudential reformation, is to assert what is palpably 
 false ; yet to conceal the great evils incurred by rash in- 
 novation and ignorant fanaticism, would be avoiding a fair 
 statement of the case. The greatest of Reformers, Time, 
 as we are wisely taught by Bacon, innovates silently, but 
 is more powerful than any other. We see in the life of 
 man, how age reveals the errors of youth, and manhood 
 suppresses the follies of immaturity. So in the age of the 
 world, civilisation and custom must unite to eradicate (by 
 degrees) the defects, the vices, the crimes of former ages. 
 If the above is true of matters relating to the civil polity, 
 to legislation and government, how much truer is it with 
 regard to the growth and very existence of Christianity. 
 We are to look for no new lights here: and a modern 
 
RELIGIOUS SATIRE. 1S3 
 
 Apostle may be suspected on 'prima facie evidence, of being 
 an impostor. The assumption of the character of Founder 
 of a sect, implies a degree of pride and corresponding want 
 of humility, hardly consistent with true piety. At the same 
 time, it evinces rashness and ignorance. Modern religious 
 reformers generally begin by discrediting the labors and 
 talent of previous teachers, in order to raise the value of 
 their own. In an attempt to go back to the standard of 
 primitive Christianity, they discredit the succession of wise 
 and good men, who have filled the interval with their pure 
 thoughts and holy lives. 
 
 In effect, too, they hurt their own cause, where they 
 treat the ministers of religion with contumely ; for they 
 destroy a respect for those external decorums, which are 
 not only becoming in the best Christians, but considered 
 no less than essential in the department of a polished gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 Enthusiasm is, at once, the strong and the weak point of 
 the religious reformer, enthusiasm, real or assumed; the 
 most powerful instrument by which to form the multitude, 
 and the most vulnerable point of attack. 
 
 The control of a multitude by the sympathetic feeling of 
 enthusiasm may be spoken of as a species of animal or 
 spiritual magnetism. We see the effect of it in such hands 
 as those of Mahomet, Cromwell, Whitfield. Napoleon. But 
 this is a vulgar passion, not the enthusiasm of noble na- 
 tures for objects of equal worth. Ordinary religious enthu- 
 siasm is both degrading and impious; degrading as it is 
 irrational, and impious from presumption and familiarity. 
 As to the vulnerability of enthusiasm, we only need to 
 read Hudibras. Yet are we no believers in the sophism 
 of "ridicule being the test of truth." It may furnish a 
 
134 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 searching test of artificial manners. It is a touchstone for 
 absurdities in conduct. But religion is above it ; its prin- 
 ciples are too sacred for such a connexion. The practices 
 of fanatic religionists are, however, more absurd than any 
 ridicule that can be heaped upon them, and they are fair 
 game for the pen of the satirist. 
 
 The truest Christians have been, in general, moderate 
 in their views, no advocates of human perfectibility, no 
 Fifth Monarchy men. Pious persons, with a vein of mys- 
 ticism in their characters, as Norris, Fenelon, Herbert, or 
 Farrar, may indulge themselves in raptures and ecstasies ; 
 but these have a certain real beauty, and at least disturb 
 not the peace of their neighbors. Modern ranters split the 
 ears, while they would invade the souls of the groundlings, 
 and seem to think the kingdom of Satan can be carried by 
 the same means which toppled down the walls of Jericho. 
 
 It is a little singular, that, with a single exception, the 
 author of Hudibras, the keenest satires on religious extra- 
 vagances, and the severest censure (however humorously 
 allegorized) that has been passed on the defects most visible 
 in the clerical character, should have come from the pens 
 of churchmen. Yet such has been the case from the time 
 of Erasmus to the days of the Rev. Sidney Smith, the most 
 celebrated of living clerical wits, including, among other 
 names in the interval, those of South, Eachard, and Swift, — 
 a trio, that for wit, sense, and honesty, cannot be paralleled. 
 
 Those who are most in the habit of railing at the clergy 
 and at religious persons in general, show great ignorance 
 and narrowness. They confound the worthy with the 
 worthless, under a common denomination of hypocrites. 
 It is a usual saying with such people, that they consider 
 themselves as good Christians as any. Having seen villa- 
 
RELIGIOUS SATIRE. 
 
 135 
 
 ny and worldliness masked under the appearance of reli- 
 gion, they conclude all Christianity to be a deception. 
 This is as much as if one should pretend an accurate 
 knowledge of human nature, from having filled the station 
 of jailer all his life, and seen much crime. The Newgate 
 calendar is but a chapter in the great Book of Life. Re- 
 ligious satire is not for such readers, as it gives them ideas 
 on one side, and that the worst side, which they possess 
 neither inclination nor ability to rebut. Their situation 
 has precluded the possibility of an acquisition of true 
 views on this subject, and of seeing how much more good 
 than evil there is in the world after all (wicked as it is), 
 despite the sneers of the profligate and the scorn of the 
 misanthrope. 
 
L I T E R A R Y 8 T U D I E S 
 
 A COLLECTION OF 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 W . A . JONES. 
 
 VOL. II, 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 EDWARD WALKER, 111 FULTON-STREET. 
 
 IS17. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. 11. 
 
 FAOK 
 
 I. PROSE OF BARROW, 1 
 
 J J. THE POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET, 6 
 
 in. THE ladies' library, 15 
 
 IV. the early maturity OF GENIUS, 23 
 
 V. NOTORIETY, 34 
 
 VI. LETTERS, 41 
 
 VII. POPE AND HIS FRIENDS, 46 
 
 VIII. GRAY AND COWPER, 58 
 
 IX. AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS, .... 62 
 
 X. FEMALE NOVELISTS, 71 
 
 XI. SINGLE-SPEECH POETS, .85 
 
 XII. ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS, 96 
 
 XIJI. RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY, 109 
 
 XIV. TITLES, 119 
 
 XV. MINSHULL's ESSAYES and CHARACTERES of a PRI- 
 SON AND PRISONERS, 135 
 
 XVr. ON PREACHING, , . . . . 142 
 
PROSE OF BARROW 
 
 There is an eloquence of the reason as well as of the 
 imagination and of the affections. Perhaps it is more 
 firmly based than either, and produces in the end the 
 surest effects. It is less captivating than the descriptive 
 eloquence of Taylor ; it has less hold on the taste than the 
 sentimental passages of Rousseau or Hazlitt, less touching 
 than the pathos of Sterne or Mackenzie, less brilliant than 
 the declamation of Burke or Macaulay : but it is anchored 
 in truth ; it is founded in reality ; it convinces the under- 
 standing. Finally, all eloquence must come to this. We 
 may be captivated by the glittering flashes of a copious 
 fancy, and charmed, for an hour, by the attractive graces 
 of eloquence and manner ; but the only true eloquence is 
 that which is always such, which equally interests a future 
 age and a foreign nation, and which is the pure essence of 
 the noblest reason, couched in the clearest, the most forci- 
 ble, and the richest expression. Those brilliant contem- 
 porary speakers, of whom we have only a traditional know- 
 ledge, such as Dean Kirwan, Patrick Henry, and Emmett, 
 are rather to be regarded as consummate actors than solid 
 orators. 
 
 To give the praise of finished oratory to the sermons of 
 
 VOL. II. . 1 
 
Z LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Barrow would be an extravagance of eulogy ; antl yet his 
 fame is great, and his sermons most able, lie possesses 
 the utmost fulness (this side of extravagance) in point of 
 thouglit and expression ; yet we can hardly say as much 
 of liis style and manner. The characteristic trait of Bar- 
 row is his power of exhaustive analysis. lie is a perfect 
 mental chemist, analyzing every topic into as many parts 
 as it is composed of, and precipitating (so to speak) all the 
 falsehood in it, leaving a clear solution of truth. Our 
 divine is one of the most liberal-minded of men. He has 
 a wide range of thought, and mines, as it were, in the very 
 depth of his argument. He gives you every side of every 
 subject he handles. He knows all the false appearances 
 sophistry may be made to wear, as disguises of the truth. 
 He is thoroughly informed of all the bearings of Jiis sub- 
 ject, and leaves no part of it untouclied. Though without 
 imagination, llarrow had such a fertility of intellect (so 
 well cultivated was the soil), as to appear almost possess- 
 ing invention in the way of topics and illustration. The 
 secret of his invention lay in long and severe study, aided 
 by a capacious and powerful and ready memory. 
 
 Reason was the master faculty of Barrow's mind. He 
 seems to have had but little fancy — no imagination ; not 
 jnnchofan eye for nature — no humor — hardly anything 
 like delicacy of sentiment. His understanding was a ro- 
 bust, hard-working laculty. His analysis was very acute 
 and tliorough — his logic exceeding close, searching, and 
 patient. He had mucli and varied erudition, and a memory 
 that was not crushed by the weight of it. This is an ar- 
 gument for the original force of Barrow, as well as for 
 most of the great old prose-writers, that their learning was 
 not too much for tiieni. No foreign acquisitions could ob- 
 
PROSE OF BARROW. 
 
 scuro the clear light of their own reason : learning served 
 
 them for evidence, for illustration. But they never con- 
 founded knowledge and wisdom, and knew as weH as the 
 old dramatists, their grand compeers, that 
 
 " The licart 
 May <;ivc an useful lesson to the head." 
 
 Hence, without vanity, they relied more on themselves 
 than most scholars, who are too often mere pedants. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that most of Barrow's sermons 
 are rather moral dissertations, than what we would call, at 
 the present day, evangelical discourses. Barrow comes 
 nearer to a teacher of moral philosophy, than the ordinary 
 standard of modern preaching will allow. It was his 
 practice to write a series of sermons on certain topics of 
 practical ethics (none the less Christian, though some 
 would have us think so) ; thus, he has four sermons on 
 industry, eight on the tongue, &c., &c. He seldom wrote 
 less than two, and frequently three, on a single text. 
 Tliese arc complete moral treatises. Though, in one 
 sense, this may he considered a defect, yet, in our view 
 (perhaps mistaken), it is a merit. Preaching too often 
 departs from the themes of daily importance — the ofiices 
 of familiar duty. Most congregations require to he taught 
 their moral, as well as their religious duties (both parts of 
 the same great scheme, and essentially one). We have 
 never heard the ortliodoxy of Barrow questioned, and yet 
 it is certain he is more of a moral teacher than an Evan- 
 gelical Divine. 
 
 There is a palpable defect in Barrow. He is uniformly 
 copious. He is often tedious. He is too apt to discuss a 
 
4 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 trite theme, with all the exuberance of power he employs 
 on one more obscure and less familiar. Moreover, he is 
 interminable. Many laughable anecdotes are related of 
 his power of continuance. Once, at a charity sermon, he 
 detained the audience by a discourse of three hours and a 
 half in length. In coming down from the pulpit, and 
 being asked if he did not feel tired, he replied that " he 
 began to be weary with standing so long." It must have 
 been as wearisome for the audience (we should imagine) 
 to sit still that space of time, unless the church was a dark 
 one, the cushions soft, and the pews high. On another 
 occasion, being reminded that the congregation at the Ab- 
 bey liked short sermons, he was prevailed on (with much 
 ado) to preach but one half of his original sermon, and 
 that occupied an hour and a half. 
 
 With these defects, however, that must have rendered 
 him, to light hearers of the Word, a rather tiresome 
 preacher, he is still a right sturdy, manly intellect of the 
 true English breed. 
 
 This intellectual robustness was joined to great strength 
 of moral purpose and determined physical courage. Of 
 this last quality, two remarkable instances occur to us. 
 Being attacked at night by a powerful mastiff, he grappled 
 with the animal, and almost choked him, before any assist- 
 ance came. At sea, in the Mediterranean, the vessel in 
 which he happened to be embarked was attacked by 
 an Algerine corsair. Barrow could not be prevailed on 
 to go below, but fought bravely with the crew. 
 
 These traits of character cannot fail to impress us with 
 the opinion of high respect for Barrow's force and energy. 
 
 Though no wit, to be sure, in his sermons, unless a 
 strong sense of propriety and the absence of it can be 
 
PROSE OF BARROW. O 
 
 termed wit, yet he gave Rochester one day a notable re- 
 proof, and foiled that courtly wit at his own weapons. 
 Yet Barrow penned a definition of wit, amounting to an 
 essay, which is a miracle of ingenuity of distinction and 
 richness of expression. 
 
 Charles II. used to call Barrow " an unfair preacher," 
 for he left nothing for future preachers to glean — unless, 
 he might have added, to make pretty free use of the labors 
 of their predecessors. 
 
 Lord Chatham enjoined on his son the constant study 
 of Barrow, and Pitt declared he had his sermons almost by 
 heart. 
 
 To show the common injudiciousness of parents in esti- 
 mating the talents of their children, the father of Barrow 
 is said to have exclaimed, " If it pleased God to take away 
 any of his children, he hoped it would be Isaak," regard- 
 ing him as a miracle of stupidity, who afterwards proved 
 the glory of his family. 
 
II. 
 
 THE POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET 
 
 In the list of clerical wits, comprehending some of the 
 best writers of England, and the finest satirical humorists 
 in the world,* the name of Corbet should always find a 
 place ; yeihis jeux (V esprit and hon-mots are known only to 
 the antiquary and retrospective critic. This pleasant cha- 
 racter is known only from traditional anecdote and the 
 memoirs of his contemporaries. His poems are scattered 
 up and down a variety of poetical collections, and have 
 only been collected together in the present century. His 
 modesty would not allow the public acknowledgment of 
 them during his life, neither would he suffer any of his 
 sermons to be printed, though they are spoken of as rarely 
 ingenious, and if at all answerable to his conversation and 
 verses, they must have been delicate. The best account 
 we can gather of this eccentric wit, we find in Aubrey ; 
 and it is one of the most lively sketches in his collection. 
 We transcribe it entire. " Richard Corbet, D.D., was 
 the son of Vincent Corbet (better known ' by Poynter's 
 name than by his owne'), who was a gardener at Twick- 
 enham, as I have heard my old cosen Whitney say. He 
 was a Westminster scholar ; old Parson Bussey, of All- 
 
 * Fuller, Earle, South, Eachard, Swift, Sterne, and Sidney Smith. 
 
POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 7 
 
 scottj in Warwickshire, went to school with him ; he would 
 say he was a very handsome man, but something apt to 
 abuse, and a coward. He was a student of Christ Church, 
 in Oxford. He was very facetious, and a good fellow. 
 One time he and some of his acquaintance being merry 
 at Fryar Bacon's study (where was good beer sold), they 
 were drinking on the leads of the house, and one of the 
 scholars was asleep, and had a pair of good silk stockings 
 on : Dr. Corbet (then M.A., if not B.D.) got a pair of 
 scissors and cut them full of little holes; but when the 
 other awakened, and perceived how and by whom he had 
 been abused, he did chastise him, and made him pay for 
 them. 
 
 " After he was Doctor of Divinity, he sang ballads at the 
 Crosse at Abingdon, on a market day. He and some of 
 his camerades were at the taverne by the Crosse (which, 
 by the way, was then the finest of England : I remember 
 it when I was a freshman : it was admirable curious goth- 
 ique architecture, and fine figures in the niches : 'twas 
 
 one of those built by King for his queen). The 
 
 ballad singer complained he had no custom, he could not 
 put off his ballads. The jolly Doctor put off his gown, 
 and puts on the ballad singer's leathern jockey ; and, be- 
 ing a handsome man, and had a rare full voice, he pre- 
 sently vended a great many, and had a full audience. 
 After the death of Dr. Goodwin, he was made dean of 
 Christ Church. He had a good interest with great men, 
 as you may find in his poems, and with the then great 
 favorite, the D. of Bucks ; his excellent wit was letter of 
 recommendation to him. I have forgot the story, but at 
 the same time that Dr. Fell thought to have carried it, 
 Dr. Corbet put a pretty trick upon him to let him take a 
 
8 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 journey on ])urpose to London, wlien lie liad already the 
 grant of it. 
 
 " He prcach't a sermon before the King at Woodstock (I 
 suppose King James), but it happened that he was out ; on 
 which occasion there were made these verses : 
 
 A reverend dcane, 
 
 With his band starch'd clcanc. 
 
 Did preach before the King ; 
 In his band string was spied 
 A ring that was tied, 
 
 Was not that a pretty thing? 
 
 The ring, without doubt, 
 Was the thing put him out, 
 
 And made him Ibrget wind, was next ; 
 For every one there 
 Will say, I dare swear, 
 
 lie handled it more than his text. 
 
 " His conversation was extreme pleasant. Dr. Stubbins 
 was one of his cronies ; he was a jolly fat Dr., and a very 
 good house-keeper. As Dr. Corbet and he were riding in 
 Lob-lane, in wet weather ('tis an ordinary deep dirty lane), 
 the coach fell, and Dr. Corbet said, that Dr. Stubbins was 
 up to the elbows in mire, and he was up to the etboics in 
 Stuhhins. Anno Domini 1628, he was made Bishop of 
 Oxford, and I have heard that he had an admirable, grave, 
 and venerable aspect. One time as he was confirming, 
 the country people pressing in to sec the ceremony, said 
 be, ^ Bcare off there, or Fll cmijirmc ye icith my staff. ^ 
 Another time, being to lay his hand on the head of a man 
 very bald, he turned to his chaplain, and said, ' Some dust, 
 Lushington^ (to keep his hand from slipping). There was 
 a man with a great venerable beard : said the Bishop, 
 
POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 9 
 
 ' You, behind the beard.^ His chaplain, Dr. Lushington, 
 was a very learned and ingenious man, and they loved 
 one another. The Bishop sometimes would take the key 
 of the wine cellar, and he and his chaplain would go and 
 lock themselves in, and be merry. Then first he lays 
 down his episcopal hat — ' There lies the Di\' Then he 
 put off his gown — * There lies the Bishop.' Then' twas 
 — ' Here^s to thee, Corbet,'' and ' Here's to thee, Lushing- 
 ton.' He was made Bishop of Norwich, 
 
 A.D. 1632. His last words were, ' Good night, Lushing- 
 ton.' .... His poems are pure natural wit, delight- 
 ful and easie." 
 
 In order to verify this criticism, we must produce some 
 specimens of his talent and humorous satire. 
 
 Corbet's poems are very few, and half of those indiffer- 
 ent ; but the rest is pure gold. His forte is ironical eulogy, 
 or humorous ridicule. Yet he has pure natural feeling, 
 as shown in his Epitaphs. A certain turn for Rabelaisian 
 jests and tricks, with an occasional palpable hit at the sec- 
 taries, must have made him an episcopal bugbear to the 
 Puritans of his day. And certainly his deportment, at 
 times, little suited the dignity of his order. But he flouted 
 at dignities, knowing his manhood to be much superior to 
 any Bishopric. He was something between Archdeacon 
 Paley and the Clerk of Copmanhurst, while he also added 
 a romantic fancy peculiar to himself. He was a sincere 
 Christian, a reasonable theologian, a moderator, a wit, a 
 good fellow. We need not apprehend but that at proper 
 times he bore himself like a brave old bishop, and always 
 stood erect in the integrity of a man. His journey to 
 France is the most finished of his sportive effusions. 
 
 VOL. II, 2 
 
10 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 DR. CORBET'S JOURNEY INTO FRANCE 
 
 I went from England into France, 
 Nor yet to learn to cringe or dance, 
 
 Nor yet to ride or fence ; 
 Nor did I go like one of those 
 That do return with half a nose 
 
 They carried from hence. 
 
 But I to Paris rode along. 
 
 Much like John Dory in the song. 
 
 Upon a holy tide. 
 I on an ambling nag did get, 
 I trust he is not paid for yet, 
 
 And spurr'd him on each side. 
 
 And to Saint Dennis fast we came. 
 To see the sights of Notre-Dame, 
 
 The man that shews them snaffles ; 
 Where who is apt for to believe, 
 May see our Ladie's right arm sleeve. 
 And eke her old pantofles ; 
 
 Her breast, her milk, her very gown 
 That she did wear in Bethlehem town, 
 
 When in the inn she lay. 
 Yet all the world knows that's a fable, 
 For so good clothes ne'er lay in stable 
 
 Upon a lock of hay. 
 
 No carpenter could, by his trade, 
 Gain so much coin as to have made 
 
 A gown of so rich stuff. 
 Yet they, poor fools, think for their credit, 
 They may believe old Joseph did it, 
 
 'Cause he deserved enough. 
 
 There is one of the crosses nails, 
 Which whoso sees his bonnet vails. 
 
POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 11 
 
 And if he will, may kneel. 
 Some say 'twas false, 'twas never so. 
 Yet, feeling it, thus much I know, 
 
 It is as true as steel. 
 
 There is a lanthorn which the Jews, 
 When Judas led them forth, did use, 
 
 It weighs my weight downright. 
 But to believe it you must think 
 The Jews did put a candle in't, 
 
 And then 't was very light. 
 
 There's one Saint there hath lost his nose ; 
 Another 's head, but not his toes. 
 
 His elbow and his thumb. 
 But when that we had seen the rags 
 We went to th' Inn and took our nags. 
 
 And so away did come. 
 
 Thus wrote our merry episcopal satirist, of superstitious 
 relics, and all the trumpery of the Romish Church. The 
 rest of the poem is occupied with certain exquisite strokes 
 of local satire, and a fine historical portrait of Louis XIII., 
 truer than most historians would have painted it — and in 
 far finer style. 
 
 Corbet wrote a number of elegies, though his vein flowed 
 more after the manner of Sir John Suckling, than in the 
 style of the tender Tibullus. The elegy upon his father's 
 death is respectful and afiectionate : that upon Dr. Donne, 
 ingenious and well turned : 
 
 AN EPITAPH ON DR. DONNE— dean of st. Paul's. 
 
 He that would write an Epitaph for thee. 
 And do it well, must first begin to be 
 Such as thou wert ; for none can truly know 
 Thy worth, thy life, but he that hath liv'd so. 
 
12 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 He must have wit to spare, and to hurl down 
 Enough to help the gallants of the town ; 
 He must have learning plenty, best the laws, 
 Civil and Common, to judge any cause ; 
 Divinity, great store above the rest. 
 Not of the last edition, but the best ; 
 He must have language, travel, all the arts. 
 Judgment to use, or else he wants thy parts : 
 He must have friends, the highest, able to do, 
 Such as Maecenas, and Augustus, too. 
 He must have such a sickness, such a death, 
 Or else his vain descriptions come beneath. 
 Who then shall write an Epitaph for thee, 
 He must be dead first ; let t' alone for me. 
 
 Here follow two lively pieces, having the form of Epi- 
 taph, but with more of a satirical than of an elegiac spirit 
 in them : 
 
 TO THE GHOST OF ROBERT WISDOMS. 
 
 Thou, once a body, but now aire, 
 Arch botcher of a psalme or prayer, 
 
 From Carfax come ; 
 And patch me up a zealous lay. 
 With an old ever and ay. 
 
 Or, all and some. 
 
 Or such a spirit lend mee. 
 
 As may a hymne down send mee, 
 
 To purge my braine : 
 So Robert look behind thee, 
 Lest Turk or Pope doe find thee. 
 
 And goe to bed againe. 
 
 ON THOMAS J ONCE. 
 
 Here for the nonce, * 
 
 Came Thomas Jonce, 
 
POEMS OF BISHOP CORBET. 13 
 
 In St. Giles Church to lie. 
 None Welsh before. 
 None Welshman more, 
 
 Till Shon Clerk die. 
 
 I'll toll the bell, 
 I'll ring his knell. 
 He died well, 
 He's sav'd from hell ; 
 And so farewell 
 
 Tom Jonce. 
 
 Our last extract shall be in a different strain from any 
 of the foregoing. It is a poem addressed to his son Vin- 
 cent Corbet on his birthday, at the age of three years. 
 
 What I shall leave thee, none can tell 
 But all shall say I wish thee well ; 
 .1 wish thee, Vin, before all Wealth, 
 Both bodily and ghostly health : 
 Nor too much wit, nor wealth, come to thee. 
 So much of either may undo thee. 
 I wish thee learning, not for show. 
 Enough for to instruct and know ; 
 Not such as gentlemen require. 
 To prate at table or at fire. 
 I wish thee all thy mother's graces. 
 Thy father's fortunes, and his places. 
 I wish thee friends, and one at court. 
 Not to build on, but support; 
 To keep thee, not in doing many 
 Oppressions, but from suffering any. 
 I wish thee peace in all thy ways. 
 Nor lazy nor contentious days ; 
 And when thy soul and body part, 
 As innocent as now thou art. 
 
 Thus much from merry, wise, and kind-hearted Bishop 
 Corbet. 
 
in 
 
 THE LADIES' LIBRARY 
 
 That admirable manual of " les petUes morales j^^ and even 
 of higher matters occasionally, the Spectator, contains a 
 paper which we hesitate not to accept as a just specimen 
 of cotemporary satire on female education ; we refer to 
 the catalogue of a Ladies' Library. This heterogeneous 
 collection embraces heroical romances and romancing his- 
 tories, the ranting tragedies of the day, with the libertine 
 comedies of the same period. In a word, it leads us to in- 
 fer pretty plainly the insignificant pretensions the gentle- 
 woman of Queen Anne's day could lay to anything like 
 refinement of education, or even a correct propriety in dress 
 and demeanor. Tell me your company, and I will disclose 
 your own character ; speak that I may know you, are trite 
 maxims ; but give me a list of your favorite authors is by 
 no means so common, though at least as true, a test. The 
 literary and indirectly the moral depravity of taste exhi- 
 bited by the women of that age, is easily accounted for, 
 when we once learn the fashionable authors and the indif- 
 ferent countenance given to any authors but those of the 
 most frivolous description. The queen herself was an 
 illiterate woman, and we are told never once had the curi- 
 osity to look into the classic productions of Pope. King 
 
THE ladies' library. ' 15 
 
 William, the preceding sovereign, was so ignorant of books 
 and the literary character, as to offer Swift, with whom he 
 had been agreeably prepossessed, the place of a captain of a 
 regiment of horse. 
 
 Indulging ourselves in a rapid transition, we pass from 
 this era to the epoch of Johnson and Burke, and Goldsmith 
 and Sheridan ; we come to the reign of George III. Here 
 we find the scene altered. From the gay saloon we are 
 dropped as if by magic, into the library or conversation 
 room. We read not of balls, but of literary dinners and 
 aesthetic teas, and we meet for company, not thoughtless, 
 dressy dames of fashion and minions of the goddess of 
 pleasure, but grave, precise professors in petticoats, women 
 who had exchanged a world of anxiety for the turn of a 
 head-dress, or the shape of a flounce for an equally wise 
 anxiety about the philosophy of education, the success 
 of their sonnets and tragedies, and moral tales for the 
 young. The pedantry of authorship and dogmatic conver- 
 sation superseded the more harmless pedantry of dress. 
 Then we read of the stupidest company in the world, which 
 arrogated to itself the claim of being the best. A race of 
 learned ladies arose ; bas-bleus, the Montagues, the Mores, 
 the Sewards, the Chapones, patronized by such prosing old 
 formalists as Doctors Gregory and Aiken, and even by one 
 man of vigorous talent, Johnson, and one man of real ge- 
 nius, Richardson. The last two endured much, because 
 they were flattered much. 
 
 When we speak thus contemptuously of learned ladies, 
 we intend to express a disgust at the pretensions of that 
 name. Genuine learning can never be despised, whoever 
 may be its possessor ; but of genuine learning it is not 
 harsh to suspect a considerable deficiency where there is 
 
IG LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 SO much of display and anxious rivalry. Where the 
 learning is exact and solid, it is to be remembered that 
 many departments are utterly unsuited to the female mind ; 
 wliero, at best, little can be accomplished, and that of a 
 harsh repulsive nature. We want no Dacicrs, no Somer- 
 villes, no Marcets, but give us an you will as many Inch- 
 bal()s, Burncys, Edgcworths, Miss Barretts, as can be had 
 for love or money. 
 
 We believe the question as to the relative sexual dis- 
 tinctions of intellectual character, is now generally con- 
 sidered as settled. There is allowed to be a species of 
 genius essentially feminine. Equality is no more arro- 
 gated than superiority of ability, and it would be as wisely 
 arrogated. The most limited observation of life and the 
 most superficial acquaintance with books, must cflectually 
 demonstrate the superior capacity of man for the great 
 works of life and speculation. It is true, great geniuses 
 are rare and seldom needed, and the generality of women 
 rank on a par with the generality of men. In many cases, 
 women of talent surpass men of an equal calibre of mere 
 talent, through other and constitutional causes — a greater 
 facility of receiving and transmitting impressions, greater 
 instinctive subtlety of apprehension, and a livelier sympa- 
 thy. We cordially admit that female intellect, in the ordi- 
 nary concerns of life and the current passages of society, 
 has often the advantage of masculine understanding. 
 Cleverness outshines solid ability, and a smart woman is 
 much more showy than a profound man. In certain walks 
 of authorship, too, women are preeminently successful : in 
 easy narrative of real or fictitious events (in the last im- 
 plying a strain of ready invention), in lively descriptions 
 of natural beauty or artificial manners ; in the develop- 
 
THE ladies' library. 17 
 
 ment of the milder sentiment of love ; in airy, comic ridi- 
 cule. On the other hand, the highest attempts of women 
 in poetry have uniformly failed. We have read of no 
 female epic of even a respectable rank : those who have 
 written tragedies, have written moral lectures (of an infe- 
 rior sort) like Hannah More ; or anatomies of the passions, 
 direct and formal, like Joanna Baillie ; or an historical 
 sketch, as Rienzi. We are apt to suspect that the personal 
 charms of Sappho prove too much for the admirers of her 
 poetic rhapsodies, otiierwisc Longinus has done her foul 
 injustice; for the fragment he quotes is to be praised and 
 censured solely for its obscurity. This would have been 
 a great merit in Lycophron. 
 
 In the volume of British Poetesses, edited by Mr. Dyce, 
 it is astonishing to find how little real poetry he has been 
 able to collect out of the writings of near a century of 
 authors, scattered over the surface of five or six centuries. 
 It must be allowed that some of the finest short pieces by 
 female writers have appeared since the publication of that 
 selection. In the volume referred to, much sensible verse 
 and some sprightly copies of verse occur ; a fair share of 
 pure reflective sentiment, delivered in pleasing language 
 rarely rising above correctness ; of high genius there is 
 not a particle, — no pretensions to sublimity or fervor. The 
 best piece and the finest poem, we tiiink, ever composed 
 by woman, is the charming poem of Auld Robin Gray. 
 Tliat is a genuine bit of true poesy, and perfect in the 
 highest department of tlie female imagination, in the 
 pathos of domestic tragedy. In the present century we 
 have Mrs. Howitt and Mrs. Southey, but chief of all, Miss 
 Barrett. The finest attempts of the most pleasing writer 
 of this class, do not rise so high as the delightful ballad 
 
 2* 
 
18 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 above named. They are sweet, plaintive, moral strains, 
 the melodious notes of a lute, tuned by taper fingers in a 
 romantic bower, not the deep, majestic, awful tones of the 
 great organ, or the spirited and stirring blasts of the trum- 
 pet. The ancient bard struck wild and mournful, or 
 hearty and vigorous notes from his harp — perchance 
 placed "on a rock whose frowning brow," &c., and striv- 
 ing with the rough symphonies of the tempest ; but the 
 sybil of modern days plays elegant and pretty, or soft and 
 tender airs upon the flageolet or accordion, in the boudoir 
 or saloon. 
 
 A poet is, from the laws both of physiology and philolo- 
 gy — masculine. His vocation is manly, or rather divine. 
 And we have never heard any traits of feminine character 
 attributed to the great poet (in the Greek sense), the 
 Creator of the universe. The muses are represented as 
 females, but then they are the inspirers, never the com- 
 posers, of verse. Women should be the poet's muse, as 
 she is often the poet's theme. Let female beauty then sit 
 for her portrait instead of being the painter. Let poets 
 chaunt her charms, but let her not spoil a fair ideal image 
 by writing bad verses. If all were rightly viewed, a 
 happy home would seem preferable to a seat on Parnassus, 
 and the Fountain of Content would furnish more palatable 
 draughts than the Font of Helicon. The quiet home is 
 not always the muses' bower ; though we trust the muses' 
 bower is placed in no turbulent society. 
 
 Women write for women. They may entertain, but 
 cannot, from the nature of the case, become instructors to 
 men. They know far less of life, their circle of expe- 
 rience is confined. They are unfitted for many paths of 
 active exertion, and consequently are rendered incapable 
 
THE ladies' library. 19 
 
 of forming just opinions on many matters. We do not 
 include a natural incapacity for many studies, and as 
 natural a dislike for many more. Many kinds of learn- 
 ing, and many actual necessary pursuits and practices, it 
 is deemed improper for a refined woman to know. How, 
 then, can a female author become a teacher of man ? 
 
 Literature would miss many pleasant associations if the 
 names of the best female writers were expunged from a 
 list of classic authors, and the world would lose many de- 
 lightful works — the novel of sentiment and the novel of 
 manners, letter-writers, moral tales for children, books of 
 travels, gossipping memoirs — Mrs. Inchbald, Madame D'Ar- 
 blay. Miss Edgeworth, Lady M. W. Montague, Miss Mar- 
 tineau, and Miss Sedgwick, with a host besides.- Women 
 have sprightliness, cleverness, smartness, though but little 
 wit. There is a body and substance in true wit, with a 
 reflectiveness rarely found apart from a masculine intellect. 
 In all English comedy, we recollect but two female writers 
 of sterling value — Mrs. Centlivre and Mrs. Cowley, and 
 their plays are formed on the Spanish model, and made up 
 of incident and intrigue, much more than of fine repartees 
 or brilliant dialogue. We know of no one writer of the 
 other sex, that has a high character for humor — no Rabe- 
 lais, no Sterne, no Swift, no Goldsmith, no Dickens, no Ir- 
 ving. The female character does not admit of it. 
 
 Women cannot write history. It requires too great so- 
 lidity, and too minute research for their quick intellects. 
 They write, instead, delightful memoirs. Who, but an 
 antiquary or historical commentator, would not rather read 
 Lucy Hutchinson's Life of her Husband, than any of the 
 professed histories of the Commonwealth — and exchange 
 Lady Fanshawe for the other royalist biographers ? 
 
VIO i,rn.i;.\i;v .siuiuiis, 
 
 NtMtlior nro wouwix to linn |n)lilii'iunM or on\lor.««. Wo 
 lio|n> Miner to luMir ol" ii IimumIo Uiirlu^ ; s\\v wotild bo an 
 ovcrluMirin;; l(Miu!i;>;ml. A s\)'\co ol" ji ImIciiI lor scolding, 
 is [\\v liii;li(\s| ll»nu (•!" ("lo(|uoiu'(* \\v cim consricntiously 
 allow iho liidios. 
 
 \N'oiu(Mi Irid mon> limn ihcy liiinlv, iuid (somclimos) say 
 nu)r(i tliui) llioy i\o. Tlu'V ini» foiis('(|U(.M»lly hi-llcr jidapUul 
 lo d(>S(.'ril»o s(<nliin(Mils, tlu\ii l») sprculalo on causos and 
 rlliMMs. 'riiov iirc more iit homo in w rilin;'- Icllors, tlmii 
 InuMs on politifid economy. 
 
 TIk* [)ro|»iM' larullirs in NNtMuoii lo ciilliviih^ most assidu- 
 ously nvi\ tho UxHio and liio religious stMilimonl ; llio lirst, 
 as {\\r lojuliii;; (rail oCtlio inU^lKn'tual ; and llio lasl, as tlio 
 gtniM'nini; j)o\\(M- of llio moral ioi\slihilion. (iivo a womau 
 a |)ur(> lasl(> and liioli jn'int'iplos, and slu^ is salo from tlu> 
 arls of \\\o wiliosl liliuniino. Lcl Ium* liav(> tdl ollior j^iOs 
 l>ul lli(\s«<, and sho is roniparalivcly doltMicoloss. 'Tasto 
 purilios tlu> hoarl as \V(>II as llio iioad, and rtdigion 
 slivngtluMis liolli. Tho sin>n<M>sl pnnxMisiiit's lo ploasuro 
 an* not. so o[\c\\ lia» moans of disorao(> and ruin as tlio 
 <'ar(>lossnoss iA' i;Mioranl virlu(\ and an un(Mdiii;ht(MUMl 
 moral sons(>. This makt^s all llio dilliM'iMu-t' in lla^ ^vorld, 
 l>ol\vo(Mi thi> daUi',l»tor o\' n \hhh' country man, and llu* cluld 
 o( an (Hhu'aUMl j.';(>ntl(Muan. l>oth havo tho san»(* dosirt\s, 
 l»ut how dilVoHMilly dir<H'l(Ml and oontrollod, \ c\ wo llnd 
 niuoloon laps(>s from virtuo in llu^ oni^ oaso, w horo m (^ lind 
 ono in tho olhor. 
 
 noli(<vini; ihat whal dors nol inltM*(\st, iloos not htMiolit 
 iho mind, w»> Wi>uld a\oid all podanlio UnMurt^s lo >\onuMi, 
 inx all suhjrots lo w hioh thi\v disooviM" any aviM'sion. 
 Study shouKl he mado a pliNisuro. and roadini^- puro rocnv- 
 aliou. In a general souse, we would say the best works 
 
I'll I', I.ADIF.s' MI'.UAHV. 2 1 
 
 (iii- fl'iiiul(! r(!ii(l(irM iiio lliosn lliul, lend lo form tlio l«i)^ln!Ht 
 cloinoHlic cliiiniclnr. VVorlt.s of llio liii^dioHl, urui^imilion, 
 UM boin;^ abovo Lliiit coiHlilion, uitd Ncioiililic iiuliiorH, vvlio 
 nil(lr(!MM u (lil)i!r(!iil, (;Iiihm oI fiiciillit^M, iiro bolJi liiiHtiilubli*. 
 An jidiiiiniMn vvilli may iiol, iclisli llin Hul)Iiiriil.y of Milloii 
 or llninlcl. ; iitid a (diarniiiin coiiipanioti Ix; i<i;iioi'aiil. of liin 
 rxiNl,<;u(;() ol" Hucli a Hcioiic(! a.s AI^Mtbra. A HUjxMlicial 
 a(;()iiaiiil,an(!o vvilb \.\ui (ibitiioiilM of l.bo pbyHical Huioiic«.'H 
 iw worse lliiiii lolnl iiini(Mjiiiiiiilaii<;(! vvilli ibnii. 
 
 ll(;li;^ioii Hbould be; laii'.dil. as a H(!i>l.iin(!iil, not ttH an 
 MbHlracl, priiHjijiIo, or in doctrinal poHilionH, a HonliinonI, of 
 lovo and graloful obcidiftnco ; nioraiily, i»n|)r(!HH<!d iih IJkj 
 |»ra<;li<!al cxcrclHH of Hiilf-dcniiil and aclivn bciMiVobMuro. 
 In (vtiirscM of rjMidin/^, loo inindi iM laid down of u dry na- 
 l.uni. (jirls aro diMfj;iiMl(!d willi Iddion.s a(;(;oiinlH of bnllicM 
 and n(ij.M)l.ialionH, dal,«!M and nanicH. Tiui moral Hbonid bn 
 oduorul bcsl. I'lW'A lltr IImi llniiilo licuil, and IVom iIk; ro- 
 manlic prsriodo, and tlio r(!iy;nH of foinabi Hov(5r()i;^nM, or 
 <'[)o(dis wlicii woirmn bidd a vory |)roniin«!nl, jdaco in 
 l.b(j «l,at(?, or in |)ul)lic, i(';<ard. Wo wonid liavn W(»m<!n 
 a(l(i(il,ional() wivcH, olxidicnl. daii^jilrrH, nf^rooiUilo (;om|)a- 
 nioiiH, Hkilfnl (iconomiHlH, jndicioiiH fiionds ; bnl. we- nnjHl. 
 oonfoHN it docN not. full wilbiii onr Hclionio to mako lli<-m 
 Jr^aslalorH or luvvyciM, dijilonmliMtH or [)olili(;ianH. Wo 
 tlw^rtdiirc! Iliink niin; lciilli:i of all liintoi'y is absolnlidy nso- 
 l(!HH f()r all wonn!!!. Too many nuilly ^ood bio^^rapbioH 
 of i^rvcid and ^"[ood imtn and womrin can liardly bo i«;ad, 
 and will Ix; read l.o irnioli trvcnUu- advanla^M) iban biHlorif^M, 
 as iboy leave a (bdinite and individual im|n(!HMion. Tlio 
 r(!adin;j; <i;ood books of lrav(!lH is, next lo ^oing over llie 
 jnoinid in jteison, llie besl. m(;lbod of lil.ndying goojfrM|»liy . 
 
22 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Grammar and rhetoric* (after a clear statement of the 
 elementary chief rules) are best learnt in the perusal of 
 classic authors, the essayists, &c. ; and, in the same way, 
 the theory of taste and the arts. The most important of 
 accomplishments is not systematically treated in any sys- 
 tem — conversation. But a father and mother, of educa- 
 tion, can teach this better than any professor. Expensive 
 schools turn out half-trained pupils. Eight years at home, 
 well employed, and two at a good but not fashionable 
 school, are better than ten years spent in the most popular 
 female seminary, conducted in the ordinary style. 
 
 * The benefit flowing from these studies is chiefly of a negative 
 character. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS, 
 
 We design the present article rather as a sketch of literary 
 statistics, a table of instances, to illustrate the general prin- 
 ciple we aim to establish, than as anything like a complete 
 survey or accurate digest of the subject which it would 
 require a volume to contain. We consider the fact as hav- 
 ing a historical basis, as founded in the history of letters, 
 that true genius comes to maturity much sooner than is 
 generally supposed. In a word, we have merely collected 
 a number of witnesses to confirm the maxim stated by 
 Steele, though in a rather restricted form. It occurs in a 
 paper of the Lover, number twenty-two : "I am apt to 
 think that before thirty, a man's natural and acquired parts 
 are at that strength, with a little experience, to enable him 
 (if he can be enabled) to acquit himself well in any busi- 
 ness or conversation he shall be admitted to." 
 
 The vulgar error is to rate the growth of the individual 
 intellect of the original with the ordinary progress of "the 
 common mind ;" to measure the giant by the common 
 standard of human stature. This is evidently absurd. Yet 
 no error is so common as to attempt to depress cleverness 
 by sneers at the youthful age of the aspirant, like the 
 taunts of Walpole directed against Pitt, and like those of 
 
24 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 every dull man, of middle age, who has a fixed position 
 (beyond which he is not likely to rise), at those who are 
 evidently fast rising above him. No young man of talent, 
 but has had enemies such as these to encounter ; men who 
 seem to take a certain fiendish delight, and cherish a mali- 
 cious pleasure in seeking to depress everything like genu- 
 ine enthusiasm and the buoyant ambition of the bright boy 
 or the brilliant young man. This arises half from sheer 
 malice, and as much from pure ignorance of the nature and 
 temperament of genius. When the " climber upward " 
 has gained his place among his peers, then these miserable 
 flatterers cringe and fawn as basely as they formerly ma- 
 ligned and ridiculed him ; and would fain crowd out of 
 sight his old friends and staunch adherents. In his green 
 age and budding season the youth of genius craves and re- 
 quires sympathy. It is with him, especially (and, in a 
 measure, with all men), an intellectual want, as evident as 
 the coarsest necessary elements of existence. 
 
 By early maturity of genius we mean no prodigies of 
 childish or boyish talent — such we always distrust, as un- 
 healthy prematureness, generally resulting in a feeble man- 
 hood. Wonderful boys are almost always dull men. No 
 particular point of time can be fixed, but manly intellects 
 are at their maturity somewhere between twenty-five and 
 thirty, and in good constitutions, this vigor and freshness 
 remain sometimes to a great age. Youth is a heavy charge 
 to lay against any writer, yet one becoming daily of less 
 weight. Surely it is a season which furnishes qualities 
 and feelings not to be expected in later life, and at least to 
 be cherished for that reason. To the contemners of youth- 
 ful genius, we would reply, in the words of the admirable 
 Cowley, himself an example of precocity of talent: "It is 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 25 
 
 a ridiculous folly to laugh at the stars because the moon 
 and the sun shine brighter." Let every captious critic, 
 also, read Bacon's exquisite essay on '' Youth and Age," 
 in which he will find the truest justice allotted to each pe- 
 riod of this our mortal life. 
 
 The majority of true poets have, as a general rule, pro- 
 duced their best works at a very early age, comparatively. 
 A very few distinguished instances, on the other side of the 
 question, cannot affect the principles we aim to establish, 
 but rather by especial inference, as they furnish the excep- 
 tions, so far they go to establish the general maxim. Youth 
 is naturally the season of enjoyment, and genial enjoyment 
 as naturally gives birth to the sweetest, the most cordial, the 
 delicatest strains of the muse. Yet we do not mean by youth 
 the season of childhood, or boyhood, but the period of mature 
 adolescence, from twenty-four to thirty. Very many fine 
 poets have actually done their hest before even this epoch ; 
 and all, who have ever become eminent for the exercise of 
 the imaginative faculty, have discovered some signs at 
 least of its existence while in their teens : a very small 
 number of great names being excluded. In a life of the 
 classic English poets, we find but rare examples of late po- 
 etical genius ; Chaucer, Dryden, Young, Johnson, Cow- 
 per, Milton, who composed Paradise Lost, about middle 
 life, yet wrote Comus at the age of twenty-six, when it was 
 first performed as a Masque at Ludlow castle, in Wales. 
 In the drama, where one might justly admit a late develop- 
 ment of poetical power, inasmuch as that department of 
 poetry demands more and more cultivated faculties than 
 any other : even in comedy, requiring a close observation 
 of manners, and a keen eyesight into characters, we still 
 find the capital writers producing their master-pieces, 
 
26 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 while other men are hardly fitted by reading and a know- 
 ledge of life, even to criticise them. Thus, Shakspeare's 
 first play was printed in his twenty-seventh year : Jonson's 
 Every Man in his Humor, with those admirable portraits 
 of the braggadocio in Bobadil, and of the jealous husband, 
 in Kitely, was written in his twenty-second year. The 
 last play of Farquhar, the Recruiting Officer, appeared a 
 few weeks before his death, which occurred when he was 
 only twenty-seven, and his other delightful comedies were 
 produced some years earlier. Congreve's Old Bachelor 
 was the fruit of his college years, and appeared in his 
 twenty-first year. The masterpiece of English comedy, 
 Love for Love, only two years afterwards. Sheridan's 
 Rivals, inferior only to the School for Scandal, was per- 
 formed in his twenty-fourth year. The first fruits of Goethe 
 and Schiller's dramatic genius (unlike those of the other 
 writers we have quoted, in not being by any means their 
 best, yet as evincing power and future dramatic skill), 
 Goetz of Berlinchen, and the Robbers, at the respective 
 ages of twenty and twenty-one. Sheridan Knowles, the 
 earliest of living Encrlish Dramatists, is the last instance 
 we remember of early dramatic genius. 
 
 In prose fiction, requiring at least equal knowledge of 
 character and manners, with comedy — we have Roderick 
 Random, perhaps Smollett's best work, at twenty-seven, and 
 the Man of Feeling at twenty-six. Fielding, Sterne and 
 Richardson, were later. But in the present century Hood, 
 Hook, and Dickens, unquestionably wrote their best works 
 earliest. 
 
 Among the miscellaneous poets, Hall's first, and last, 
 volume of poetry, full of vigor, and mature knowledge of 
 life, was published in his twenty-third year. Warton ad- 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 27 
 
 mits that Donne's best poetry was written before the age 
 of twenty-five. Cowley is generally considered preco- 
 cious : his first volume appeared when he was a boy of 
 thirteen. But his best poetry was the growth of his later 
 years. Pope's Ode to Solitude is often referred to. He 
 was ten years old when he wrote it : a greater miracle 
 was his producing such a body of acute criticism, as his 
 famous Essay on Criticism displays, when he was but 
 twenty-one. Akenside's chief work, the Pleasures of the 
 Imagination, at twenty-three. Collins's noble odes were 
 written at twenty-six. Burns's first volume was first printed 
 when the poet was twenty-eight ; under favorable influen- 
 ces, his genius had undoubtedly blossomed much sooner. 
 Classic English poetry in this nineteenth century has 
 been written by young poets, and even the master of 
 them all, still living, wrote his characteristic pieces quite 
 early. Wordsworth's first volume came out at the age of 
 twenty-three ; the Pleasures of Hope at twenty-one : the 
 wonderful Ancient Mariner, in which some critics can see 
 nothing, was printed at seventeen ; Byron's second canto 
 of Childe Harold, at twenty-four. Of contemporary Eng- 
 lish poets, we believe all of them without exception pro- 
 duced their finest things at a very early age — Proctor, 
 Moore, Hunt, Tennyson, Miss Barrett, Hood, and a bril- 
 liant galaxy of smaller stars. Two, perhaps, in their 
 separate walks, the finest poets of this century (Goethe, 
 Schiller, and Wordsworth excepted), died very early ; 
 Shelley at thirty, and Keats at twenty-four. We reserve 
 a page for American Bards, in conclusion, when we 
 come to speak of American Literature, and of this very 
 striking feature in it of the early age at which our finest 
 writers have done their best things, and of an equally 
 
28 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 singular trait, discernible in the fact, that after a com- 
 paratively early period, they either ceased to produce, 
 or fell off very considerably. Meantime, we notice a 
 fact as remarkable as the early maturity of genius, i. e., 
 of the creative power, in imaginative productions, in 
 the history of those eminent for critical and speculative 
 ability. The first and greatest critics, moralists, and prose 
 writers, performed, what we are apt to conceive a still 
 greater wonder, in exhibiting at so youthful a period, un- 
 common abilities, in departments generally consigned to 
 the man of tried experience and mature years. Some of 
 the greatest monarchs and generals the world has ever seen, 
 performed feats, the most brilliant, while quite young men. 
 It is only necessary to refer to Alexander the Great, 
 Csesar, the first Prince of Orange, his son Maurice, Wil- 
 liam III. of England, Gustavus Adolphus, Eugene, Marl- 
 borough, Peter the Great, Charles of Sweden, Napoleon, 
 and Clive. 
 
 There is a genius for criticism, for metaphysical inves- 
 tigation and politics, as well as for poetry or any of the 
 arts. We will select our illustrations of this at random. 
 Bacon, at thirteen, entered Cambridge : at sixteen wrote 
 against the Aristotelian logic — at nineteen put forth a 
 pamphlet on the existing state of Europe : at twenty-six 
 (some say at fifteen) planned the Novum Organon. Burke 
 wrote his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, at the age 
 of twenty-six. Macaulay has remarked a wonderful coin- 
 cidence (certainly in itself unaccountable, yet not con- 
 fined to those two admirable writers) ; that the judgment 
 was the faculty first developed in them, but that fancy 
 came much later; that at middle age, they were most just 
 and logical and comprehensive in their sober speculations. 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 29 
 
 yet then also just in the dawn of that gorgeous eloquence, 
 which was richest in their latest works. Hazlitt furnishes 
 a similar instance. His first work, on the Principles of 
 Human Action, was published in his twenty-fifth year. 
 He says he was engaged upon it for eight years ; and we 
 should suspect the same thing from internal evidence. It 
 is hard, dry and jejune : yet close and rigidly logical, 
 with, as Macintosh thinks, much power of metaphysical 
 speculation. How different is this from his Table-Talk 
 and Plain Speakers and Lectures : abounding not only in 
 subtle and deep thought, but picturesque, rich, eloquent 
 and glancing. Brown's Religio Medici was the work of 
 his twenty-seventh or eighth year. Brown, the Scotch 
 metaphysician, whose later style was flowery to excess, 
 and even effeminate in a high degree, composed a Tract 
 on Causation, which at once gave him high rank as a me- 
 taphysician, when he had not reached his eighteenth year. 
 The elegant Hume's first philosophical essays, written or at 
 least planned at College, were published at twenty-six, and 
 are so much less readable than his easy historical narra- 
 tion, that Hazlitt himself designates the Treatise on Na- 
 ture, this very work, as " a metaphysical chokepear." 
 Among the Poets, we omitted one, who was almost as 
 much of a critic, Beaumont, who died at twenty-nine : 
 having written the Maid's Tragedy (a delicate as well as 
 judicious work) at twenty-one. Pope comes in, for critical 
 skill, in his capital versified Essay on Criticism at twenty- 
 one, and in his choice letters, those to Wycherly, at seven- 
 teen. A few of the great old English Divines, we have 
 looked into, for this particular purpose. We gather these 
 results : Fuller, the wit and church historian's first work, 
 came out when he was twenty-three. Taylor was Laud's, 
 
«U LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 and South, Clarendon's chaplain ; and known universally 
 for tlicir cioquence, at twenty-seven. Butler corresponded 
 with Dr. Clarke, while a boy at school. 
 
 A few miscellaneous instances. Folltham's Resolves 
 was written at eighteen, a renuirkablo instance of youthful 
 judgment. 
 
 Tlie sagacious, brave Burleigh, first iicld ollice at court 
 when just twenty-two. Sir Thomas More, before him, 
 Jiad been elected to parliament at the same age. Pitt was 
 chancellor of the exchequer before he was twenty-five. 
 Ilallam, while a collegian, planned his history of the Mid- 
 dle Ages. The founders of the Edinburgh Review, and 
 the ablest writers for it, were all of them young men — 
 Jeffrey, Macintosh, Scott, Brougham. 
 
 Certain persons cannot see, tiiat judgment, where it is the 
 nicest, most tolerant, and comprclicnsive, and exact, is not 
 always the fruit of study nor the growth of experience. It 
 ofl:en precedes both ; and it is an instinctive faculty — an 
 original talent — applying this truth to the instances of a lov^ 
 judgment in matters (not of literature or })hilosophy, as we 
 have considered it) relating to ordinary business. Steele 
 has a paper of excellent sense and liberal tendency in the 
 Lover, written with his accustomed facility and grace. 
 Tile writer of the thoughts on the subject is supposed to 
 bo a correspondent, a young man, who complains bitterly 
 of " a general calamity that obstructs or suspends the ad- 
 vancement of the younger men in the pursuit of their for- 
 tune" — (a complaint not to be rashly made in this country). 
 '• Tile utmost inconveniences are owing to the difficulty we 
 meet with in being admitted into the society of men in 
 years, and adding thereby tiie early knowledge of men and 
 business to that of books, for the reciprocal improvement 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. 31 
 
 of each other. One of fifty as naturally imagines the 
 same insufficiency in one of thirty, as he of thirty does of 
 one of fifteen, and each age is thus left to instruct itself hy 
 the natural course of its own reflection and experience." 
 Further on, he remarks thus : " Of the common divisions 
 of business, which everybody knows are directed by form, 
 and require rather diligence and honesty than ^rave ability 
 in the execution." Truly enougii, most business is purely 
 mechanical ; and the so-styled learned professions are as 
 mechanical in their pedantic adherence to forms, as any 
 branch of mechanics. The true conclusion Steele aims at, 
 is couched in the following passage, which appears to us to 
 hit the truth with accuracy and justice: — "A good judg- 
 ment will not only supply, but go beyond experience ; for 
 the latter is only a knowledge that directs us in the dispatch 
 of matters future, from the consideration of matters past of 
 the same nature ; but the former is a perpetual and equal 
 direction in everything that can happen, and does not fol- 
 low, but makes tlic precedent that guides tlie other." 
 
 If we come nearer home, and take our examples from 
 American literature, we shall be taught to look with gene- 
 rosity on young writers, and take heed lest we merit the 
 wise censure of Cowley, who has written, " it is an envi- 
 ous frost, that which nips the blossoms, because they appear 
 quickly." Hardly an instance in American literature of a 
 late writer of the first class, can be referred to. Our poets 
 have been wonderfully precocious. Bryant can be pa- 
 ralleled only by Coleridge. Thanatopsis was written 
 at seventeen ; we recollect no poem of equal excellence 
 produced so early by any poet, save the author of the 
 Ancient Mariner. Yet Bryant has done nothing finer. 
 
3? LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 The only wonder is, that he alone has preserved his poeti- 
 cal faculty, pure and fresh, still. Dana, his contemporary, 
 has long been silent ; so, too, we may say, of Halleck and 
 their compeers, Pierpoint, Sprague, and Percival. Some 
 of our most promising bards died young — Drake and East- 
 burn, and Sands and Brainard. The true successors, in 
 some cases tlieir equals, or their superiors, are still young — 
 Holmes, Will is, Longfellow, Mathews, and Lowell. Our best 
 fiction was written by young men, Cooper and Brown, who 
 produced " Wieland " at twenty-seven. Irving and Paul- 
 ding have long since concluded their career as masterly 
 comic satirists. Webster's speeches are not equal to his 
 first orations. Wirt neglected literature as soon as he 
 began to rise in his profession. But, of former cases in 
 point, we suspect it is not generally known that our great 
 men, of the Revolutionary age, were uncommonly prema- 
 ture. Fisher Ames made a great speech at the age of 
 twenty-three. Hamilton, at sixteen, wrote essays ascribed 
 to Jay. Jay, at twenty, wrote the address to the people of 
 Great Britain, just previous to the Revolution. Washing- 
 ton, at twenty-three, was commander of the Virginia 
 forces. Patrick Plenry and Jefferson were both of them 
 greatly distinguished before thirty. At present, our lead- 
 ing periodical writers, active politicians, clergymen, and 
 men of letters generally, are, in nine cases out of ten, as 
 might readily be shown, if it were proper to mention 
 names, men under thirty years of age. It is, therefore, 
 dangerous to advise a young man, or any man of ability, 
 to refrain from composition, or any walk of active life, un- 
 less the critic be well assured that he is of at least equal 
 rank in respect to abilities and acquisitions, that no ten- 
 dency of jealousy or feeling of envy can be possibly 
 
EARLY MATURITY OF GENIUS. S3 
 
 ascribed to him, and that he possess an assemblage of 
 qualities, mental and moral, that rarely falls to the lot of a 
 single individual. Let it be remembered, too, that to be 
 worthily received, and have its due weight, advice must 
 be sought ; else it will be justly regarded rather in the 
 light of an impertinent intrusion and voluntary censure. 
 
 VOL. II. 3 
 
NOTORIETY 
 
 A WRITER who could unite the philosophy of Bacon and 
 the satire of Churchill, would be the author to undertake 
 an essay on Notoriety. In the absence of any such extraor- 
 dinary combination of talent, we venture to address our- 
 selves to the subject ; to revive certain moral sentiments 
 of equal worth and antiquity, an abundant apology for 
 which, if any were necessary, would be found in the very 
 fact of the great excellence of the sentiments themselves. 
 
 Ancient fame has given place to modern notoriety. 
 Solid repute is, nowadays, lost in fashionable applause, 
 and the hero and bard, whose praise has furnished the 
 theme of centuries, is cast into the shade by the idol of the 
 hour. Of the different varieties of notoriety attainable by 
 the arts of intrigue, the quackeries of impudence, or the 
 settled fraud of a lifetime, we shall, after running over the 
 titles of a few, confine ourselves at present, chiefly to noto- 
 riety in literature, to the means of making a reputation by 
 cant, imposture, and the influence of fashion. 
 
 Notoriety is spurious fame ; a desire of obtaining it, false 
 ambition. One intoxicated with the love of public fame 
 (in the lower view of fame), had rather be ill-known than 
 unknown. At any sacrifice, he would make a name. He 
 
NOTORIETY. 
 
 3& 
 
 would be talked of, if not cared for ; had rather be in 
 men's mouths than in their hearts. He would be well 
 spoken of rather than trivially thought of. It is not that 
 he would be always praised — nay, sometimes he would 
 prefer abuse, as an object of attack, and to give him an 
 opportunity of replying to it. It is the weak man's dis- 
 eased ambition ; the fool's fame ; the knave's bane ; the 
 courtier's life ; the fopiing's breath ; the wise man's de- 
 testation ; the honest man's disgust. 
 
 Notoriety is attached to every calling and profession, art, 
 science, trade or mystery. There is nothing in life which 
 it may not affect ; no face it cannot assume. 
 
 It haunts the pulpit, the university, the bar, the surgeon's 
 hall ; it is found in political assemblies and literary meet- 
 ings ; it rules supreme in the drawing-room, the theatre, 
 the street, the watering-place, the tavern. 
 
 What ways and means are employed to accomplish the 
 great end ; what struggles and anxieties to appear what 
 one is not ; what endeavors to hide these very attempts ! 
 A private scandal, or a newspaper paragraph ; an abusive 
 letter written by the party in question to himself; a self- 
 inflicted libel ; a domestic quarrel ; a course of libertinism 
 made public ; these are a few of the thousand baits to 
 catch the public ear. A public official relieves a poor 
 woman, the act is at once translated into the newspapers ; 
 a wealthy citizen has fallen ill, it is immediately chroni 
 cled ; a valuable shawl is worn by the wife of a celebrated 
 statesman, it is universally made known. It is the whole 
 business of the entire lives of most of the butterflies of 
 fashion, to plot how they shall make themselves conspicu- 
 ous from day to day. Absurdities in dress or equipage, 
 
36 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 are getting to be stale devices ; what we shall have next, 
 we are wanting in imagination to conceive. 
 
 How to make a reputation in letters, is a nice problem 
 for him to solve who has neither learning, genius, talents, 
 nor enthusiasm. It is generally persons devoid of these 
 fundamental requisites, that most affect the fame of author 
 and scholar ; though it must be confessed, their purposes 
 are ulterior, and do not rest in the bare enjoyment of a 
 name. They catch at the chance of reputation for the 
 sake of an introduction into what is called (one would 
 think from irony) good society, or for, the mere gratifica- 
 tion of seeing their names in print. 
 
 Cant in literature is, next to cant in religion, the most 
 despicable thing in the world ; the cant of the pretenders 
 to literature is always so thorough-going as quite to ob- 
 scure a really worthy but modest scholar. The quack 
 will carry off by far the plurality of votes by the mere 
 force of external display. 
 
 Fashion is never more absurd than in her patronage of 
 letters. She inevitably mistakes pretence for perform- 
 ance, and fails to distinguish between merit and presump- 
 tion. A fashionable author is, generally, a writer whose 
 books are read only by people of fashion, and that only 
 for a season or two. The fashionable author is made 
 such, more by his manner and address than by any quali- 
 ty in his writings worthy of notice. He dresses well, 
 therefore takes rank as an elegant poet : he can carve 
 neatly, hence is granted station as a critic or philosopher. 
 The true poet, the genuine philosopher, is never fashiona- 
 ble — except as an incident to his reputation — it being a 
 peculiar quality of the servile crowd to join in wherever 
 they hear a shout. The great author writes for the 
 
NOTORIETY. 
 
 37 
 
 whole world ; the writer of fashion for a very circumscrib- 
 ed sphere or clique of readers. What is in cant phrase 
 styled the " great world" of fashion, is, in fact, the most 
 insignificant field of authorship. Fashionable people take 
 more pleasure in creating reputation out of nothing, than 
 in worshipping established idols, inasmuch as it gratifies 
 their self-love. Of an inferior scribbler they make a 
 genius for a season, and then cast him off*, as they do their 
 tailor or their hounds — whence the poor victim readily 
 concludes, or should, that notoriety, like all matters of 
 fashion, is merely a reigning folly, a current prejudice. 
 
 Somewhat connected with the subject of fashionable 
 reputation, is the question of the public taste, more influ- 
 enced by mere notoriety, than, perhaps, most readers im- 
 agine. 
 
 As a general rule, the public taste is vicious to a great 
 degree. This is abundantly proved by the innumerable 
 instances of ephemeral popularity, and consequent neglect 
 of many, perhaps of most writers. Their works happen to 
 hit a particular taste, or favor a prevailing fashion ; they 
 chime in with the prejudices, and foster the passions of the 
 day, and are rewarded by a short-lived reputation. In 
 judging of poetry, in particular, one can hardly be too 
 fastidious, who recollects that at one time Jonson lorded it 
 over Shakspeare : at another, Cato was esteemed the first 
 of English tragedies : and still later, Darwin and Hayley 
 were thought great poets. How many schools are extinct, 
 how many great men have proved in the eyes of posterity 
 (that severe judge), very small persons indeed! How 
 many philosophical systems have been consigned to oblivi- 
 on, with their inventors and promulgators ! What shoals of 
 tragedies, epics, novels of every description, lives, travels, 
 
38 LITEEARY STUDIES. 
 
 sermons, speeches, and periodicals, choke up the river of 
 Lethe — across tliat stream wlio can venture unless first 
 drugged to sleep by the pages of a writer 
 
 Sleepless himself, to give liis readers sleep ? 
 
 Taste is a natural sensibility to excellence, heightened 
 by the nicest observation, and perfected by close study. 
 If we allow this, how dare the great multitude of readers 
 to set up their critical claims ? Every man now is a 
 reader, and a critic of course. What a monstrous absurd- 
 ity is this ! In other things we see its ridiculousness, but 
 we seem blind here. 
 
 The purest poetry and the noblest philosophy are so 
 nnich above the comprehension of vulgar minds, that they 
 never can be popular — so with the most delicate wit and 
 humor, and tlie finest works of fancy. Pure language 
 and an elegant simplicity, are also out of the reach of 
 common intellects. 
 
 Sure fame is a very different thing from notoriety. 
 Cowley has placed the idea of fiime in the proper light. 
 He says, " I love and commend a true good fame because 
 it is the shadoio of virtue : not that it doth any good to the 
 body which it accompanies, but it is an efficacious sha- 
 dow, and, like that of St. Peter, cures tlie diseases of 
 others."* The true fame is, " that which follows, not 
 that whicli is run after ;" the companion of goodness, not 
 the lacquey of fashion. 
 
 We have treated notoriety as a fraud of men ; it is 
 sometimes the dream of youtli — an honest dream. When 
 we are young, we are goaded by a false impulse, and would 
 
 * Essay on Obscurity. 
 
NOTORIETY. 39 
 
 be famous without any regard to the conditions of obtain, 
 ing fame ; but when years have brought a certain equable 
 gravity of temper, and calmness of judgment, we begin to 
 see things in their true colors, and to value a life of virtue 
 above a life of honors. We at last discover the pitiful 
 shifts of those who would obtain notoriety, and the incredi- 
 ble meannesses to wliich they subject themselves, by their 
 ignorant zeal in the pursuit of worldly glory. Titles, 
 wealth, applause, what chimeras ye are ! what bubbles ye 
 make of us your greedy followers ! The highest powers 
 of intellect, the most brilliant gems of poesy, are incom- 
 parably inferior to the possession of a peaceful conscience, 
 and a heart filled with none but good intentions. 
 
 The fame of the popular poet, or the great general, has 
 an almost overpowering charm for the young man ; but a 
 later age, which cools his blood, clears his mind also, and 
 he only wonders how he ever happened to entertain such 
 images of greatness, as the gods of his idolatry. The 
 flashes of the skilful rhetorician captivate the youthful stu- 
 dent ; but the powers of the philosophic reasoner attract 
 his maturer judgment. Light, airy poetry, is fit food for 
 the raw critic ; but experience and reflection give the palm 
 to a deeper and more majestic vein. Amusement gains us 
 then, but instruction holds us now. Then, we imagine we 
 have learnt all that is to be known ; now, we feel our real 
 ignorance of the highest mysteries, and would die learning. 
 Thus we see the love of applause (in its place, and in its 
 integrity, a noble incentive to generous action) is still an 
 insufficient motive. Milton, in that well known passage, 
 which summons all the powers of the soul as with the sound 
 of a trumpet, has written nobly of fame — as 
 
40 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 The spur which the clear spirit doth raise. 
 
 Though he feels obliged to add 
 
 (That last infirmity of noble minds), 
 To scorn delights and live laborious days. 
 
 Yet as fame is not altogether of a disinterested nature 
 (though the interestedness is of the highest character), it 
 cannot furnish the only sure foundation for a life of virtue. 
 The sense of duty is our only resource ; and on that, as on 
 an eternal and immutable foundation, we may erect a su- 
 perstructure as high as our genius may serve to raise it, 
 sacred to both genius and virtue. 
 
VI . 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 Next to the essay, the letter is the most agreeable form of 
 the minor literature. It is the most familiar species 
 of writing, and approaches the nearest to ordinary conver- 
 sation. Letters are the opuscula of great authors, but they 
 form the opera of lesser writers. We weekly critics and 
 magaziners may be proud of a volume of clever epistles, 
 fearful of essaying a higher flight. Authors of the first 
 class, and with the highest pretensions, affect to look down 
 upon letters as the mere entertainment of a scholar ; and 
 hence, from want of sympathy, no less than from want of 
 nicety of apprehension and subtle delicacy of taste, have 
 almost uniformly failed in this department of composition. 
 A professed orator, a great divine, poet or philosopher, 
 cannot easily descend from the heights of speculation and 
 eloquence and imagination, to the plain ground of common- 
 place reality. Raillery is the most delightful talent in 
 epistolary composition (a delicate talent) ; and next to that, 
 refined sentiment. These are minute excellences, how- 
 ever, agreeable in the great character, and the incidental 
 ornaments of a strong intellect. Women uniformly write 
 the best letters, both of the narrative kind and lively de- 
 scription. Lady Montague and Madame D'Arblay are yet 
 
 3* 
 
42 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 unsurpassed. The female intellect is allowed to possess a 
 finer tact and a minuter (instinctive) observation of things 
 and characters, than the manly understanding. It is better 
 pleased with the details of a subject, and paints the man- 
 ners with a lighter hand. Boarding-school girls, and 
 young ladies, who have just " come out," are readier with 
 their pens in recounting family history, and current fash- 
 ionable news ; in giving a relation of the incidents at a 
 ball or dinner-party, at sketching portraits of the beaux 
 and their admirers ; and, in a word, at all the arts of gos- 
 siping and scandal, than boys or young men, much older. 
 Richardson has shown this very conclusively in his novels. 
 His letters are the very counterparts of those of young 
 ladies in the same situation, and such as they would natu- 
 rally write. 
 
 Letters are valuable for many reasons. As a test of 
 character, and affording an unconscious autobiography — 
 as materials for literary and political history — as pictures 
 of the times — as the repositories of individual opinions and 
 peculiar sentiments. As a test of character, letters are 
 worth much more than the more ordinary (supposed) keys 
 to that sort of knowledge. A man's autograph may be 
 very far from characteristic. I know a generous man, 
 who writes a mean, cramped scrawl, and an undecided 
 one, whose chirography is firm and regular. Physiognomy 
 may belie the brightness of the head and the goodness of 
 the heart. Phrenology may regard as an indifferent speci- 
 men the casket that contains a golden brain. But a num- 
 ber of confidential letters addressed to familiar friends, and 
 written in all the warmth of confidence, afford the fairest 
 means of getting at the real character of the writer. Yet 
 insincerity may occur here. Letters are often written for 
 
LETTERS. 43 
 
 the public eye, though on the most confidential subjects. 
 Pope and Walpole wrote for posterity. They wrote at, 
 rather than to, their correspondents. So, also, of the French 
 wits. We confine ourselves entirely to English authors, 
 however, in the present paper. Some authors have told 
 their history in letters, as Howell, Gray, Cowper, Burns, 
 and Lamb, — dwelling on petty occurrences and compara- 
 tively slight traits, with an unction and gusto that would 
 not be allowed in a formal biography. Of the historical 
 value of letters, no complete student can doubt, and none 
 but he can appreciate it adequately. 
 
 English literature is rich in letters from Howell to 
 Lamb. Intermediately, we have Pope and his friends, 
 Cowper, Burns, Gray, Walpole, Lady Montague ; a suffi- 
 cient variety, surely, both of talent and character. We 
 had meant to draw up a classification of, and criticism 
 upon, the difierent sorts of letters, but find the whole matter 
 so handsomely handled in the very first letter of Howell, 
 that we insert it instead : " It was a quaint difference the 
 ancients did put betwixt a letter and an oration ; that the 
 one should be attired like a woman, the other like a man. 
 The latter of the two is allowed large siderobes, as long 
 periods, parentheses, similes, examples, and other parts of 
 rhetorical flourishes : but a letter or epistle should be 
 short-coated and closely couched ; a hungerskin becomes 
 a letter more handsomely than a gown. Indeed we should 
 write as we speak, and that is a true and familiar letter 
 which expresseth one's mind, as if he were discoursing 
 with the party to whom he writes in succinct and short 
 terms. The tongue and the pen are both of them inter, 
 preters of the mind ; but I hold the pen to be the more 
 faithful of the two. The tongue in udo ijosita, being seated 
 
44 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 in a most slippery place, may fail and falter in her sudden 
 extemporal expressions, but the pen, having a greater ad- 
 vantage of premeditation, is not so subject to error, and 
 leaves tilings behind it upon firm and authentic record. 
 Now letters (here conies the division), though they be 
 capable of any subject, yet commonly they are either 
 narratory, objurgatory, consolatory, monitory, or congratu- 
 latory. Tiio first consists of relations, the second of 
 reprehensions, tlie third of comfort, the two last of counsel 
 and joy." Then follows some very just and severe criti- 
 cism : 
 
 " There are some who, in lieu of letters, write homi- 
 lies ; they preach when they should epistolize (and it is 
 easier to do the former than the latter) ; there are others 
 that turn tliem to tedious tractates." Ilowoll, himself, the 
 earliest of our letter writers, is a capital follow in his way ; 
 but he has not mentioned all tlie varieties of letters. 
 There are the precise letters of business, and the ardent 
 love letters; to a third and disinterested person, both of 
 these are not only indifferent, but even tiresome. The 
 purely literary letter is not mentioned, i. e., that in which 
 topics of literature and the characters of authors are dis- 
 cussed ; mere letters of compliment, or formal civility, are 
 not recognized, nor lively gay epistles, that turn upon 
 nothing. 
 
 Some persons keep no letters by them. Ilazlitt destroyed 
 all he received : a very poor compliment, we tliink, to a 
 clever correspondent, to say nothing of the letters of a 
 valued friend. Others hoard up every scrap of a note ; 
 this is as wrong in a diflerent way. Many indifferent 
 communications are received, but the choice correspond- 
 
LETTERS. 45 
 
 ence is of another character. Shcnstone speaks some- 
 where of the rnelanclioly pleasure he took of a rainy day 
 wlien his spirits were low, in reading over the old letters of 
 a dear friend. 
 
 This retrospective pleasure is truly a melancholy one. 
 Turning over the precious file, we encounter the affec- 
 tionate protestations of one who has cruelly deceived us, 
 or the generous praises of a now hitter enemy. We read 
 the prophecies of those who early loved and appreciated 
 us, and wlio can now confirm their past predictions. Time 
 returns anew ; tlie present is merged in tiie past, and 
 scenes long gone hy, revive to memory's view ! Ah ! 
 could we but recall those feelings to whicli we received 
 such a sympathetic response, tliose " hopes and fears, an 
 undistinguishahlc throng ;" could but the veil of years be 
 removed, and youth and hope and innocence be revealed, 
 then indeed might an Arcadian age commence, and the 
 whole world look green and happy. It is well and profita- 
 ble to the observer of human nature, and the self-student, 
 to reperuse his collection of letters, and if he can procure 
 them, to study his own. Viewed in connection with j)aRS- 
 ing events, they form an unbroken narrative, and manifest 
 the progress of tastes and sympathies, improvement in 
 virtue, and accessions of knowledge. The didactic letters, 
 the letters of business, of contention, of mere scandal, may 
 be safely burned ; but the memorials of affection, the 
 evidences of friendship, are not to be lightly treated, but, 
 dear as the apple of the eye, to bo held among the richest 
 treasures of the author, the thinker, and the man. 
 
VII. 
 
 POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Letters never ollered more abundant nor so enticing ma- 
 terials, for literary and personal history, as in the case of 
 Pope and his friends. The wonder only is, that Macaulay 
 or lluzlitt never made the corrosi)ondence, or the corre- 
 spondents of Pope, the subject of an article or a lecture. 
 For either purpose, these volumes are admirably fitted ; 
 but, as the allotted space a notice of the sort may occupy 
 here is restricted, we can pretend to little more than a 
 sketch. Pope, his letters, and his friends ; each text is 
 worthy of a full illustration, but can be only briefly han- 
 dled. 
 
 Tile character and habits of mind of the poet, par excel- 
 lence, "of Anna's reign," are vividly depicted in his cor- 
 respondence. Writing to his nearest friends, and on the 
 most solemn themes. Pope never forgot his authorship. 
 His fame was too much in his eye, and the opinion of the 
 public in his mind. His characteristic refinement, deli- 
 cacy of judgment, his nicety of expression and neat turns 
 of stylo, appear on every page. The virtues of the man, 
 too, admirable and as real as the merits of the wit, satirist, 
 and moral-painter, in spite of his affection and passion for 
 intrigue and stratagem, are equally evident. His affec- 
 tions and regard for his parents j his devotion to his 
 
rOPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 47 
 
 friends ; his sincere humanity ; his generous sensibility. 
 The personal character of Pope, owing to his brilliant 
 literary success, and to his success chiefly in satire, is 
 not so well or so favorably known as it should be. He 
 is thought by many to have been what he was humor- 
 ously styled, and as falsely as humorously, " the little 
 wasp of Twickenham." So far from indulging mean 
 spite and malice, the heart of Pope was of the noblest 
 texture, and its impulses governed by the most exalted 
 sentiments. If ever there was a true-hearted and mag- 
 nanimous nature, in default of his crooked ways and un- 
 wise circumlocutions, it was Pope's. To Pope was ad- 
 dressed not only the hollow, courtly speeches of the titled 
 and great, but the sincerest praises of England's finest 
 wits and most delicate geniuses were accorded to Pope, 
 and Pope was loved and honored, as well as admired and 
 praised. He secured the personal afiection of men, not 
 only of talents equally fine and attic with his own, but in 
 some walks superior, and whose own natures and tempers 
 were above all praise. Only survey the list of Pope's 
 intimate associates : Addison, Swift, Gay, Berkeley, Boling- 
 broke, Steele, Arbuthnot, Parnell, Wycherly, Congreve, 
 Garth, Jervas, Fenton, Hugh Bethel, Ralph Allen, Rowc, 
 and Sir William Trumbull, Secretary Craggs, Earls Hali- 
 fax and Burlington, Bishop Atterbury, the Blounts, the 
 Digbys, Cromwell, and the fine ladies of the day. It may 
 bo safely hazarded as a general remark, that not a single 
 distinguished man of letters or public character in the 
 kingdom was unknown to Pope. He was regarded, and 
 justly, as the Horace and Voiture of England united, and 
 for exact justness of thought and propriety of language, for 
 wit (the like of which we have not since seen), for comic 
 
48 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 fancy, and for exquisite compliment, he was unrivalled — 
 but chiefly as a moral satirist and judge, equally of books 
 and artificial life, was he considered admirable, and in 
 these walks he is decidedly a master. 
 
 Pope was as precocious in his prose compositions as in 
 his poetical attempts. His early correspondence was al- 
 most all of it written before the age of twenty. At sixteen, 
 he commenced his correspondence with Wycherly, then 
 near seventy, and, it must be confessed. Pope has the best 
 of the bargain. Shortly after, he wrote to Walsh and 
 Henry Cromwell, his early friends and flatterers. With 
 Wycherly, Pope maintained a perfect war of compliments, 
 and yet, after all, they quarrelled from Pope's plain speak- 
 ing, when he was forced to it. Walsh, whom Dryden 
 called the best critic in England, early favored Pope, and 
 augured the most brilliant success for him. Pope has not 
 forgotten to number him among the catalogue of his early 
 associates. We cannot resist quoting the fine lines, often 
 as they are referred to : — 
 
 " But why then publish ? Granville, the polite, 
 And knowing Walsh would tell me I could write; 
 Well-natured Garth, inflamed with early praise. 
 And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays ; 
 The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read. 
 E'en mitred Rochester would nod the head, 
 And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before), 
 With open arms receiv'd one Poet more. 
 Happy my studies, when by these approved ! 
 Happier their author when by these beloved ! 
 From these the world will judge of men and books, 
 Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks." 
 
 What might not the richest fool give for an epithet of 
 
POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 49 
 
 praise from such a pen : what higher honor for the author, 
 but to see his name on the same page with that of Pope, 
 though his be at the bottom and the Horace of England 
 very near the top ? 
 
 Henry Cromwell affected to be a critic (we should judge 
 he was a man-of-the-world sort of scholar from his letters), 
 and Pope discusses with him questions of taste and criti- 
 cism, the Latin poets, versification, etc. He devotes a 
 letter to Crashaw, in this part of his correspondence, which 
 abundantly proves how little Pope really comprehended the 
 genius of that noble poet. 
 
 Pope early courted the great, much as he afterwards 
 affected to despise them, and we find him writing to Sir 
 William Trumbull, and Craggs, Secretary of State, as well 
 as to several court ladies, the style of whom he has ad- 
 mirably parodied in his letter in the style of a lady of qua- 
 lity. Our author's correspondence with ladies, when he 
 was young, he afterwards used to contemn as puerile 
 efforts, and yet, trifling as they are, many a modern gallant 
 of middle age might be happy to hit the frivolous style so 
 well, which was current at that time. The prose letters 
 of Pope to women certainly convey a very mean opinion 
 of their understanding, though couched in elegant phrase, 
 and hidden under the folds of his " polite, insinuating 
 style." But some of the poetic epistles to ladies are be- 
 yond all praise, as that master-piece of refinement and 
 delicacy, the epistle to Miss Blount, with a copy of Voi- 
 ture's epistles. Each couplet contains the rarest essence 
 of grace and wit, and elegant sentiment, at times rising 
 into brilliant rhetoric, and the whole poem is compacted 
 and moulded with all the art, and in the most ingenious 
 form of the master of poetic form, and all the technicalities 
 
50 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 of his vocation. There were among the throng of cour- 
 tiers, however, patrons worthy of the name, and nobles 
 deserving the title. Oxford and Halifax, Craggs and At- 
 terbury, sank the minister in the friend, in their intercourse 
 with Pope, and delighted to relieve themselves from the 
 cares of state in a genial intimacy with the poet at his 
 rural villa. But the true friends of Pope, as indeed the 
 truest friends of every author, were his fellow-scholars and 
 brother authors. Let envy and malevolence declaim as 
 they may, true men of sense and genius, the world over, 
 recognize a brother in each other, and band together, like 
 good men and wise, for the preservation of social harmony 
 and intellectual freedom. We care little for the lords and 
 ladies of Pope's acquaintance, but who does not delight in 
 his letters to Gay, and Jervas, and Fenton, and (to leave 
 the society of authors, but not of good men) to those noble 
 specimens of human nature, Hugh Bethel and Ralph 
 Allen ? Pope mistook his own nature, when he turned 
 courtier. He had too much heart for the character. How 
 different are his cold, cautious compliments to the great, 
 whom he loved not, from the delicious flatteries, the fruit 
 of rich affections and high appreciation, he was accustomed 
 to lavish on his nearest friends ! To dwell but lightly on 
 his faults, there was a tinge of insincerity in Pope ; we 
 trust, however, rather a vacillation of opinion than any 
 settled duplicity of intention. We think we see signs of 
 this in his correspondence with Addison, who, it must be 
 confessed, was himself too suspicious, and in one instance 
 treated Pope in an unwarrantably deceitful manner. Pope 
 appears to have had less connection with Steele, a man of 
 much greater frankness and candor than his associate. 
 Jervas, the Painter, was a life-long friend of Pope, who 
 
POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 51 
 
 Studied the art of portraiture under him, but never carried 
 it to any perfection. His poetical portraits were certainly- 
 fine enough for any reasonable ambition. In his epistle to 
 Jervas, a meet companion for his fine letter to Miss Blount, 
 Pope exclaims : • 
 
 " Alas ! how little from the grave we claim ! 
 Thou but preserv'st a face, and I a name." 
 
 Posterity has preserved the names embalmed in Pope's 
 immortal strain, but has thrown by, in her lumber-room of 
 obscurity, the portraits of Jervas. Swift and Gay, Boling- 
 broke and Peterborough, are the chief names that remain 
 among the correspondents of Pope. With these most 
 opposite characters, the one pair composed of a man, 
 harsh, austere, and sour, yet manly, friendly and firm ; 
 the other, in wit, a man, simplicity, a child ; wise and inno- 
 cent, penetrating, yet volatile, a poet, philosopher, wit, 
 child, courtier, and dupe : the other couple, a fashionable 
 sceptic and a military wit, but wise and keen observers, 
 accomplished gentlemen, men of wit, men of the world, 
 men of action. Pope lived not only on terms of perfect 
 amity, but in the unreservedness of brotherhood ; nay more, 
 for brothers are not always the nearest friends. The 
 Vicar of Laracor, the keenest of satirists, the manliest of 
 misanthropes, appears in his letters to Pope a very difTerent 
 creature from the tyrant over the lives and fates of Stella 
 and Vanessa. He writes even with an honest sensibility, 
 without a particle of mawkishness. To Gay he writes like 
 a loving, but prudent father, beseeching that imprudent 
 man of genius to lay aside his hundred and one schemes, 
 and nurse his little fortune. Gay died in middle age, and 
 therefore never knew what it was to want the comforts of life 
 
52 LiTERAiay studies. 
 
 in an old age of poverty and friendlessness. Arbuthnot 
 was the idol of Swift. He thus writes of him, with mingled 
 admiration and humor : " Oh, if the world had but a dozen 
 Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my travels ! But, however, 
 he is not without a fault. There is a passage in Bede, 
 highly commending the piety and learning of the Irish in 
 that age, where, after abundance of praises, he overthrows 
 them all by lamenting that, alas, they kept Easter at the 
 wrong time of the year. So our doctor has every quality 
 and virtue that can make a man amiable or useful ; but, 
 alas, he has a sort of slouch in his walk ! I pray God 
 protect him, for he is an excellent Christian, though not a 
 Catholic." 
 
 Lamb valued Pope most for his refined compliments. 
 His prose flattery is not so fine as his poetic eulogy ; but 
 it is very elegant. In a letter to Cromwell, he says : " You 
 are so good a critic, that it is the greatest happiness of the 
 modern poets that you do not hear their works" (alluding 
 to his deafness). To Jervas he concludes a letter thus : 
 " Come thou, and having peopled Ireland with a world of 
 beautiful shadows, come to us and see with that eye, which, 
 like the eye of the world, creates beauties by looking on 
 them." To the same painter he writes: '-I hope the 
 spring will restore you to us, and with you, all the beauties 
 and colors of nature." 
 
 Pope's affectionate disposition shines through all his 
 works, but we do not recollect a more striking instance 
 than the following, in a letter to a correspondent whose 
 name is withheld. " I cannot express how I long to renew 
 our old intercourse and conversation ; our morning con- 
 ferences in bed in the same room, our evening walks in the 
 Park, our amusing voyages on the water, our philosophical 
 
POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 53 
 
 suppers, our lectures, our dissertations, our gravities, our 
 reveries, our fooleries, our what not ! 
 
 " This awakens the memory of some who made a part 
 in all these. Poor Parnell, Garth, Rowe ! You justly re- 
 prove me for not speaking of the death of the last ; Par- 
 nell was too much in my mind, to whose memory I am 
 erecting the best monument I can. What he gave me to 
 publish was but a small part of what he left behind him ; 
 but it was the best, and I will not make it worse by enlarg- 
 ing it ; I would fain know if he be buried at Chester or 
 Dublin ; and what care has been or is to be taken for his 
 monument, etc. Yet I have not neglected my devoirs to 
 Mr. Rowe : I am writing this very day his epitaph for 
 Westminster Abbey. After these, the best-natured of men, 
 Sir Samuel Garth, has left me in the truest concern for his 
 loss. His death was very heroical, and yet unaffected 
 enough to have made a saint or a philosopher famous. 
 But ill tongues and worse hearts have branded even his 
 last moments as wrongfully as they did his life, with irre- 
 ligion. You must have heard many tales on this subject ; 
 but if ever there was a good Christian without knowing 
 himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth." Thus nobly did Pope 
 vindicate his friends, absent or dead. Unlike our modern 
 Damons, he did not from a warm friend become a bitter 
 enemy, but preserved through life his ancient regard with 
 all the steadfastness of a true man. A regulating Provi- 
 dence will preserve the fame of Pope fair and unsullied by 
 the breath of malice or the tongue of slander ; the just re- 
 compense of a pure heart and a trusting spirit. 
 
 Contemporary with Pope, " the cynosure of neighboring 
 eyes," the centre of an admiring circle, "the glass of 
 fashion and the mould of form," a wit, an authoress and a 
 
54 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 fine woman, lived the celebrated Miss Pierrepont, more 
 generally known under the name and title of Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montague, one of the idols of Pope's idolatry, and 
 indisputably the cleverest woman of her age. The reign 
 of Queen Anne, and the period circling about that epoch, 
 of about thirty-eight years, from the commencement of the 
 reign of King William III. to the end of the reign of 
 George I., was, we are inclined to suspect, the transition 
 period (to employ a fashionable phrase) in the estimation 
 of female character. Before that day women had not at- 
 tained their just position in the social state, and since that 
 time they have met with a truer regard and a more intelli- 
 gent homage than even in the days of knighthood and 
 chivalry, when a lady meant rather a fanciful abstrac- 
 tion of virtue and beauty, made only for worship and ex- 
 travagant adulation (insincere and therefore heartless, 
 and consequently insulting), than " a perfect • woman 
 nobly planned," " a phantom of delight," a genial, loving, 
 household companion and help-mate, in trial and adversity. 
 Pope himself and most of his brother wits appear to have 
 held the female mind and the female heart in rather a low 
 estimation, but the characters of women were improving in 
 many particulars. They lost many petty foibles as they 
 shifted the various fashions in dress and manners. The 
 benevolent ridicule of Addison was pointed not only at their 
 patches and their hair-dresses, and rouging, but also at 
 their absurd political partizanship, at their preference of 
 *' pretty fellows " to men of sense, at their vacant minds, 
 simpering manners, ill-regulated affections. Swift's pun- 
 gent satires on fashionable conversation did much ; Pope's 
 characters of women effected a greater reform, as if to 
 falsify the satire ; but to Addison, and perhaps still more 
 
POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 55 
 
 to the gallant Steele, were the ladies mainly indebted. No 
 writers equalled this last pair in administering judicious 
 counsel in a cheerful, gay, graceful manner, by which 
 they charmed those who charmed all the world besides. 
 Public opinion and a better system of education tended 
 greatly to setting the just rights of woman in a proper point 
 of view. The goddess, from a toy and a plaything, the 
 alluring charmer of an idle hour, became a pleasing, mo- 
 dest, domestic, happy woman, enlightened, ennobled, and 
 refined. Such (to take the most favorable instances) we 
 now find her. From a general digression on the state of 
 female society in the reign of Queen Anne to the brilliant 
 representative of the intellectual woman of that society, 
 the transition is natural. Lady Montague is not, perhaps, 
 after all, the very best specimen, for she was more the 
 woman of clear, acute intellect, and of fashion, than the 
 quiet wife of pure sentiment and propriety of behavior. 
 She was rather the Aspasia (without her vices, though with 
 her attractions) than the Cornelia of English women — the 
 fine lady, rather than the polished gentlewoman — the am- 
 bitious wit, rather than the natural talker. But taking her 
 as she was, she must have been as fascinating in her con- 
 versation as agreeable in her letters, and altogether a de- 
 lightful creature, one disgusting foible, or rather positive 
 defect excepted, which the fastidious reader may compre- 
 hend by a reference to the Walpoliana. Lady Montague 
 was almost the first, in point of date, among English female 
 writers, although not recognized as such in her life-time, 
 none of her compositions having been published until after 
 her decease. Lady Russell, Mrs. Hutchinson, Mrs. Centli- 
 vre, Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, and a few obscure writers, had 
 preceded her, but none in her own department had ap- 
 
56 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 proached her. She is the English Sevigne, unequalled in 
 a gay, sprightly vein, and in easy natural narrative and 
 description. The bulk of her correspondence, letters from 
 Turkey, presents entertaining views of that country, as a 
 book of travels. She had the most favorable opportunities 
 of obtaining information (her husband being the English 
 ambassador at the Sublime Porte), and made diligent use 
 of them. From that country also she derived the practice 
 of inoculating children for the small-pox, by which hu- 
 mane intervention she has entitled herself to the praise of 
 patriotic humanity. With all her wit, and she had a large 
 share ; in the very face of her beauty, which was extreme ; 
 excluding her authorship ; applauding her charitable exer- 
 tions ; we are repelled by a strong tinge of the masculine 
 in her character. A vigorous mind left its imprint upon 
 her disposition and manners. The strong understanding 
 admitted coarseness of allusion and freedom of style. Her 
 descriptions are luxuriant to voluptuousness ; the atmo- 
 sphere of the harem is painted couleur de rose. Vividness 
 of fancy is perhaps inconsistent with delicacy of taste, and 
 strong conceptions with unimpassioned coldness of painting. 
 The woman loses what the wit gains, and we feel that we 
 had rather admire the beauty and applaud the wit, than 
 take the woman to our heart for the journey of life. A 
 brilliant evening in a splendid crowd can never make 
 amends for mornings of lassitude and ennui, and years of 
 dull, cheerless, uncompanionable repinings and moodiness. 
 Age steals the roses from the cheek of beauty, and bereaves 
 the woman of the world of all her charms. Wit is clouded 
 and grows blunt in the passage of years, while the heart of 
 the worldling is approaching more and more closely to a 
 state of moral ossification, by which the soul in time be- 
 
POPE AND HIS FRIENDS. 57 
 
 comes wholly hardened, and the human creature is con- 
 verted into a petrifaction. We are far from applying the 
 whole of this homily to Lady Mary ; but, we believe, we 
 repeat a standard criticism in objecting to a portion of her 
 writings, and to some of her habits and constitutional fea- 
 tures. 
 
 VOL. II. 4 
 
VIIl. 
 
 GRAY AND COWPER 
 
 The two best male writers of letters, between Pope and 
 Lamb, were both poets like them, which was almost the 
 sole point of resemblance the four possessed in common. 
 They all had wit, and something of humor, but each dif- 
 fered from his brother bard. Pope's wit was courtly and 
 refined ; Gray's, like his taste, fastidious ; Cowper's mea- 
 sured and moral, like himself in public, timid and re- 
 strained ; and Lamb's full of the whimsical crotchets 
 which formed a portion of his individuality and temper. 
 
 Johnson has underrated Gray's Pindaric Poems as un- 
 justly as Hazlitt has overrated his letters. There- are 
 noble and grand thoughts filled out, and expressed in lan- 
 guage ardent and picturesque, in the poems of Gray, and 
 there is a majestic sweep in the pinions of his muse, which 
 he has finely described in his own line of the eagle, " Sail- 
 ing wide in supreme dominion, through the azure depths of 
 air." He is often cold, but when he warms, he glows. 
 His fire is the genuine afflatus, and no pasteboard imita- 
 tion or balloon inflation. At times lie comes nearer to 
 Milton than any poet since the author of Paradise Lost. 
 But in his letters, elegantly as they are written (the Eng- 
 lish is wonderfully simple for a stickler for the classics), 
 
GRAY AND COWPER. 59 
 
 he appears by no means in his fairest guise. His criti- 
 cisms in many cases are inadequate and criminally care- 
 less. He speaks slightingly of Thomson's charming po- 
 ems, just then out. He relishes Gresset, however, and 
 speaks with respect of Southern. Shaftesbury he anato- 
 mises keenly, but with justice. The Greeks and Romans 
 always fare well at his hands, but his contemporaries he 
 has little sympathy for. His humor (his nearest friends 
 thought there lay his forte) would be more readily appre- 
 ciated if it were less elaborate — a fine humorist and good 
 fellow was spoiled in the pedantic student. For, it must 
 be confessed. Gray was scholastic to pedantry with his 
 characteristic nicety and daintiness. We tire of i^ew 
 things so soon as fastidiousness, for it is impossible to love 
 those whom we cannot satisfy or please. Yet we sympa- 
 thize with the independence of the man who refused to re- 
 tain a friendship for Walpole after he discovered his hol- 
 lowness and fickle nature ; and we cannot but reverence 
 the moroseness and admire the secluded life of one who 
 despised the purse-pride of the wealthy, and from the lofty 
 elevation of his genius looked down upon the arrogance of 
 the great and noble. Bating his fastidiousness and reserve 
 Gray was " every inch a poet, and greater than a king," 
 a true Saxon man. His spirit had all the vigor, something 
 of the roughness, and an appearance (only an appearance) 
 of the sterility of the hardy plants of the cold North • but 
 like them it bore equally well the heats of July and the 
 snows of December, and in itself containing a source of 
 perennial fruitfulness, outbraved the mocks of jealousy and 
 lived down the scorn of calumny. It still continues in all 
 its original freshness. 
 
 The style of Cowper's letters is less elaborately elegant. 
 
(iO LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 is simpler and more agreeable tlian Gray's. He has more 
 of nature. Gray's genius was liigli, but also ambitious; 
 it lacked naivete and unforced ease. His art too was 
 rich and composite, but not so refined as to be concealed. 
 Cowper's domestic habits, continual living with and among 
 women (while Gray lived only by himself, or with a few 
 friends), iiis moral bias, his physical indolence and timidity, 
 iiis religious melancholy, gave a distinct coloring to all his 
 productions. These appeared much more in his poetry 
 than in his prose. In his letters he is cheerful, sometimes 
 gay. His vein of humor is quite unconscious, and the 
 more delightful for that reason. He had, when unbiased, 
 a fund of most excellent sense, with a clear judgment. 
 His natural feelings were pure as a child's. He seems to 
 have been a man without guile : affectionate, confiding 
 and cpnstant. Yet he had a keen eye for folly, and a tal- 
 ent for moral satire next to Pope, and we are apt to think, 
 sincerer. He occasionally sketches a character with bre- 
 vity and point. He discovers no very rich stores of ac- 
 quired learning, but much wise reflection. 
 
 His quiet life was not without its experience and hours 
 of contemplation. He loved nature, he loved innocent 
 animals, he loved the society of virtuous women, and good 
 men ; and he worshipped in truth and with awful grati- 
 tude the Being he adored and loved. Cowper was a 
 Christian poet, a rare title of honor. He might have filled 
 a high political station and been soon forgotten. Who 
 but a very few know anything of the great statesman. 
 Lord Cowper ? Who is not acquainted witli the greater 
 poet, William Cowper ? Yet we are far from styling 
 Cowper a great poet : compared with Milton, and Shak- 
 speare, and Wordsworth, he ranks in the second or third 
 
GUAY AND COWPER. 61 
 
 class of poets. But he is first in that. He is the poet of 
 domestic life ; a moral satirist with generous indignation, 
 but without gall ; a Christian psalmist (no hymns are finer 
 than some of his), and a judicious, pure-minded, sweet- 
 tempered, warm-hearted friend, counsellor, and compa- 
 nion. Cowper's English is select and idiomatic, ft is as 
 racy as that of many writers more noticed for vigor, and 
 yet it is quite free from the least taint of vulgarity. If he 
 seldom soared very high, he never fell into coarseness ; 
 and his style is as free from moral and literary corruption, 
 as his wit is free from acerbity, and his sentiment from 
 affectation. With Cowper, we shall conclude, since Lamb 
 has been made the subject of so much delicate criticism 
 and fine writing since his death, that we cannot aim at 
 novelty, without disparaging better writers and better quali- 
 fied judges, because personal friends, than any American 
 writers can pretend to be. 
 
IX 
 
 AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 
 
 Among the various divisions and subdivisions into which 
 the trade of authorship is divided we recognize two class- 
 es ; authors by profession, and amateur writers : those 
 who regard study and composition as the business of their 
 lives, and those who look upon them merely as incidental 
 occupations. Now we all know very well how absurd a 
 thing it would be for a client to ask the services of an 
 amateur lawyer, with an air of confidence in the request, 
 and in the expectation of his faithful attention to business ; 
 so, too, with regard to the advice of an amateur physician ; 
 and, indeed, the analogy holds in every walk of life. Few 
 do that well " for love " which can be better done for 
 money. If it be true in the common concerns of life, that 
 the laborer is worthy of his hire, it is much more to be 
 so considered when we ascend in the scale of labor, and 
 come finally to that which most tasks the intellect and 
 requires the greatest number of choice thoughts. Purely 
 imaginative employment, invention in fiction, the highest 
 class (and indeed all but the most inferior departments of 
 poetry, the musa pedestris), must aflTord more of delight 
 self-centred, and in a good degree independent of pecu- 
 niary reward or the glory of a noble fame. Yet even 
 
AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 63 
 
 poets cannot live without bread and broadcloth ; and so far 
 as their imperishable and spiritual commodities can be 
 paid for, should be remunerated in a princely manner. 
 But in speaking of authors and men of letters in general, 
 we shall except the few grand poets from our remarks, and 
 include rather the mass of good, than the minority of great, 
 writers. We do not intend to comprehend in our list 
 either the barely respectable scribes, who abound now-a- 
 day as thickly as Dogberry's whortleberries ; although 
 among amateur authors we must not forget that for one 
 really clever man (^not to say man of genius) there are at 
 the least estimate ninety and nine stupid fellows, who 
 assume the cloak of gravity wherewithal to hide the 
 defects of dullness. 
 
 A merchant is respected for shrewdness in turning a 
 penny, for the accumulation of a fortune, and yet we hear 
 of the mercenary rewards of authorship, and the base 
 equivalent for the productions of genius : as if the more a 
 man gave the less he should ask ; build a palace at less 
 cost than a cottage. At this rate a sign painter would be 
 entitled to higher pay than Raphael himself; and we might 
 take our strongest arguments that men of genius should 
 be nobly rewarded for their magnificent conceptions and 
 labors, from the single class of painters. The great old 
 masters lived like princes, and were paid as the great law- 
 yer and surgeon of our own time are paid. Yet they did 
 not become lazy or careless ; nor did wealth stifle the fine 
 images of their brains, or palsy the masterly skill of their 
 hands. 
 
 Thoughts form the merchandise of the writer, as stufl?s 
 and wares of the trader. If the one can convert his stock 
 into current coin as readily as the other, on the mere 
 
64 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 ground of husbandry he deserves no little credit for his 
 skill. Fame is a noble thing, it cannot be too highly eulo- 
 gized ; but fame alone cannot supply the necessities of 
 physical existence, however it may conduce to the gene- 
 rous expansion of sentiment, the growth of the soul. 
 Neither is the charm of letters as a pursuit, and as a labor 
 that brings its own reward, all-sufficient to sustain the 
 scholar. If his intellectual and sensitive nature are ex- 
 cited and elevated by the trump of fame, or soothed into 
 delight by study and meditation, yet he has another nature 
 to take care of, to neglect which wilfully is to commit a 
 scarcely justifiable suicide. 
 
 An amateur in almost every walk is regarded as much 
 inferior to a working member of the craft. A man rarely 
 puts his heart or invests the whole stock of his faculties in 
 a pursuit which he takes up casually to while away an 
 hour or two of an idle day. Such writers do not seem 
 properly ever to become amenable to criticism. You are 
 never sure whether they are doing their best or not ; as a 
 member of the fancy might say they do not appear to 
 come up to the scratch. They fence with foils blunted at 
 the end, and dread the naked weapon ; or they are like 
 shots who practise with powder only. " These paper 
 pellets of the brain" are too much for them. 
 
 In our literary world in this country, there is no lack in 
 point of numbers of amateur authors. They are generally 
 either quite young men, sons of wealthy men, " who pen 
 a stanza while they should engross;" or else men in the 
 meridian of life, who affect the notoriety of fashionable 
 authorship. They are young poets or middle-aged novel- 
 ists; writers of essays in reviews, and of sketches for the 
 magazines. Sometimes they translate tales or travels for 
 
AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 65 
 
 the weekly extras. They deliver an occasional lecture, 
 and contribute articles for the newspapers. Their names 
 are often better known than their productions ; they live 
 in cliques, herd in clubs and coteries, and puff each other 
 inordinately. Their reputation is formed by an echo re- 
 verberating their self-praise. When rich, they are the 
 most desperate of critics, as above dependence and out of 
 the reach of appeal and censure. 
 
 There are certain marks by which you may infallibly 
 know the amateur author. He is always declaiming 
 against the pecuniary profits of literature, though we doubt 
 whether he would venture to carry out the same doctrine 
 in matters of business, or in his luxurious recreations of a 
 less spiritual description. He lives on his own estate or 
 income, but on other people's ideas. He gives for love 
 what he pilfers through mean ambition. He is the less 
 conscientious on this point, as his labors bring him in no 
 returns. Yet we have known those who pretend to write 
 only for amusement, to come to that pass as to be not 
 a little solicitous to procure remuneration. Such boasters 
 we have known refused any assistance in their literary 
 schemes ; and, not to bo harsh, we think they deserve the 
 humiliation, at least, of temporary neglect. 
 
 Amateur writers rarely undertake works of length or 
 research ; and yet tliey are very apt to take a writer to 
 task who devotes iiimself to literary occupation in the 
 minor classic forms of writing. Unable themselves to 
 write good magazine papers, and reading (as they must) 
 many inferior ones, they confuse good and bad together. 
 They endeavor to catch the high tone of criticism, and 
 while mispraising daubs of historical pieces, pass by with 
 
 4* 
 
66 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 ignorant scorn, the most delicate miniature sketches of 
 manners, or vivid portraits of character. 
 
 They injure the true author, who unites a love for his 
 profession, deep interest in his subject, and an honest in- 
 dependence, with the aim of procuring a sufficient liveli- 
 hood. If writings are to be procured for nothing, nothing 
 will be paid. Cheapness, not merit, will become the object 
 of publishers, and the deterioration of literature must infal- 
 libly ensue. The value of a thing has been stated (some- 
 what sophistically) to be what it will bring. This has by 
 no means been an universal or a just test in literary pro- 
 ductions, for the flimsiest of which the highest prices are 
 paid. What could Bacon get now-a-days if he sent his 
 essays to the magazines ? His late (and successful) imi- 
 tator, doubtless, would realize little more. 
 
 Few amateur authors feel any real sympathy for literary 
 men. There is no fellow-feeling existing between the in- 
 dustrious and ardent scholar, and the lively voluptuary 
 and genteel wit. Independence of literary profits causes 
 indifference, and sometimes an ill-concealed contempt. 
 Are the hard toil, the misappreciated aims, the uncertain 
 gains of a writer mentioned ? they are heard with coolness, 
 and answered by a shrug. Want of money appears want 
 of moral principle or of respectability. They dread duns, 
 poor authors, unpopular poets. Fame and a garret are the 
 topics of their heartless ridicule. An amateur author is, 
 in a word, an amphibious sort of creature ; out of the pale 
 of true writers, and yet classed by all with the mob of 
 scribblers. They decry their own writings, with more of 
 truth than they are aware of; and ironically pronounce 
 their own eulogy in the censure of another. They are 
 bitter bad judges of others ; and the most ingenuous of 
 
AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 67 
 
 egotists. They turn self-tormentors to be idolized by the 
 public : they offer themselves up, on the shrine of their 
 egregious self-love, a willing sacrifice, and in order to pro- 
 pitiate popular regard. To the above sweeping charges, 
 certain exceptions are to be made. One in particular we 
 must not neglect — John Waters, the elegant contributor to 
 the Knickerbocker, a gentleman of delicate fancy, neat 
 humor, and crisped style, who every now and then delights 
 the public with charming morceaux, frequently and closely 
 reminding us of the quaint yet true touches of Elia's pen- 
 cil. Such amateur writers are rare indeed amid a crowd 
 of pretenders and assuming coxcombs. Most of the better 
 description of amateur authors would translate better into 
 friendly critics, liberal patrons, and unpretending lovers of 
 literature. In modern times, an amateur author of genius 
 is next to an anomaly. The labors of such a man cannot 
 be repaid by mere popularity. Even the great poets of 
 tliis century have obtained large sums for their MSS. 
 Scott is a notable instance ; but it were well for letters that 
 few amass the fortune of the great novelist. Yet, from 
 Shakspeare to Wordsworth, the poets have been at least 
 comfortably provided for, being gifted with a reasonable 
 share of prudence — an eye to the main chance. 
 
 From amateur authors we pass to small critics, a natural 
 transition, as these form a division of the same general 
 class. Like the first, they are rarely writers by profes- 
 sion, though we have Dennises and Giffords in the craft. 
 Generally, the small critic is an unblushing pretender, 
 without the slightest claims to respect. He is to the great 
 critic, the original judge, what the minute philosopher is 
 to Plato or Bacon. He is great in little things, and con- 
 versely little in great things. His genius is bent on inves- 
 
68 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 tigating trifles. Ho is an ingenious perverter of sense, 
 from blindness at not seeing the printer's blunders, or a rapid 
 writer's slips in orthography. He is strongest in punctua- 
 tion and prosody. If an editor, he is in mortal dread of live- 
 ly contributors, mistaking a satire on vice for a condemna- 
 tion of virtue, and a homily on hypocrisy for a burlesque 
 on religion. Of poetry he is the verbal critic, and from 
 his literalness, spoils the beauty of a fine passage because 
 he cannot see the fitness of a choice epitliet. Correctness 
 is the height of his ambition. He remarks how many lines 
 in a poem end with a monosyllable, or with a similar ter- 
 mination. He pretends to be skilful in metres and the art 
 of poetry. By this he intends the rules of Aristotle, and 
 Bossu, and Blair, and not the divine instincts of the glorious 
 Afflatus. But he does by no means invariably enunciate 
 his judgment in print, he oftener talks than writes criticism. 
 In a private circle he afl:ects the dictatorship of letters. If 
 he has a relation, a man of talent, he patronizes him as a 
 respectable writer. A third rate politician, who amuses 
 him by cunning flatteries, he estimates much higher. 
 Trash is his favorite term for all he cannot understand, and 
 especially for all keen satire that lie suspects may have a 
 bearing upon himself. He makes the most egregious blun- 
 ders, saying, this will not last, of an immortal work ! or, 
 he will soon break down, of a man whose noble enthusiasm 
 appears to his contracted soul little better than midsummer 
 madness. 
 
 The small critic is delighted with petty beauties and the 
 minutest details. He loves still more to carp on petty 
 faults in a great man, and thinks he makes a fine discovery 
 when he meets a trivial flaw. He looks, as it were, through 
 an inverted telescope, and to his eye great objects diminish. 
 
AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS. 69 
 
 He makes great things appear small, and the little less. 
 His ideas are on the descending scale ; his eyes contract 
 to a mere point of littleness; he is the critic of Lilliput. 
 
 Originality puts him out; holdness he styles extrava- 
 gance, and acknowledges none but imitative excellence. 
 All inventors he looks upon as arrogant interlopers. He is 
 distrustful of novelty, and apprehends failure in every new 
 scheme. He cannot distinguish between freshness of feel- 
 ing and affectation. He has a horror of individuality, and 
 will not allow the weight of personal impressions. Strong 
 passion he accounts a weak prejudice, and the sincere con- 
 victions of a pure spirit " idols of the cave." Indignation 
 at meanness and a scorn of rascality, he terms " whim- 
 whams and prejudice." 
 
 As he is a trite critic and a stale theorist, so is he also 
 a false logician. He is, indeed, a mere special pleader. 
 He cavils at literal mistakes, and disputes terms rather 
 than abstract truths. He is a newspaper Thomas Aqui- 
 nas, or the Duns Scotus of a monlhly. Magazines he is 
 apt to hold in supreme contempt, triough for his life he 
 cannot write a decent article for one. Voluminous works 
 awe him into silence. Erudition is to him the greatest of 
 bug-bears. Lest he should be discovered as an ignoramus, 
 he never pretends to discredit the pretences of pedantry. 
 He swells the train of such by his pomp and boasting. 
 Since he has no genuine acquirements, he cannot distin- 
 guish the false wares, and consequently equally applauds 
 the jewel and the mock paste. 
 
 Small critics may be found among two classes of peo- 
 ple, in greater abundance than anywhere else ; among so 
 called sensible people, who have no real pretensions to 
 letters, though they affect to speak critically on all points, 
 
t^ LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 and mere bibliographers, makers of catalogues, collectors, 
 book-sellers and auctioneers. People of sense in ordinary 
 matters, and men intelligent in their own walk of life, but 
 who have never received any tincture of literature, make 
 the most opinionated of all critics. A carpenter expects 
 to graduate the powers of the human mind, and a stone 
 mason to overthrow one of Ariosto's castles. Thinking to 
 bring everything to a common standard, the illiterate ima- 
 gine themselves to be as good judges of right and wrong 
 in morals, as of the beautiful and odious in sesthetics. 
 They are keen at a bargain, and confide without doubt in 
 their own decisions on works of genius. The same peo- 
 ple who talk pertly of Milton and Wordsworth, would 
 think it absurd for a blacksmith to attempt to take a watch 
 to pieces. Yet the difference of difficulty, between the 
 two operations, is by no means great. And, after all, the 
 immediate popularity of most writers rests chiefly upon 
 such readers as these ; the worthy, fit audience, though 
 few, finally give reputation. Meanwhile, however, the 
 mob of readers follow established names and reigning 
 fasiiiouH ; they follow their chosen leaders with implicit 
 credulity. 
 
 Bibliographic critics are learned in title pages, indexes, 
 editions. Their judgments are traditionary ; their opi- 
 nions hereditary. They think by proxy, and talk by rote. 
 One of this sort reads everything and feels nothing; he 
 is a walking catalogue ; a peripatetic companion to the 
 library ; he knows the names of all the authors that have 
 lived. "In books, not authors, studious is my lord." 
 Yet such is a useful character ; a guide to the literary 
 voyager ; a conductor of the literary diligence. He is 
 well in his place if he will only remain quietly in it; but 
 the difficulty is to keep him there. 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS 
 
 The real genius of the t'emtile mind, in two classes of 
 prose fiction, appears to be universally confessed, i. e., in 
 the delineation of the artificial in manners, and the natural 
 in sentiment : in the novel of manners, as Evelina ; and 
 in the novel of sentiment, as the Simple Story. Ridicule 
 and pathos, these furnish the appropriate weapons, and oc- 
 cupy the legitimate provinces of the female novelist. In 
 these departments they reign supreme. Manly writers 
 may have at their command a wider vocabulary of indig- 
 nant sarcasm or exhibit profounder views of character : 
 may paint an absurdity in more glowing colors, and more 
 grotesque forms, or display a superior exuberance of comic 
 fancy ; but they cannot trifle with such abandon and ease 
 as a female wit : their wit may carry more weight, but it 
 is less bright and cutting than a woman's. Men reason 
 better, but they cannot rally so well ; and raillery, in ordi- 
 nary talk, bears the palm from ratiocination. Masculine 
 satire is best adapted for the dissection of character and 
 real things, and not so well fitted for depicting mannerisms. 
 Women observe and note all the varieties of the genus od- 
 dity, more readily than men, and with a certain instinctive 
 nicety of taste and discrimination, they describe the varying 
 
■72 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 and almost imperceptible shades of manners. From an 
 educated sense of propriety in behavior, and the restraints 
 of decorum and etiquette, they are rendered more critical 
 judges of the nice observances of polite breeding, and the 
 opposite gaucheriesof an impolite or rustic bearing. Mere 
 external minutiae engage their attention so much as to be- 
 get an almost pedantic regard for certain forms of society, 
 and a horror of all solecisms, which they almost rank with 
 criminal offences. They are, for this reason, perfectly at 
 home either in criticising or describing the persons or 
 events of a ball-room, the boudoir, theatre, concert, or sa- 
 loon. With a quick eye they note each and every devia- 
 tion from the existing code of fashion, whether it be in 
 dress, manners or conversation. So much for the satirical 
 powers of the sex. 
 
 A similar analogy holds in respect to the talent for sen- 
 timental description. Great poets, like Shakspeare, and 
 painters of man, as Fielding, for instance, deal more with 
 the passions than the sentiments, which require finer 
 handling, to borrow a phrase from tlie artist. A middle 
 range, between high passion and indiflerence, the pathos of 
 domestic tragedy, the prose imagination of the poet, depict- 
 ing scenes of ordinary or even of humble life, appear to 
 fall within the sphere of female genius. Few masculine 
 writers (even among poets) have done full justice to the 
 noblest specimens of the female character, whilst, at the 
 same time, it must be confessed that no female painter has 
 ever been able to grasp very many traits of the characters 
 of men, or to realize the immense discrepancies between 
 the different ranks. The best women are ignorant, pracli- 
 cally, of the lowest forms of humanity (still noble in the 
 most utter degradation) ; and those who are such cannot 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 73 
 
 throw any light upon the subject from their own pens. 
 Whole classes of society are thus excluded from the vision 
 of the fair author, and the motley manners of many men. 
 We have had no female Ulysses or Homer. At the same 
 time there is, nevertheless, a wide field to be explored, of 
 private history and domestic life. There are the mani- 
 fold windings of the female heart to be threaded (an Arach- 
 ne's web) ; there is the beautiful nature of childhood to 
 unfold, the growing beauty of the womanly maiden ; and 
 the proper audience (of readers) is composed of characters 
 of the same stamp, sweet children, innocent girlhood, fair 
 virginity, womanly beauty, inspiring love. From the bud 
 to the full blown flower, from her offspring (with its 
 opening mind and inquisitive tongue), to the lovely crea- 
 ture that bore it, a precious burden ; from these come the 
 lessons of life, to these they are properly addressed, and 
 by one of themselves. Yes ! women write for women, 
 and so they should : let men explore the baser parts of 
 human nature ; let it be their business (a hateful task) to 
 torture the guilty soul into penitence, religion, and virtue. 
 It is for woman to weave garlands of immortal beauty for 
 the brow of goodness and happy duty ; and to wreathe 
 chaplets for the crowning graces of the confiding, the 
 affectionate, and the pure. By way of illustrating the 
 above remarks, we shall, in particular, proceed to notice 
 the fictions of Madame d'Arblay and Mrs. Inchbald, who 
 stand foremost in the two classes we have undertaken to 
 describe. We shall reserve a page or two for Mrs. Sheri- 
 dan and Miss Bremer, not forgetting an incidental notice 
 of other female writers of eminence in the same depart- 
 ment. 
 
 First, however, of the two classical painters we men- 
 
74 LITEKARY STUDIES. 
 
 tioned, the latter of whom wo phice at the head of all 
 female novelists and prose writers, for qualities both of 
 head and heart, which rarely meet in union. Many of 
 our fair readers may have to be told that these capital 
 writers were the peculiar favorites of their day ; though 
 we dare to say that by the class for whom tiieir works 
 were written and appropriately addressed, they are almost 
 entirely unknown. This is more particularly the case 
 with regard to the present generation of readers. Old 
 ladies and young women of a certain age, have thumbed 
 Camilla and the Simple Story, aye, and well. Yet, while 
 the modern lady has every new novel on her table, we 
 seldom see the Simple Story ; never Nature and Art, 
 more frequently Evelina, and Cecilia hardly at all. We 
 trust these suggestions may not be wholly profitless, but 
 induce a return to tliose standard productions, not only 
 unsurpassed but unequalled by any attempts of the kind at 
 present. None of the fashionable novelists of our present 
 era can hit off a city fop like Miss Burney, or melt the 
 heart with no unfeigned emotion like the creator of Miss 
 Milner, and Dorriforth, and Sand ford. There is a smart- 
 ness, a shrewdness of observation in the authoress of 
 Evelina, to which neither Lady Blessington, nor Mrs. 
 Gore, nor any writer of her school, can lay any preten- 
 sions. Neither do we possess in English, at tiie present 
 moment, a writer who can excite our indignation of time- 
 serving in the bishop, and hypocritical severity in th.e 
 unjust judge ; who can quicken our admiration of forti- 
 tude, patience, and noble generosity, or smite the heart 
 witli a weight of melancholy anguish at the untimely fate 
 of the poor victim of sin in power and " the pride of place," 
 as the admirable writer of Nature and Art. The more 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 75 
 
 popular material of which Miss Burney's works are com- 
 posed, may have preserved them from oblivion, but the 
 matter is of an inferior cast. 
 
 She is perfectly successful where only smartness and 
 shrewd perception are requisite. In the piiilosophy of the 
 heart, she is quite deficient. Affectation, conventional 
 propriety, and mawkish sensibility, usurp the place of real 
 modesty and genuine feeling. Her forte lies in ridicule of 
 ignorant assumption, and especially of cockney preten- 
 sions. She is the satirist of Cockayne, and dwells so 
 much in this region, that we are apt to suspect it to be her 
 favorite locality. A writer or talker rarely rises above 
 an absurdity which he or she is continually harping upon ; 
 and affected disgust not unfrequently conceals a genuine 
 sympathy. The painter of the Branghtons had something 
 of the same narrowness of views and petty ambition that 
 distinguished her fictitious characters. And what we 
 always inferred, from the internal evidence of her works, 
 we find abundantly confirmed in the memoirs of this clever 
 woman, lately published, in which it is almost inconceiva- 
 ble what a compound of small sins represented the social 
 nature of Miss Burney. A moral coxcomb, a pedantic 
 courtier, an affected wit, an insipid companion, her auto- 
 biographical notes can leave no other impression than that 
 of inspiring an honest contempt for this frivolous, flattered, 
 yet enslaved, minion of fortune. If this criticism appear 
 harsh, we appeal directly to tlie volumes in question, where 
 the data for a correct judgment are abundant. 
 
 We would speak and write in quite a different tone of 
 that peerless woman, Mrs. Inchbald — admirable not only 
 for her writings, but also for her personal character and 
 
76 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 the beauty of her daily life ; an actress of fascinating 
 beauty and attractive grace, yet 
 
 " Chaste as the icicle, 
 That's cruded by the frost from purest snow, 
 And hangs on Dian's temple :" 
 
 ainid the splendid temptations and pleasures offered by the 
 admirers of the stage to its heroines; a noble-hearted wo- 
 man struggling with poverty to accumulate a comfortable 
 independence for her poor relations ; sitting without a fire, 
 the cold winter through, to procure fuel for a sister — an 
 act of Christian charity worthy of a saint ; and, in her 
 entire conduct, exhibiting a spirit of love and self-denial 
 that cannot be too highly lauded. Neither should we for- 
 get her greatest fault, most pardonable and innocent in her, 
 the early coquetry with which she has been charged, and 
 some of the romantic freaks of her girlish days, recorded 
 by the dullest of biographers, the dull and voluminous 
 Boaden. Her later romance was of a deep and melan- 
 choly cast ; her love for a married man. Dr. Warren, in 
 its whole history, pure and unsullied, and her grief at his 
 death. Leigh Hunt has done noble justice to her life and 
 memory, in a paper of the Seer. But the best things have 
 been said of our delightful authoress by a writer in the 
 Boston Miscellany, with whose lucid and elegant pen we 
 shall not vie. Her writings were fresh draughts of her 
 vivid experience of life. We apprehend a portion of early 
 biography, in parts of the career of Miss Milner and the 
 inflexible, yet benevolent, Sandford, is a portrait instinct 
 with truth. Mrs. Inchbald has, in our judgment, surpass- 
 ed all female writers in delineating the passion of love, as 
 it is frequently seen ; and though more elevated or more 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 77 
 
 profound masters of the human heart could, unquestionably, 
 surpass any attempt of hers to display the whole resources 
 of the passion in men, yet no masculine writer could, by 
 any possibility, excel in fidelity, naturalness and exquisite 
 discernment, the finished portrait of Miss Milner, the capri- 
 cious, affectionate, coquettish, yet obedient, ward ; the half- 
 spoiled child of fortune, at last humbled to the dust and 
 breathing out the last sighs of penitence, attended by the 
 friend and censor of her youth. All the characters in the 
 Simple Story are admirably drawn ; the haughty and aus- 
 tere Dorriforth ; that noble, rough, true Christian, Sand- 
 ford, a severe censor while he thought censure called ibr, 
 but melting with benevolence at the sick bed of the repent- 
 ant worldling. Miss Woodley is one of the most sensible 
 and truly feminine of our author's characters. " Nature 
 and Art'' should be read by every young man and woman, 
 impressing, as it does, an indignant scorn of the curi'ent 
 hypocrisies, the legalized villany, the conventional morality 
 of men of the world, and of the customs of society. The 
 style and execution of these novels is classic ; graceful 
 and fluent, a study and a model. The supreme power of 
 the author lies in pathetic situation and nobleness of senti- 
 ment, alternately. Few scenes in any work of fiction can 
 compare, for deep interest, with the trial scene in the 
 second novel. As a beacon to those captivated by the 
 fame of a fashionable coquette, we recommend the sad his- 
 tory of the ill-fated Miss Milner. To encourage the love 
 of virtue, we would point to the characters of the elder and 
 younger Henry (father and son). In a word, the moral 
 value of these admirable works is, at least, equal to the 
 breathless interest they excite as works of fiction. 
 
 Several female writers maintain a respectable rank in 
 
78 LiTP:RARy studies. 
 
 the same department with the two writers whose merits 
 have been alone discussed ; whilst there are others excel- 
 lent in an inferior grade. Amongst forgotten writers and 
 books, we may mention the History of David Simple, by 
 a relation of Fielding (if we are not mistaken), and a 
 woman of fine sense and feeling, the mistress of a refined 
 and simple style ; the pleasing fictions of the authoress of 
 Emily Montague, and Sidney Biddulph, a novel by Mrs. 
 Sheridan, the wife of Dr. Johnson's old rival, the niece-in- 
 lavv of Swift's friend, and the mother of Richard Brinsley. 
 Dr. Johnson is reported to have said of this lady, that she 
 had hardly a right to make her readers suffer so much ; 
 that he thought she exercised her power of raising the feel- 
 ings of compassion and sympathy for the distresses of others 
 to too high a pitch. 
 
 The great number of female novelists, during the 
 present century, is a feature in the literary character of 
 the age to be noted. To run over the mere names would 
 prove a tedious and profitless labor ; but we may advert 
 to a few — the strong, practical sense of Edgeworth, 
 adapted to moral tales for the young — of Opie and More 
 to impress religious principle as well. The pleasant 
 village histories of Milford ; the shrewd speculations (best 
 in her early sketches) of Martineau ; tlie wild and brilliant 
 imagination of Mrs. Shelley ; and tiie more quiet and agree- 
 able attempts of Mary Howitt (the English Sedgwick). 
 From a large number of elegant-minded female writers of 
 our own country, we may select two women of pure genius, 
 as the best examples of American female talent. Miss Sedg- 
 wick and Mrs. Kirkland, women of whom any country 
 might be proud. 
 
 Since writing the above, we have fallen upon, by the 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. <9 
 
 merest chance, a copy of Sidney Biddulph, to which we 
 must devote a page or two, worthy as it is of a much moro 
 extended notice. This is an admirable novel of the serious 
 kind, a true picture of domestic life, and fraught with a 
 certain classic grace, by a remarkably sweet and elegant 
 woman, who deserves to be much better known. As a 
 mere specimen of style and artful narrative, it is worthy 
 of preservation, to say nothing of the deeply-interesting in- 
 cidents of the story and the varied characters themselves. 
 Yet, for our own part, we read the book less for the story 
 and plot than for the sentiment and reflections it contains ; 
 and, in general, we care little for the very portion of a 
 prose fiction that most interests the majority of readers. It 
 is for this reason, among others, we are such admirers of 
 Miss Bremer's novels, which are voted tame by the stimu- 
 lating and highly-wrought tales of blood and terror. A 
 sensible old sea-captain of our acquaintance thinks some 
 portions of the Swedish novels are even " puerile ;" and 
 an acute, most discerning legal gentleman can see nothing 
 at all in them. Ah ! better to read a chapter of simple 
 domestic history than records of crime and violence. By 
 morbid sympathy, a weak mind readily becomes a convert 
 to admiration of desperadoes and captivating villains; 
 while, by a natural and healthy process, the virtuous mind 
 receives new vigor from pure thought and the unambitious 
 details of contented domesticity. An intellect that has 
 become enfeebled by the extravagant demands upon it of 
 Spagnialetto painters of vice and wretchedness, is nourished 
 and strengthened by scenes of rational happiness and exam- 
 ples of retiring and private nobleness. The moral of Sid- 
 ney Biddulph is one by no means agreeable to the mere 
 novel-reader, or to one ignorant of life, who invariably 
 
80 MTKKAKY STl'IMKS. 
 
 rxiH'cts \o s(>o virlU(> rcwiUiltMl aiul vioo pnnislunl, oithor 
 at tlu> <Mul i)t" a play or novel, or at tlio conclusion of this 
 luiiuan t'xistonco ; l)ut a very uiortifyinj!: yet most just 
 I'onohision, so neatly twprossod by tiio authoress herself, 
 that wo borrow iier lann;uai2;e, 'Mhat neither prudence, fore- 
 sioht, nor even tiie best ilisposition that tho hunrnn heart is 
 capahlt^ oi\ nvc, oi' themselves, sullicient to defend us ntjainst 
 tlu> inevitable ills that sonietinies are allotttnl even to tho 
 best;" or, as Shirley despondingly sinjj^s, "there is no 
 arnjor ajjjainst Fate ! " more wisely, perhaps, we should say 
 ProvidtMice, that '* brinot^th good out of evil." 
 
 We have alhuKnl to Miss HreuHM': it were an act of 
 injustiet^ to Ao no mori\ anil we teel it a matttM' oi' iluty 
 to add our slight tribut(^ tt> tiu> inetMise waUed across tho 
 wide otMMUi to that northern land, the land of tho Sagas, 
 of \"asa, and Adolphus o\' Owwsiv'wu, anil Christina, of 
 Charles \ll. ami 'JVgner. This wt^ glaiily pay. Miss 
 Bromor is tho ujost prominent writtM* of the day, in lier 
 peculiar department of fiction, m pictures of home life and 
 domestic maimers, lividy ami genuine. Her admira- 
 bio Swedish novtds are not oidy national wmks, but fitted 
 for all lands. 'I'his ailmirablc writer has been compared 
 to Miss Ivlgeworth, whom slu> greatly surpasses in senti- 
 miMitai description and delii-ate fancy. 'I'he Swedish 
 poetess is a livelier ami more dramatic painter than the Irish 
 wit, who is a woman oi' sound, rather than oi' fine, sense. 
 Miss Hremer is much the dee>ptM* writer, sees further into 
 lunnan nature, has more versatility ; sometimes startling 
 and prolinindly philosoj)hic, yet, in general, cheerful and 
 piquant ; a moral poit o( the fireside, with some resem- 
 blance to Cowper and the homelier pathos of Wordsworth. 
 Her »' musa pedestris" is heightened, not unfi-equenlly, by 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 81 
 
 an infusion of German fancies, and deepened by the seri- 
 ous and noble thoughtfulness of that melancholy North- 
 land. Though the scenery, the landscape, the background 
 of the Swedish novels is comparatively new to us, known 
 only before in the pages of the magnificent Tegner and 
 the tasteful Longfellow, yet the characters are as familiar 
 as those we meet every day. 
 
 Who has not known personages of age, distinction, and 
 family, like the President, the Colonel, the Judge, conser- 
 vatives of the best class, sticklers for dogmas and usages ? 
 yet men of clear heads, obscured by few prejudices of 
 education or society — respectable characters, worthy citi- 
 zens ; all little fitted for our country, in a political point of 
 view, since they form timid statesmen and habits of nar- 
 row diplomacy. Then, again, we have often seen head- 
 strong cornets, pining students, romantic schoolmasters, 
 like the heroes of the second rank in the same works. 
 The old ladies are equally well made out — whether stately 
 widows of condition, the relicts of distinguished officials ; 
 old maids, chatty and active ; or matronly dames, most 
 worthy and excellent. The young women generally par- 
 take of the species Sylphide, and have a certain aerial 
 grace and softness. In each novel, we have to remark 
 the recurrence of these different types of character. The 
 writer herself generally figures as the relater ; in the 
 Neighbors, she is the doctor's wife; in the President's 
 Daughters, she is the governess ; in all, she is a friend of 
 the family, and ranks as one of the useful and agreeable 
 among the poorer relations. 
 
 A wide range of character and variety of situation and 
 incident, mark the Swedish novels, which, besides the 
 higher qualities we have claimed for them, are extremely 
 
 VOL. II. 5 
 
SS LITEllARY STUDIKS. 
 
 atrrceablo lor the essay-mattor, the specuhition and thought 
 they contain, no less than lor the playful humor and ge- 
 nial Flemish distinctness which characterize the same 
 scenes. The beauty of naturalness we further notice, and 
 of characters for the most part, one cannot avoid liking or 
 sympatliizing with. In the last, Strife and Peace, we do 
 not recollect a harsh (not to say worthless) character.* 
 This, for many readers, is an advantage. The student 
 of human nature must see all men, but many should learn 
 only tlie best cliaracters, as they want strength and pene- 
 tration to see the good in the evil. The end, the tone, the 
 moral of these works is pure and lu\dthy ; with no vitiat- 
 in<T influences, no corrupting suggestions. But most ex- 
 cellent, if only read to cherish riglit and noble feelings, 
 and confirm good and high principles. 
 
 Mrs. Emily Flygare (is not this possibly a nomme de 
 plume, or synonyme of Bremer ?) is a writer of precisely 
 the same quality and grade. The Professor's Favorites is 
 a fair match for the President's Daugliters ; tliougli per- 
 haps not equal to the Neighbors or Homo. JNIiss Austin is 
 another Britisli authoross with wlinni Miss Bremer has 
 been conq^ared. They resemble each otlier certainly in 
 the fact, that they are both writers of the domestic novel, 
 as it may be called ; yet Miss Austin is quite deficient in 
 the strikingly poetical qualities, which relieve even the 
 homeliest details of tlie Swedish novels. She is quite pro- 
 saic, and if possible a little exclusive ; periuips too much 
 taken up with titled personages. Thougli decorous, proper, 
 sensible and judicious, where do you find in her novels, the 
 
 * The Colonel can luuitly bo called one of the characters ; as he 
 plays no part, soon leaves the scene, and is nltogether only passive. 
 
FEMALE NOVELISTS. 83 
 
 vivacity, the humor of tlie Neiglibors or Homo ? the depth 
 of feeling in these works, as well as in Strife and Peace, 
 can nowiiere be paralleled in Prejudice or Mansfield Park. 
 
 To the two prominent names in American female au- 
 thorship, we sliould have added that of Mrs. Childs, a pure, 
 sweet, amiable writer, whose pliilanthropy is unbounded 
 and carried out in deeds of practical benevolence. The 
 l)roductions of this lady are conceived in the most genial 
 humor and executed with equal beauty and facility. 
 
 We have said, women write for women ; we should fur- 
 ther remark that there is a race of masculine writers, with 
 feminine delicacy of mind, who ought to be added to the 
 list of novelists for a lady's reading. Such are the exqui- 
 site sentimental painters, Richardson, Marivaux, Macken- 
 zie, Jean Paul and Goldsmith. These are peculiarly au- 
 thors for women. Rousseau, Sterne and Goethe, equal 
 masters of the female heart, and whose works contain the 
 purest essence of ethereal sentiment, are dangerous writ- 
 ers, inasmuch as their works are fraught with deleterious 
 influences, which require a strong intellect and a vigorous 
 moral sense to withstand. — American literature can point 
 to three names of the first rank of excellence in this way 
 of writing, Dana, Hawthorne, and Washington Irving. 
 We reverse the usual order of merit, as we conceive Mr. 
 Irving to be nmcli inferior, in this respect (abundantly 
 made up by his humor, power of description, narrative, 
 and researches), to the first and second writers, who are 
 so much less known. Dana has a vein of fresh, original, 
 deep feeling — at times most powerful in its expression, and 
 always strong and simple — while Irving's best sentiment 
 is borrowed from Mackenzie and Goldsmith. Paul Fel- 
 ton, Edward and Mary, the Son, are much superior to 
 
84 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 anything of the same kind in Irving. Dana has a deeper 
 as well as a more original genius : yet the exquisite comic 
 pictures of Irving arc quite out of tlie reach of the more 
 serious writer. Mawtiiorne is a true poet and admirable 
 writer — what fancy, wliat deep melancholy, what inven- 
 tion, what pure, cheerful gladness, what pictures, in his 
 delightful tales. He can excite almost terror, and almost 
 mirth : hovering ever between tiie two. And his style ! 
 a mountain-spring is not more limpid and transparent : his 
 genuine Faith, his manly Love, liis true Religion, arc not 
 to be forgotten. Why does not this choicest of our writers 
 give us more twice-told tales, or a new series of charming 
 historical sketclies for children, wiiich all ages may read 
 with pleasure ? Wiio hut lie can give us the true history 
 of Salem witclicraft, lialf legend, half sad reality ? What 
 stores of romance yet unworked, lie hidden in tiie early 
 history of New Enoland ? 
 
XI 
 
 SINGLE-SPEECH POETS, 
 
 A REMARK of Horace Walpole (that most acute judge of 
 the niceties of literature) is set down in the Walpoliana, 
 on this very topic, and which, indeed, had suggested the 
 following illustrations of his criticism. He speaks of writ- 
 ers, who, like certain plants, flower but once — whose poetic 
 genius bloomed early, for a single time, and never again 
 put forth a bud. These writers, in poetry, resemble single- 
 speech Hamilton in oratory (the coincidence furnishes the 
 excuse of the caption), and ever remain a source of literary 
 curiosity — a problem not to be readily solved on ordinary 
 premises. It is one of the most curious of all literary cu- 
 riosities, and yet we do not remember that D'Israeli has 
 devoted a paper to the subject, nor even made any refer- 
 ence to it — an omission quite unaccountable in him, as it 
 falls naturally within his province. 
 
 A beautiful Anthology might be collected from the writ- 
 ings of poets, who have exhausted themselves, as it were, 
 in a single effort ; caught but a single glance of the divi- 
 nity ; but once felt "the god." In a supplement to this 
 exquisite bouquet, richer than that of Ellis or Longfellow, 
 tiiough they come very near to the ideal we speak of, might 
 be included the few fine short poems, of those who liave 
 
'^'<> LlTllRMCY STUDIES. 
 
 writl(Mi lon^r wiirks of mediocre nr perhaps i>V(M1 doubt- 
 fiil stiuuliii<j;. A low (Iclioiito mor{)eaux ofSouthoy will bo 
 prtvstM-vcd by lui aUri'tioimlo nico of nuKhM'^j, wlioso boiio- 
 voloMcr 0V(Mi (.•iiiiuot prcvful Iht' utter oblivion ol" liis im- 
 wii'ldy t'pii'jil atliMnpts. I'lvrn CJay, who wiolc W(»ll always, 
 lias boon iminorlali/.ecl by bis llalbuls aiul I'ablos, ratiuu* 
 tlian by liis Trivia. 
 
 Anolbcr class, still, bosiilo tbo writors of ono or more 
 choico sbort poems, ami tbo writers of lonj^ and dull insipid 
 productions, is tbat of the j^real writers wbo have written 
 nuicb, and of wbose works, even wben equally ilno, tbe 
 shortest arc tbo best known, n\eridy because they are brief. 
 Tims, J)ryd(Mrs Alt>xander's b'east is known to many, from 
 being met with in all tlu» ordinary st^leetions and ele«iant 
 extracts, while ills no less admirable romanlie tal(\s tVom 
 Jtoccaccio and C'haucer, his ileli^iitful Fables, l^pistles to 
 Uldbam, and (Hinjijreve, and Kmdli'r {(n\ which l\»pe could 
 only rejlnt')y Secular Masipu^, and his vigorous political 
 satires, arc comi)arativtdy unkiu>wn. Thousands havo 
 read, or suiiix, or beard suno;, Vouni:^ Loi'binvar, lor the 
 lumdreds who have read Marmii>n. And Moiu't^ is the poet 
 of tbo parlor, for the Mcdodies he has wrillcMi, while his 
 Lulla Kookh is read as a critical duty, and by way ot 
 task. 
 
 According \o a I'lassilleation likt^ the abovt\ many i)leas. 
 ing vtn'siliers wouhl rank viM-y high among tlie minor 
 l\>ets, whose standing is low among th(^ master Hards. 
 
 As to the philosophy o( the matter, we confess it iiu^x- 
 plicable. Why one whohasonc(^ sut'eiHMl«Hl shouKl not tK> 
 equally well again, many causes may be assigntnl ; yet 
 not one of them carrit^s sull'icient weight to settle tbe (iut\s. 
 tion determinatelv. 'i'hi^ various reasons ari^ sullicientlv 
 
SINGLE-SPEECH POETS. 87 
 
 plausible, yet may be easily set aside on further reflection. 
 Sheer indolence ! cries one ; timidity, exclaims another : 
 want of leisure, reasons a third ; rather, want of power, 
 adds a fourth ; perhaps, all together, liberally concludes a 
 fifth. 
 
 Some persons seem to regard these writers — as some old 
 dogmatist called Goldsmith — inspired idiots, who have, by 
 chance, hit upon a new thought or view, which they want 
 skill and training to follow up — as delicious harmonies may 
 float into the mind of one who is ignorant of the science of 
 sweet sounds. 
 
 In truth, the fact is as wonderful as that would be (of 
 which we are ignorant, if it has ever happened) of a painter 
 who had finished but one good picture in the course of his 
 life — who had caught for a single time the cordial and 
 kindly aspect of nature — who, once only, had gained power 
 to interpret the soul, speaking in the face. Who ever 
 heard, or read of, or saw, the single celebrated production 
 of a sculptor, or musical composer, or architect, who had 
 anything of a desirable reputation ? We do not speak of 
 the clever things done by ingenious amateurs, but of single 
 Works (not Plays, as Ben Jonson used to distinguish), ex- 
 ecuted by professional artists. 
 
 Yet as matters of literary and personal history, that was 
 really the case of the authors of the Bu rial of Sir John Moore 
 and the Ode to the Cuckoo. Wolfe wrote two or three other 
 fine things in verse and prose, yet nothing comparable to this 
 master-piece. Logan is known only by the ode we refer 
 to. The Braes of Yarrow enshrine the memory of Hamil- 
 ton of Bangour, and have led greater bards to the scene, 
 to offer up their tributes, still inferior to the first. Why- 
 is this all we have of these delicate poets ? With such 
 
88 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 fancy, such feeling, a taste so refined, a versification so 
 graceful, how happens it we hear no more strains from 
 these nightingales of a night ? Not wholly so besotted as 
 to be careless of fame ; rather, so far from that, as, in the 
 case of Wolfe, to be sensitively alive to generous praise 
 and to noble action ; and, as to Logan, we believe he, too, 
 was a clergyman, a retired scholar, and man of pure taste. 
 Both were (if we recollect aright) invalids, constitutionally 
 feeble, and hence incapable of long flights of fancy or close 
 study. They had leisure — poetic impulses could not have 
 been wanting, for subjects and occasions never wholly fail 
 the Muse ; the admiration of friends, we may conclude, 
 was theirs. A single obstacle only remains, and that fur- 
 nishes, probably, the occasion or reason of their silence — 
 a fastidious taste, like Campbell's, who was said to be 
 frightened by the shadow of his fame, that could not be 
 satisfied with anything short of perfection, which it failed 
 to realize. Genuine modesty, and a sensitive tempera- 
 ment, were leading traits (we presume, of course) of the 
 writers. These held their hand, and restrained the other- 
 wise willing pen. The same reasons will not seem to ex- 
 cuse the short poems of Raleigh and Wotton, who feared 
 no critical tribunals ; whose minds were braced by manly 
 action ; who united all characters and talents and accom- 
 plishments; who, with learning and (at some period) leisure, 
 and fancy, and power, have left a very few and very brief 
 copies of verse, worthy of being printed in letters of gold. 
 They were not men, like their later brother bards, to enter- 
 tain a feeling of despair at ever again equalling the fine 
 things they had accomplished early in life. In them, 
 therefore, it is but fair to suppose, that the poetic bore a 
 
SINGLE-SPEECH POETS. 89 
 
 slight proportion to the political and scholastic and business, 
 characters, which rendered them famous. 
 
 The minds of men change ; their aims vary at different 
 epochs. They entertain different views of life, of action, 
 of ambition. Many youthful tastes (the accompaniment 
 of animal spirits, rather than the fruit of settled inclina- 
 tion) vanish as men grow older. How many young poets 
 have settled down into middle-aged prose men ; how many 
 airy romancers become converted into matter-of-fact critics. 
 Religion, in some instances, teaches (falsely, we conceive) 
 the sin of all but devotional strains : unquestionably, when 
 pure and noble, the highest kind of verse, but not the only 
 allowable form. In this case, too, where piety is per- 
 verted, the praises of men appear so worthless and unsatis- 
 factory, that the bard relinquishes the exercise of his 
 divine gift (in a wrong spirit) before men, that he may 
 offer up his praises, pure and unallo3'^ed, with angels and 
 the blessed, to the Almighty Giver of the glorious faculty 
 itself (among innumerable blessings). 
 
 Various pursuits, too, warp the imagination from poeti- 
 cal flights, and confine the studies that arise from fancy 
 and taste to a narrow circle, if not consign them over to 
 " dumb forgetfulness a prey." Three great lawyers have 
 been made out of tolerable poets, who might have ranked 
 among the first of the third rank, the Dii Minores of our 
 idolatry — Blackstone, Sir William Jones, and Lord Thur- 
 low ; judgeships and bishoprics oblige the holders and 
 occupants of these stations to hide, sometimes, a rare and 
 peculiar talent. Yet some bishops have been wits, as 
 Earle and Corbet : though too frequently the office stulti- 
 fies the head, while it hardens the heart. 
 
 Without any further attempt at unravelling the causes 
 5* 
 
90 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 of this literary phenomenon, we will at once bring together 
 the following notices of writers of the kind we have under- 
 taken to describe, without pretending (from the nature of 
 the case an almost impossible thing) to produce all who 
 deserve mention. On the contrary, we can promise to 
 quote only a few, as we write from memory, and without 
 the means of extending our list. 
 
 To commence with two court poets of the age of 
 Charles II., when "the mob of gentlemen who write 
 with ease" first appeared. Denham, the fashionable 
 poet of his day, now ranks as such in the select col- 
 lections, mainly .on the strength of his Cooper's Hill. 
 Dorset, one of the most delightful and accomplished 
 characters of that court of wits and gallants, is best 
 known in poetical history by his ballad, said to have 
 been written at sea during the first Dutch war, 1665, the 
 night before the engagement. He has penned a couple of 
 delightful songs or so, but his poetical claims rest chiefly 
 on the ballad. Pomfrefs "Choice" stands quite alone; 
 the single popular poem of its author, an agreeable, plea- 
 sant piece of versification, presenting the ideal of a quiet, 
 comfortable, retired literary life. Swift's version of Ho- 
 race's lines is more Horatian, but less English. Cowley 
 and Norris, who both translated the philosophic picture of 
 Seneca, of a similar strain, are more philosophic and high 
 toned, but do not approach so closely the more equal cur- 
 rent of daily life. Leigh Hunt has praised Pomfret, and 
 somewhere, we think, directly imitated " Choice,^' addmg 
 to the verse a grace of his own. Dr. Johnson passed upon 
 him no more than a just eulogium. To the masculine mo- 
 ralist and the agreeable essayist we bow, in deference to 
 their united judgment. John Phillips is famous for his 
 
SINGLE-SPEECH POETS. 91 
 
 celebrated burlesque of Milton (the " Splendid Shilling"), 
 but we can recollect no other poem of his of anything like 
 equal merit. ParneJVs Hermit is his chef-d'oeuvre. Many 
 who know him as a poet, know nothing of his verses to his 
 wife, and one or two other short pieces, almost equally fine. 
 Blair^s " Grave" (the resting place of Mortality) has made 
 him immortal. Green's " Spleen," and Dyer's " Grongar 
 Hill," poems excellent in their different styles of manly 
 satire and picturesque description, are, we believe, the only 
 works of these authors that have escaped oblivion. As 
 writers of single poems, we may, by a forced construction, 
 "compel to come in" certain of the old Dramatists, and 
 though they do not properly rank under this head, we may 
 be glad to eke out our list by such delights of the Muses 
 as the noble Dirge in Webster's terrible tragedy, Shirley's 
 fine stanzas, and scattered songs, "fancies," and good- 
 nights, that occur in the rare old comedies and tragedies : 
 from Gammer Gurton's Needle, that can boast the first and 
 one of the best drinking songs in the language, down to, 
 and half through, the age of Elizabeth, the age of Mar- 
 low and his contemporaries, just previous to the golden era 
 of the Shaksperean drama. Many of the minor poets, 
 whether gay or religious, of the seventeenth century, have 
 left sparkling gems, such as the delicate flowers that blos- 
 som in the poetic gardens of Carew, Herrick, King, Vaugh- 
 an, Lovelace, &;c. We had written thus far, when we 
 met with Longfellow's Waif, a delicate and tasteful antho- 
 logy. But we think it might be vastly improved by such 
 an editor as the writer of the article on Henry Vaughan,* 
 who out of that poet has made extracts, finer than the poem 
 
 * Arcturus, vol. i . 
 
9^ LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow has selected, and has written about this 
 poet and his contemporaries in a charming manner, that 
 would have added much to the attraction of the little vo- 
 lume. The " Waif should have included a galaxy of 
 rare old poems : the later writers are sufficiently well 
 known. 
 
 Certain of the noble old prose writers, to be ranked, by 
 the production of one fine poem — if by no other claim — 
 by title of courtesy, among poets, ought not to be omitted, 
 as Bunyan, in the pithy, sententious lines prefixed to his 
 "Pilgrim;" Burton's fine versified abstract of his own 
 "Anatomy ;" and Waltoji's "Angler's Wish." These are 
 " rarely delicate," as Walton says of Marlow and Raleigh's 
 delicious verses, " better than the strong lines now in 
 voiijue in this critical aire." 
 
 In one department of verse, that of Hymns and the ver- 
 sified Psalms of David, some writers are classic from hav- 
 ing produced one or two admirable pieces of the kind ; in 
 this class come Addison, Pope, Young, Ken, Cowper, He- 
 ber, Wotton. 
 
 Many writers, of very considerable pretensions, have 
 succeeded in one long poem, but are not generally known 
 by any second production of equal value. Of this class 
 the best instances are Young, in his " Night Thoughts" — 
 hard reading, except in detached passages ; Akenside^s 
 " Pleasures of Imagination" (with all his pomp of philo- 
 sophic speculation and elaborate fancy, very heavy, for 
 these very reasons). All the Pleasures, by the way, of 
 Memory and Hope, beside, in these long general poems, are 
 far from pleasant reading ; ChurchiU, m liose local and tem- 
 porary satires are forgotten and give place to his " Ros- 
 ciad," a monument of his sense, acuteness, and happy 
 
SINGLE-SPEECH POETS. 93 
 
 satire — a gallery of theatrical portraits hit off with the 
 justness and vivacity of Pope, and forming a capital sup- 
 plement to CoUey Gibber's collection ; Allan Ramsay's 
 *' Gentle Shepherd," that Arcadian pastoral ; Garth, in his 
 " Dispensary," an author in whom the man and humorist 
 was more than a match for the poet ; So?nerville's " Chase," 
 pretty fair verse for a sporting country gentleman ; and 
 Armstrong's " Art of Preserving Health," a sensible essay 
 that might as well have been written in prose. The same 
 criticism may be applied to Garth and Somerville. 
 
 Among general readers the Hudihras of Butler is 
 eagerly perused by all who delight in the union of sense, 
 wit, and learning, all devoted to the cause and end of 
 wholesome satire ; yet the other sharp satires of the same 
 writer are, virtually, unknown. And the Seasons of 
 Thomson, by no means his best poem, is universally read, 
 while very few ever think of glancing at the delightful 
 " Castle of Indolence," of which he was both creator and 
 master. 
 
 Then again, certain fine poems are continually quoted, 
 not as the sole efforts, but as the masterpieces of their au- 
 thors, quite to the exclusion of any other works of theirs ; 
 the selection, for instance, of such fine poems as the Ode 
 to the Passions, and the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, 
 in works on elocution, with which every schoolboy is fami- 
 liar, has thrown the other equally fine pieces by the same 
 authors, comparatively into the shade. Shenstone's School- 
 mistress comes within the same category ; but after all, the 
 fame of the poet depends on it alone. The ballad of Jem- 
 my Dawson is not superior to many that have been con- 
 signed to obscurity ; while the Pastoral Ballad, with a 
 certain vein of tenderness, does not rank much above 
 
94 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Hammond's strain (once called the English Ovid), which 
 has been long since, and not unjustly, forgotten. 
 
 A delicate volume might be made up of single poems of 
 English and American poets of this century. In English 
 poetical literature, Mrs. Southey's Pauper's Death-Bed, 
 Noel's Pauper's Funeral, delicate verses of Darley, Mont- 
 gomery's Grave, &c., &c. 
 
 Our American Parnassus entertains many occupants, 
 who can prefer but a single claim (or two) for possession. 
 The following are all of the gems we can, at present, 
 recall. The famous song of R. T. Paine, entitled Adams 
 and Liberty, though its poetical value we forget, was the 
 best paid copy of verses ever printed here, and exceedingly 
 popular : the spirited '' Indian Burial Ground," of Fren- 
 peau, which Longfellow has lately recovered, and whence 
 Campbell borrowed a line or two (a common trick with 
 him) : Coke's Florence Vane, Neal's Birth of a Poet, 
 Wilde's My Life is like a Summer's Rose, Pierpont's 
 affecting lines on his dead child, Lindley Murray's charm- 
 ing verses to his wife, Pinckney's spirited and truly poeti- 
 cal songs, Aldrich's Death Bed, Field's Dirge on a young 
 girl, Woodworth's Old Oaken Bucket, Eastman's Farmer, 
 &LC. But our best fugitive poetry has been written by 
 prose writers. Irving's delicious lines, the Dull Lecture, 
 illustrating, or illustrated by (we know not which), a capi- 
 tal picture of Stuart Newton ; and his classic verses to 
 the Passaic River, as graceful and picturesque as that 
 winding stream. C. C. Moore has in a choice volume, 
 among other delicate verses, included three classic poems 
 sufficient to secure a place for their author on the same 
 shelf with Gray, Campbell, and Logan : the capital humor- 
 ous visit of St. Nicholas — with the verses to the Poet's 
 
SINGLE SPEECH POETS. 
 
 95 
 
 wife, and the lines to his children, accompanying their 
 father's portrait : verses worthy of Goldsnnith. A noble 
 poenn on Alaric, by Governor Everett ; sonrie fine versions 
 from the German, by the Hon. Alexander Everett ; three 
 or four admirable pieces by John Waters ; the two last 
 addressed to ladies, printed in the American newspaper, 
 some six or seven years ago. Nicholas Biddle wrote 
 some very agreeable jeux d'esprit and vers de societe. A 
 lively epistle of this kind aj^peared in the weekly New 
 Mirror last summer. A noble poem, " The Days of my 
 Youth and of my Age contrasted," by the Hon. St. Geo. 
 Tucker, of Virginia, has been going the rounds of the 
 papers for a year past. Can no printed book or magazine 
 show us more of the author ? We often ask ourselves 
 this question, with regard to many other authors, without 
 ever receiving a satisfactory answer. Very many such 
 we still remain in utter ignorance of, in common with the 
 reading public, and this fact must account for our omis- 
 sions. When we think of the stupid long poems, with 
 which the world has been deluged for years past, and recol- 
 lect how many exquisite brief pieces are lost merely by 
 their brevity, as a jewel is li dden in a pile of common 
 stones, we often wish that a critical police might be con- 
 tinually kept up, to pound all stray poetical cattle ; or, at 
 least, to advertise where they might be found. 
 
X 1 1 . 
 
 ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 
 
 The day of prefaces and courtly dedications is well nigh 
 past. The readers of the present generation are generally 
 in too great a hurry to penetrate the inner courts of the 
 Temple of Truth, or oftener of Pleasure, to linger long 
 about the sacred Porch, and are too apt to neglect the for- 
 mal compliments and elaborate address of the janitor, at 
 the gate. With a disregard and indifference (more espe- 
 cially with us Americans) to the amenities of social inter- 
 course, has also been introduced a carelessness on the 
 part of authors. Rarely we meet a conciliatory poem or 
 an affectionate salutatory ; still less frequently we en- 
 counter a critical introduction, or argument of the work. 
 Modern society laughs at the studied courtesies of the old 
 school of politeness ; and modern critics are equally in- 
 clined to ridicule the hyperbolical praises and scholastic 
 introductions of their literary forefathers. But let us dis- 
 criminate. At the same time, that the herd of authors 
 (not very different in the most unpleasant aspects, at -a^iy 
 one period from what they are at all others) ran riot in 
 extravagant adulations, and prolix, stupid and tiresome 
 self-eulogium, or worse yet, self-censure,- there were writ- 
 ers livinoj who have made the Preface and the Dedication 
 
ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 97 
 
 classical provinces of elegant composition ; whose skill in 
 spirited portrait and delicate flattery, in the last depart- 
 ment, and whose clear, acute and copious analogies and 
 illustration, in the first, have rendered them indispensable 
 appendages to the work, we are accustomed to regard as 
 standards in their class. 
 
 A preface may be regarded as having the same relation 
 to the work that follows, as the symphony bears to the 
 opera or oratorio ; a prologue to a play ; or when extend- 
 ed and explanatory, as an overture to an opera. It should 
 give the reader the ke3^-note to the book itself, and the 
 harmonies it is supposed to contain. Or else it should, in 
 a bird's-eye view, display the whole scope of the theme, 
 with all its bearings. It should rarely admit of an apolo- 
 getic tone, and never deprecate the honest severity of just 
 criticism. That is a bad book as well as a feeble charac- 
 ter, that hegs off from a close inspection. There should 
 be no petitio principii, no morbid modesty ; neither any 
 false fears, nor artful affectations. Its business is to speak 
 the truth, yet not necessarily the whole of the truth. 
 It is well to keep something in reserve ; to promise too 
 little rather than too much ; to know how to disappoint 
 one's friends the right way. 
 
 In the Dedication, the writer makes his bow and pre- 
 sents his compliments ; addressing a near friend, or heart's 
 idol (a great author or public character, who stands on 
 an elevation far above him, yet whom he cherishes with 
 an affectionate veneration); and, although the custom is 
 rapidly falling into disuse, it seems to us as disrespectful 
 to the reader for a writer to omit this piece of introductory 
 civility, as it would appear to any well-bred company for 
 a person to enter without saluting any member of it, and 
 
98 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 depart in the same graceless manner. A similar omission 
 in letters, of an epithet of attachment or regard, strikes'us 
 much in the same way, as if one stopped another in the 
 street, and fell at once into conversation with him, without 
 shaking of hands, a smile, an inquiry after the person's 
 health who is addressed, a passing good-morrow, or even a 
 civil nod. When a man wishes to assume a magisterial 
 air, to write in the imperative or minatory mood, he may 
 waive all forms of address. But between friends, it is 
 one of the indispensable bonds of connexion, and furnishes 
 one of the strongest ties (however slight it may appear) to 
 lasting attachment. 
 
 Not to trench further upon the confined limits to which 
 our lucubrations are restricted, we must make an end of 
 these prefatory remarks and come to the point. 
 
 In looking through the Index to the first series of the 
 Curiosities of Literature, we remarked a section on Pre- 
 faces ; and began to think we had chanced upon a topic 
 already exhausted by the learned research and ingenious 
 criticism of the elder D'Israeli. But a reference to the 
 paragraph in question speedily satisfied us how much more 
 had been left for subsequent essayists ; that the liberal an- 
 tiquary had by no means employed a tithe of his researches, 
 had merely indicated a point or two, leaving the multifari- 
 ous instances for future inquirers to accumulate and dis- 
 pose. Of what he has written, however (a page or two 
 only), we readily avail ourselves, for who has more justly 
 gained the title of the Literary Antiquary than D'Israeli, 
 and from whose books can our later critics gain a better 
 insight into many varieties of letters and the profession ot 
 authorship, than from the fragmentary note-books of the 
 same author ? 
 
ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 99 
 
 Prefaces, it appears, are no modern inventions. Cicero 
 is said to have kept a volume by him fitted for all sorts of 
 works ; a species of assorted common-places cast into the 
 form of an address. Prefaces then, as more lately, even 
 down to the time of Johnson, were written to order, by 
 authors who wrote only that part of the published book. 
 Some introductions, too, were and have been written which 
 might have answered equally well for any productions of a 
 similar cast. This is well-known of Sallust's introductory 
 paragraphs to his two histories. And, if we are not mis- 
 taken in the recollection. Clarendon's preface to his history 
 of the Rebellion might with slight alteration have answered 
 for a narrative of any popular revolution. Sir W. Raleigh's 
 preface might be prefixed to any universal history ; and 
 Hooker's, to any treatise on Ecclesiastical polity, so far as 
 the bearing of the introduction, on the work that follows, is 
 concerned. All of these are, in themselves, intrinsically 
 noble, but with little individuality or close connection with 
 the particular subject. 
 
 A friend reminds us that the same criticism may be ap- 
 plied to Voltaire's preface to his history of Charles XII. ; 
 we had forgotten this instance, but adopt it on the testimony 
 of a witness so likely to be correct. Many other examples, 
 we dare say, might be produced ; but a few are sufficient. 
 
 If we were to fix an era when prefaces might be said to 
 be emphatically in fashion in England, we should be 
 obliged to include a. couple of centuries at least ; from the 
 beginning of the reign of James t. to the end of the reign 
 of George III. We might commence nearly a century 
 earlier, but restrict ourselves within pretty well defined 
 limits. A book published at that period, whatever its cha- 
 racter or pretensions, without a preface of some description, 
 
100 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 or a dedication of some kind, might have been regarded as 
 an anomaly. With this necessary requisition, it was not 
 expected, however, that all prefaces and all dedications 
 should be cast into the same mould. It was enough, if the 
 usual form and style of the one, and the customary spirit 
 and length of the others, were observed. It is curious, 
 therefore, to remark the variety of styles, and the differ- 
 ence of manner. Flattery wore a number of elegant dis- 
 guises, from the magnificent hyperbole of Bacon to the 
 easy grace of Steele. Criticism was one thing in the hands 
 of the harmonious Dryden, and quite another thing in the 
 pages of the brilliant and sententious Pope. 
 
 Perhaps the finest preface in the language is Pope's 
 Preface to his Miscellanies, most of them written before 
 the age of twenty-five. And, for our own parts, we re- 
 gard the dedication of the Lover, by Steele, as the noblest 
 dedication we ever read. As the volume is very scarce, 
 we quote the entire epistle, as a master-piece of its kind : 
 
 " To Sir Samuel Garth, M.D. 
 
 " Sir : — As soon as I thought of making the Lover a 
 present to one of my friends, I resolved, without further 
 distracting my choice, to send it To the hest-natured Man. 
 You are so universally known for this character, that an 
 epistle so directed would find its way to you without your 
 name, and I believe nobody but you yourself would deliver 
 such a superscription to any other person. 
 
 " This propensity is the nearest akin to love ; and good 
 nature is the worthiest affection of the mind, as love is the 
 noblest passion of it ; while the latter is wholly employed 
 in endeavoring to make happy one single object, the other 
 diffuses its benevolence to all the world. 
 
ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 
 
 101 
 
 "As this is your natural bent, I cannot but congratulate 
 you on the singular felicity, that your profession is so 
 agreeable to your temper. For wiiat condition is more de- 
 sirable, than a constant impulse to relieve the distressed, 
 and a capacity to administer that relief? When the sick 
 man hangs his eye on that of Us physician, how pleasing must 
 it he to speak comfort to his anguish, to raise in him the first 
 motions of hope, to lead him into a persuasion that he shall 
 return to the company of his friends, the care of his family, 
 and all the blessings of being. 
 
 " The manner in which you practise this heavenly facul- 
 ty of aiding human life, is according to the liberality of 
 science, and demonstrates that your heart is more set upon 
 doing good than growing rich. 
 
 " The pitiful artifices which empirics are guilty of, to 
 draw cash out of valetudinarians, are the abhorrence of 
 your generous mind, and it is as common with Garth to sup- 
 ply indigent patients with money for food, as to receive it from 
 wealthy ones for j^hysic. How much more amiable, Sir, 
 would the generosity which is already applauded by all 
 who know you, appear to those whose gratitude you every 
 day refuse, if they knew that you resist their presents lest 
 you should supply those whose wants you know, by taking 
 from those with whose necessities you are unacquainted ? 
 
 " The families you frequent receive you as their friend 
 and well-wisher, whose concern, in their behalf, is as great 
 as that of those who are related to them by the ties of 
 blood, and the sanctions of affinity. This tenderness inter- 
 rupts the satisfactions of conversations, to which you are 
 so happily turned, but we forgive you that our mirth is often 
 insipid to you, while you sit absent to what passes ajnongst us, 
 from your care of such as languish in sickness. We are 
 
102 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 sensible their distresses, instead of being removed by corn- 
 pan;; , return more strongly to your imagination by compa- 
 rison of their condition to the jollities of health. 
 
 " But I forget I am writing a dedication ; and, in an ad- 
 dress of this kind, it is more usual to celebrate men's great 
 talents, than those virtues to which such talents should be 
 subservient ; yet, where the bent of a man's spirit is taken 
 up in the application of his whole force to serve the world 
 in his profession, it would be frivolous not to entertain him 
 rather with thanks for what he is, than applause for what 
 he is capable of being. Besides, Sir, there is no room for 
 saying anything to you, as you are a man of wit, and a 
 great poet ; all that can be spoken in the celebration of 
 such faculties has been incomparably said by yourself to 
 others, or by others to you. You have never been excelled 
 in this kind but by those who have written in praise of you : 
 I will not pretend to be your rival, even with such an ad- 
 vantage over you, but assuring you, in Mr. Codrington's* 
 words, that I do not know whether my admiration or love 
 is greater, 
 
 " I remain. Sir, your most faithful friend, and most 
 obliged Jiumble servant, 
 
 " Richard Steele." 
 
 If this be not writing from and to the heart, we know 
 not what is. This was one of those rare occasions where 
 both writer and patron have a generous spirit, and where 
 praise can be given without servility, and received without 
 loss of self-respect. 
 
 * Thou hast no faults, 01 I no f\iults can spy ; 
 Thou art all beauty, or all blindness I. 
 
 Codrington to Dr. Garth, before the Dispensary. 
 
ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 103 
 
 To return to the earliest writers of dedication in English 
 (we have forsaken regularity of method in the present 
 paper, but shall endeavor to regain it) ; Bacon's dedication 
 of the Advancement, to the King, is a piece of keen satire 
 and magnificent eulogium united, forming a composition of 
 wonderful ingenuity and eloquence. Dryden's dedications 
 are equally splendid and fulsome. We cannot help admir- 
 ing his rich musical style, and copious matter (a Field of 
 Cloth of Gold), but at the same time we lose all confidence 
 in the sincerity of a man who could address the most insipid 
 peer of the realm in the same glowing colors with which 
 he would depict the features of the prince of poets. His 
 critical prefaces are even finer yet, and may be justly 
 styled JEsthetical treatises. Mere prefaces, in a confined 
 sense, Dryden did not write, but rather rich, copious, cri- 
 tical essays. On his own premises, and with his artificial 
 education, Dryden reasoned vigorously, and illustrated his 
 views with beauty, and even splendor of ornament. He 
 has left on record the finest portraits of the Elizabethan 
 dramatists, Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher. 
 But Dryden is not without defects. He is tediously minute 
 in criticising his own dramatic pieces, and displays too 
 much of erudition on points of comparatively trifling im- 
 portance. 
 
 Steele's dedication to the Lover we have extracted. 
 The dedications of the volumes of the Tattler are hardly 
 less fine. They are much shorter, and less personal, but 
 graceful and natural. In the dedication of the first volume, 
 to Mr. Maynwaring, he thus admirably sets forth (what 
 should have been placed in a preface, for it relates to the 
 work itself, and not to its patron) the sum of his endea- 
 vors, and which might be assumed, with the greatest pro- 
 
104 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 priety, by every work of the kind : — " The general pur- 
 pose of this paper is to expose the false arts of life, to 
 pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and 
 to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our dis- 
 course, and our behavior." In the dedication to the second 
 volume, to Mr. Ed. Wortley Montague, he thus delicately 
 compliments his benevolent generosity : — " I know not 
 how to say a more affectionate thing to you, than to wish 
 that you may be always what you are ; and that you may 
 ever think, as I know you now do, that you have a much 
 larger fortune than you want." The third volume opens 
 with a perfect specimen of amenity and courteous elo- 
 quence. It is addressed to Lord Cowper, in Steele's pro- 
 per person, and includes a brilliant portrait of the great 
 statesman and forensic orator. The concluding volume 
 of the series is presented to Lord Halifax, the Mecsenas of 
 the day, to whom every author of eminence offered the 
 first fruits of his genius, and dedicated the choicest pro- 
 ductions of his maturer taste. He was the nobleman, am- 
 bitious of literary fame, who was " Fed with soft dedica- 
 tions all day long," by Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift (who 
 afterwards changed his tune, upon being neglected by 
 him), &c. 
 
 Addison's dedications have not so genial a tone as his 
 fellow-laborer's ; yet they are unquestionably impressed 
 with the habitual elegance of his style. He was fortu- 
 nate in his patrons, the first four volumes of the Spectator 
 being addressed to Somers, Halifax, Boyle, and Marl- 
 borough. 
 
 Pope's preface, we remarked, was, perhaps, the finest 
 in the language. It is curt, polished, full of sense, with a 
 dash of caustic irony and refined sentiment, curiously 
 
ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 105 
 
 blended, and written as with a pen of steel. The same 
 antithetical manner, precision of thought, and brilliancy 
 of expression, that made the epigrammatic verse of the 
 Wasp of Twit'nam prevail in his prose ; and in none of 
 his prose do they appear in such a vivid light as in the 
 preface to his Miscellaneous Works. 
 
 We can only refrain from transcribing passage after 
 passage by the apprehension of exceeding our prescribed 
 space, and by the reflection that, as the works of Pope are 
 so universally accessible, quotation' would only tend to 
 encourage indolence in the reader, who can turn to it 
 readily. 
 
 Mr. Chalmers speaks of Johnson's dedications as "models 
 of courtly address ;" they might have been such in the 
 reign of the dull Dutchman, George II., but now-a-days 
 they read a little too much like the pompous flourishes of 
 the ancient regime. Goldsmith's dedications are much 
 briefer, but more to the point, and more graceful. In an 
 introduction, despite of the triptology of his style, Johnson 
 was at home. And his style was admirably suitable to 
 occasions of moment and themes of weight and importance. 
 From the sonorous music of his best writing, we can 
 readily admit that Temple (as has been asserted) was one 
 of the models of Johnson's prose. In point and vigor, 
 Johnson was his superior, but he wants Temple's simplicity 
 and ease. Johnson used to say, there were two things he 
 knew he could do well — state what a work ought to con- 
 tain, and then relate the reasons or deduce the causes why 
 the writer had failed in executing what he proposed. The 
 first of these talents he possessed to perfection, as we see 
 by his prefaces, most of which were written to order, and 
 are often vastly superior to the book they introduced to the 
 
 VOL. II. 6 
 
106 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 reader. The preface to Rolt's Dictionary of Trade and 
 Commerce is a striking instance. Johnson had never seen 
 the book, but was asked to give a preface, which he wrote 
 accordingly. He said he knew what such a book ought 
 to contain, and marked out its expected contents. Accord- 
 ing to Chalmers, the production was almost worthless. 
 When a bookseller's drudge, the noble old moralist indited 
 many an introduction to books of travel and science, school 
 treatises, translations, catalogues. Only a few of these 
 have been preserved in the correct editions of his works. 
 
 Johnson possessed great faculties of method and classifi- 
 cation. He had clear and strong, though not fine and 
 subtle powers of analysis and classification. Hence re- 
 sulted this talent of telling what a book should contain. In 
 a preface it was not his business to go farther. But in his 
 lives and extended criticisms he was equally happy in as- 
 signing the causes of ill success and of certain failure, on 
 particular grounds. Goldsmith's prefaces were less rigor- 
 ous, less pointed, but more graceful and simply beautiful. 
 
 After the dissolution of the Johnsonian school of writers, 
 we read few classical prefaces save by pupils of the old 
 classical school. Irving is the last of these. Scott ex- 
 pended considerable pains on his introductions, and pro- 
 posed rewriting all of his prefaces to the Waverley novels, 
 just before his death. Much of Sir Walter's pleasantest 
 writing occurs in these rambling preludes to his animating 
 narratives. Bulwer's prefaces are distorted by the nar- 
 rowest egotism and unbounded assumption, yet they are 
 such as a man of his great talents alone would write. The 
 poets have written the best prose and the best prefaces, 
 too ; such are (wide apart to be sure) Hunt's lively gossip- 
 ing introductions, and Wordsworth's elevated lectures, for 
 
ON PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS. 107 
 
 such they amount to, on the dignity and nobleness of his 
 art. 
 
 We trust the day is coming when writers will return to 
 the composition of prefaces, if only to preserve an historical 
 interest in their works. Much of the interest of the old 
 prefaces is dei'ived from the names at the top and bottom 
 of the page, with the date of publication. Prefaces thus 
 afford authentic materials for literary history, and if care- 
 fully executed, for literary criticism. They preserve, too, 
 a regard for the good and well-tested standard forms of 
 writing, and in themselves require a species of talent that 
 should not be neglected. To declare his principal aims, 
 and explain his chief intentions, thereby giving the reader 
 a proper clue to the argument of the whole work, with a 
 candid and open avowal of deficiencies, is the proper busi- 
 ness of a preface, and of a writer of books. To address 
 his friend, or at least the reader, with cordiality or respect, 
 in accordance with the spirit of the production ; to bespeak 
 his favorable notice, or seek to avoid unmerited neglect, is 
 the province of the dedication. To accomplish these ends, 
 a recurrence to standard models cannot be hurtful, since 
 there is something of a formal, and, as it were, of artistical 
 etiquette in the matter, and which is not to be lost sight of. 
 The author, who is also a gentleman, and it is the effect of 
 letters to make him such, will certainly endeavor to carry 
 himself with as genteel an air on paper as in company. In 
 every place, he will observe the universal laws of polite 
 regard and the local observances of conventional decorum. 
 One of these is to write a preface to every book he pub- 
 lishes, which should also be accompanied by a dedication. 
 In the first, he addresses the public ; and in the last he 
 acknowledges the claims of private affection or personal 
 
108 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 gratitude, of admiration for talents or virtue in one of the 
 stars of contemporary renown, or of worth and excellence 
 in obscure genius and unobtrusive merit. The preface 
 pleads, apologizes, defends or attacks : the dedication con- 
 ciliates and compliments. Let an author be friendless and 
 humble, he still can appeal to the " gentle " reader for 
 sympathy and confidence. 
 
 To the lovers of literature, and especially of its curiosi- 
 ties and antiquities, and we hope among the readers of the 
 Miscellany to number many such, we dedicate this petit 
 morgeau of criticism and research. 
 
 Note. — The first paper of the first volume may serve for a gene- 
 ral preface to this collection : at least in default of a more elaborate 
 introduction. 
 
XITI 
 
 RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY 
 
 We believe Dr. Johnson was the first critic to complain 
 of tlie penury of English biography. It was a com- 
 plaint that savored more of hastiness and ignorance than 
 the Doctor's contemporary admirers would have been wil- 
 ling to allow any reviewer to discover in him, but still it 
 was such ; and now that every pretender to criticism 
 makes it a point to beard the rough but manly old dogma- 
 list, we may allow ourselves the privilege of picking an 
 additional flaw in his critical reputation (almost worn out 
 by repeated attacks). It is certain, for his undoubted 
 vigor and ability, no writer of eminence ever made so many 
 and such gross critical blunders as Doctor Johnson. 
 On real life and domestic morals ; the character and man- 
 ners of the Londoners ; the hypocrisies of men of the 
 world ; the thin-skinned sentimentalities of pretenders to 
 sentiment and criticism, he exhibited an acuteness of ob- 
 servation, a comprehensivncss of judgment, and pungency 
 of satire, that have never been surpassed. But in the field 
 of literary criticism, requiring finer tact and a nicer per- 
 ception, the grossness of his senses, no less than the obtusc- 
 ness of his taste, rendered him unfit, physically and intel- 
 lectually, to judge of poets and men of fancy. 
 
110 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 In the rich territory of old English literature, there is 
 not, perhaps, a more fruitful province than that of biogra- 
 phy, not only in the classic form of lives, but also memoirs, 
 diaries and autobiography. It is true the lives most gene- 
 rally read at present, were written either during the life- 
 time or since the death of Johnson ; as in the former period 
 the classic lives of Goldsmith and Johnson, and the me- 
 moirs of Cumberland, and from that period to the present 
 day, among heaps of wretched compilations, we must dis- 
 tinguish the first book of the kind in the world, Boswell's 
 Johnson, the learned autobiography of Gibbon, the simple 
 yet fascinating lives of Hume and Franklin, honest self- 
 painters ; the classic compendiums of Southey, the lives 
 of Burns by Currie and Lockhart, and the minor sketches 
 of Irving. The latest permanent work of this class, is the 
 Memoirs of Leigh Hunt. And yet by far the richest 
 treasures of English biography are to be found among the 
 antiquarian volumes of the old English library. The best 
 of these form a choice list ; classic to this day. There 
 are the lives, by Burnet, of Hale and Rochester ; the aus- 
 tere, incorruptible judge and pure citizen, and the lively, 
 volatile wit and libertine subsiding into a sober, earnest 
 Christian. Walton's lives are too well known to dilate 
 upon the heroes of them at present, yet what a noble com- 
 pany of poets, divines and Christian gentlemen form the 
 subjects of his volumes ; Hooker, and Wotton, and Donne, 
 and Herbert, and Sanderson. Zouch's life of Walton 
 himself is fit to be included as the humble companion of 
 these. Then we have North's life of Lord Guilford, full 
 of lively personal strokes and characters of the great law- 
 yers of the time of Charles II. and James II. Fenton's 
 lives of Milton and Waller — Fell's Hammond, the Fene- 
 
RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. Ill 
 
 Ion of the royalist divines, and favorite chaplain of Charles 
 I., sharing his imprisonment and dangers. Among the 
 latest of the older lives, Doddridge's Life of Colonel Gar- 
 diner, of which we shall say more before we conclude. 
 
 The French have the reputation of being the best me- 
 moir writers in the world, yet their most courtly wits have 
 not surpassed Grammont (himself a Frenchman), in his 
 pictures of the royal licentiousness of the age of Charles 
 II., and, on the spot, Pepys and Evelyn. The memoirs of 
 Colonel Hutchinson by his wife, and of Venetia Digby, 
 the beauty of her day, and the popular toast, despite her 
 doubtful reputation, by the quaint fantast Sir Kenelm Dig. 
 by, are at least a fair match for Bassompiere and Roche- 
 foucauld. And then, as repositories of facts and personal 
 circumstances nowhere else to be learned, we have the 
 elaborate histories of Wood and Fuller, Spence's and Au- 
 brey's anecdotes, and the letter writers, from old Howell 
 himself to Pope and his friends. If such a list looks like 
 " penury," we should like to learn the comparative scale 
 by which " wealth" is to be adjudged. 
 
 A fair proportion of the old lives are those of good 
 Christians without pretence, and fine scholars without pre- 
 sumption. Most of them, too, have an additional value as 
 models for conduct : Rochester and Gardiner being the 
 sole instances of " men that need repentance," and they 
 both converted in the heyday of the vicious career in which 
 they were embarked. 
 
 So much by way of preface — a long introduction to a 
 brief article. We have selected this topic to point out the 
 prevalent defects, in almost every work of the kind ; de- 
 fects, too, springing from the best of motives, and more 
 easily discovered than corrected. In the best of the old 
 
112 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 lives we find this ever-recurring defect : a desire to paint 
 in the hero of biography, a perfect man ; a tendency to ex- 
 aggerate individual and particular merits, by the force of 
 contrast with inferior traits in much inferior characters. 
 The writers of lives, in all times, liave been too sparing of 
 the shade in their portraits. A profusion of light falling 
 upon the admirable virtues, allows no room for the exhibi- 
 tion of defects. Every trait is heightened ; every charac- 
 teristic marked with an emphasis, seldom found in nature. 
 The subjects of biography, like the heroes of novels, are 
 too often, 
 
 *' Faultless monsters whom the world ne'er saw." 
 
 This disgusts the thoughtful reader, whether young or 
 old J for the youthful student soon finds these pictures dis- 
 proved in real life, and the sage knows their unreality 
 while he is perusing the page. In the older lives, in all 
 of those to which we have referred, a saving clause may 
 be inserted, that the subjects of the writers were all of them 
 men of tliat eminence that either extravagant praise or ex- 
 cessive censure soon corrected itself. For one would re- 
 port differently of their lives and actions from another, and 
 hence a balance might easily be struck between them. 
 And besides, in extenuation, we may ofter the best apology 
 for the biographer, that his hero was often a character so 
 fascinating, viewed as a whole, that it was very excusable 
 to overlook minor errors and petty defects. All of Wal- 
 ton's characters, for instance, inevitably seduce a writer 
 into encomium, when he should bo writing impartially ; 
 and it is pleasanter, as well as easier, to pen an eulogy 
 rather than a life. This was the fault that Johnson ac- 
 
RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. 113 
 
 cuses Sprat of falling into,* and a fault more glaring in 
 Mrs. Hutchinson's book than in most of the old lives, and 
 less justifiable, since she wrote the history of her time, as 
 well as the life of her husband. 
 
 Doddridge's Life of Colonel Gardiner is a singular spe- 
 cimen of this class of books, of an inferior literary value, 
 compared with the rest, but still excellent. As an exam- 
 ple of its class, we will give the reader a summary digest 
 of its contents. The author, a nonconformist divine of 
 considerable reputation, became in the career of his min- 
 istry professionally acquainted and intimately connected 
 with the subject of his narrative, who was a royalist officer, 
 a colonel of dragoons. Gardiner revealed to him from 
 time to time the most eventful passages of his life, over 
 which hung, in his devout imagination, a mystical halo, 
 radiant with celestial beauty. He was born at a remark- 
 able period, 1688, the year of the English Revolution, and 
 expired, at a no less stirring time, on the battle field at 
 Preston Pans, when the partisans of the house of Stuart 
 " were out" for the second time, in '45. 
 
 This distinguished officer and Christian was the son of 
 an officer of good family, who fought the battles of his 
 country on the continent, during the reign of William 
 III., and of Anne, after him, and in which Marlborough 
 was the presiding military genius of Great Britain. A 
 military school, with Marlborough and Eugene at its head, 
 could not fail of turning out able commanders ; and of 
 these Gardiner was one of the chief. Brave, to a daring 
 rashness, he had all the splendid qualities, and but too 
 many of the striking vices, of the soldier. Like the ma- 
 
 * Life of Cowley. 
 G* 
 
114 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 jority of celebrated men, who have evinced in later life 
 the influence of early education, Gardiner was fortunate in 
 having a most estimable mother, to whose guidance and 
 example he was wont to attribute the uncorrupted parts of 
 his character and temper. Yet ill company, and that of 
 a military cast, was allowed at one period to master the 
 original good qualities of his nature, and taint the purity 
 of his soul with the tarnish of vice. He early fell into 
 gross living, swore dreadfully, cherished a malignant spirit 
 of revenge — (before the age of twenty-one he had fought 
 iliree duels) — and exhibited even a ferocity, that became 
 sobered down into manly valor and Christian resolution ; 
 so much so, that in middle life he used to say, " I fear sin- 
 ning more than fighting !" In every engagement he 
 gained applause for skill, no less than courage, since he 
 scientifically practised his profession. 
 
 Though often remonstrated with, and even sometimes 
 alarming by his horrid imprecations the better portion of 
 his comrades, he still went on in his evil ways, until the 
 occurrence of what he speaks of as a vision from heaven, 
 and would have regarded as a miracle. To fill up the 
 interval, it seems, one morning, previous to the hour ap- 
 pointed for meeting certain of his associates at a dinner 
 party, he took up one of the religious works with a quaint 
 title, published at the era of the Protectorate, when the 
 Puritans were in fashion and in power. He read to ridi- 
 cule, but was suddenly overpowered by a conviction, aw- 
 fully indescribable, of his wickedness, which threw him 
 into a sort of vision or trance, during which he imagined, 
 as we construe the declaration, that he saw a living repre- 
 sentation of his crucified Master, and heard the divine 
 voice, in tones of entreaty and to this purport, " Have I not 
 
RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. 115 
 
 suffered this for thee ?" The dream, the fancied vision, or 
 what you will call it, struck him with profound dismay, 
 and awakened his soul to the consideration of its state. 
 
 From this period he was another man : strictly pious, 
 regular in every habit, loving solitude and religious con- 
 versation and prayer. He became a disciplinarian of the 
 noblest sort, the moral teacher as well as commander of 
 his men. He now was used to recount the wonderful 
 providences (so he termed them) of his life, of his extra- 
 ordinary escapes, of being wounded in the mouth just after 
 uttering a horrid oath, a punishment closely consequent on 
 his offence : of striking personal deliverance from immi- 
 nent dangers. A good man and true Christian hero, after 
 Steele's model, a saint militant, he yet was not without a 
 besetting defect — and that was the excitability of his reli- 
 gious imagination. He dreamed a dream of following 
 across the part of a field his Lord and Saviour : he made 
 a prediction of the death of the king, which turned out cor- 
 rect. Everything with him was miraculous, and a little 
 heightened by (unconscious) extravagance. No doubt he 
 was sincere : the only question is, if he was not a self, 
 deceiver. A sudden conversion, an opportune deliverance, 
 is sufficient to turn the head of the wisest man. We think 
 that, like Donne's extraordinary vision of his wife and dear 
 child, his vision was the waking dream of an imaginative 
 mind. 
 
 Whether imagination or reality presided on these occa- 
 sions, still he remained consistent and firm : unlike Volney 
 and those cowardly blasphemers, who take back in a mo- 
 ment of security what they uttered in the hour of danger. 
 Ever these circumstances remained before him, a cloud 
 by day and a pillar of fire by night, to guide his faltering 
 
116 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 steps. A lofty confidence elevated the hopes and daily 
 walk of the happy man, who considered himself blessed in 
 beholding the countenance of his Saviour and friend. 
 
 With the mass, the love for the miraculous, for prophe- 
 cy, for mysteries, is more a false state, a mere religious 
 stimulant, and not the healthy action of a vigorous soul. 
 But it was not so with him. 
 
 Gardiner died the death of a soldier and a Christian, on 
 the field of battle, and in the arms of victory, an officer of 
 the generous strain of Gustavus Adolphus, and like that 
 lion of the North, high-toned, exact, judicious, and sin- 
 cere, he fought the good fight of faith, and left behind him 
 a sweet remembrance in the hearts of all, as a brave and 
 accomplished officer, a steadfast Christian, a good man, 
 and a courteous gentleman — Requiescat in pace. 
 
 To return to the general subject : for modern religious 
 biography, we entertain no great favor. The writers of it 
 are in most cases ill-fitted for their task, and indeed quite 
 unpractised in composition. Southey's Wesley (a philo- 
 sophical history of Methodism) and Heber's life of Taylor 
 are the only two classic works in this department, of the 
 nineteenth century, we can, at present, recall. The lives 
 of most missionaries are more interesting for the statistical 
 information they contain than for aught else. Missionaries 
 should be good travel writers, yet we find only a single 
 Borrow among them. The subjects of religious biography 
 are in most cases good enough people, but quite unworthy 
 of being embalmed for the admiration of posterity. The 
 embalming is thrown away, for they never reach posterity. 
 An eminently great and good man, an exemplar of faith 
 and charity, should never be allowed to pass out of the 
 memories of men, cannot be forgotten ; he will live in 
 
RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. 117 
 
 tradition, if not in printed books. But many good, humble 
 Christians die daily, whom it is by no means essential to 
 write the lives of; whom it rather hurts the interests of 
 religion, and certainly of literature (considered purely as 
 such) to make unduly prominent. The facts of their lives 
 are few ; they have done little to affect the rest of man- 
 kind ; their greatest victories (silent and obscure) have 
 been over themselves (the noblest of victories), and their 
 profoundest discoveries have been of the wickedness of 
 their own hearts. These facts, to the individual of all 
 others the most important, still have little interest for the 
 world at large. The story of the Christian's life is told 
 in two words, Repentance and Love. Now, unless striking 
 instances occur, or curious details are presented, a reli- 
 gious life, of all others, presents very little to interest even 
 the most sympathizing (intelligent) reader. 
 
 The injury done to literature by a flood of religious 
 lives is clear: standard works of the highest character 
 are neglected for a new biography of the least value ; 
 corruptions of style become frequent, and essentially im- 
 pair the idiomatic graces of our tongue. Inferior models 
 of excellence are held up, to the exclusion of the most 
 excellent ; cant is prevalent ; at first unconscious, it be- 
 comes at last confirmed and hypocritical. 
 
 Let no serious reader think we underrate the humblest 
 virtues of the patient Christian. We reverence piety in 
 the garb of the beggar ; we believe it to add a crowning 
 glory to the wisest head. Yet we protest against an indis- 
 criminate record of the private lives of Christians, who 
 have not some other claim on the universal attention of 
 mankind. Want of literature is not, however, the only 
 want of many, both of the subjects and authors, of reli- 
 
118 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 gious lives ; many have wanted real humility, many have 
 in a secret self-praise elevated themselves above the rest 
 of mankind, and thought a publication of their conversion 
 and religious experience, necessary for the salvation of 
 the world. With such we can pretend to have no pa- 
 tience, since we believe that they are self-deluded after all, 
 and rather to be pitied than admired. 
 
 The sincere Christian need not fear oblivion. Unknown 
 to men, he is not forgotten by his heavenly Father ; and if 
 his life is not told in the perishable books of human au- 
 thors, his name is nevertheless registered in the Book of 
 Life. 
 
XIV. 
 
 TITLES 
 
 We Americans have been ridiculed for our extravagant 
 admiration of titles, with more of justice than most of us 
 are at all willing to allow. Notwithstanding our republi- 
 can spirit, in government and political rights, we still, as a 
 nation, entertain a vast respect for forms, ceremonies, 
 honors, grave respects. 
 
 The most laughable part of the matter, too, is found in 
 the fact, that a people characteristically pacific, both from 
 inclination and policy, should affect such a violent attach- 
 ment for military titles, with all the pomp and insignia of 
 war. Every petty mechanic may become, and often is, a 
 captain or major. Your host at the tavern is colonel : the 
 blacksmith of the village, perhaps a general — sometimes a 
 Greene. The persons holding these offices are frequently 
 among the mildest of men, probably so timid as to run, in 
 actual conflict, at the report of artillery. Our city and 
 country militia would hardly stand before a disciplined 
 army — save and excepting always, in a defensive national 
 war, and then cowards would be converted into heroes. 
 We do not speak of such an emergency, but refer to the 
 soldierly character of our people. A mere soldier of for- 
 tune fights equally well, or ill, everywhere, under every 
 
120 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 government ; but Americans are soldiers from necessity, 
 and at home. There they would act like brave men, as 
 they always have done. 
 
 English writers have noticed this mock heroic trait in 
 our people ; but they have not remarked that the admira- 
 tion for titles is as common in the line of civil as of mili- 
 tary life. We are equally open to satire on that side, also. 
 A judge of a county court is with us a great man ; and, 
 indeed, a judgeship is generally the mark of a country 
 gentleman's ambition. One of our Presidents, after filling 
 the highest office, became the justice of one of the Virginia 
 county courts. We trust the justices, at the present day, 
 in our land, are quite unlike the fox-hunting squires of 
 Fielding's time, illiterate and coarse-minded. That race 
 is well nigh extinct; we have known judges of the most 
 opposite character to this ;* yet we fear a spice of the old 
 leaven remains, in the shape of a bullying, cowardly, 
 tyrannical, fawning servitor of the law. 
 
 What a luminary is an honorable Senator ! Individually, 
 in remote places, he merges the reputation of an entire dis- 
 trict in his own person. We once knew a specimen of this 
 race, who came nearer to our idea of an universal genius 
 (according to the received idea of that character) than any- 
 one we ever met. This Crichton was, a few years ago, 
 and bearing all these blushing honors, at one and the same 
 time, Major- General and State Senator, a speculative and 
 thriving practical farmer and gardener, an expert mechanic, 
 
 *One noble instance we could point to, if it did not appear boast- 
 ful, of a just judge and most able lawyer combined : who might have 
 sat on the same bench with a Hale or a Holt, and who would have 
 reflected as much honor as he gained from the association. Such 
 men are most rare. 
 
TITLES. 121 
 
 a man of the world, a lively talker, a capital mimic, and 
 parlor vocalist. He was, to conclude, a pleasant and hos- 
 pitable host, and a kind neighbor, to boot. To be sure, he 
 was no scholar, could hardly write an ordinary letter, nor 
 speak for five minutes, with precision, on any political 
 question. Of law he knew almost nothing, though a mem- 
 ber of the Court of Errors (a common case) and of political 
 philosophy he knew less. How, then, did he arrive at such 
 distinction — what gifts had he ? a bright eye, a good voice, 
 a pleasant address. He was, and is, a shrewd fellow, a 
 good lobby member, and, as a partizan, it was neck or 
 nothing with him. Safely do we sketch this portrait — for 
 not only is the original quite unknown to the public, but 
 with his innate vanity it will remain as unknown to, and 
 unrecognized by, himself; and besides, in most particulars, 
 the character is not that of an individual so much as of a 
 very large class, whose name is legion : not the Legion of 
 Honor. 
 
 The thirst for office and titular distinctions is not, how- 
 ever, confined to the country. At a charter election, what 
 a rivalry for the petty offices of the wards. Irving, in his 
 satire on the Dutch burgomaster and schepens, has painted 
 with exact fidelity, our contemporary aldermen and their as- 
 sistants. These are the smallest in general of our little great 
 men. What a turkey-cock is a true alderman of this class ! 
 not the official performing his regular duties, and carefully 
 watching the interests and comfort of his ward, but the 
 mere beef-eater, the pursy, swelling, pompous ignoramus. 
 Elected by those who have some design upon his pockets, 
 or at least his patronage ; consorting with his kind, and 
 thinking with them, he has nothing to do but to eat rich 
 dinners (at the almshouse for sick and 'poor) and talk in an 
 
122 LITEEARY STUDIES. 
 
 imperative style, the autocrat of the side-walks, of the 
 church where he attends, for a comfortable nap of a sum- 
 mer's afternoon, of the tradesmen he deigns to employ, and 
 of the barber's shop, where he is first shaved in the morn- 
 ing, and reads all the papers through, keeping a shop full 
 waiting, while he toils through the advertisements. The 
 terror of beggars and of petty criminals, hard-hearted, a 
 usurer, a rigorous landlord, without any bowels of mercy. 
 
 And the constable — what a hateful retailer of so-called 
 justice, the most farcical burlesque upon the primal virtue 
 existing, were he not one of the most contemptible speci- 
 mens of cunning, treachery, corruption and insolence. 
 We speak of the class. He is better styled (as in Swift 
 and Rabelais) the catchpole (would he might be served 
 like the shrewd gentleman in the latter author), and his 
 office ranks the very lowest in point of social morality, and 
 in the political scale. He is the companion of the vilest : 
 often one of the number, temporarily reprieved as a sort of 
 state's evidence : having to assume an air of honesty, or to 
 connive at profitable roguery, as may be most expedient or 
 most profitable. The police increase crime, by fostering 
 the early indications of depravity ; by suspicion, that often 
 verifies its own prophecy ; and by the rigorous punishment 
 of small otlbnces, always productive of ill etiects, and only 
 tending to stimulate the taste lor crime, and exciting a 
 spirit of revenge. They live by it, and keep up the de- 
 mand for their services, like the rat-catcher in one of Han- 
 nah IMore's tales, who left, at every house where he took 
 any of those vermin, at least one pair, to preserve the 
 race. 
 
 We forgot — when we spoke of the policemen as holding 
 the lowest office : there is one still viler, yet more sublime 
 
TITLES. 123 
 
 in its hatefulness, its ugliness — one, no honest, no humane, 
 no Christian man, can hold : one, that in some countries is 
 so prescribed (odious in all), that the executioner is oblijjed 
 to flee when he has executed his office ; and in Switzer- 
 land, so disgraceful is it esteemed, that it is forced, heredi- 
 tarily, on one family, who are outlawed, in effect, if not 
 in fact : an office that public opinion, in our country, justly 
 revolts at from its connexion with the most frightful of all 
 punishments : the office of the Hangman. 
 
 To leave such reflections as these, which are somewhat 
 out of place here in a gossiping way, a strong objection to 
 the employment of titles is tiie very inadequate character 
 they bear. The Right Honorable gentleman may be, and 
 often ought to be, called, a most dishonorable traitor. 
 The Reverend brother is not always deserving of reverence, 
 nor the learned advocate always a model of legal attain- 
 ments. These titles and epithets arc, for the most part, 
 unmeaning, and often savor of downright irony. By a 
 title is often implied much more than is actually meant ; 
 and like the bishop's lawn, the marshal's truncheon, and 
 the judge's ermine, are considered the correlatives of 
 piety, courage, and incorruptible integrity. Yet they 
 aflbrd, in general, merely the substitutes for those qualities. 
 Titles are worshipped by " the great vulgar and the small," 
 who are in the habit of taking the name for the thing. 
 To carry any weight with it, a title should infer some par- 
 ticular merit, as the valor of a hero, or the wisdom of a 
 counsellor. It should have the effect of a judicious epi- 
 thet : sometimes a sublime description, as in the list of 
 titles of the Saviour of mankind. It should serve as a 
 designation. But what mean the titles of courts ? The 
 " Grace," for instance, of a duke, or an archbishop ; or 
 
124 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 the " Serenity " of a petty German prince. TJiey can be 
 borne by good and bad men, indiscriminately. The true 
 title must be earned ; the reward of merit is worthless, 
 conferred as an act of favor. Artificial rank can be cre- 
 ated. Nature only can form the true noblemen. Kings, 
 we are told, can make or unmake, princes or lords, who 
 may flourish or may fade ; 
 
 " But a bold peasantry, their country's pride. 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 
 
 Or, as Burns nobly sings : — 
 
 " A prince can mak' a belted knight, 
 A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
 But an honest man 's aboon his might, 
 Gude faith, he maunna fa' that." 
 
 The noblest of titles, gentleman, not the artificial desig- 
 nation, but the highest perfection of the manly character, 
 cannot be created by letters patent. He must be born 
 one, with a clear head, a warm heart, a noble will, and a 
 gentle soul, invincible by fortune or circumstance. Thus 
 averse, among his other genuine traits of manhood, is the 
 true gentleman to all titular distinctions ; whose character 
 Dekkar has finely drawn in a passage descriptive of the 
 perfect character of the Divine word. 
 
 The first of men that e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer, 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit. 
 The first true gentleman that ever lived. 
 
 The gentleman and the Christian knight are here one, 
 as they always should be, united in the same character. 
 Yet how unlike the ordinary notion of a spirited, showy 
 
TITLES. 125 
 
 gallant, or overbearing aristocrat. Man, simply, is a 
 sufficiently lofty title : a true man is the first of created 
 beings. One of Shakspeare's characters nobly says : — 
 
 " I tell thee, sirrah, I write man, to which title no age 
 can bring thee." Neither, we may add, can any amount 
 of wealth, degree of power, extent of ability, or elevation 
 of office, if the heart and soul be wanting. 
 
 The admiration of titles is something childish, and per- 
 taining to a state of barbarism. The names and singular 
 appellations borne by our native Indians, as well as by the 
 savage tribes of other countries, illustrate this position, 
 and are more worthy of attention, from their real meaning, 
 than the family crests of civilized nations, at the present 
 day, with all the trumpery of the Heralds' College. 
 
 The facility of obtaining certain titles, from literary in- 
 stitutions, and the ordinary academic degrees, has taken off 
 the edge of novelty, and rendered them very common- 
 place dignities. You find as many doctors of divinity as 
 of medicine, and masters of arts abound almost as much as 
 simple bachelors. In most instances, the titles are 
 sadly misapplied. The teachers are learners, and the 
 masters mere tyros. Almost as great a farce as college 
 degrees — we speak it sub rosa — are the degrees of ma- 
 sonry, the sublime degree of this, and the incomprehensi- 
 ble degree of that. Nowadays, it does read absurdly, to 
 be sure, in a Masonic Register, the names of honest, plain 
 mechanics, as High-Priests, Grand Kings, Scribes and So- 
 journers — Sir John Johnson of such an encampment. Right 
 Worshipful of such a chapter, &c. One respectable sex- 
 ton we find a High Priest, and the same office sustained 
 by a noted political ballad singer. Speculative masonry, 
 a benevolent and prudential system, in its origin, fitly and 
 
126 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 impressively exhibited by figures and symbols, affords, ab- 
 stractedly and in practice, a wise and striking commentary 
 on the Christian morality. But the multitude of signs, 
 and the grave burlesque of (the reported) ceremonies, no 
 less than the number, names and functions of several of 
 the otHcers, have a tendency to degrade into ridicule what 
 was most praiseworthy in its first intention. 
 
 The violent contrast between the ordinary civil occupa- 
 tions, and the elevated titles of the Masonic Dignitaries, 
 is the cause of the comic elfect produced on hearing 
 them recited. It is like making Sancho governor of Bara- 
 taria, or dubbing poor Saltonstall Duke of Rigmarole. 
 We are apt to look upon many titles as mere nicknames, 
 intended by way of satirical jest upon pretension and affec- 
 tation : often a serious joke, im})erceptible to the party 
 most concerned in extinguishing it. To modern sceptics, 
 the highliown style of addressing certain of the scholastic 
 doctors was of this nature ; they were uniformly irrefrag- 
 able, sublime, invincible, celestial. 
 
 From a couple of papers in D'Israeli's collection of 
 curiosities, we glean a few facts relative to the origin of 
 certain Royal titles. " Illustrious " was never given save 
 to those who merited the epithet, until the time of Con- 
 stantine. The salutation *''Your Grace" was the first 
 form of salutation. "Your Highness" came next into 
 vogue. Henry VIII. is said to have been the first mon- 
 arch who assumed it. The title " Majesty '"* was accorded 
 (for the first time) by Francis I., to the same sovereign, 
 
 • The reader will remember the bitter and sharp truth conveyed 
 in the word Majesty, that, stript of its externals, it was but a Jest. 
 Truly sang the old master : — " The shows of things are greater than 
 themselves.*' 
 
TITLES. 
 
 127 
 
 in their celebrated interview on the Field of the Cloth of 
 Gold, Selden thought a king of England should be styled 
 Emperor. 
 
 Our own countrymen are not the only people who are 
 apt to be captivated by " the glory of a name." We have 
 no orders of nobility [the Governor and Lieut-Governor 
 of Massachusetts are the only public functionaries, in 
 this country, provided hy law, with titles of Honor], and 
 ought to be free from any charge of man-worship : hero- 
 worship is another thing, and, always existing, should 
 be perpetually cherished, in every community. The 
 Spaniards formerly, and the Germans of the present day, 
 are the nations most notorious for titled orders. We knew 
 a German barber, in this city, who held his credentials 
 and patent of Baron. French Count is almost a synonyme 
 for unprincipled adventurer. The English entertain a 
 deep and instinctive respect for their nobility. The Spanish 
 Don is the proudest gentleman in Europe. 
 
 These Spaniards, at one period during the glorious epoch 
 of their history, from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella 
 to the conclusion of that of Philip III., accumulated titles 
 and modes of address, with points of etiquette and prece- 
 dence, to such an extent, as to make it necessary to pub- 
 lish, in a volume, the indispensable forms. The king of 
 Spain, at that time, claimed as many titles as the Grand 
 Seignor, whose address fills several pages. The natural 
 stateliness of the Castilian would allow of no remission of 
 dignity. He had, then, rather be robbed by a courteous 
 footpad, who approached him with "all the honors" of the 
 road, than be substantially aided by a rude despiser of 
 ceremonies. Conversations must have been then less an 
 interchange of sentiment or repartee than an elaborate 
 
128 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 contest of external civilities. Incidentally, the chivalric 
 soldier or bold navigator caught this passion for pomp and 
 magnificence, from oriental discovery and conquest or 
 colonization ; but an original basis was to be found in the 
 national character, which was attracted by the noble, the 
 splendid, and the grand : and which contained the ele- 
 ments of all these. 
 
 At this present epoch, the Germans appear to be the 
 most smitten with a love of titles. It is, indeed, a passion. 
 The great nation, which has produced the greatest literary 
 artists of this century, the profoundest inquirers, the most 
 learned scholars, still cherishes the baubles of office, and 
 is pleased with the decoration of a ribbon or a medal. The 
 most knowing have their foibles : there are " follies of the 
 wise." The various classes of German titles are endless, 
 and are not less remarkable than their singularity and 
 application. There are titles of rank and of office — Rath, 
 or Counsellor, is the commonest of these; and of this there 
 are several grades. Of schoolmasters, there are many 
 ranks — Rector, Sub-rector, Primus, Secundus, Tertius, 
 Quartus, Quintus, &;c., &;c., &c. The Professor is ordi- 
 narius and extra-ordinarius. Most of them are extraordi- 
 nary enough, in all conscience. They profess every 
 imaginable department of learning, even to Carlyle's and 
 Jean Paul's Professors of Things in General. These 
 Germans, too, even confer on the wife the husband's title, 
 as Mrs. Court Counsellor, and the like. Goethe's mother, 
 we learn from Bettine, was always styled Frau-Rath. 
 
 Even one bearing no distinct title is always styled as 
 Mr., in every instance — not as we employ the term, but 
 Mr. Carpenter, Blacksmith, or Grocer, as the case may be. 
 The Chinese are, perhaps, beyond all nations in their pas- 
 
TITLES. 129 
 
 sion for honors, but we have not been able to gain any par- 
 ticular details, from the general descriptions. The num- 
 ber of mandarins is said to be immense, and their authority 
 with tlie people almost unbounded. 
 
 To turn to the philosophy of our subject, and leave curious 
 facts. Modern titles, or rather modern aristocracy, a relic 
 of feudalism, arose out of a military aristocracy. Origin- 
 ally, they were the natural offspring of despotism and con- 
 quest. They were intended to dazzle only to enslave, or 
 to quote the gist of the whole matter, as it is admirably 
 summed up in the Rights of Man (Vol. II., p. 86). The 
 writer has been dilating upon the law of primogeniture, 
 and thus proceeds to describe the character of the aristo- 
 cracy growing out of it. The passage is remarkable for 
 condensed thought and terse expression. " The nature 
 and character of aristocracy shows itself to us in this law. 
 It is a law against every law of nature, and nature herself 
 calls for its destruction. Establish family justice, and 
 aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogeni- 
 ture, in a family of six, five are exposed. Aristocracy 
 never has hut one child. The rest are begotten to be de- 
 voured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and 
 the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast. As 
 everything which is out of nature in man affects, more or 
 less, the interest of society, so does this. All the children 
 which the aristocracy disowns [which are all except the 
 oldest], are, in general, cast like orphans on a parish, to 
 be provided for by the public, but at a greater charge. 
 Unnecessary offices and places in governments and courts 
 are created at the expense of the public to maintain them. 
 With what kind of parental reflections can the father or 
 mother contemplate their younger offspring ? By nature 
 
 VOL. II. 7 
 
130 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 they are children, and by marriage they are heirs; but 
 by aristocracy they are bastards and orphans. They are 
 the flesh and blood of their parents in one line, and akin to 
 them in the other. To restore, therefore, parents to their 
 children, and children to their parents, relations to each 
 other, and man to society, and to exterminate the monster 
 aristocracy, root ana branch, the French constitution has 
 destroyed the line of primogeniture. Here, then, lies the 
 monster, and Mr. Burke, if he pleases, may write its 
 epitaph." 
 
 Yet arbitrary and intolerant as Aristocracy is too apt 
 to be and has generally been found — too often an over- 
 bearing despotism, still we, sometimes, in our visions of 
 the future, imagine a possible Aristocracy, composed 
 purely of the wisest and most virtuous, those intended by 
 Nature and Nature's God to direct their fellows and ani* 
 mate their generous aspirations into manly action. This 
 is, however, a state to be lioped for rather than expected 
 with confidence. The Aristocracy of the present is too 
 much the creature of circumstance to deserve our regard. 
 It is not a self-dependent, bold and intelligent rule. It 
 looks here at wealth, and inquires not if a man is worthy, 
 but hoio much he is worth. The best men are they who 
 are good for the greatest amount. Their maxim is, " wealth 
 makes the man, the loant of it, the fellow." If the aris- 
 tocracy of birth be considered, it looks not to the excellent 
 qualities of a man's own parents or immediate family (as 
 an ordinary thing), it rather investigates the antiquity of 
 his house (the character of his immediate predecessors 
 does not avail so much), and the long line of descent from 
 a famous original. Its glory is retrospective and tradi- 
 tional ; and noble as that may be as an incentive to indi- 
 
TITLES. 131 
 
 vidual performance, it can notwithstanding never claim the 
 force of a substitute for them. True democracy may, 
 however, consist, and ought to be accompanied by true 
 gentlemanliness. That they thus always do not agree is 
 no argument against the possible union. Democracy is a 
 principle (political, not social), and does not depend upon 
 the dress or pursuits or accomplishments of the individual 
 professing it. It is a philanthropic and philosophic sys- 
 tem of polity, wholly irrespective of personal habits or 
 prejudices. It is the government of the people by them- 
 selves. Of this great body, the leaders (for the mass can- 
 not act as one man, and must delegate duties and assign 
 powers) are expected to be in advance, socially and intel- 
 lectually, if not also morally and politically of their fel- 
 lows, else why leaders ? And we find as matter of his- 
 tory, the staunchest advocates of liberal views and free 
 government at all times, and especially in the most ex- 
 cited times, to have been able men, good patriots and 
 gentlemen — to look at Lafayette in France ; Sidney and 
 Russell and Hampden in England ; and all of our own 
 great Revolutionary characters without exception. Not 
 to dilate upon obvious truths, we shall conclude this 
 sketch with an extract from the Rights of Man on the abo- 
 lition of titles in France, at the framing of their new con- 
 stitution — a masterly passage, equal to certain of Burke's 
 noblest efforts, and which contains the spirit of the whole 
 matter. " Titles are but a nickname, and every nickname 
 is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but 
 it marks a certain foppery in the human character that 
 degrades it. It renders man diminutive in things which 
 are little. It talks about its fine riband like a girl, and 
 shows its garters like a child. A certain writer of some 
 
182 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 antiquity, says, ' when I was a child, I thought as a child ; 
 but when I became a man, 1 put away childish things.' 
 
 " It is properly from the elevated mind of France that 
 the folly of titles has been abolished. It has outgrown the 
 baby-clothes of Count and Duke, and breeched itself into 
 manhood. France has not levelled, it has exalted. It has 
 put down the dwarf to set up the man. The insignifi- 
 cance of a senseless and noble Duke, Count or Earl has 
 ceased to please. Even those who possessed them have 
 disowned the gibberish, and as they outgrow the rickets 
 have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man 
 thirsting for its native home, society, contemns the gew- 
 gaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles 
 drawn hy the magician's wand, to contract the sphere of nian's 
 felicity. He lices immortal within the Bastille of a name, 
 and surveys at a distance the envied life of man. 
 
 " Is it then any wonder that titles should fall in France 1 
 Is it not a great wonder that they should be kept up any- 
 where ? What are they ? What is their worth, nay, 
 what is their amount? When we think or speak of a 
 judge or general, we associate with it the ideas of office 
 and character ; we think of purity in the one and bravery 
 in the other ; but when we use a word merely as a title, 
 no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary 
 of names, there is not such an animal as a Duke or a 
 Count ; neither can we connect any certain idea to the 
 word. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom 
 or folly, a child or a man, or a rider or a horse, is all equi- 
 vocal. What respect, then, can be paid to that which de- 
 scribes nothing and means nothing ? Imagination has 
 fjiven fifjure and character to centaurs, satvrs, and down 
 
TITLES. 133 
 
 to all the fairy tribe ; but titles baffle even the powers of 
 fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript." 
 
 Acute sense, enlivened by antithesis, and condensed into 
 the form of pointed maxims, cannot in pungency and effect 
 transcend this spirited tirade. Indeed, there are not many 
 passages, even in Burke's celebrated Reflections, which 
 called forth this reply, that surpass the above episode, in 
 compressed power and epigrammatic point. We have 
 looked in vain into the journals of the first Congress and 
 the secret debates, lately printed, for a discussion on the 
 proper title by which to address the President of the United 
 States — whether His Excellency, or by what other desig- 
 nation.* We looked into this matter at the suggestion of 
 one far better fitted than ourselves, from his political 
 studies, to resolve this problem. Yet it may be allowed to 
 the generous advocate of the poor criminal, the humane 
 legislator, to be slightly acquainted with what, at present, 
 is no more than a piece of antiquarian curiosity. Human 
 life and human improvement is of more consequence than 
 titles of honor, and the abolition of capital punishment than 
 a matter of form or of courtly address. 
 
 It is to be hoped that beyond the necessary terms of offi- 
 cial appellation, titles will never be employed in this 
 country, purely as stereotyped honorary epithets or un- 
 meaning honors. We want men, not a nobility. We 
 would honor greatness and goodness, virtue and talent un- 
 titled, far rather than title without either of these claims 
 to attention and respect. We require the thing, and not 
 the name. If we must have superfluous titles, let them be 
 badges of dishonor, and to be avoided by every good man, 
 good citizen and true American. 
 
 * Note. — Since writing the above we have been kindly 
 
134 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 referred to the proper volume. In the Journals of the 
 Senate for the year '89, the question is discussed, of which 
 only a brief minute remains. The debate lasted a week 
 or more, during which the titles of Excellency and of His 
 Highness, the protector of our Liberties, were proposed, 
 but objected to. The latter title was too much Cromwel- 
 lian and monarchical perhaps, for even the so-called 
 black-cockade federalist. And, finally, the simple and 
 appropriate address was resolved on of, the President of 
 the United States. 
 
XV. 
 
 ESSAYES AND CHARACTERES 
 
 PRISON AND PRISONERS 
 
 BY 6EFFRAY MINSHULL, OF GRAYES-INN, GENT. 
 
 The object of this rare treatise, which is rather a collection 
 of several short characters and fragmentary disquisitions, 
 is to paint Life in Prison, and from the internal evidence it 
 affords, no less than the later accounts of Howard, Buxton 
 and Mrs. Fry, we dare affirm it to be a very faithful pic- 
 ture. Though modern philanthropy has effected much for 
 the improvement of prison discipline, and the ameliorated 
 condition of prisoners, yet still, in certain prominent par- 
 ticulars, a description of a prison more than two centuries 
 ago, must answer to a description of the same place, at the 
 present day. Dark, gloomy walls, barred windows, guards, 
 jailors, locks, confinement, silence, are the outward marks 
 of the prison, now as then. To be sure, the buildings are 
 better, may be more elegantly constructed, are much 
 cleaner, less turbulent ; still a sense of solitude, a feeling 
 of closeness, reigns within its precincts. The mere per- 
 sonal condition of prisoners is, in many respects, far pre- 
 
im 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 ferable to what it was once. Yet, in these respects even, 
 what great improvements still remain to be discovered and 
 applied. But in more important points the system is little 
 bettered. The prison chaplain, though (we trust) a differ- 
 ent personage from the Newgate ordinary in Fielding's 
 time, is still ill paid, and altogether on a wrong footing. 
 Intellectual light is virtually excluded from prisons, where 
 even freedom of thought might be considered an infringe- 
 ment on the rules and restraints of the place. 
 
 In despite of all the works of benevolence, and especially 
 of those deeds that tend to prevent the commission of crime, 
 it is to be feared prisons must ever be filled. There is 
 permanent evil in the world, and certain punishment, ever. 
 Misfortune, poverty, vice, blind impulse, it is probable will 
 always exist. Earth may never again see an Eden (the 
 abode of innocence), till purged from grosser impurities by 
 the last penal fires. Out of a world-conflagration only 
 may universal peace and purity arise. Hence, we must 
 conclude, the co-existence of crime and prisons for ages 
 hereafter. 
 
 The prison described in this little volume, is a debtors' 
 prison, the King's Bench.* In our State, imprisonment 
 for debt is now done away ; a measure fraught with vast 
 benefit, but, perhaps, accompanied by certain inevitable 
 disadvantages. It is wonderful what enormities were suf- 
 fered to be executed, until within a very few years, on this 
 class of men, of whom, certainly, a considerable portion 
 were innocent men, brought to that condition by the vices, 
 or imprudence, or frauds of those, who stood in the relation 
 
 * Then a prison for debtors : how it is now occupied we are not 
 informed. 
 
minshull's prison and prisoners. 137 
 
 of debtors to them. To this suffering, but respectable class 
 of men, the author of this treatise (the fruit of personal 
 observation and experience) does not appear to belong. 
 From what we can gather, he was brought by his impru- 
 dence and folly, to become an inhabitant of a prison.* He 
 was a gentleman of good family and liberal education, 
 who was heartily disgusted by the place, its customs and 
 company ; and who earnestly advises all not to borrow, 
 and run the chance of coming to the same place. He 
 writes with the vigor of a strong character, and with no 
 little elevation of sentiment; he is judicious and virtuous, 
 with considerable erudition and quaint fancy, bottomed on 
 good sense and manly feeling. 
 
 The composition of these essays and characters afforded 
 the only occupation their author was willing to assume ; 
 and was at once his pleasant task and daily solace. The 
 work is of some antiquity ; it was first published in 1618, 
 and reprinted twenty years after. The edition before us 
 is of 1821, a reprint by the famous Edinburgh publishing 
 house of Ballantyne and Co. It is one of a small edition 
 of 150 copies, and perhaps there is not a duplicate of the 
 work in this country. We think it very probable that 
 Sir Walter himself, or one of his antiquarian cronies, 
 selected this remarkable tract for republication, and with 
 the selfish admiration of a virtuoso, limited the impression 
 to enhance its rarity. 
 
 We spoke of this volume as presenting a picture of life 
 
 * A strong proof of family pride, rather misplaced, is evinced in 
 the fact of the writer having his crest engraved on the title page. 
 The experience the book displays is hardly of that nature a gentle- 
 man might be proud to display, even if enamored of his own clever- 
 ness as an author. 
 
 7* 
 
13S LITER ARY STUDIES. 
 
 ill prison : it presents, also, its concomitants. Tlie first 
 character is of prisons in general ; then of diiferent sorts 
 of prisoners; afterwards, in turn, of the company: of visi- 
 toi-s: of the fare and entertainment: of the keepers, the 
 jailors, the lockers up ; and concludes with a relation of 
 some curious local customs and personal ohservations. 
 
 The intention of the writer is expressed in a sort oi' 
 proem to the characters. " My purpose is, with cleare 
 water-colours to line me out a heart, yea such a heart, so 
 discontented aiul oppressed, tluit I need not be curious in 
 fitting every colour to his place, or to chuse the pleasantest 
 chamber to draw it in, because in it I am to lay downethe 
 bounds o[' tliose tempestuous seas in which ten thousands 
 are every day tossed, if not overwhelmed, which is so usual 
 here amongst us, that every one is art's master in this 
 workmanship ; and every minute something or other is 
 still added to this distressed picture, whose {>onderous 
 Nveiiijht is so great tliat the frame is scarce able to bear the 
 clVigies." The character of a prison we subjoin entire. 
 '• A prison is a grave to bury men alive, and a place 
 wherein a man. for half a year's experience, may learn 
 more law, than he can at Westminster for an hundred 
 pounds. It is a microcosmo, a little world o^ woe, it is a 
 map of misery, it is a place that will learn a young man 
 more villany, if ho be apt to take it, in one half yeare, 
 than he can learn at twenty dicing-houses, bowling allies, 
 bi*othel houses, or ordinaries ; and an old man, more 
 policie than if he had been pupil to Machiavel. It is a 
 place that hatii more diseases predominant in it than the 
 pest-house in the plague time, and it stinkes more than the 
 lord mayor's dog house or Paris garden in August. 
 
 " It is a little commonwealth, althoui^h little wealth be 
 
minsiiull's prison anjj prisoners. 139 
 
 common tliorc ; it is a desurt vvlicrc desert lyes liood'-viiik- 
 ed ; it is a famous citic, wherein are all trades, for here 
 lies the alchymist can make ex auro non auruni, tlien ex 
 non auro, aurum. 
 
 " It is as intricate a place as Rosamond's Lahyrinth, and 
 it is so full of hlindo meanders and cr«ok(MJ turninfrs, that 
 it is im})Ossiblo to (iiid the way out, excejjt ho bo directed 
 by a silver clue, and can never overcome the minotaure 
 without a golden ball to work his owne safely. 
 
 "It is as Innes of Court ; for hr^rciii lawyers inhabit, 
 that have crotchets to i'rca other man, yet all their fjuirks 
 and quiddities cannot enfranchise themselves. 
 
 "It is the Doctors' Commons, where skilful physitians 
 frequent; who, like ^sculapius, can cure men's diseases, 
 yet cannot quintessence out of all their vegetals and mine- 
 rals, a balsamutn or elixir to make a sovereign i)laster to 
 heal the surfeit the mace has given them. 
 
 " It is the Chyrurgions' Hall, where many rare artists 
 live, that can search other men's wounds, yet cannot treate 
 the wound the serjeant iiath give them. 
 
 " It is your Bankrupt's banquetting-house, where he sits 
 feasting with the sweetmeats borrowed from other men's 
 tables, having a voluntary disposition never to repay them 
 again. 
 
 " It is your Prodigal's uU'unum rcfugium, wherein he 
 may see himself as in a glass, what his excess hath 
 brought him to; and lest he should surfeit, comes hither 
 to physicke himself with moderate diet, and least that his 
 bed of downe should breed too many diseases, comes hither 
 to change his bed, where he is scarce able to lye downe. 
 
 " It is a purgatory which dotli afllict a man with more 
 miseries than ever he reaped pleasures. It is a pilgrim. 
 
140 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 age to exterminate sins and absolve offences ; for here be 
 seminaries and masse priests, which doe take down the 
 pride of their flesh more than a voyage to the Holy Land 
 or a hair shirt in Lent. 
 
 "It is an evil which doth banish a man from all content- 
 ments, whein his actions do so terrific him, that it makes a 
 man grow desperate. 
 
 " To conclude, what is it not ? In a word, it is the very 
 idea of all misery and torment ; it converts joy into sor- 
 row, riches into poverty, and ease into discontentments." 
 
 Minshull expends the whole force of his satire on inhu- 
 man creditors. His pen on this topic hits the true Juvenal 
 strain, yet he willingly excuses the creditor, who employs 
 constraint and the strong arm of the law, to obtain his due, 
 which he needs to prevent his coming hither himself. 
 
 A choice essay on ' Choice of Company in Prison,' com- 
 mences thus : " Wouldst thou learn to dispute well ? Be 
 an excellent sophister. Wouldst thou dispute of foreign 
 affairs, and be an excellent linguist ? I counsel thee to 
 travel. Wouldst thou be of a pleasing and affectionate 
 behaviour ? Frequent the court. Wouldst thou dive into 
 the secret villanies of man ? Lye in prison." He divides 
 all the different varieties of prison companions into three 
 sorts. 1. A parasite. 2. A John indifferente. 3. A 
 true-hearted Titus : ' the masculine sweetheart.' On vis- 
 itors to the prisoners he is pretty hard : ascribing their as- 
 sumed condolence to mere curiosity. He is, perhaps, un- 
 just in his almost universal censure ; though all prisoners 
 are not so fortunate as was Leigh Hunt, who had his wife 
 and children, and books, and flowers, and music, and pure 
 fancies, and sweet thoughts. This innocent prisoner and 
 fine writer had a noble company of visitors : some of them 
 
minshull's prison and prisoners. 141 
 
 daily companions, Mr. Shelley, Charles Lamb, Tom Moore, 
 Horace Smith, Miss Lamb, William Hazlitt, Jeremy Ben- 
 tham. A delightful subject for an article, for Hunt himself 
 would be a paper on the great and good men, who have 
 by any mischance become inmates of a prison : and of the 
 admirable books written there. 
 
 In one respect, MinshuU bears some resemblance to 
 Cobbett, i. e., in tacking awkward nick-names on the ob- 
 jects of his aversion. He speaks, by way of irony, of his 
 entertainments and entertainers in prison : the guard at 
 the gate is a Cerberus, of whom there is a terrific print on 
 the title-page : his ' chamber-fellows' are Threadbare and 
 Monilesse : the gardener, Potherb ; the steward, Cut- 
 throate ; the cook. Mistress Mutton Chops ; the keeper 
 who accompanies the prisoners when they walk without 
 the prison, Argus. 
 
 Upon the jailors MinshuU expends all the bitterness, of 
 which the humanity of his nature was capable. He rep- 
 resents them as devils rather than men, which, indeed, it 
 is the tendency of their functions to make them. 
 
 The verses prefixed to the treatise, we think, comprise 
 the sum of the matter. 
 
 A prison is a house of care, 
 
 A place where none can thrive, 
 
 A touch-stone true to try a friend, 
 
 A grave for one alive, 
 
 Sometimes a place of right. 
 
 Sometimes a place of wrong, 
 
 Sometimes a place for rogues and thieves, 
 
 And honest men among. 
 
XVI. 
 
 ON PREACHING 
 
 When we consider the frequency of the occasion, the no- 
 bleness of the topics, their supreme importance, the efficacy 
 of the act well performed, the genius requisite, the variety 
 of congregations, the number of preachers, we are at a 
 complete stand to account for the deplorably low state of 
 preaching. This confession, extorted from us by the facts 
 of the case, may afford matter of astonishment to many 
 who are very well satisfied with the present state of the 
 pulpit — who ask for nothing better — who perhaps could not 
 comprehend anything superior. We have always been 
 well pleased at the recollection of that passage in the Spec- 
 tator, where Sir Roger de Cuverly's parish clergyman 
 being asked who was to preach on the next Sunday for 
 him, replied, Doctor South in the morning and Doctor Bar- 
 row in the evening — meaning that he intended reading a 
 sermon from those great divines on both occasions. We 
 heartily wish some of the divines of this day would have 
 the courage, as well as the good sense, to adopt a similar 
 practice at suitable opportunities. In point of essential 
 merit, no critic, any way qualified, would hesitate to give 
 the preference to one of South's best sermons over a ma- 
 jority of modern discourses even by divines of considerable 
 
ON PREACHING. 143 
 
 eminence. What pithiness of sense and point of expres- 
 sion in the old divines ! What weakness, flaccidity, bald- 
 ness, in the present race !* If the excessive length of Bar- 
 row, or the local satire of South, or the extravagant erudi- 
 tion and overflowing fancy of Taylor, be excepted to, let 
 Barrow be condensed, expurgate South, and prune the ex- 
 crescences of the Bishop of Down and Connor. Taste, no 
 mean talents, judgment, are requisite for the selection and 
 purgation, and only to the hands of a first rate man would 
 we consign the task. Inferior intellects, if admitted, on the 
 plea of piety, into the Church at all, should not pretend to 
 this, but take the best sermons as they find them. It is 
 not for them to abuse and dislocate the fine thoughts of ge- 
 nius, which learning may have overloaded, or temporary 
 allusions rendered faint and obscure. It is almost presump- 
 tion in a man of equal genius, to try his skill on the same 
 subjects that have engaged the attention of those master 
 intellects ; for Cowley to attempt a flight with the Theban 
 eagle. It is absolute profanation for a petty parson to en- 
 deavor to hurl the thunders of avenging justice, or to imi- 
 tate the silver eloquence of an Angel of Mercy. 
 
 From the practice of reading the best published sermons 
 of standard and orthodox divines, two good results, if no 
 more, would follow ; the art of elocution would be much 
 more attended to, and the sermons could be studied and 
 carefully meditated, by which means the preacher might 
 deliver them with greater efiect. We suspect that many 
 
 * To this general deprecation we must make some exceptions : 
 the editor of the Churchman, the strongest controversialist in the 
 country, who is equally admirable in the graver eloquence of the 
 pulpit ; the fine poet Hoyt, who is also a spirited and manly 
 preacher; and the fervent declamation of Southard. 
 
144 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 a minister would then understand his theme better than 
 now, that he is obliged to write so frequently and at such 
 comparatively short notice. 
 
 To this practice the majority of congregations might 
 demur, so strong is the hold of ancient usage upon men's 
 minds. The curse of political seems to be the predominant 
 vice of religious corporations, viz : a blindness to innova- 
 tion — even when wholesome reform ; a prejudice in favor 
 of existing practices. Many good people appear to suspect 
 indolence or indifference on the part of a preacher who 
 reads a printed sermon. They call it an imposition. They 
 must have a return for the salary. But is a meager dis- 
 course from your parson as well worth your attention as a 
 sermon from the lips of the English Chrysostoms and Aus- 
 tins? As it is, are they all original preachers who deliver 
 written sermons ? A sermon may be transferred as well 
 as anything else. There are other "conveyances" besides 
 those of a legal description. The very critics, who speak 
 so authoritatively, are not always acquainted with the 
 sources of the finest thoughts and most sparkling fancies. 
 When they abuse the preacher's tediousness, they may be 
 reflecting upon Tillotson ; and when pleased with a grace- 
 ful expression, they may be only assenting to the sentiment 
 of Sherlock or Atterbury. 
 
 In no department of literature perhaps (considered as 
 such) is a greater decline more manifestly evident than in 
 the eloquence of the pulpit. Most of the current spoken 
 eloquence is confessedly very vapid, and even tiresome, 
 when transferred to paper. Sergeant Talfourd, a man of 
 elegant poetic talent, and a popular debater, a very con- 
 siderable portion of whose enviable reputation is derived 
 from his efforts at the bar and in the House, acknowledges 
 
ON PREACHING. 145 
 
 the fact in explicit terms in his memoirs of Charles Lamb. 
 This declaration, from the pen of the author of Ion, should 
 certainly weigh as powerful evidence with those who con- 
 sider the transitory impressions a practical and fluent 
 speaker can create as incomparably superior to the elabo- 
 rate thought and rich fancy of the studious author. There 
 are popular speakers, both in the Pulpit and in the Senate, 
 whose oratorical art enables them to control or excite the 
 passions at will, who yet prudently abstain from publica- 
 tion, and thus tacitly confess the decay of the literature of 
 eloquence and their inferiority as writers. It is no dis- 
 grace for a man to be inferior in one department, merely 
 because he is excellent in another. Speaking and writing 
 are separate arts, and the distinct merits of each are only 
 confounded by those who cannot discriminate, but know 
 only how to extol or condemn. The nice shades of dif- 
 ference, which constitute this (so real) distinction, are 
 perfectly perceptible and unquestionably true. We are 
 acquainted with, and have listened to brilliant speakers, 
 whose written compositions are below mediocrity, or, at 
 best, only on a par with it. But this should not oblige us 
 to deny the palpable fact of the great scarcity of good, not 
 to say excellent, sermons published nowadays. 
 
 A defect of literary accomplishment, then, among the 
 body of the clergy, may be taken as the cause of the infe- 
 riority of modern sermons ; style and manner are not 
 sufficiently attended to. Art is neglected, and yet pulpit 
 eloquence is an art, as much so as political, and a higher 
 art, at the same time. Natural eloquence is not enough 
 by itself; it must be trimmed and trained by scholarship, 
 research, elegance and breeding. To the sacred charac- 
 ter of Divine must be appended the no less valuable, 
 
146 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 though less sacred characters of schokir, critic, orator, and 
 gentleman. Arrayed in such vestments, the clerical cha- 
 racter shines the leading order. Deprived of these acces- 
 sory qualities and ornaments, it is likely to be abused and 
 degraded. 
 
 The clergv and reli^cious critics of certain denomina- 
 tions appear to think just the reverse of this to be the correct 
 view. Learning and eloquence, they seem to hold in 
 puritanical abhorrence, and to consider the cause of reli- 
 gion disgraced by the splendid displays of human genius. 
 They oppose taste and piety, and an evangelical spirit, to 
 an inventive imagination ; as if for a moment, a man of 
 sense could conceive any preference, or even hint at a 
 comparison ; sucli parallels are ofiensive, both to religion 
 and criticism. Narrow bigots ! ought they not rather to 
 regard the highest efforts of intellectual power as the 
 truest adoration of the Supreme Being ? To honor or 
 glorify that sacred name, — is it not the loftiest occupation of 
 humanity ? A hymn to its praise, the sublimest strain of 
 poesy ? insomuch that a man can evince no higher ambi- 
 tion than that of the great preacher. 
 
 The perfect pulpit-orator should be a saint and an orator 
 united ; a Paul, an Augustine, a Jeremy Taylor. No 
 years of study, no libraries, no studious pursuits are wasted 
 on him whose office it is to minister at the altar. His is 
 the highest of all duties — that of Adoration and Prayer : 
 to perform these duties with dignity, ignorance is by no 
 means the most fitting preparative. 
 
 A consequence of tliis vitiated style of composition is 
 seen in the vitiated taste of audiences. They take their 
 standard from contemporary preaching (few scholars con- 
 
ON PREACHING. 147 
 
 stituting modem congregations), and that standard is, too 
 often, a low one. 
 
 The spirit of the age, also, hostile to fanciful illustra- 
 tion or refined speculation in sacred discourses, and rather 
 looking to utilitarian logic, has, we are apt to imagine, 
 cast a chilling influence over tlie imagination, and rendered 
 the warm and glowing appeals tame and cold. 
 
 Be the causes what they may, however, the fact remains, 
 of a very certain declension in the eloquence of the chair 
 (as the French term Pulpit Oratory), since the days of the 
 old divines. Whether they were a privileged race of men, 
 had stronger thoughts, and more capacious heads, or more 
 affectionate and philanthropic hearts, we will not attempt 
 to determine. That they were far better scholars than 
 the present race is confessed ; that they had more poetry 
 in them, is granted — and it is also admitted, that their 
 poetry did their piety no material injury ; nay, that it 
 heightened and refined it. The old English Divines form a 
 choice department in a library of old English literature. 
 It has been said that a complete library could be formed 
 from their works alone, and that, too, a most valuable col- 
 lection. For though Divines, they were none the less wits, 
 historians, scholars, and moralists. In this respect they 
 differ from the French pulpit orators, who were either 
 mere declaimers or else scholastic controversialists. The 
 English Divines wrote not merely sermons and works of 
 scholastic divinity — but they wrote books of moral essays, 
 characters, satires; works on life and manners. They 
 had wit and humor as well as fancy and sentiment. They 
 were not merely the spiritual guides, but also the popular 
 writers of the day. They had large capacity of reason 
 and richness of imagination. They were picturesque, 
 
148 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 pointed, practical. Not merely line writers, they were 
 deep thinkers and acute observers. There is a substance 
 and solidity in every one of them tiiat would furnish out a 
 score of modern writers with brains. l^arrow alone 
 would cut up into a dozen fiishionable lecturers, and Tay- 
 lor might serve as a resource for the poets of at least one 
 generation. Hall and Donne, as satirists, might send Gif- 
 ford and Byron to school to learn their art ; and Earle is 
 at least as knowing as William Cobbett. 
 
 In their books we find not only the noblest doctrines of a 
 true Christian morality, heightened by pure religion, but 
 we also discover profound speculations on human nature, 
 and a truer insight into the characters of men. We have 
 there preserved for us the truest pictures of that time, and 
 the ruling tendencies of that age. 
 
 They were thus not only sciiolars and preachers, but 
 also men of the world (in a good sense), and men of re- 
 flection. 
 
 As writers, and chietly as writers of sermons, we shall 
 consider them, leaving controversy and their individual 
 tenets out of the question. The moot points of that day, 
 and indeed of every age, interest but very few ; but the 
 wholesome doctrines and higii principles these writings 
 contain, are good at and in all times. They have good 
 thoughts for our times, and noble thouixhts for the best sea- 
 sons. To the student, their works are full of thought and 
 learning : to the speculatist, they are full o( high aims and 
 generous aspirations ; to the atllioted, they contain the 
 surest consolation, next to the Scriptures themselves. 
 
 We beg leave to premise, on the very threshold o^ tliese 
 criticisms, that we write not for the professional reader, 
 who, doubtless, is at least equally well, if not (as he sliould 
 
ON PKKACHING. 149 
 
 be) niucli bettor iicquaintod than W(! can bo with those old 
 writers; but lor tlic general intjuiror, who may b(^ easily 
 repelled in liis researches, by unfortunately stumbling on 
 the worst scrihblers of that time. At that time, as now, 
 there were a large class of bad writers, crude thinkcM-s; 
 and such are ever in the majority. Old ICnglish lit(M'atur(5 
 may be comparcjd to tin; book-closet in an old-fashioned 
 country house, which contains a vast variety of hiarned 
 lumber and useless trash ; still, here and there a rare vo- 
 lume ; an old manuscript of great value ; a set of books, 
 entirely preserved, of some fruitful and popular writer 
 years ago. These have all been tumbled in together in 
 one medley. Kvcn in many otherwise worthless books lie 
 will find a brilliant page or two, or a curious chapter, or 
 erudite notes, or a fantastic ap|)(!ndix. The very titles and 
 mottoes of some of these curious treatises cannot fail to 
 breed some speculation ; the prefacc^s and dedications form 
 materials for a literary history of tlu; time. 
 
 If the student has never happened upon these writers 
 before, he will bo surprised to find a manly vigor of thought 
 and independence of expression in them, of whiph very 
 few examples remain at the present day. 
 
 It is to be wondered at the ignorance that exists on this 
 subject. Most readers regard all tliat is old as trite, and 
 speak of the great body of English divines as dull and 
 tiresome. 
 
 A point not sufliciently regarded is the admirable mo- 
 rality of these divines ; not only the Christian morality 
 (the highest) of their writings, but also the wide and libe- 
 ral range of their sympathies as men. They not only taught 
 as Christian ministers, but also felt as men and for their 
 fellow creatures. There is more humanity in their moral 
 
150 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 toachiiig than in any of the professed books on morality. 
 They arc more truly moral than the merely technical 
 teachers of morality. Passages even occur in their works 
 of a tendency to whicli the strait-laced professors of 
 later times migiit object, as free and latitudinarian ; they 
 are more compassionate than censorious. Do not these 
 objectors forgot, liowever, that tiie severest moralist in 
 judging of himself may be, and, indeed, ought to be, the 
 most mercitul in his judgment of others ? The true 
 Christian is not he who fmds most errors in other sects or 
 individuals. Rebuke is not religion, nor captiousness 
 Christianity. ''Judge not, that ye be not judged," is a 
 cardinal rule of Christian conduct. 
 
 Equally sound and admirable are the old divines in point 
 of Christian doctrine. The squeamish churchman need 
 never fear to contract any taint of lieresy, or run foul oi 
 any disputed and doubtful dogmas in their writings. As 
 writers and thinkers, they are above all praise. In the 
 language of a tine writer, also a judicious admirer of these 
 old worthies: "It is well to moralize with Hall, and raise 
 the fancy with the imagination of Taylor ; to raise the 
 flame of piety with Herbert, or to be jested into seriousness 
 by the points of Fuller." 
 
 The defects of contemporary preaching are two-fold : 
 literary and religious. We must premise two conside- 
 rations betbre entering upon these }X)ints of criticism. 
 Preaching is too general to have any special eflicacy. It 
 is directed against vice and sin in the abstract : it enforces 
 virtue and goodness in the general. It recognizes passions 
 and sentiments, rather than a separate act or an individual 
 feeling. It wants particularity. The preacher addresses 
 his confjreiration, rather than nnv single member oi' it. 
 
ON PREACHING. 101 
 
 Perhaps tlierc is no speciality in liis ideas ; ho may him- 
 self entertain only general impressions of the beauty of 
 holiness or the heinousness of crime. Ilis own soul may 
 not be truly alive to the convictions of his reason ; his own 
 spirit may not be wholly imbued with his own doctrines. 
 As a matter of course, ho can j)roduce no impression, who 
 feels no strong motives for exciting any. 
 
 Preaching is also too frequent. It is made too common. 
 In the early history of the Churcii, priests, or at least one 
 class of them, were allowed to preach only at stated times; 
 some, if we are not mistaken, not oftener than once a 
 month. This, too, at a time when preaching, as a means 
 of making proselytes, was much more essential to the 
 growth of the Clmrch than at present. 
 
 The true intent of preaching, the object of a sermon, it 
 seems to us, is not comprehended. We are impressed 
 with the truth, tliat a preacher should teacli ratlier than 
 declaim ; convince tiian speculate ; persuade than exhort, 
 and not merely anmse or entertain. His business is to 
 teach men doctrine and duty ; but, of tlie two, duty rather 
 than doctrine, as practice is more important than opinion. 
 He must be himself sincere, if he would gain inllumce ; 
 and of his sincerity, a good life is the only test, lie must 
 speak from experience, who would speak with authority. 
 The mere orator in the pulpit is contemptible. Wfiat au- 
 dacity to play olF rhetorical tricks before High Heaven for 
 the admiration of a gaping crowd ! At the same time, se- 
 verely as we repudiate liollow display, even of the finest 
 genius, we yet hold the noblest exercise of the faculties to 
 be the worship and adoration of the Almighty Father. To 
 his service should tlie richest genius, the costliest research, 
 
152 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 the most aoconiplisliod talents, bo dedicated ; yet witli hu- 
 mility, and all in his honor. 
 
 The pulpit should be the school, the lecture-room, the 
 press for the people. How many glean all their scanty 
 stock tVom the preacher! Afany take all their religious 
 and moral views from their clergyman. This alone should 
 incliiu^ us to i\\ the standard of preaching high, to make it 
 very comprehensive. 
 
 Of all the varieties of preaching, we place the moral dis- 
 course at the head ; that which impresses our highest duties 
 and directs our f\\miliar olVices ; that which regards man 
 as a social creature, as well as a spiritual being ; that 
 which, in its zeal for heavenly things, does not overlook 
 the period spent here on this bank and shoal of time ! 
 Such preaching is Christian, for it is after the model of the 
 Sermon on the Mount — that compend of Christian duties 
 and doctrine. Much idle cant has been expemled on a 
 distinction between evangelical and moral sermons ; as if 
 a gocxl moralist was not, from the philosophical nature of 
 the case, religious. Not that morality is better than re- 
 ligion. It is as good. It is the same with it. It is Ciiris- 
 tianity applied to action. Christianity is, in a word, a 
 divine morality. The law o( God and the moral law 
 coincide, are contemporary. Morality is not only as old 
 as the creation, but existed long before it — before all time 
 — in the bosom of the Supreme Being. An awful sense 
 of duty governs all beneath the Creator of the world down 
 to the meanest of his intelligent and responsible creatures. 
 This we woidd have preached. The most sterling of the 
 old divines artbrd abundant precedents. The sermons of 
 Bari-ow in particular are almost entirely moral treatises. 
 
ON PREACHING. 153 
 
 Tillotson founds revelation on the law of nature ; and 
 speaks of the latter as antecedent to the former. 
 
 Evangelical piety, often pure and sincere, has as often 
 been assumed by those who, disregarding the common 
 rules of morality, expect from their very wickedness to 
 shine out as brilliant lights ;— " the greater sinner, the 
 greater saint." Is it harsh to suspect such repentance 
 half the time? About strict morality, there can be less 
 mistake. It affords ground for fewer deceptions. 
 
 There is another vulgar (though time-honored) error 
 regarding the personal character of the priest, which would 
 teach us a bad man may still be a good priest ; that the 
 office sanctifies the clerical acts of the incumbent. This 
 cannot be so. It is too revolting to common reason, let 
 the sophisms of controversialists be marshalled as they 
 may. For our own part (and we think we share the 
 feeling with many) we cannot hear the sermon of a 
 preacher, let him be ever so eloquent or acute, if we do 
 not reverence his personal character. The two are insepa- 
 rable— and of the two, the man should predominate. When 
 the man is good and the priest is perfect in his function, 
 then we find the true character. The formalist and the 
 hypocrite sometimes usurp his place, and in passing we 
 will glance at each. The formalist in the pulpit is as 
 injurious to the cause of religion as the sceptic in com- 
 pany ; perhaps more hurtful, because with less art, and 
 without an avowed design. The one disgusts the man of 
 sense and sincere Christian ; the other, by specious logic, 
 alarms the wary and puts his opponents on their guard. 
 We find a passage in Mr. Emerson's Divinity Address so 
 germane to the matter, that we cannot forbear quoting 
 
 VOL. II. 8 
 
164 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 " Whenever the pulpit is usurped by a formalist, then 
 is the worshipper defrauded and disconsolate. We shrink 
 as soon as the prayers begin, which do not uplift, but 
 smite and oftend us. We are ftiin to wrap our cloak 
 about us, and secure as best we can, a solitude that hears 
 not. I once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to 
 say, I would go to church no more. Men go, thought I, 
 where they are wont to go, else had no soul entered the 
 temple in the afternoon. A snow-storm was falling around 
 us. The snow-storm was real, the preacher merely 
 spectral ; and the eye felt the sad contrast in looking at 
 him, and then out of the window behind him into the beau- 
 tiful meteor of the snow. He had lived in vain. He had 
 not one word intimating that he had laughed or wept, was 
 married or in love, had been commended, or cheated, or 
 chat^rined. If he had ever lived and acted, we were none 
 the wiser for it. The capital secret of his profession, 
 namely, to convert life into truth, he had not learned. 
 Not one fact in all his experience had he yet imparted into 
 his doctrine. This man had ploughed, and planted, and 
 talked, and bought, and aold ; he had read books ; he had 
 eaten and drunken ; his head aches ; his heart throbs ; he 
 smiles and sutlers ; yet was there not a surmise, a hint in 
 all the discourse that he had ever lived at all. Not a line 
 did he draw out of real history. The true preacher can 
 alwavs be known by this, that he deals out to the people 
 his life, — life passed through the fire of thought. But of 
 the bad preacher, it could not be told from his sermon, 
 what age of the world he fell in ; whether he had a father 
 or a child ; whether he was a freeholder or a pauper ; 
 whether he was a citizen or a countryman, or any other 
 fact of his biography." 
 
ON PREACHING. 155 
 
 The hypocrite is much worse, and, next to the man of 
 cold malicious heart, the worst man in the world. Cant, 
 always despicable, in the pulpit is blasphemy. Yet there 
 is a cant (if we are not wrong) without hypocrisy ; a pro- 
 fessional style of speech, an assumption of using common 
 words in a particular and pedantic sense. Such is the 
 phrase, " j)rofessing " Christian, a puritanical expression, 
 that has become quite common ; a presumptuous term, 
 vainglorious, pharisaical. The character of the good 
 parson is far removed from either of these. 
 
 From two masterly essays (a little too formally cut, 
 perhaps, for the present day) ; the one by an old English 
 master, Owen Felltham, and the other, tlie production of 
 the prince of French Moralists, Labruy^rc, we select a 
 few passages equally striking and true. Owen Felltham, 
 in his admirable Resolves, in an essay on Preaching [he 
 was a sort of amateur divine himself, and lived in an age 
 of the very finest, and also of the most indifferent pulpit 
 eloquence, according as you study the works of the very 
 first divines, or the merely statistical or chronological dis- 
 courses of mere " enumerators," as Labruyere himself 
 calls the most tedious class of exhorters], has these just 
 thoughts thus curtly and a little pedantically set forth : — 
 
 *' The excess which is in the defect of preaching, has 
 made the pulpit slighted ; I mean the much bad oratory 
 we find it guilty of. It is a wonder to me, how men can 
 preach so little and so long, so long at a time and so little 
 matter ; as if they thought to please by the inculcation of 
 their vain tautologies. I see no reason, that so high a 
 Princess as Divinity is, should be presented to the people 
 in the sordid rags of the tongue ; nor that he, which 
 speaks from the Father of languages, should deliver his 
 
156 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 embassage in an ill one. A man can never speak too 
 well, where he speaks not too obscure. Long and disi- 
 tended clauses are both tedious to the ear and difficult for 
 their retaining. A sentence well couched takes both the 
 sense and the understanding. I love not those cart-rope 
 speeches that are longer than the memory of man can 
 fathom. I see not but that divinity put into apt significants, 
 might ravish as well as poetry. 
 
 " The weighty lines men find upon the stage, I am 
 persuaded, have been the means to draw away the pulpit's 
 followers. We complain of drowsiness at a sermon, when 
 a play of a doubled length leads us on still with alacrity. 
 But the fault is not all in ourselves. If we saw divinity 
 acted, the gesture and variety would as much invigorate. 
 But it is too high to be personated by humanity." 
 
 The last sentence recalls to memory the pithy reply of 
 Barron, the famous French actor, who, on being asked 
 why the stage produced more forcible effects than the 
 pulpit, made answer, that they [the actors] represented 
 things feigned as if they were real, whereas the divines 
 treated the most important themes in such an indifferent 
 manner as to appear as if they hardly credited their own 
 representations. 
 
 *' At a sermon well dressed, what understanding can 
 have a motion to sleep ? Divinity well ordered, casts forth 
 a bait which angles the soul into the ear, and how can 
 that close when such a guest sits in it ? They are ser- 
 mons but of baser metals which lead the eyes to slumber. 
 And should we have a continued oration, upon such a 
 subject as the stage treats on, in such words as we hear 
 some sermons, I am confident it would not only be far 
 more tedious, but nauseous and contemptful. The most 
 
ON PREACHING. 157 
 
 advantage they have of other places is in their good lives 
 and actions ; for it is certain Cicero and Roscius are the 
 
 most complete when they both make but one man." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 "I grieve that anything so excellent as divinity is, 
 should fall into a sluggish handling. Sure though other 
 interposures do eclipse her, yet this is a principal. I never 
 yet knew a good tongue that wanted ears to hear it. I 
 will honor her in her plain trim ; but I will wish to meet 
 in her, graceful jewels, not that they give addition to 
 her goodness, but that she is more persuasive in working 
 on the soul she meets with. When I meet with worth 
 which I cannot over-love, I can well endure that art which 
 is a means to heighten liking. Confections that are cordial 
 are not the worse, but the better, for being gilded." 
 
 Labruyere, in his admirable chapter of the Pulpit, in his 
 famous book of characters and manners of the present age, 
 has exhausted the whole topic, with his habitual acuteness 
 and profound judgment. We transcribe some of the most 
 striking passages, to show what this keen observer and just 
 critic thought of the matter. The truths he states are of 
 universal application, as fresh now as when they were 
 first written — more than a century and a half ago. The 
 translation is by Rowe, the dramatist, and extremely well 
 done. It preserves the propriety of the thoughts, the 
 nicety of the distinctions, and all the point of the original. 
 It is, in a word, almost the best prose translation from 
 French into English, that we at present remember : — 
 
 " Preaching is nowadays become a mere show ; that 
 evangelic gravity, the life of preaching, is absolutely laid 
 aside ; an advantageous mien, a pretty tone of voice, ex- 
 actness of gesture, choice of expression, and long enume- 
 
158 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 rations, supply its place. To attend seriously on the Dis- 
 pensation of the Holy Word is no longer customary, going 
 to church is an amusement among a thousand others, and 
 preaching a diversion. The preachers play for the prize, 
 and the hearers bet upon their heads. * * 
 
 *' Profane eloquence is transferred from the bar, where 
 it formerly reigned, to the pulpit, where it never ought to 
 come. 
 
 " Oh the vain, unprofitable sermons now-a-days ; the 
 time of the Homilies is no more ; the Basils, the Chrysos- 
 toms could not restore it ; we should fly into other diocesses 
 to get out of the reach of their voices and their familiar 
 discourses. The generality of men love fine phrases and 
 handsome periods ; admire what they do not understand ; 
 fancy themselves to be informed ; content with deciding 
 between the first and second doctrine, or between the last 
 sermon or the last but one." 
 
 Dr. Eachard, in his admirable book on the contempt of 
 the clergy, enumerates most of the vices of bad preach- 
 ing. An early Spanish satirist, the author of the history 
 of Friar Gerund, has hit off very spirited caricatures of 
 the prevalent faults of the clergy of his day — Ciceronians, 
 Jesuits, and others ; while Erasmus, with his delicate 
 irony, and good Father Latimer, with his old English 
 strength and sincerity, have handsomely satirized the lazy 
 drones, ignorant monks, and " bells without clappers," 
 " dumb dogs," &c., of their age. To give the reader a 
 fair taste of the French wit, we transcribe the following 
 pithy passages : — 
 
 " The Bishop of Meaux and Father Bourdaloue recall 
 to my mind Demosthenes and Cicero. Both of them abso- 
 lute masters of the eloquence of the pulpit, have had the 
 
ON PREACHING. 159 
 
 fate of other great models ; one of them has made a great 
 many ill censures, the other a great many ill imitators." 
 
 * * sic * 
 
 " A preacher, methinks, ought in every one of his ser- 
 mons, to make choice of one principal truth, whether it be 
 to move terror or yield instruction, to handle that alone 
 largely and fully, omitting all those foreign divisions and 
 subdivisions which are so intricate and perplexed. I would 
 not have him pre-suppose a thing really false, which is, 
 that the great or the genteel men understand the religion 
 they profess, and so be afraid to instruct persons of their 
 wit and breeding in their catechism ; let him employ the 
 long time others are composing a set, formal discourse, in 
 making, that the turn and expressions may, of course, flow 
 easily from him. Let him, after necessary preparation, 
 yield himself up to his own genius, and to the emotions 
 with which a great subject will inspire him ; let him spare 
 those prodigious efforts of memory which look more like 
 reciting for a wager than anything serious, and which 
 destroy all graceful action ; let him, on the contrary, by a 
 noble enthusiasm dart conviction into the soul and alarm 
 the conscience ; let him, in fine, touch the hearts of his 
 hearers with another fear than that of seeing him make 
 some blunder or halt in his sermon. 
 
 " Let not him who is not yet arrived to such perfection, 
 as to forget himself in the dispensation of the holy word ; 
 let not him, I say, be discouraged by the austere rules 
 prescribed him, as if they robbed him of the means of 
 showing his genius and attaining the honors to which he 
 aspires. What greater or more noble talent can there be 
 than to preach like an Apostle, or which deserves a bish- 
 oprick better ? Was Fenelon unworthy of that dignity ? 
 
160 LITERARY STUDIES. 
 
 Was it possible he should have escaped his Prince's 
 choice, but for another choice ?" 
 
 To descend from the epigram of Labruyere to plain 
 prose and critical commentary. The style of sermons 
 cannot be too plain and simple, in general. The text is 
 perfectly clear and earnest. Strength and seriousness are 
 the chief qualities. Let it be rather a labored plainness 
 than a labored elegance. The greatest truths, like the 
 richest gems, show best plain set. The best character, 
 for a writer of sermons, is Ben .Tonson's character of 
 Cartwright, the Dramatist, who was also a Preacher. 
 "He, my son Cartwright, writes all like a man." Joined 
 to this manly sense let there be a liberal spirit of humanity, 
 a sympathy with men as men ; compassion and fellow, 
 feeling. Let suavity modify the rigor of your doctrines, 
 and let a Christian feeling overspread your whole spirit. 
 Thus we would address the preacher. 
 
 Action and gesture, when natural, are always right — 
 when artificial, very seldom. To the youthful student we 
 would further say, the old Divines afford a good school, 
 but a knowledge of human nature is better. Still, of the 
 old Divines drink your fill — of wisdom, and fancy, and 
 piety, and acute knowledge, and ability of every kind. 
 What pictures, and fair conceits, and rich harmonies, in 
 Taylor ! what ingenious thoughts, so fine, so delicate, in 
 Donne ! wliat massy arguments in Barrow and Sherlock : 
 and lie that reads the contemporaries of these old masters, 
 will confess them to have written as with a crisped pen. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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