m . CRITICAL ESSAYS. By the same Author. The AUTUMN HOLIDAYS of a COUNTRY PARSON. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. The RECREATIONS of a COUNTRY PARSON. First Series. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. An Illustrated Edition, 12J. 6d. The RECREATIONS of a COUNTRY PARSON. Second Series. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d. LEISURE HOURS in TOWN. Crown 8vo.. 3^. 6d. The COMMONPLACE PHILOSOPHER in TOWN and COUNTRY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. The GRAVER THOUGHTS of a COUNTRY PARSON. First Series. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. COUNSEL and COMFORT SPOKEN from a CITY PULPIT. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. The GRAVER THOUGHTS of a COUNTRY PARSON. Second Series. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. SUNDAY AFTERNOONS at the PARISH CHURCH of a UNI- VERSITY CITY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. THE CRITICAL ESSAYS OF A COUNTRY PARSON. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PARSON I NEW EDITION. LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1867. NV I LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW- STREET SOJJARE PREFACE TN literature, unlike law, a man frequently begins by A judging others, before he tries to do anything for himself. He begins by being a judge : and if he be tolerably successful as a judge, he is advanced (so to speak) to practise at the bar. A young and inexpe- rienced writer in a magazine is for the most part set to review books written generally by much older and wiser men than himself. If he do this tolerably well, he is by and by advanced to the writing of original articles. It was so with me. When I began to write for Fraser's Magazine^ a little more than nine years ago, my work was mainly to review books. Gradually, my dear friend the Editor thought I might try to walk alone. And in several volumes, which the public has received with much kindness and favour, the original essays, which I began to write at his suggestion, have been collected and republished. The present volume vi Preface. contains a selection from the critical essays of earlier years. These were written in the quiet and leisure of a country parish. They were founded on a thorough examination of the books they attempt to estimate; and they all express what was the writer's honest opinion, unbiassed by any kind of influence. It would have been easy to select smarter essays ; but after a few years one looks back with little pleasure on ill-natured writing. Anything of that kind has been excluded from this volume. A. K. H. B. March 13, 1865. CONTENTS. PAGE * I. ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ON BACON . , . I 1 II. RECENT METAPHYSICAL WORKS LEWES, MAURICE, FLEMING ....... 40 J III. THORNDALE ; OR, THE CONFLICT OF OPINIONS . 80 ^ IV. JAMES MONTGOMERY . .... . . 1 24 V. FRIENDS IN COUNCIL . » . . . l6j x VI. EDGAR ALLAN POE . . . . . 2 1 VII. GEORGE STEPHENSON AND THE RAILWAY . . 249 VIII. OULITA THE SERF . . . . . .282 IX. THE ORGAN QUESTION . . . . . 32O X. LIFE AT THE WATER CURE . • . • 344 THE CRITICAL ESSAYS OF A COUNTRY PARSON. I. ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ON BACON.* THIS is in every way a remarkable book. We have before us in this volume the most generally popular work of the greatest and meanest man of his time, with a Commentary of Annotations by the man who, of all living authors, approaches in many of his intellectual characteristics nearest to Bacon himself. We find in the writings of Archbishop Whately the same independence of thought which distinguishes the writings of Bacon ; the same profusion of illustration by happy analogies which is characteristic of Bacon's later works ; the same clearness, point, and precision of style. We do not wonder that the accomplished * Bacon's Essays : with Annotations by Richard Whately, D.D., Arch- bishop of Dublin. London: 1857. B 2 Archhishop Wloately on Bacon. prelate, accustomed (as he tells us in his Preface) to write down from time to time the observations which suggested themselves to him in reading Bacon's Essays, should have found them grow beneath his hand into a volume ; and we cannot but regard it as a boon con- ferred upon all educated men, that this volume has been given to the world. Nor must we omit to remark, in this age of readers for mere entertainment, that although the volume be a large one, written by an archbishop, and consisting of comments upon the thoughts of a great philosopher, the book is invested with such an attractive interest, that it cannot fail to prove a readable and entertaining one, even to minds unaccustomed to high-class thought and incapable of severe thinking. The somewhat severe terseness of the Essays is relieved by the lighter and more popular tone of the Annotations. Archbishop Whately's mind is of that nature that it takes up each of a vast range of subjects with equal ease, and apparently with equal gusto ; grappling with a great difficulty or unravelling a great perplexity with no more appearance of effort than when lightly touching a social folly, such as might have invited the notice of the author of The Book of Snobs, or when playfully blowing to the winds an error not worth serious refutation. Hardly ever in the range of literature have we observed the workings of an intellect in which nervous strength is so combined with delicate tact. We are reminded of Mr. Nasmyth's steam-hammer, which can smash a mass of steel in shivers, or by successive taps drive a nail through a half-inch plank. Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 3 We are thankful that in noticing this book, we are concerned rather with the Annotator than with the Essayist ; for not without much pain can we look back on Lord Bacon's history. There is something jarring in the mingled feelings of admiration and disgust with which we think of Bacon's greatness and meanness ; his intellectual grasp, his keen insight, his wit, his imagination sober in its wildest flights, — his serene temper, his brilliant conversation, his courtly manners, his freedom from arrogance and pretence ; and then, on the other side, his cold heart and mean spirit, his low and unworthy ambition, his despicable selfishness, his flagrant dishonesty, his crawling servility, his perfidy as a friend, his sneakiness as a patriot, his corruption as a judge. As to his intellectual greatness there can be no question ; though there can be no error more com- plete than to regard him as the inventor or discoverer of the Inductive Philosophy. He did not invent it ; he did not skilfully apply it. His philosophy differed from that which preceded it less in method than in aim ; and it is glory enough to have mainly contributed to turn the thoughts and the efforts of thoughtful and energetic men away from the profitless philosophy of the schools to the practical good of mankind. In the commodis humanis inservire we have the end and the spirit of the Baconian philosophy. The Essays constitute Bacon's most popular work, if not his greatest. They illustrate in thought and style what was said of him by Ben Jonson, that c No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, nor suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he E 2 4 Archbishop Whately on Bacon. uttered.' Their subjects are well known. We have in them the thoughts of Bacon on a considerable range of matters, briefly expressed, most of them not occupy- ing more than a page or two. They may have been written, many of them, at a short sitting, though they manifestly give us the results of mature and protracted thought. And here and there occur those pregnant, suggestive sentences which Archbishop Whately has taken as texts for his own observations. The Arch- bishop reminds us in his Preface, by way of guarding himself from the imputation of presumption in adding to what Bacon has said on many subjects, that the word c Essay,' which has now come to signify a full and careful treatise on a subject, was in Bacon's days more correctly understood as meaning a slight sketch to be rilled up and followed out ; a something to set the reader a-thinking : and the Annotations, which form by a great deal the larger part of the book, contain the reflections and remarks which have been suggested to the Arch- bishop in his reading of the Essays. The Annotations are of all degrees, from a sentence or two of inference or illustration, to a pretty full dis- course on some topic more or less directly suggested by Bacon. The writer frequently presses opinions which he has elsewhere maintained, and gives many extracts from his own published works. We also find several quotations from other authors, selected (we need not say) with great judgment ; and showing us incidentally how wide is the Archbishop's reading, and how completely he keeps up with whatever is valuable in even the lighter literature of the day. In that por- Archbishop Whately on B aeon. tion of this volume which is properly Dr. Whately's own, we have the acute observations of a writer who knows both books and men ; of a keen observer ; a thinker almost always sound amid extraordinary inde- pendence and originality ; a master of a style so beau- tifully lucid alike in thought and expression, that we hardly feel, as we follow in the track, how difficult it would be to tread that path without the direction of a guide so able and so sympathetic. The characteristics of Archbishop Whately are very marked ; and his negative characteristics not less so than his positive. No thoughtful man can become acquainted with his writings, without being struck quite as much by what this distinguished prelate is not, as by what he is. Indeed, what the Archbishop of Dublin is not, is perhaps the thing which at first impresses us most deeply. We discover in his works the produc- tions of a mind which can apply itself to the most diverse subjects, and give forth the soundest and shrewdest sense on all, expressed in the most felicitous forms. We cannot but remark his vast information ; and his ripe wisdom, moral, social, and political. But, after all, the thing that strikes us most is, how tho- roughly different Archbishop Whately is from most people's idea of an archbishop. We associate with so elevated a dignitary a certain ponderousness of mind : we assume that his intellect must be a machine which by its weight and power is rather unfitted for light work : and we are taken by surprise when we find a prelate so dignified combining with the graver strength of under- standing a liveliness, pith, and point, — a versatility, 6 Archbishop Whately on Bacon. wit, and playfulness, — which without taking an atom from that respect which is due to his high position, yet put us at our ease in his presence, and fit him for the attractive discussion of almost every topic which can interest the scholar and the gentleman. The general idea of an archbishop is of something eminently respectable : perhaps rather dull and prosy ; never startling us in any way by thought or style ; — looking at all the world through his own medium, and from his own elevated point of view ; — and above all, an in- tensely safe man. The very reverse of all this is Archbishop Whately. Never, indeed, does he say anything inconsistent with his dignified position : but his works show him to us (and we know him by his works alone) as the independent thinker, often thinking very differently from the majority of men, — the tho- rough man of the world, in the true sense of that phrase, — perfectly versant in the ways of living men, from the tricks of the petty tradesman up to the diplo- macies of cabinets and the social ethics of exclusive circles, — at home in the literature of the hour no less than in the weightier letters of philosophy, theology, and politics, — the master of eloquent logic, from the heavy artillery which demolishes a stronghold of error or scepticism, to the light touch that unravels a para- dox or puts a troublesome simpleton in his right place, — the master of wit, from the half-playful breath which shows up a little social folly, to the scathing sarcasm which turns the laugh against the scoffer, and which shows the would-be wise as the most arrant of fools. As for Archbishop Whately's positive characteristics, Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 7 we believe that most of his intelligent readers will agree with us when we place foremost among these his acuteness and independence of thought. The latter of these qualities he possesses almost in excess. We believe that to the Archbishop of Dublin the fact that any opinion is very generally entertained, so far from being a recommendation, is rather a reason for regard- ing it with suspicion. It is amusing how regularly we find it occurring in the prefaces to his works, that one reason for the publication of each is his belief that erroneous views are commonly entertained as to the subject of it. And when we consider how most men receive their opinions upon all subjects ready-made, we cannot appreciate too highly one who, in the emphatic sense of the phrase, thinks for himself. It is right to add that there is hardly an instance in which so much originality of thought can be found in conjunction with so much justice and sobriety of thought. In Arch- bishop Whately' s writings we have independence with- out the least trace of wrongheadedness. His views, especially in his Lectures on a Future State^ on Good and Evil Angels^ and on the Characters of the Apostles^ are often startling at the first glance, because very dif- ferent from those to which we have grown accus- tomed : but he generally succeeds in convincing us that his opinion is the sound and natural one ; and where he fails to carry our conviction along with him, he leaves us persuaded of his good faith, and sensible that much may be said on his part. Another striking characteristic of Archbishop Whately is, his extraordinary power of illustrating 8 Archbishop Whately on Bacon. moral truths and principles by analogies to external nature. Not even Abraham Tucker possessed this power in so eminent a degree : and the Archbishop's illustrations are always free from that grossness and vulgarity which often deform those of Tucker, who (as he himself tells us) did not scruple to take a figure from the kitchen or the stable if it could make his meaning plainer. We cannot call to mind any English author who employs imagery in such a profuse degree ; yet without the faintest suspicion of that nerveless and aimless accumulation of figures and comparisons which constitutes what is vulgarly termed Jloiveriness of style. We have no fine things put in for mere fine-writing's sake. Dr. WhateJy's illustrations are not only inva- riably apt and striking : they really illustrate his point, they throw light upon it, and make it plainer than it was before. They are hardly ever long drawn out ; consisting very frequently in a happy analogy suggested in one clause of a sentence, — the writer being anxious to make that step in his reasoning clear, yet too much bent upon the ultimate conclusion he is aiming at to linger upon that step longer than is neces- sary to make it so. To these literary qualifications we add, that Arch- bishop Whately's information, though evidently reach- ing over a vast field, is yet minutely accurate in the smallest details ; and without the least tinge of pedantry, the fine scholarship of the writer often shines through his work. It is almost superfluous to allude to the invariable clearness, point, and felicity of the Arch- bishop's English style, which often warms into elo- Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 9 quence of the highest class, — effective and telling, without one grain of claptrap. We should give an imperfect view of the charac- teristics of the Archbishop of Dublin, if we did not mention, as a marked one, his intense honesty of purpose -, his evident desire to arrive at exact truth, and his carefulness to state opinions and arguments with perfect fairness. Nor should his fearless out- spokenness be forgotten. He does not hesitate to call an opponent's argument nonsense when he has proved it to be so. c Often very silly, and not seldom very mischievous,'* is his description of the speculations of writers of the Emerson school. Our readers are perhaps acquainted with the Archbishop's remarks upon some of the German writers of the present day : — The attention their views have attracted, considering their extreme absurdity, is something quite wonderful. But there are many persons who are disposed to place confidence in anyone, in proportion, not to his sound judgment ; but to his ingenuity and learning ; qualifications which are sometimes found in men (such as those writers) who are utterly deficient in common sense and reasoning powers, and knowledge of human nature, and who consequently fall into such gross absurdities as would be, in any matter unconnected with religion, regarded as unworthy of serious attention, f It is impossible to read the Annotations without feeling what an acute observer of men is Archbishop Whately. How carefully, in his passage through life, has his quick eye gathered up the characteristics of * Preface, p. v. f Lectures on the Characters of Our Lord's Apostles, p. 1 66. io Archbishop Whately on Bacon. those persons with whom he has been brought in con- tact, — their pretensions, foibles, tricks, and errors : and how well he turns his recollections to account, when an example or illustration is needed ! We like- wise find many indications that he has been keenly alive, not more to the ways of men than to the little phenomena of nature. We refer our readers particu- larly to a passage on the degrees of cold which are experienced in the course of a single night, and we wonder how many persons, even of those who gene- rally live in the country, are aware of the following fact: — Anyone who is accustomed to go out before daylight, will often, in the winter, find the roads full of liquid mud half-an- hour before dawn, and by sunrise as haid as a rock. Then those who have been in bed will often observe that c it was a hard frost last night,' when in truth there had been no frost at all till day- break. — (p. 305.) And the final feature we remark in Archbishop Whately's character, is one which must afford the highest satisfaction to all who have, in their own expe- rience, found earnest personal religion existing most markedly in conjunction with great weakness, ignorance, and prejudice ; and to all who have ever mingled in the society of able and cultivated men, who thought that contemptuously to put religion aside was the indication of mental vigour and enlightenment. It is most satis- factory to find the writings of one of the strongest- minded men of his time, all pervaded and inspirited by a religious principle and feeling, earnest, unaffected, Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 1 1 really practical and influential, — as perfectly free from weakness as from self-assertion and self-conceit. We believe that from this volume of Annotations we could construct a tolerably complete scheme of Archbishop Whately's views on politics, morals, social ethics, and the general conduct of life. We have some indication of his peculiar tastes and bent from observing which among Bacon's Essays he passes by without re- mark. He has little to say concerning ' Masques and Triumphs.' We should judge that his nature has little about it of that ' soft side ' which leads to take delight in the recurrence of periodical festal occasions, with their kindly remembrances : we should judge that a solitary Christmas would be much less of a trial to him than it would be to us ; although the instances of Dickens and Jerrold prove that the warmest feeling about such seasons and associations is quite consistent with even extreme opinions on the side of progress. Then the Archbishop passes the Essays on c Building ' and 'Gar- dens ' without a word ; although these subjects would have set many men of? into a rhapsody of delighted details and fancies. We judge that Dr. Whately has not a very keen relish for external nature for its own sake : his chief interest in it appears to be in the tracing of analogies between the material and moral worlds. The fact that Bacon's ideas both on Building and Gardening are now quite out of date would be only the stronger reason to many men for launching out upon the subject : and how deeply could some sympathise with Bacon in his ideal picture of a princely palace, — one of those delightful palaces in the air about whose 12, Archbishop Whately on Bacon, site there are permitted no drawbacks or shortcomings on the part of Nature, — round which ancestral woods grow at a moment's notice, and within whose view noble rivers, fed by no springs, can flow up-hill, — and in whose architecture expense and time need never be thought of. But not many men are likely ever to live in palaces : not many more, perhaps, would care to picture out such a life for themselves : and we prefer to Bacon's palace the delightful description in Mr. Loudon's Encyclopedia of Architecture of what he calls the Beau Ideal English Villa. We have long regarded the Archbishop of Dublin as, in several respects, almost the foremost man of this day. It says little for the age's intelligence, that while religious works of inconceivable badness and impudence sell by scores of thousands of copies, Archbishop Whately commands an audience, fit indeed, but com- paratively few : for his writings possess a very high degree of that most indispensable, though not highest, of all qualities, interest. He is never heavy nor tiresome. Very dull people may understand, though they may not appreciate him. But we are persuaded that his arch- bishopric lessens the number of his readers. Readers for mere amusement are afraid to begin what has been written by so distinguished a man. We need hardly say that it is wholly impossible within the limits of a short article to give any just idea, either of the variety of topics which the Archbishop has discussed, or of the manner in which he has discussed them. Bacon himself described his Essays as c handling those things wherein both men's lives and persons are Archbishop JVhately on Bacon. 13 most conversant :' and Archbishop Whately's Anno- tations, ranging over the same wide field, can be described, as to their scope, in no more definite terms. But the same necessary want of unity which makes the book so hard to speak of as a whole, renders it the easier to consider in its separate parts. It consists of precious detached pieces, each of which loses nothing by being individually regarded. But before glancing at some of the topics which the Archbishop has treated, we wish to give our readers a few specimens of those admirable illustrations of moral truths by physical analo- gies which form so striking a feature of his writings : — There are two kinds of orators, the distinction between whom might be thus illustrated. When the moon shines brightly we are apt to say, ' How beautiful is this moonlight ! ' but in the day- time, ' How beautiful are the trees, the fields, the mountains ! ' — and, in short, all the objects that are illuminated ; we never speak of the sun that makes them so. Just in the same way, the really greatest orator shines like the sun, making you think much oi the things he is speaking of : the second-best shines like the moon, making you think much of him and his eloquence. — (p. 327, Annotation on Essay ' Of Discourse.') In most subjects, the utmost knowledge that any man can attain to, is but < a little learning ' in comparison of what he remains ignorant of. The view resembles that of an American forest, in which the more trees a man cuts down, the greater is the expanse of wood he sees around him. — (p. 446, Annotation on Essay * Of Studies.') In an annotation on the Essay c Of Negotiating,' Archbishop Whately mentions, as a caution to be observed, that in combating, whether as a speaker or a writer, deep-rooted prejudices, and maintaining unpopu- lar truths, the point to be aimed at should be, to adduce 14 Archbishop Whately on Bacon, what is sufficient, and not much more than is sufficient, to prove your conclusion. You affront men's self- esteem and awaken their distrust, by proving the extreme absurdity of thinking differently from yourself : and in this way, the very clearness and force of the demonstration will, with some minds, have an opposite tendency to the one desired. Labourers who are employed in driving wedges into a block of wood, are careful to use blows of no greater force than is just sufficient. If they strike too hard, the elasticity of the wood will throtv out the nvedge. — (p. 432.) On the Essay c Of Praise,' Archbishop Whately remarks, with admirable truth, that it is needless to insist, as many do, upon the propriety of not being wholly indifferent to the opinions formed of us ; as that tendency of our nature stands more in need of keeping under than of encouraging or vindicating : — It must be treated like the grass on a lawn which you wish to keep in good order ; you neither attempt, nor wish to destroy the grass ; but you mow it down from time to time, as close as you possibly can, well trusting that there will be quite enough left, and that it will be sure to grow again. — (p. 491.) On the Essay e Of Youth and Age,' we have many excellent remarks upon the fact to which the experience of most men bears testimony, that great precocity of understanding is rarely followed by superior intellect in after-life ; and more especially that there is nothing less promising than, in early youth, c a certain full-formed, settled, and, as it may be called, adult character :' — A lad who has, to a degree that excites wonder and admira- tion, the character and demeanour of an intelligent man of mature Archbishop Whately on Bacon, 15 years, will probably be that, and nothing more, all his life, and will cease accordingly to be anything remarkable, because it was the precocity alone that ever made him so. It is remarked by greyhound fanciers that a well-formed, compact-shaped puppy, never makes a fleet dog. They see more promise in the loose- jointed, awkward, clumsy ones. And even so, there is a kind of crudity and unsettledness in the minds of those young persons who turn out ultimately the most eminent. — (p. 405.) How admirably true ! We heartily wish that many injudicious parents would lay this to heart. Who is there who does not remember how, at school and college, some cautious, slow-speaking, never-commit- ting-himself lad, whose seeming precocity of judgment was mainly the result of stolidity of understanding and slowness of circulation, was evermore thrust as a grand exemplar before the view of those whose quicker intel- lect and warmer heart often got them into scrapes from which he kept clear, but promised what he could never attain, till the very name of prudence, discretion, reserve, became hateful and disgusting ! And how regularly that pattern boy or lad has proved in after-life the dullard and booby which his young companions, in their more natural frank-heartedness, instinctively knew and felt he was even then ! On the Essay c Of Friendship ' the Archbishop observes : — It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when per- sons past forty, before they were at all acquainted, form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of old wood to take, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees. — (p. 276.) On Bacon's remark, that c a man that is young in 1 6 Archhishop Whately on Bacon. years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time,' the Archbishop says : — And this may be, not only from his having had better oppor- tunities, but also from his understanding better how to learn by- experience. Several different men, who have all had equal, or even the very same, experience, — that is, have been witnesses or agents in the same transactions, — will often be found to resemble so many different men looking at the same book. One, perhaps, though he distinctly sees black marks on white paper, has never learned his letters ; another can read, but is a stranger to the language in which the book is written ; another has an acquaint- ance with the language, but understands it imperfectly 5 another is familiar with the language, but is a stranger to the subject of the book, and wants power or previous instruction to enable him fully to take in the author's drift ; while another, again, perfectly comprehends the whole. — (p. 400.) In an annotation on the Essay c Of Dispatch,' we find some thoughts on the advantage of knowing when to act with promptitude and when with deliberation, and of being able suitably to meet either case. Then the Archbishop goes on as follows : — If you cannot find a counseller who combines these two kinds of qualification (which is a thing not to be calculated on), you should seek for some of each sort ; one, to devise and mature measures that will admit of delay ; and another, to make prompt guesses, and suggest sudden expedients. A bow, such as is approved by our modern toxophilites, must be backed — that is, made of two slips of wood glued together : one a very elastic, but somewhat brittle wood 5 the other much less elastic, but very tough. The one gives the requisite spring, the other keeps it from breaking. If you have two such counsellors as are here spoken of, you are provided with a backed bow. — (p. 250.) Describing the two opposite sorts of men who equally precipitate a country into anarchy, the one sort by Archbishop Whately on Bacon. ij obstinately resisting all innovations, and the other by recklessly hurrying into violent changes without reason, the Archbishop says : — The two kinds of absurdity here adverted to may be compared respectively to the acts of two kinds of irrational animals, a moth, and a horse. The moth rushes into a flame, and is burned : and the horse obstinately stands still in a stable that is on fire, and is burned likewise. One may often meet with persons of opposite dispositions, though equally unwise, who are accordingly prone respectively to these opposite errors, the one partaking more of the character of the moth, and the other of the horse. — (p. 244.) Lord Macaulay tells us, and experience confirms his statement, that it is not easy to make a simile go on all fours, and incomparably more difficult to attain strict accuracy when an analogy is drawn out to any length. But Archbishop Whately overcomes this difficulty. There is no hitch whatever in the following com- parison, though it runs to very minute and exact details : — The effect produced by any writing or speech of an argumen- tative character, on any subject in which diversity of opinion pre- vails, may be compared — supposing the argument to be of any weight — to the effects of a fire-engine on a conflagration. That portion of the water which falls on solid stone walls, is poured out where it is not needed. That, again, which falls on blazing beams and rafters, is cast off in volumes of hissing steam, and will seldom avail to quench the fire. But that which is poured on woodwork that is just beginning to kindle, may stop the burning ; and that which wets the rafters not yet ignited, but in danger, may save them from catching fire. Even so, those who already concur with the writer as to some point, will feel gratified with, and perhaps bestow high commendation on, an able defence of the opinions they already hold ; and those, again, who have fully made up their minds on the opposite side, are more likely C 1 8 Archbishop Whately on Bacon. to be displeased than to be convinced. But both of these parties are left nearly in the same mind as before. Those, however, who are in a hesitating and doubtful state, may very likely be decided by forcible arguments. And those who have not hitherto con- sidered the subject, may be induced to adopt the opinions which they find supported by the strongest reasons. But the readiest and warmest approbation a writer meets with, will usually be from those whom he has not convinced, because they were con- vinced already. And the effect the most important and the most difficult to be produced, he will usually, when he does produce it, hear the least of. — (p. 432.) We do not know where to find a comparison more correct or more beautiful, than that with which the highly-gifted prelate concludes his remarks on those writers who inculcate morality, with an exclusion of all reference to religious principle. He gives us to under- stand that the resolute manner in which Miss Edge- worth, in her works, ignored Christianity, was the result of an entire disbelief in its doctrines. But even this sad fact leaves her open to the charge of having falsified poetical truth ; inasmuch as it cannot be denied, that Christianity, true or false, does exist, and does exercise a material influence on the feelings and conduct of some of the believers in it. And to represent all sorts of people as involved in all sorts of circumstances, while yet none ever makes the least reference to a religious motive, is artistically unnatural. The graver objection still remains, that the moral excellences de- scribed in non-religious fictions as existing, cannot exist, cannot be realised, except by resorting to principles which, in those fictions, are unnoticed. And the young reader should therefore be reminded Archbishop Whately on Bacon, ig that all these ' things that are lovely and of good report,' which have been placed before him, are the genuine fruits of the Holy- Land ; though the spies who have brought them bring also an evil report of that land, and would persuade us to remain wander- ing in the wilderness. — (p. 468.) In pointing out the unfairness to a new colony of making it the receptacle of the blackguards and scapegraces of the old country, by the system of penal transportation, the Archbishop happily illustrates the way in which people of not very logical minds are brought to associate things which are not merely unconnected, but inconsistent : — In other subjects, as well as in this, I have observed that two distinct objects may, by being dexterously presented, again and again in quick succession, to the mind of a cursory reader, be so associated together in his thoughts, as to be conceived capable, when in fact they are not, of being actually combined in practice. The fallacious belief thus induced bears a striking resemblance to the optical illusion effected by that ingenious and philosophical toy called the ' thaumatrope 5 ' in which two objects painted on opposite sides of a card,— for instance, a man and a horse, a bird and a cage, — are, by a quick rotatory motion, made so to impress the eye in combination, as to form one picture, of the man on the horse's back, — the bird in the cage, &c. As soon as the card is allowed to remain at rest, the figures, of course, appear as they really are, separate and on opposite sides. A mental illusion closely analogous to this is produced, when, by a rapid and repeated transition from one subject to another, alternately, the mind is deluded into an idea of the actual combination of things that are really incompatible. The chief part of the defence which various writers have advanced in favour of the system of penal colonies, consists, in truth, of a sort of intellectual thaumatrope. The prosperity of the colony, and the repression of crime, are, by a sort of rapid whirl, presented to the mind as combined in one picture. A very moderate degree of calm and fixed attention 20 Archbishop Wbately on Bacon. soon shows that the two objects are painted on opposite sides of the card. — (p. 334.) On the risk run by superstitious persons of falling Minds strongly predisposed to superstition, may be compared to heavy bodies just balanced on the verge of a precipice. The slightest touch will send them over 5 and then, the greatest exertion that can be made may be insufficient to arrest their fall, —(p. 155.) Illustration is sometimes the most cogent of ar- gument. A volume of reasoning against ultra-con- servatism would not equal, for general impression, the following plain statement of the case : — Is there not, then, some reason for the ridicule which Bacon speaks of, as attaching to those ' who too much reverence old times ? ' To say that no changes shall take place is to talk idly. We might as well pretend to control the motions of the earth. To resolve that none shall take place except what are undesigned and accidental, is to resolve that though a clock may gain or lose indefinitely, at least we will take care that it shall never be regu- lated. ' If time ' (to use Bacon's warning words) ' alters things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter to the better, what shall be the end ? ' — (pp. 236-7.) We shall throw together, without remark, some further examples of Archbishop Whately's power of' illustrating the moral by the physical. So marked a feature in his intellectual portraiture deserves, we think, extended notice. But it is only by studying the Annotations for themselves, that our readers can form any just idea of the affluence and exuberance of happy imagery with which they sparkle all over. To these small wares, enumerated by Bacon, might be added a Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 2,1 very hackneyed trick, which yet is wonderfully successful — to affect a delicacy about mentioning particulars, and hint at what you could bring forward, only you do not wish to give offence. ' We could give many cases to prove that such and such a medical system is all a delusion, and a piece of quackery ; but we abstain, through tenderness for individuals, from bringing names before the Public.' ' I have observed many things — which, however, I will not particularise — which convince me that Mr. Such-a-one is unfit for his office 5 and others have made the same remark ; but I do not like to bring them forward,' &c. &c. Thus an unarmed man keeps the unthinking in awe, by assuring them that he has a pair of loaded pistols in his pocket, though he is loth to produce them. — (p. 210.) A man who plainly perceives that, as Bacon observes, there are some cases which call for promptitude, and others which require delay, and who has also sagacity enough to perceive 'which is which, will often be mortified at perceiving that he has come too late for some things, and too soon for others ; — that he is like a skilful engineer, who perceives how he could, fifty years earlier, have effectually preserved an important harbour which is now irrecoverably silted up, and how he could, fifty years hence, though not at present, reclaim from the sea thousands of acres of fertile land at the delta of some river. — (p. 203.) As in contemplating an ebbing tide, we are sometimes in doubt, on a short inspection, whether the sea is really receding, because, from time to time, a wave will dash further up the shore than those which have preceded it, but, if we continue our observa- tions long enough, we see plainly that the boundary of the land is on the whole advancing ; so here, by extending our view over many countries and through several ages, we may distinctly per- ceive the tendencies which would have escaped a more confined research.— (p. 300.) An ancient Greek colony was like what gardeners call a layer ; a portion of the parent tree, with stem, twigs, and leaves, im- bedded in fresh soil till it had taken root, and then severed. A modern colony is like a handful of twigs and leaves pulled off at random, and thrown into the earth to take their chance. — (p. 341.) * There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot play well," 22, Archbishop Whately on Bacon. Those whom Bacon here so well describes, are men of a clear and quick sight, but short-sighted. They are ingenious in par- ticulars, but cannot take a comprehensive view of a whole. Such a man may make a good captain, but a bad general. He may be clever at surprising a piquet, but would fail in the management of a great army and the conduct of a campaign. He is like a chess-player who takes several pawns, but is checkmated. — (p. 215.) The truth is, that in all the serious and important affairs of life men are attached to what they have been used to ; in matters of ornament they covet novelty ; in all systems and institutions — in all the ordinary business of life — in all fundamentals — they cling to what is the established course ; in matters of detail — in what lies, as it were, on the surface — they seek variety. Man may, in reference to this point, be compared to a tree whose stem and main branches stand year after year, but whose leaves and flowers are fresh every season. — (p. 228.) In no point is the record of past times more instructive to those capable of learning from other experience than their own, than in what relates to the history of reactions. It has been often remarked by geographers that a river flowing through a level country of soft alluvial soil never keeps a straight course, but winds regularly to and fro, in the form of the letter S many times repeated. And a geographer, on looking at the course of any stream as marked on a map, can at once tell whether it flows along a plain (like the river Meander, which has given its name to such windings), or through a rocky and hilly country. It is found, indeed, that if a straight channel be cut for any stream in a plain consisting of tolerably soft soil, it will never long continue straight, unless artificially kept so, but becomes crooked, and increases its windings more and more every year. The cause is, that any little wearing away of the bank in the softest part of the soil, on one side, occasions a set of the stream against this hollow, which increases it, and at the same time drives the water aslant against the opposite bank a little lower down. This wears away that bank also $ and thus the stream is again driven against a part of the first bank, still lower ; and so on, till by the wearing away of the banks at these points on each Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 33 side, and the deposit of mud (gradually becoming dry land) in the comparatively still water between them, the course of the stream becomes sinuous, and its windings increase more and more. And even thus, in human affairs, we find alternate movements, in nearly opposite directions, taking place from time to time, and generally bearing some proportion to each other in respect of the violence of each ; even as the highest flood-tide is succeeded by the lowest ebb. — (p. 154.) Very beautifully, in the following paragraph, does the Archbishop illustrate the law that whatever is to last long, must grow slowly : — We hear of volcanic islands thrown up in a few days to a for- midable size, and in a few weeks or months, sinking down again or washed away ; while other islands, which are the summits of banks covered with weed and drift-sand, continue slowly increasing year after year, century after century. The man who is in a hurry to see the full effect of his own tillage, should cultivate annuals, not forest trees. The clear-headed lover of truth is content to wait for the result of his. If he is wrong in the doc- trines he maintains, or the measures he proposes, at least it is not for the sake of immediate popularity. If he is right, it will be found out in time, though, perhaps, not in his time. The pre- parers of the mummies were (Herodotus says) driven out of the house by the family who had engaged their services, with execra- tions and stones ; but their work remains sound after three thousand years. — (p. 503.) Although these extracts have been given mainly to exemplify Archbishop Whately's mode of enforcing and illustrating his views, they may have served like- wise to give our readers some notion of the variety of topics treated in this volume, and of the Archbishop's opinions upon some of these. We hardly know how to attempt a description of the matter of the work, as distinguished from its manner. There are scores of 24 Archbishop Whately on Bacon, paragraphs among the Annotations which might each supply material for extended review ; and we had marked many interesting passages with the intention of discussing at some length the views contained in them. But, even after weeding out of our list the topics which appeared of minor interest (the process was that of thinning rather than of weeding), so many remain, that we can do no more than glance at two or three. In the second edition of the work, just published, we find no material differences when compared with the first. Archbishop Whately's opinions have been too well considered to admit of change within a few months' space. But the minute reader will find here and there many little additions, which afford pleasant proof that the author is still thinking upon the subjects treated ; and which promise that, rich as this volume already is in wisdom and eloquence, it may yet be farther enriched by the farther observation and reflection of its writer. In the former edition the Essay ' On Faction ' was followed by no remarks : in the present edition it is followed by several annotations -—some of them suggested, we may believe, by recent occurrences in America. The following passage, of special interest at the present time, points out forcibly the advantage of having in a State aliquid impercussum — a central rallying-point detached from all party, and to which all parties may profess attachment : — Bacon's remark, that a Prince ought not to make it his policy to ( govern according to respect to factions,'' suggests a strong ground of preference of hereditary to elective sovereignty. For when a chief — whether called king, emperor, president, or by whatever name — is elected (whether for life, or for a term of Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 25 years), he can hardly avoid being the head of a party. He who is elected will be likely to feel aversion towards those who have voted against him ; who may be, perhaps, nearly half of his subjects. And they again will be likely to regard him as an enemy, instead of feeling loyalty to him as their prince. And those again who have voted/or him, will consider him as being under an obligation to them, and expect him to show to them more favour than to the rest of his subjects ; so that he will be rather the head of a party than the king of a people. Then, too, when the throne is likely to become vacant — that is, when the king is old, or is attacked with any serious illness — what secret canvassing and disturbance of men's minds will take place ! The king himself will most likely wish that his son, or some other near relative or friend, should succeed him, and he will employ all his patronage with a view to such an election ; appointing to public offices not the fittest men, but those whom he can reckon on as voters. And others will be exerting them- selves to form a party against him ; so that the country will be hardly ever tranquil, and very seldom well-governed. If, indeed, men were very different from what they are, there might be superior advantages in an elective royalty ; but in the actual state of things, the disadvantages will in general greatly outweigh the benefits. Accordingly most nations have seen the advantage of hereditary royalty, notwithstanding the defects of such a constitution. We heartily wish that all parents would remember and act upon the Archbishop's view, as expressed in the following passage. We believe the caution is extensively needed. We believe that many injudicious parents (with the best intention) trench upon the incommunicable prerogative of the All-wise and the Almighty, by needlessly causing griefs and disappoint- ments to their children, under the idea that all this forms a wholesome discipline. They forget that the nature and effect of every event partaking of the z6 Archbishop Whately on Bacon. character of 'pain, is determined by the source it comes from. When the heaviest sorrow comes by God's appointment, we bow in submission ; and this not merely because we cannot help it, — because it is vain to repine — because God will take His own way, whether we like it or not, — but because we have perfect confidence in the Tightness of whatever God may do, and because we feel assured that there must be good reason for all He does, although we may not be able to discern that reason. As regards man, we have no such confidence. And parents may be assured that their foolish conduct towards their children in many cases is a training, but an extremely bad one ; it trains the children to a spirit of fruitless and therefore bitter resistance, and of dogged resentment. The philanthropist Howard, by taking the course the Arch- bishop reprobates, drove his son into a lunatic asylum. He followed that course rigorously and universally, and so the worst degree of mental disease ensued upon it. Most parents follow it only in part ; and the lesser evil follows, of alienated affection, loss of confidence, jaun- diced views, and a soured heart. Yet if any parent, on a cold morning, insists on his children remaining in that part of the room most distant from the fire, when their warming their little blue hands there could do no harm to any human being; or systematically refuses to permit them to go to £ children's parties,' not because they are asked to too many, but merely because it is good for them to be disappointed ; or, generally, seeks to repress the exhibition of gaiety and light-heartedness, because ' we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 2 J God ; ' then let that parent be assured, that surely as the field sown with tares yielded a harvest of tares, so surely will this petty tyranny bring forth its natural result, of resentment and aversion. Most carefully should we avoid the error of which some parents, not (otherwise) deficient in good sense, commit, of imposing gratuitous restrictions and privations, and purposely inflicting needless disappointments, for the purpose of inuring children to the pains and troubles they will meet with in after-life. Yes, be assured they nvill meet with quite enough, in every portion of life, including childhood, without your strewing their path with thorns of your own providing. And often enough will you have to limit their amusements for the sake of needful study, to restrain their appetites for the sake of health, to chastise them for faults, and in various ways to inflict pain or privations for the sake of avoiding some greater evils. Let this always be explained to them whenever it is possible to do so ; and endea- vour in all cases to make them look on the parent as never the 'voluntary giver of anything but good. To any hardships which they are convinced you inflict reluctantly, and to those which occur through the dispensation of the All-wise, they will more easily be trained to submit with a good grace, than to any gratui tous sufferings devised for them by fallible men. To raise hopes on purpose to produce disappointment, to give provocation merely to exercise the temper, and, in short, to inflict pain of any kind merely as a training for patience and fortitude — this is a kind of discipline which man should not presume to attempt. If such trials prove a discipline not so much of cheerful fortitude as of resentful aversion and suspicious distrust of the parent as a capricious tyrant, you will have only yourself to thank for this result. — (pp. 58-9.) Archbishop Whately is of opinion that the fear of punishment in a future life is a motive of more perma- nent force than that of temporal judgments* We quote his words : — It is true that some men, who are nearly strangers to such 28 Archbishop Whately on Bacon. a habit, may be for a time more alarmed by the denunciation of immediate temporal judgments for their sins, than by any con- siderations relative to ' the things which are not seen and which are eternal.' But the effect thus produced is much less likely to be lasting, or while it lasts to be salutary, because temporal alarm does not tend to make men spiritually-minded, and any reforma- tion of manners it may have produced will not have been founded on Christian principles. — (pp. 61-2.) Upon this we remark that there can be no question that, were future punishments realised as substantially as temporal evils, they ought to have, and would have, a much greater effect in deterring from sinful conduct. But the great difficulty with which men have to contend is the essential impossibility of realising spiritual and unseen things in their true bulk and importance ; of feeling that a thing in the Bible, or in a sermon, is as real a thing as something in the daylight, material world. In no case is this difficulty more felt than in regard to future punishments in another life. We may be far mistaken : but the result of considerable experience of the ways and feelings of a rustic population, is some- thing of doubt whether in practice the fear of future punishment produces any effect in deterring from evil courses. A mountain, 'far away, may be concealed by a shilling held close to the eye ; and future woe seems to crass minds so distant and so misty, that a very small immediate gratification quite hides it from view. We remember, as illustrative of this, a circumstance related by a neighbouring clergyman. His parishioners were sadly addicted to drinking to excess. Men and women were alike given to this degrading vice. He did, of course, all he could to repress it, but all in vain. Archbishop Whately on Bacon, 2,9 For many years, he said, he warned the drunkards in the most solemn manner of the doom they might expect in another world ; but, so far as he knew, not a pot of ale or glass of spirits the less was drunk in the parish in consequence of his denunciations. Future woe melted into mist in the presence of a replenished jug on a market-day. A happy thought struck the clergyman. In the neighbouring town there was a clever medical man, a vehement teetotaller. Him he summoned to his aid. The doctor came, and delivered a lecture on the physical consequences of drunkenness, illustrating his lecture with large diagrams which gave shocking representations of the stomach, lungs, heart, and other vital organs, as affected by alcohol. These things came home to the drunkards, who had not cared a rush for final perdition. The effect produced was tremen- dous. Almost all the men and women of the parish took the total-abstinence pledge; and since that day, drunkenness has nearly ceased in that parish. Nor was the improvement evanescent ; it has lasted for two or three years. The Archbishop, in the Annotations upon ' Simu- lation and Dissimulation,' discusses the question whether an author is justified in disowning the authorship of his anonymous productions. It is, indeed, a considerable annoyance when meddling and impertinent persons, in spite of every indication that the subject is a disagreeable one, persist in trying by fishing questions to discover whether we know who wrote such an article in Fraser's Magazine or the Edinburgh Review ; and though no man of good sense or taste will do this, no author is 30 Archbishop VFhately on Bacon. safe in the existing abundance of men who are devoid of both these qualities. We have known instances in which the subject was recurred to time after time by impertinent questioners ; and in which, by sudden enquiries put in the presence of many listeners, and by interrogating the relatives and intimate friends of the supposed writer, attempts were made to elicit the fact. It is curious to remark the various opinions which have been put on record as to the casuistry of such cases. There is but one opinion as to the extreme impertinence of the questioners : and so far as they are concerned, the curtest refusal to answer their enquiries would be the fittest way of meeting them. But, un- happily, a refusal to reply will in many cases be re- garded as an answer in the affirmative : and if the only alternatives were a correct answer and no answer, any meddling fool might reveal a literary secret of the highest importance. Dr. Johnson took up the ground that an author is justified in directly denying that he wrote his anonymous writings. Sir Walter Scott expressly declared that he was not the author of the Waverley Novels. Mr. Samuel Warren, when a lad at school, with characteristic presumption wrote to Sir Walter as such ; and Sir Walter's answer, published in Mr. Warren's Miscellanies, expressly repudiates the authorship. Mr. Samuel Rogers drew a nice distinc- tion. Some forward individual, in his presence, taxed Scott with the authorship of Waverley ; Sir Walter replied, c Upon my honour, I am not : ' and Rogers thought that Scott might fairly have replied in the negative, but that he ought not to have said c Upon Archbishop Whately on Bacon. 31 my honour.' Swift's reply to Serjeant Bettesworth approached a shade nearer the fact : — Mr. Bettesworth, I was in my youth acquainted with great lawyers, who, knowing my disposition to satire, advised me, that if any scoundrel or blockhead whom I had lampooned should ask, ' Are you the author of this paper ? ' I should tell him that I was not the author : and therefore I tell you, Mr. Bettesworth, that I am not the author of these lines. A writer in a recent Quarterly Review * appears to be for exact truth at all risks ; saying that the question really is, whether impertinence in one person will jus- tify falsehood in another ? and maintaining that, if the least departure from veracity is admitted in any instance, there is no saying where the thing will end. Archbishop Whately is reluctant to advise a depar- ture from truth in any case, but advises a method of meeting prying questioners which we trust reviewers will make use of on occasion. We quote the passage in which his advice occurs ; it is admirable for point and pungency : — A well-known author once received a letter from a peer with whom he was slightly acquainted, asking him whether he was the author of a certain article in the Edinburgh Review. He replied that he never made communications of that kind, except to intimate friends, selected by himself for the purpose, when he saw fit. His refusal to answer, however, pointed him out — which, as it happened, he did not care for — as the author. But a case might occur, in which the revelation of the author- ship might involve a friend in some serious difficulties. In any such case, he might have answered something in this style : * I have received a letter purporting to be from your lordship, but * Quarterly Review, vol. xcix. p. 302. 3 2, Archbishop Wbately on Bac on, the matter of it induces me to suspect that it is a forgery by- some mischievous trickster. The writer asks whether I am the author of a certain article. It is a sort of question which no one has a right to ask ; and I think, therefore, that every- one is bound to discourage such enquiries by answering them — whether one is or is not the author — with a rebuke for ask- ing impertinent questions about private matters. I say " private," because, if an article be libellous or seditious, the law is open, and anyone may proceed against the publisher, and compel him either to give up the author, or to bear the penalty. If, again, it contains false statements, these, coming from an anonymous pen, may be simply contradicted. And if the arguments be unsound, the obvious course is to refute them. But