MEMORIALS, AND OTHER PAPERS, VOL. I. 

BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY

FROM THE AUTHOR, TO THE AMERICAN EDITOR OF HIS WORKS. 

These papers I am anxious to put into the hands of your house, and, sofar as regards the U. S. , of your house exclusively; not with any viewto further emolument, but as an acknowledgment of the services whichyou have already rendered me; namely, first, in having brought togetherso widely scattered a collection--a difficulty which in my own hands bytoo painful an experience I had found from nervous depression to beabsolutely insurmountable; secondly, in having made me a participatorin the pecuniary profits of the American edition, without solicitationor the shadow of any expectation on my part, without any legal claimthat I could plead, or equitable warrant in established usage, solelyand merely upon your own spontaneous motion. Some of these new papers, I hope, will not be without their value in the eyes of those who havetaken an interest in the original series. But at all events, good orbad, they are now tendered to the appropriation of your individualhouse, the Messrs. TICKNOR & FIELDS, according to the amplest extent ofany power to make such a transfer that I may be found to possess by lawor custom in America. 

I wish this transfer were likely to be of more value. But the veriesttrifle, interpreted by the spirit in which I offer it, may express mysense of the liberality manifested throughout this transaction by yourhonorable house. 

Ever believe me, my dear sir, Your faithful and obliged, THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 

EXPLANATORY NOTICESTHE ORPHAN HEIRESS. VISIT TO LAXTON THE PRIORYOXFORDTHE PAGAN ORACLESTHE REVOLUTION OF GREECE

EXPLANATORY NOTICES. 

Many of the papers in my collected works were originally written underone set of disadvantages, and are now revised under another. They werewritten generally under great pressure as to time, in order to catchthe critical periods of monthly journals; written oftentimes at adistance from the press (so as to have no opportunity for correction);and always written at a distance from libraries, so that very manystatements, references, and citations, were made on the authority of myunassisted memory. Under such circumstances were most of the paperscomposed; and they are now reissued in a corrected form, sometimes evenpartially recast, under the distraction of a nervous misery whichembarrasses my efforts in a mode and in a degree inexpressible bywords. Such, indeed, is the distress produced by this malady, that, ifthe present act of republication had in any respect worn the characterof an experiment, I should have shrunk from it in despondency. But theexperiment, so far as there was any, had been already tried for mevicariously amongst the Americans; a people so nearly repeating our ownin style of intellect, and in the composition of their reading class, that a success amongst them counts for a success amongst ourselves. Forsome few of the separate papers in these volumes I make pretensions ofa higher cast. These pretensions I will explain hereafter. All the restI resign to the reader's unbiased judgment, adding here, with respectto four of them, a few prefatory words--not of propitiation ordeprecation, but simply in explanation as to points that wouldotherwise be open to misconstruction. 

1. The paper on "Murder as one of the Fine Arts" [Footnote: Publishedin the "Miscellaneous Essays. "] seemed to exact from me some account ofWilliams, the dreadful London murderer of the last generation; notonly because the amateurs had so much insisted on his merit as thesupreme of artists for grandeur of design and breadth of style; andbecause, apart from this momentary connection with my paper, the manhimself merited a record for his matchless audacity, combined with somuch of snaky subtlety, and even insinuating amiableness, in hisdemeanor; but also because, apart from the man himself, the works ofthe man (those two of them especially which so profoundly impressed thenation in 1812) were in themselves, for dramatic effect, the mostimpressive on record. Southey pronounced their preeminence when he saidto me that they ranked amongst the few domestic events which, by thedepth and the expansion of horror attending them, had risen to thedignity of a _national_ interest. I may add that this interestbenefited also by the mystery which invested the murders; mystery as tovarious points but especially as respected one important question, Hadthe murderer any accomplice? [Footnote: Upon a large overbalance ofprobabilities, it was, however, definitively agreed amongst amateursthat Williams must have been alone in these atrocities. Meantime, amongst the colorable presumptions on the other side was this:--Somehours after the last murder, a man was apprehended at Barnet (the firststage from London on a principal north road), encumbered with aquantity of plate. How he came by it, or whither he was going, hesteadfastly refused to say. In the daily journals, which he was allowedto see, he read with eagerness the police examinations of Williams; andon the same day which announced the catastrophe of Williams, he alsocommitted suicide in his cell. ] There was, therefore, reason enough, both in the man's hellish character, and in the mystery whichsurrounded him, for a Postscript [Footnote: Published in the "NoteBook. "] to the original paper; since, in a lapse of forty-two years, both the man and his deeds had faded away from the knowledge of thepresent generation; but still I am sensible that my record is far toodiffuse. Feeling this at the very time of writing, I was yet unable tocorrect it; so little self-control was I able to exercise under theafflicting agitations and the unconquerable impatience of my nervousmalady. 

2. "War. " [Footnote: Published in "Narrative and MiscellaneousEssays. "]--In this paper, from having faultily adjusted its proportionsin the original outline, I find that I have dwelt too briefly and toofeebly upon the capital interest at stake. To apply a correction tosome popular misreadings of history, to show that the criminal (becausetrivial) occasions of war are not always its trifle causes, or tosuggest that war (if resigned to its own natural movement ofprogress) is cleansing itself and ennobling itself constantly andinevitably, were it only through its connection with science ever moreand more exquisite, and through its augmented costliness, --all this mayhave its use in offering some restraint upon the levity of action or ofdeclamation in Peace Societies. But all this is below the occasion. Ifeel that far grander interests are at stake in this contest. The PeaceSocieties are falsely appreciated, when they are described as merelydeaf to the lessons of experience, and as too "_romantic_" intheir expectations. The very opposite is, to _my_ thinking, theircriminal reproach. He that is romantic errs usually by too muchelevation. He violates the standard of reasonable expectation, bydrawing too violently upon the nobilities of human nature. But, on thecontrary, the Peace Societies would, if their power kept pace withtheir guilty purposes, work degradation for man by drawing upon hismost effeminate and luxurious cravings for ease. Most heartily, andwith my profoundest sympathy, do I go along with Wordsworth in hisgrand lyrical proclamation of a truth not less divine than it ismysterious, not less triumphant than it is sorrowful, namely, thatamongst God's holiest instruments for the elevation of human nature is"mutual slaughter" amongst men; yes, that "Carnage is God's daughter. "Not deriving my own views in this matter from Wordsworth, --not knowingeven whether I hold them on the same grounds, since Wordsworth has left_his_ grounds unexplained, --nevertheless I cite them in honor, ascapable of the holiest justification. The instruments rise in grandeur, carnage and mutual slaughter rise in holiness, exactly as the motivesand the interests rise on behalf of which such awful powers areinvoked. Fighting for truth in its last recesses of sanctity, for humandignity systematically outraged, or for human rights mercilesslytrodden under foot--champions of such interests, men first of alldescry, as from a summit suddenly revealed, the possible grandeur ofbloodshed suffered or inflicted. Judas and Simon Maccabæus in days ofold, Gustavus Adolphus [Footnote: The Thirty Years' War, from 1618 tothe Peace of Westphalia in 1648, was notoriously the last and thedecisive conflict between Popery and Protestantism; the result of thatwar it was which finally enlightened all the Popish princes ofChristendom as to the impossibility of ever suppressing the antagonistparty by mere force of arms. I am not meaning, however, to utter anyopinion whatever on the religious position of the two great parties. Itis sufficient for entire sympathy with the royal Swede, that he foughtfor the freedom of conscience. Many an enlightened Roman Catholic, supposing only that he were not a Papist, would have given his hopesand his confidence to the Protestant king. ] in modern days, fightingfor the violated rights of conscience against perfidious despots andmurdering oppressors, exhibit to us the incarnations of Wordsworth'sprinciple. Such wars are of rare occurrence. Fortunately they are so;since, under the possible contingencies of human strength and weakness, it might else happen that the grandeur of the principle should sufferdishonor through the incommensurate means for maintaining it. But suchcases, though emerging rarely, are always to be reserved in men's mindsas ultimate appeals to what is most divine in man. Happy it is forhuman welfare that the blind heart of man is a thousand times wiserthan his understanding. An _arrière pensée_ should lie hidden inall minds--a holy reserve as to cases which _may_ arise similar tosuch as HAVE arisen, where a merciful bloodshed [Footnote: "_Mercifulbloodshed_"--In reading either the later religious wars of theJewish people under the Maccabees, or the earlier under Joshua, everyphilosophic reader will have felt the true and transcendent spirit ofmercy which resides virtually in such wars, as maintaining the unity ofGod against Polytheism and, by trampling on cruel idolatries, asindirectly opening the channels for benign principles of moralitythrough endless generations of men. Here especially he will have readone justification of Wordsworth's bold doctrine upon war. Thus far hewill destroy a wisdom working from afar, but, as regards the immediatepresent, he will be apt to adopt the ordinary view, namely, that in theOld Testament severity prevails approaching to cruelty. Yet, onconsideration, he will be disposed to qualify this opinion. He willhave observed many indications of a relenting kindness and a tendernessof love in the Mosaical ordinances. And recently there has beensuggested another argument tending to the same conclusion. In the lastwork of Mr. Layard ('Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, 1853') are published some atrocious monuments of the Assyrian crueltyin the treatment of military captives. In one of the plates of Chapxx. , at page 456, is exhibited some unknown torture applied to thehead, and in another, at page 458, is exhibited the abominable process, applied to two captives, of flaying them alive. One such case had beenpreviously recorded in human literature, and illustrated by a plate. Itoccurs in a Dutch voyage to the islands of the East. The subject of thetorment in that case as a woman who had been charged with some act ofinfidelity to her husband. And the local government, being indignantlysummoned to interfere by some Christian strangers, had declined to doso, on the plea that the man was master within his own house. But theAssyrian case was worse. This torture was there applied, not upon asudden vindictive impulse, but in cold blood, to a simple caseapparently of civil disobedience or revolt. Now, when we consider howintimate, and how ancient, was the connection between Assyria andPalestine, how many things (in war especially) were transferredmediately through the intervening tribes (all habitually cruel), fromthe people on the Tigris to those on the Jordan, I feel convinced thatMoses must have interfered most peremptorily and determinately, and notmerely by verbal ordinances, but by establishing counter usages againstthis spirit of barbarity, otherwise it would have increasedcontagiously, whereas we meet with no such hellish atrocities amongstthe children of Israel. In the case of one memorable outrage by aHebrew tribe, the national vengeance which overtook it was complete andtearful beyond all that history has recorded] has been authorized bythe express voice of God. Such a reserve cannot be dispensed with. Itbelongs to the principle of progress in man that he should forever keepopen a secret commerce in the last resort with the spirit of martyrdomon behalf of man's most saintly interests. In proportion as theinstruments for upholding or retrieving such saintly interests shouldcome to be dishonored or less honored, would the inference be validthat those interests were shaking in their foundations. And anyconfederation or compact of nations for abolishing war would be theinauguration of a downward path for man. 

A battle is by possibility the grandest, and also the meanest, of humanexploits. It is the grandest when it is fought for godlike truth, forhuman dignity, or for human rights; it is the meanest when it is foughtfor petty advantages (as, by way of example, for accession of territorywhich adds nothing to the security of a frontier), and still more whenit is fought simply as a gladiator's trial of national prowess. This isthe principle upon which, very naturally, our British school-boys valuea battle. Painful it is to add, that this is the principle upon whichour adult neighbors the French seem to value a battle. 

To any man who, like myself, admires the high-toned, martial gallantryof the French, and pays a cheerful tribute of respect to their manyintellectual triumphs, it is painful to witness the childish state offeeling which the French people manifest on every possible questionthat connects itself at any point with martial pretensions. A battle isvalued by them on the same principles, not better and not worse, asgovern our own schoolboys. Every battle is viewed by the boys as a testapplied to the personal prowess of each individual soldier; and, naturally amongst boys, it would be the merest hypocrisy to take anyhigher ground. But amongst adults, arrived at the power of reflectingand comparing, we look for something nobler. We English estimateWaterloo, not by its amount of killed and wounded, but as the battlewhich terminated a series of battles, having one common object, namely, the overthrow of a frightful tyranny. A great sepulchral shadow rolledaway from the face of Christendom as that day's sun went down to hisrest; for, had the success been less absolute, an opportunity wouldhave offered for negotiation, and consequently for an infinity ofintrigues through the feuds always gathering upon national jealousiesamongst allied armies. The dragon would soon have healed his wounds;after which the prosperity of the despotism would have been greaterthan before. But, without reference to Waterloo in particular, _we_, on _our_ part, find it impossible to contemplate any memorablebattle otherwise than according to its tendency towards somecommensurate object. To the French this must be impossible, seeing thatno lofty (that is, no disinterested) purpose has ever been so much ascounterfeited for a French war, nor therefore for a French battle. Aggression, cloaked at the very utmost in the garb of retaliation forcounter aggressions on the part of the enemy, stands forward uniformlyin the van of such motives as it is thought worth while to plead. Butin French casuistry it is not held necessary to plead _any_thing;war justifies itself. To fight for the experimental purpose of tryingthe proportions of martial merit, but (to speak frankly) for thepurpose of publishing and renewing to Europe the proclamation of Frenchsuperiority--_that_ is the object of French wars. Like the Spartanof old, the Frenchman would hold that a state of peace, and not a stateof war, is the state which calls for apology; and that already from thefirst such an apology must wear a very suspicious aspect of paradox. 

3. "The English Mail-Coach. " [Footnote: Published in the "MiscellaneousEssays. "]--This little paper, according to my original intention, formed part of the "Suspiria de Profundis, " from which, for a momentarypurpose, I did not scruple to detach it, and to publish it apart, assufficiently intelligible even when dislocated from its place in alarger whole. To my surprise, however, one or two critics, notcarelessly in conversation, but deliberately in print, professed theirinability to apprehend the meaning of the whole, or to follow the linksof the connection between its several parts. I am myself as little ableto understand where the difficulty lies, or to detect any lurkingobscurity, as those critics found themselves to unravel my logic. Possibly I may not be an indifferent and neutral judge in such a case. I will therefore sketch a brief abstract of the little paper accordingto my own original design, and then leave the reader to judge how farthis design is kept in sight through the actual execution. 

Thirty-seven years ago, or rather more, accident made me, in the deadof night, and of a night memorably solemn, the solitary witness to anappalling scene, which threatened instant death, in a shape the mostterrific, to two young people, whom I had no means of assisting, exceptin so far as I was able to give them a most hurried warning of theirdanger; but even _that_ not until they stood within the veryshadow of the catastrophe, being divided from the most frightful ofdeaths by scarcely more, if more at all, than seventy seconds. 

Such was the scene, such in its outline, from which the whole of thispaper radiates as a natural expansion. The scene is circumstantiallynarrated in Section the Second, entitled, "The Vision of Sudden Death. "

But a movement of horror and of spontaneous recoil from this dreadfulscene naturally carried the whole of that scene, raised and idealised, into my dreams, and very soon into a rolling succession of dreams. Theactual scene, as looked down upon from the box of the mail, wastransformed into a dream, as tumultuous and changing as a musicalfugue. This troubled Dream is circumstantially reported in Section theThird, entitled, "Dream-Fugue upon the Theme of Sudden Death. " What Ihad beheld from my seat upon the mail, --the scenical strife of actionand passion, of anguish and fear, as I had there witnessed them movingin ghostly silence; this duel between life and death narrowing itselfto a point of such exquisite evanescence as the collision neared, --allthese elements of the scene blended, under the law of association, withthe previous and permanent features of distinction investing the mailitself, which features at that time lay--1st, in velocityunprecedented; 2dly, in the power and beauty of the horses: 3dly, inthe official connection with the government of a great nation; and, 4thly, in the function, almost a consecrated function, of publishingand diffusing through the land the great political events, andespecially the great battles during a conflict of unparalleledgrandeur. These honorary distinctions are all describedcircumstantially in the FIRST or introductory section ("The Glory ofMotion"). The three first were distinctions maintained at all times;but the fourth and grandest belonged exclusively to the war withNapoleon; and this it was which most naturally introduced Waterloo intothe dream. Waterloo, I understood, was the particular feature of the"Dream-Fugue" which my censors were least able to account for. Yetsurely Waterloo, which, in common with every other great battle, it hadbeen our special privilege to publish over all the land, most naturallyentered the Dream under the license of our privilege. If not--if therebe anything amiss--let the Dream be responsible. The Dream is a law toitself; and as well quarrel with a rainbow for showing, or for_not_ showing, a secondary arch. So far as I know, every elementin the shifting movements of the Dream derived itself either primarilyfrom the incidents of the actual scene, or from secondary featuresassociated with the mail. For example, the cathedral aisle deriveditself from the mimic combination of features which grouped themselvestogether at the point of approaching collision, namely, an arrow-likesection of the road, six hundred yards long, under the solemn lightsdescribed, with lofty trees meeting overhead in arches. The guard'shorn, again--a humble instrument in itself--was yet glorified as theorgan of publication for so many great national events. And theincident of the Dying Trumpeter, who rises from a marble bas-relief, and carries a marble trumpet to his marble lips for the purpose ofwarning the female infant, was doubtless secretly suggested by my ownimperfect effort to seize the guard's horn, and to blow a warningblast. But the Dream knows best; and the Dream, I say again, is theresponsible party. 

4. "The Spanish Nun. " [Footnote: Published in "Narrative andMiscellaneous Essays. "]--There are some narratives, which, though purefictions from first to last, counterfeit so vividly the air of graverealities, that, if deliberately offered for such, they would for atime impose upon everybody. In the opposite scale there are othernarratives, which, whilst rigorously true, move amongst characters andscenes so remote from our ordinary experience, and through, a state ofsociety so favorable to an adventurous cast of incidents, that theywould everywhere pass for romances, if severed from the documents whichattest their fidelity to facts. In the former class stand the admirablenovels of De Foe; and, on a lower range, within the same category, theinimitable "Vicar of Wakefield;" upon which last novel, without at alldesigning it, I once became the author of the following instructiveexperiment. I had given a copy of this little novel to a beautiful girlof seventeen, the daughter of a statesman in Westmoreland, notdesigning any deception (nor so much as any concealment) with respectto the fictitious character of the incidents and of the actors in thatfamous tale. Mere accident it was that had intercepted thoseexplanations as to the extent of fiction in these points which in thiscase it would have been so natural to make. Indeed, considering theexquisite verisimilitude of the work meeting with such absoluteinexperience in the reader, it was almost a duty to have made them. This duty, however, something had caused me to forget; and when next Isaw the young mountaineer, I forgot that I _had_ forgotten it. Consequently, at first I was perplexed by the unfaltering gravity withwhich my fair young friend spoke of Dr. Primrose, of Sophia and hersister, of Squire Thornhill, &c. , as real and probably livingpersonages, who could sue and be sued. It appeared that this artlessyoung rustic, who had never heard of novels and romances as a barepossibility amongst all the shameless devices of London swindlers, hadread with religious fidelity every word of this tale, so thoroughlylife-like, surrendering her perfect faith and her loving sympathy tothe different persons in the tale, and the natural distresses in whichthey are involved, without suspecting, for a moment, that by so much asa breathing of exaggeration or of embellishment the pure gospel truthof the narrative could have been sullied. She listened, in a kind ofbreathless stupor, to my frank explanation--that not part only, but thewhole, of this natural tale was a pure invention. Scorn and indignationflashed from her eyes. She regarded herself as one who had been hoaxedand swindled; begged me to take back the book; and never again, to theend of her life, could endure to look into the book, or to be remindedof that criminal imposture which Dr. Oliver Goldsmith had practisedupon her youthful credulity. 

In that case, a book altogether fabulous, and not meaning to offeritself for anything else, had been read as genuine history. Here, onthe other hand, the adventures of the Spanish Nun, which in everydetail of time and place have since been sifted and authenticated, stood a good chance at one period of being classed as the most lawlessof romances. It is, indeed, undeniable, and this arises as a naturalresult from the bold, adventurous character of the heroine, and fromthe unsettled state of society at that period in Spanish America, thata reader the most credulous would at times be startled with doubts uponwhat seems so unvarying a tenor of danger and lawless violence. But, onthe other hand, it is also undeniable that a reader the mostobstinately sceptical would be equally startled in the very oppositedirection, on remarking that the incidents are far from being such as aromance-writer would have been likely to invent; since, if striking, tragic, and even appalling, they are at times repulsive. And it seemsevident that, once putting himself to the cost of a wholesale fiction, the writer would have used his privilege more freely for his ownadvantage. Whereas the author of these memoirs clearly writes under thecoercion and restraint of a _notorious reality_, that would notsuffer him to ignore or to modify the leading facts. Then, as to theobjection that few people or none have an experience presenting suchuniformity of perilous adventure, a little closer attention shows thatthe experience in this case is _not_ uniform; and so far otherwise, that a period of several years in Kate's South American life isconfessedly suppressed; and on no other ground whatever than thatthis long parenthesis is _not_ adventurous, not essentiallydiffering from the monotonous character of ordinary Spanish life. 

Suppose the case, therefore, that Kate's memoirs had been thrown uponthe world with no vouchers for their authenticity beyond such internalpresumptions as would have occurred to thoughtful readers, whenreviewing the entire succession of incidents, I am of opinion that theperson best qualified by legal experience to judge of evidence wouldfinally have pronounced a favorable award; since it is easy tounderstand that in a world so vast as the Peru, the Mexico, the Chili, of Spaniards during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, andunder the slender modification of Indian manners as yet effected by thePapal Christianization of those countries, and in the neighborhood of ariver-system so awful, of a mountain-system so unheard-of in Europe, there would probably, by blind, unconscious sympathy, grow up atendency to lawless and gigantesque ideals of adventurous life; underwhich, united with the duelling code of Europe, many things wouldbecome trivial and commonplace experiences that to us home-bred English("_qui musas colimus severiores_") seem monstrous and revolting. 

Left, therefore, to itself, _my_ belief is, that the story of theMilitary Nun would have prevailed finally against the demurs of thesceptics. However, in the mean time, all such demurs were suddenly and_officially_ silenced forever. Soon after the publication of Kate'smemoirs, in what you may call an early stage of her _literary_career, though two centuries after her _personal_ career had closed, aregular controversy arose upon the degree of credit due to theseextraordinary confessions (such they may be called) of the poorconscience-haunted nun. Whether these in Kate's original MS. Were entitled "Autobiographic Sketches, " or "Selections Grave andGay, " from the military experiences of a Nun, or possibly "TheConfessions of a Biscayan Fire-Eater, " is more than I know. No matter:confessions they were; and confessions that, when at length published, were absolutely mobbed and hustled by a gang of misbelieving (that is, _miscreant_) critics. And this fact is most remarkable, that theperson who originally headed the incredulous party, namely, Senor deFerrer, a learned Castilian, was the very same who finallyauthenticated, by _documentary_ evidence, the extraordinarynarrative in those parts which had most of all invited scepticism. Theprogress of the dispute threw the decision at length upon the archivesof the Spanish Marine. Those for the southern ports of Spain had beentransferred, I believe, from Cadiz and St. Lucar to Seville; chiefly, perhaps, through the confusions incident to the two French invasions ofSpain in our own day [1st, that under Napoleon; 2dly, that under theDue d'Angoulême]. Amongst these archives, subsequently amongst those ofCuzco, in South America; 3dly, amongst the records of some royal courtsin Madrid; 4thly, by collateral proof from the Papal Chancery; 5thly, from Barcelona--have been drawn together ample attestations of all theincidents recorded by Kate. The elopement from St. Sebastian's, thedoubling of Cape Horn, the shipwreck on the coast of Peru, the rescueof the royal banner from the Indians of Chili, the fatal duel in thedark, the astonishing passage of the Andes, the tragical scenes atTucuman and Cuzco, the return to Spain in obedience to a royal and apapal summons, the visit to Rome and the interview with the Pope--finally, the return to South America, and the mysterious disappearanceat Vera Cruz, upon which no light was ever thrown--all these capitalheads of the narrative have been established beyond the reach ofscepticism: and, in consequence, the story was soon after adopted ashistorically established, and was reported at length by journals of thehighest credit in Spain and Germany, and by a Parisian journal socautious and so distinguished for its ability as the _Revue des DeuxMondes_. 

I must not leave the impression upon my readers that this complex bodyof documentary evidences has been searched and appraised by myself. Frankly I acknowledge that, on the sole occasion when any opportunityoffered itself for such a labor, I shrank from it as too fatiguing--andalso as superfluous; since, if the proofs had satisfied the compatriotsof Catalina, who came to the investigation with hostile feelings ofpartisanship, and not dissembling their incredulity, --armed also (andin Mr. De Ferrer's case conspicuously armed) with the appropriatelearning for giving effect to this incredulity, --it could not become astranger to suppose himself qualified for disturbing a judgment thathad been so deliberately delivered. Such a tribunal of native Spaniardsbeing satisfied, there was no further opening for demur. Theratification of poor Kate's memoirs is now therefore to be understoodas absolute, and without reserve. 

This being stated, --namely, such an attestation from competentauthorities to the truth of Kate's narrative as may save all readersfrom my fair Westmoreland friend's disaster, --it remains to give suchan answer, as without further research _can_ be given, to aquestion pretty sure of arising in all reflective readers' thoughts--namely, does there anywhere survive a portrait of Kate? I answer--andit would be both mortifying and perplexing if I could _not_--_Yes_. One such portrait there is confessedly; and seven years agothis was to be found at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the collection of HerrSempeller. The name of the artist I am not able to report; neither canI say whether Herr Sempeller's collection still remains intact, andremains at Aix-la-Chapelle. 

But inevitably to most readers who review the circumstances of a caseso extraordinary, it will occur that beyond a doubt _many_ portraitsof the adventurous nun must have been executed. To have affrontedthe wrath of the Inquisition, and to have survived such an audacity, would of itself be enough to found a title for the martial nunto a national interest. It is true that Kate had not taken theveil; she had stopped short of the deadliest crime known to theInquisition; but still her transgressions were such as to require aspecial indulgence; and this indulgence was granted by a Pope to theintercession of a king--the greatest then reigning. It was a favor thatcould not have been asked by any greater man in this world, nor grantedby any less. Had no other distinction settled upon Kate, this wouldhave been enough to fix the gaze of her own nation. But her whole lifeconstituted Kate's supreme distinction. There can be no doubt, therefore, that, from the year 1624 (that is, the last year of ourJames I. ), she became the object of an admiration in her own countrythat was almost idolatrous. And this admiration was not of a kind thatrested upon any partisan-schism amongst her countrymen. So long as itwas kept alive by her bodily presence amongst them, it was anadmiration equally aristocratic and popular, --shared alike by the richand the poor, by the lofty and the humble. Great, therefore, would bethe demand for her portrait. There is a tradition that Velasquez, whohad in 1623 executed a portrait of Charles I. (then Prince of Wales), was amongst those who in the three or four following years ministeredto this demand. It is believed, also, that, in travelling from Genoaand Florence to Rome, she sat to various artists, in order to meet theinterest about herself already rising amongst the cardinals and otherdignitaries of the Romish church. It is probable, therefore, thatnumerous pictures of Kate are yet lurking both in Spain and Italy, butnot known as such. For, as the public consideration granted to her hadgrown out of merits and qualities purely personal, and was kept aliveby no local or family memorials rooted in the land, or survivingherself, it was inevitable that, as soon as she herself died, allidentification of her portraits would perish: and the portraits wouldthenceforwards be confounded with the similar memorials, past allnumbering, which every year accumulates as the wrecks from householdremembrances of generations that are passing or passed, that are fadingor faded, that are dying or buried. It is well, therefore, amongst somany irrecoverable ruins, that, in the portrait at Aix-la-Chapelle, westill possess one undoubted representation (and therefore in somedegree a means for identifying _other_ representations) of afemale so memorably adorned by nature; gifted with capacities sounparalleled both of doing and suffering; who lived a life so stormy, and perished by a fate so unsearchably mysterious. 

THE ORPHAN HEIRESS

I. 

VISIT TO LAXTON. 

My route, after parting from Lord Westport at Birmingham, lay, as Ihave mentioned in the "Autobiographic Sketches, " through Stamford toLaxton, the Northamptonshire seat of Lord Carbery. From Stamford, whichI had reached by some intolerable old coach, such as in those days toocommonly abused the patience and long-suffering of Young England, Itook a post-chaise to Laxton. The distance was but nine miles, and thepostilion drove well, so that I could not really have been long uponthe road; and yet, from gloomy rumination upon the unhappy destinationwhich I believed myself approaching within three or four months, neverhad I weathered a journey that seemed to me so long and dreary. As Ialighted on the steps at Laxton, the first dinner-bell rang; and I washurrying to my toilet, when my sister Mary, who had met me in theportico, begged me first of all to come into Lady Carbery's [Footnote:Lady Carbery. --"To me, individually, she was the one sole friend thatever I could regard as entirely fulfilling the offices of an honestfriendship. She had known me from infancy; when I was in my first yearof life, she, an orphan and a great heiress, was in her tenth oreleventh. "--See closing pages of "_Autobiographic Sketches_. "]dressing-room, her ladyship having something special to communicate, which related (as I understood her) to one Simon. "What Simon? SimonPeter?"--O, no, you irreverend boy, no Simon at all with an S, butCymon with a C, --Dryden's Cymon, --

 "That whistled as he went for want of thought. '"

This one indication was a key to the whole explanation that followed. The sole visitors, it seemed, at that time to Laxton, beside my sisterand myself, were Lord and Lady Massey. They were understood to bedomesticated at Laxton for a very long stay. In reality, my own privateconstruction of the case (though unauthorized by anything ever hintedto me by Lady Carbery) was, that Lord Massey might probably be undersome cloud of pecuniary embarrassments, such as suggested prudentiallyan absence from Ireland. Meantime, what was it that made him an objectof peculiar interest to Lady Carbery? It was the singular revolutionwhich, in one whom all his friends looked upon as sold toconstitutional torpor, suddenly, and beyond all hope, had kindled a newand nobler life. Occupied originally by no shadow of any earthlyinterest, killed by _ennui_, all at once Lord Massey had fallenpassionately in love with a fair young countrywoman, well connected, but bringing him no fortune (I report only from hearsay), and endowinghim simply with the priceless blessing of her own womanly charms, herdelightful society, and her sweet, Irish style of innocent gayety. Notransformation that ever legends or romances had reported was morememorable. Lapse of time (for Lord Massey had now been married three orfour years), and deep seclusion from general society, had done nothing, apparently, to lower the tone of his happiness. The expression of thishappiness was noiseless and unobtrusive; no marks were there of vulgaruxoriousness--nothing that could provoke the sneer of the worldling;but not the less so entirely had the society of his young wife createda new principle of life within him, and evoked some nature hithertoslumbering, and which, no doubt, would else have continued to slumbertill his death, that, at moments when he believed himself unobserved, he still wore the aspect of an impassioned lover. 

 "He beheld A vision, and adored the thing he saw. Arabian fiction never filled the world With half the wonders that were wrought for _him_. Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring Her chamber window did surpass in glory The portals of the dawn. "

And in no case was it more literally realized, as daily almost Iwitnessed, that

 "All Paradise Could, by the simple opening of a door, Let itself in upon him. " [Footnote: Wordsworth's "Vandracour and Julia. "]

For never did the drawing-room door open, and suddenly disclose thebeautiful figure of Lady Massey, than a mighty cloud seemed to rollaway from the young Irishman's brow. At this time it happened, andindeed it often happened, that Lord Carbery was absent in Ireland. Itwas probable, therefore, that during the long couple of hours throughwhich the custom of those times bound a man to the dinner-table afterthe disappearance of the ladies, his time would hang heavily on hishands. To me, therefore, Lady Carbery looked, having first put me inpossession of the case, for assistance to her hospitality, under thedifficulties I have stated. She thoroughly loved Lady Massey, as, indeed, nobody could help doing; and for _her_ sake, had therebeen no separate interest surrounding the young lord, it would havebeen most painful to her that through Lord Carbery's absence a periodictedium should oppress her guest at that precise season of the day whichtraditionally dedicated itself to genial enjoyment. Glad, therefore, was she that an ally had come at last to Laxton, who might arm herpurposes of hospitality with some powers of self-fulfilment. And yet, for a service of that nature, could she reasonably rely upon me? Odiousis the hobble-de-hoy to the mature young man. Generally speaking, thatcannot be denied. But in me, though naturally the shyest of humanbeings, intense commerce with men of every rank, from the highest tothe lowest, had availed to dissipate all arrears of _mauvaisehonte_; I could talk upon innumerable subjects; and, as the readiestmeans of entering immediately upon business, I was fresh from Ireland, knew multitudes of those whom Lord Massey either knew or felt aninterest in, and, at that happy period of life, found it easy, withthree or four glasses of wine, to call back the golden spirits whichwere now so often deserting me. Renovated, meantime, by a hot bath, Iwas ready at the second summons of the dinner-bell, and descended a newcreature to the drawing-room. Here I was presented to the noble lordand his wife. Lord Massey was in figure shortish, but broad and stout, and wore an amiable expression of face. That I could execute LadyCarbery's commission, I felt satisfied at once. And, accordingly, whenthe ladies had retired from the dining-room, I found an easy opening, in various circumstances connected with the Laxton stables, forintroducing naturally a picturesque and contrasting sketch of the studand the stables at Westport. The stables and everything connected withthe stables at Laxton were magnificent; in fact, far out of symmetrywith the house, which, at that time, was elegant and comfortable, butnot splendid. As usual in English establishments, all the appointmentswere complete, and carried to the same point of exquisite finish. Thestud of hunters was first-rate and extensive; and the whole scene, atclosing the stables for the night, was so splendidly arranged andilluminated, that Lady Carbery would take all her visitors once ortwice a week to admire it. On the other hand, at Westport you mightfancy yourself overlooking the establishment of some Albanian Pacha. Crowds of irregular helpers and grooms, many of them totallyunrecognized by Lord Altamont, some half countenanced by this or thatupper servant, some doubtfully tolerated, some _not_ tolerated, but nevertheless slipping in by postern doors when the enemy hadwithdrawn, made up a strange mob as regarded the human element in thisestablishment. And Dean Browne regularly asserted that five out of sixamongst these helpers he himself could swear to as active boys fromVinegar Hill. Trivial enough, meantime, in our eyes, was any littlematter of rebellion that they might have upon their consciences. Hightreason we willingly winked at. But what we could _not_ wink atwas the systematic treason which they committed against our comfort, namely, by teaching our horses all imaginable tricks, and training themup in the way along which they should _not_ go, so that when theywere old they were very little likely to depart from it. Such a set ofrestive, hard-mouthed wretches as Lord Westport and I daily had tobestride, no tongue could describe. There was a cousin of LordWestport's, subsequently created Lord Oranmore, distinguished for hishorsemanship, and always splendidly mounted from his father's stablesat Castle M'Garret, to whom our stormy contests with ruined tempers andvicious habits yielded a regular comedy of fun; and, in order toimprove it, he would sometimes bribe Lord Westport's treacherous groominto misleading us, when floundering amongst bogs, into the interiorlabyrinths of these morasses. Deep, however, as the morass, was thisman's remorse when, on leaving Westport, I gave him the heavy goldenperquisite, which my mother (unaware of the tricks he had practisedupon me) had by letter instructed me to give. He was a mere savage boyfrom the central bogs of Connaught, and, to the great amusement of LordWestport, he persisted in calling me "your majesty" for the rest ofthat day; and by all other means open to him he expressed hispenitence. But the dean insisted that, no matter for his penitence inthe matter of the bogs, he had certainly carried a pike at VinegarHill; and probably had stolen a pair of boots at Furnes, when he kindlymade a call at the Deanery, in passing through that place to the fieldof battle. It is always a pleasure to see the engineer of mischief"hoist with his own petard;" [Footnote: "Hamlet, " but also "Ovid:"--"Lex nec justior ulla est, **Quam necis artifices arte perire sua. "]and it happened that the horses assigned to draw a post-chariotcarrying Lord Westport, myself, and the dean, on our return journey toDublin, were a pair utterly ruined by a certain under-postilion, namedMoran. This particular ruin did Mr. Moran boast to have contributed ashis separate contribution to the general ruinations of the stables. Andthe particular object was, that _his_ horses, and consequentlyhimself, might be left in genial laziness. But, as Nemesis would haveit, Mr. Moran was the charioteer specially appointed to this particularservice. We were to return by easy journeys of twenty-five miles a day, or even less; since every such interval brought us to the house of somehospitable family, connected by friendship or by blood with LordAltamont. Fervently had Lord Westport pleaded with his father for anallowance of four horses; not at all with any foolish view to fleetingaristocratic splendor, but simply to the luxury of rapid motion. ButLord Altamont was firm in resisting this petition at that time. Theremote consequence was, that by way of redressing the violatedequilibrium to our feelings, we subscribed throughout Wales to extortsix horses from the astonished innkeepers, most of whom declined therequisition, and would furnish only four, on the plea that the leaderswould only embarrass the other horses; but one at Bangor, from whom wecoolly requested eight, recoiled from our demand as from a sort ofminiature treason. How so? Because in this island he had alwaysunderstood eight horses to be consecrated to royal use. Not at all, weassured him; Pickford, the great carrier, always horsed his wagons witheight. And the law knew of no distinction between wagon and post-chaise, coach-horse or cart-horse. However, we could not compass thispoint of the eight horses, the double _quadriga_, in one singleinstance; but the true reason we surmised to be, not the pretendedpuritanism of loyalty to the house of Guelph, but the running short ofthe innkeeper's funds. If he had to meet a daily average call fortwenty-four horses, then it might well happen that our draft upon himfor eight horses at one pull would bankrupt him for a whole day. 

But I am anticipating. Returning to Ireland and Mr. Moran, the viciousdriver of vicious horses, the immediate consequence to _him_ ofthis unexpected limitation to a pair of horses was, that all hisknavery in one hour recoiled upon himself. The horses whom he hadhimself trained to vice and restiveness, in the hope that thus his ownservices and theirs might be less in request, now became the very curseof his life. Every morning, duly as an attempt was made to put them inmotion, they began to back, and no arts, gentle or harsh, would for amoment avail to coax or to coërce them into the counter direction. Could retrogression by any metaphysics have been translated intoprogress, we excelled in that; it was our _forte_; we could havebacked to the North Pole. That might be the way to glory, or at leastto distinction--_sic itur ad astra_; unfortunately, it was not theway to Dublin. Consequently, on _every_ day of our journey--andthe days were ten--not once, but always, we had the same deadlyconflict to repeat; and this being always unavailing, found itssolution uniformly in the following ultimate resource. Two large-bonedhorses, usually taken from the plough, were harnessed on as leaders. Bymain force they hauled our wicked wheelers into the right direction, and forced them, by pure physical superiority, into working. Wefurnished a joyous and comic spectacle to every town and villagethrough which we passed. The whole community, men and children, cameout to assist at our departure; and all alike were diverted, but notthe less irritated, by the demoniac obstinacy of the brutes, who seemedunder the immediate inspiration of the fiend. Everybody was anxious toshare in the scourging which was administered to them right and left;and once propelled into a gallop (or such a gallop as our Brobdignagianleaders could accomplish), they were forced into keeping it up. But, without rehearsing all the details of the case, it may be readilyconceived that the amount of trouble distributed amongst our wholeparty was enormous. Once or twice the friends at whose houses we sleptwere able to assist us. But generally they either had no horses, ornone of the commanding power demanded. Often, again, it happened, asour route was very circuitous, that no inns lay in our neighborhood;or, if there _were_ inns, the horses proved to be of too slight abuild. At Ballinasloe, and again at Athlone, half the town came out tohelp us; and, having no suitable horses, thirty or forty men, withshouts of laughter, pulled at ropes fastened to our pole and splinter-bar, and compelled the snorting demons into a flying gallop. But, naturally, a couple of miles saw this resource exhausted. Then came thenecessity of "drawing the covers, " as the dean called it; that is, hunting amongst the adjacent farmers for powerful cattle. This labor(O, Jupiter, thanks be for _that_!) fell upon Mr. Moran. Andsometimes it would happen that the horses, which it had cost him threeor four hours to find, could be spared only for four or five miles. Such a journey can rarely have been accomplished. Our zigzag course hadprolonged it into from two hundred and thirty to two hundred and fiftymiles; and it is literally true that, of this entire distance fromWestport House to Sackville-street, Dublin, not one furlong had beenperformed under the spontaneous impulse of our own horses. Theirdiabolic resistance continued to the last. And one may venture to hopethat the sense of final subjugation to man must have proved penallybitter to the horses. But, meantime, it vexes one that such wretchesshould be fed with good old hay and oats; as well littered down also intheir stalls as a prebendary; and by many a stranger, ignorant of theirtrue character, should have been patted and caressed. Let us hope thata fate, to which more than once they were nearly forcing _us_, namely, regress over a precipice, may ultimately have been their own. Once I saw such another case dramatically carried through to itsnatural crisis in the Liverpool Mail. It was on the stage leading intoLichfield; there was no conspiracy, as in our Irish case; one horseonly out of the four was the criminal; and, according to the queen'sbench (Denman, C. J. ), there is no conspiracy competent to one agent;but he was even more signally under a demoniac possession of mutinousresistance to man. The case was really a memorable one. If ever therewas a distinct proclamation of rebellion against man, it was made bythat brutal horse; and I, therefore, being a passenger on the box, tooka note of the case; and on a proper occasion I may be induced topublish it, unless some Houynhm should whinny against me a chanceryinjunction. 

From these wild, Tartar-like stables of Connaught, how vast was thetransition to that perfection of elegance, and of adaptation betweenmeans and ends, that reigned from centre to circumference through thestables at Laxton! _I_, as it happened, could report to Lord Masseytheir earlier condition; he to me could report their immediatechanges. I won him easily to an interest in my own Irish experiences, so fresh, and in parts so grotesque, wilder also by much in Connaughtthan in Lord Massey's county of Limerick; whilst he (without affectingany delight in the hunting systems of Northamptonshire andLeicestershire) yet took pleasure in explaining to me thosecharacteristic features of the English midland hunting as centralizedat Melton, which even then gave to it the supreme rank for brilliancyand unity of effect amongst all varieties of the chase. [Footnote: Ifmere names were allowed to dazzle the judgment, how magnificent to agallant young Englishman of twenty seems at first the _tiger-hunting_ of India, which yet (when examined searchingly) turns outthe meanest and most _cowardly_ mode of hunting known to humanexperience. _Buffalo-hunting_ is much more dignified as regardsthe courageous exposure of the hunter; but, from all accounts, itsexcitement is too momentary and evanescent; one rifle-shot, and thecrisis is past. Besides that, the generous and honest character of thebuffalo disturbs the cordiality of the sport. The very opposite reasondisturbs the interest of _lion-hunting, especially at the Cape. Thelion is everywhere a cowardly wretch, unless when sublimed into courageby famine; but, in southern Africa, he is the most currish of enemies. Those who fancied so much adventurousness in the lion conflicts of Mr. Gordon Cumming appear never to have read the missionary travels of Mr. Moffat. The poor missionary, without any arms whatever, came to thinklightly of half a dozen lions seen drinking through the twilight at thevery same pond or river as himself. Nobody can have any wish toundervalue the adventurous gallantry of Mr. G. Cumming. But, in thesingle case of the Cape lion, there is an unintentional advantage takenfrom the traditional name of lion, as though the Cape lion were such asthat which ranges the torrid zone. ]

Horses had formed the natural and introductory topic of conversationbetween us. What we severally knew of Ireland, though in differentquarters, --what we both knew of Laxton, the barbaric splendor, and thecivilized splendor, --had naturally an interest for us both in theircontrasts (at one time so picturesque, at another so grotesque), whichilluminated our separate recollections. But my quick instinct soon mademe aware that a jealousy was gathering in Lord Massey's mind aroundsuch a topic, as though too ostentatiously levelled to his particularknowledge, or to his _animal_ condition of taste. But easily Islipped off into another key. At Laxton, it happened that the librarywas excellent. Founded by whom, I never heard; but certainly, when usedby a systematic reader, it showed itself to have been systematicallycollected; it stretched pretty equably through two centuries, --namely, from about 1600 to 1800, --and might, perhaps, amount to seventeenthousand volumes. Lord Massey was far from illiterate; and his interestin books was unaffected, if limited, and too often interrupted, bydefective knowledge. The library was dispersed through six or sevensmall rooms, lying between the drawing-room in one wing, and thedining-room in the opposite wing. This dispersion, however, alreadyfurnished the ground of a rude classification. In some one of theserooms was Lord Massey always to be found, from the forenoon to theevening. And was it any fault of _his_ that his daughter, littleGrace, about two years old, pursued him down from her nursery everymorning, and insisted upon seeing innumerable pictures, lurking (as shehad discovered) in many different recesses of the library? More andmore from this quarter it was that we drew the materials of our dailyafter-dinner conversation. One great discouragement arises commonly tothe student, where the particular library in which he reads has been sodisordinately collected that he cannot _pursue_ a subject oncestarted. Now, at Laxton, the books had been so judiciously broughttogether, so many hooks and eyes connected them, that the whole libraryformed what one might call a series of _strata_, naturally allied, through which you might quarry your way consecutively for many months. On rainy days, and often enough one had occasion to say through rainyweeks, what a delightful resource did this library prove to both of us!And one day it occurred to us, that, whereas the stables and thelibrary were both jewels of attraction, the latter had been by much theleast costly. Pretty often I have found, when any opening has existedfor making the computation, that, in a library containing a fairproportion of books illustrated with plates, about ten shillings avolume might be taken as expressing, upon a sufficiently large numberof volumes, small and great, the fair average cost of the whole. Onthis basis, the library at Laxton would have cost less than ninethousand pounds. On the other hand, thirty-live horses (hunters, racers, roadsters, carriage-horses, etc. ) might have cost about eightthousand pounds, or a little more. But the library entailed nopermanent cost beyond the annual loss of interest; the books did noteat, and required no aid from veterinary [Footnote: "_Veterinary_. "--Bythe way, whence comes this odd-looking word? The word _veterana_ Ihave met with in monkish writers, to express _domesticated quadrupeds_;and evidently from that word must have originated the word _veterinary_. But the question is still but one step removed; for, how came _veterana_by that acceptation in rural economy?] surgeons; whereas, for thehorses, not only such ministrations were intermittingly required, but a costly permanent establishment of grooms and helpers. LordCarbery, who had received an elaborate Etonian education, was evenmore earnestly a student than his friend Lord Massey, who had probablybeen educated at home under a private tutor. He read everythingconnected with general politics (meaning by _general_ not personalpolitics) and with social philosophy. At Laxton, indeed; it was thatI first saw Godwin's "Political Justice;" not the second and emasculatededition in _octavo_, but the original _quarto_ edition, with all its virusas yet undiluted of raw anti-social Jacobinism. 

At Laxton it was that I first saw the entire aggregate labors, brigaded, as it were, and paraded as if for martial review, of thatmost industrious benefactor to the early stages of our Englishhistorical literature, Thomas Hearne. Three hundred guineas, I believe, had been the price paid cheerfully at one time for a complete set ofHearne. At Laxton, also, it was that first I saw the total array ofworks edited by Dr. Birch. It was a complete _armilustrium_, a_recognitio_, or mustering, as it were, not of pompous Praetoriancohorts, or unique guardsmen, but of the yeomanry, the militia, orwhat, under the old form of expression, you might regard as the_trained bands_ of our literature--the fund from which ultimately, or in the last resort, students look for the materials of our vast andmyriad-faced literature. A French author of eminence, fifty years back, having occasion to speak of our English literature collectively, inreference to the one point of its _variety_, being also a man ofhonor, and disdaining that sort of patriotism which sacrifices thetruth to nationality, speaks of our pretensions in these words: _LesAnglois qui ont une littérature infiniment plus variée que lanôtre_. This fact is a feature in our national pretensions thatcould ever have been regarded doubtfully merely through insufficientknowledge. Dr. Johnson, indeed, made it the distinguishing merit of theFrench, that they "have a book upon every subject. " But Dr. Johnson wasnot only capricious as regards temper and variable humors, but asregards the inequality of his knowledge. Incoherent and unsystematicwas Dr. Johnson's information in most cases. Hence his extravagantmisappraisement of Knolles, the Turkish historian, which is exposed soseverely by Spittler, the German, who, again, is himself miserablysuperficial in his analysis of English history. Hence the feeblecredulity which Dr. Johnson showed with respect to the forgery of DeFoe (under the masque of Captain Carleton) upon the Catalonian campaignof Lord Peterborough. But it is singular that a literature, sounrivalled as ours in its compass and variety, should not have producedany, even the shallowest, manual of itself. And thus it happens, forexample, that writers so laborious and serviceable as Birch are in anypopular sense scarcely known. I showed to Lord Massey, among others ofhis works, that which relates to Lord Worcester's (that is, LordGlamorgan's) negotiations with the Papal nuncio in Ireland, about theyear 1644, &c. Connected with these negotiations were many namesamongst Lord Massey's own ancestors; so that here he suddenly alightedupon a fund of archæologic memorabilia, connecting what interested himas an Irishman in general with what most interested him as the head ofa particular family. It is remarkable, also, as an indication of the_general_ nobility and elevation which had accompanied the revolutionin his life, that concurrently with the constitutional torporpreviously besetting him, had melted away the intellectual torporunder which he had found books until recently of little practicalvalue. Lady Carbery had herself told me that the two revolutionswent on simultaneously. He began to take an interest in literaturewhen life itself unfolded a new interest, under the companionshipof his youthful wife. And here, by the way, as subsequentlyin scores of other instances, I saw broad evidences of the credulitywith which we have adopted into our grave political faith therash and malicious sketches of our novelists. With Fielding commencedthe practice of systematically traducing our order of countrygentlemen. His picture of Squire Western is not only a malicious, butalso an incongruous libel. The squire's ordinary language isimpossible, being alternately bookish and absurdly rustic. In reality, the conventional dialect ascribed to the rustic order in general--topeasants even more than to gentlemen--in our English plays and novels, is a childish and fantastic babble, belonging to no form of realbreathing life; nowhere intelligible; not in _any_ province;whilst, at the same time, all provinces--Somersetshire, Devonshire, Hampshire--are confounded with our midland counties; and positively thediction of Parricombe and Charricombe from Exmoor Forest is mixed upwith the pure Icelandic forms of the English lakes, of North Yorkshire, and of Northumberland. In Scotland, it needs but a slight intercoursewith the peasantry to distinguish various dialects--the Aberdonian andFifeshire, for instance, how easily distinguished, even by an Englishalien, from the western dialects of Ayrshire, &c. ! And I have heard itsaid, by Scottish purists in this matter, that even Sir Walter Scott ischargeable with considerable licentiousness in the management of hiscolloquial Scotch. Yet, generally speaking, it bears the strongestimpress of truthfulness. But, on the other hand, how false andpowerless does this same Sir Walter become, when the necessities of histale oblige him at any time to come amongst the English peasantry! Hismagic wand is instantaneously broken; and he moves along by a babble ofimpossible forms, as fantastic as any that our London theatres havetraditionally ascribed to English rustics, to English sailors, and toIrishmen universally. Fielding is open to the same stern criticism, asa deliberate falsehood-monger; and from the same cause--want of energyto face the difficulty of mastering a real living idiom. This defect inlanguage, however, I cite only as one feature in the complex falsehoodwhich disfigures Fielding's portrait of the English country gentleman. Meantime the question arises, Did he mean his Squire Western for a_representative_ portrait? Possibly not. He might design it expresslyas a sketch of an individual, and by no means of a class. Andthe fault may be, after all, not in _him_, the writer, but in_us_, the falsely interpreting readers. But, be that as it may, and figure to ourselves as we may the rustic squire of a hundred to ahundred and fifty years back (though manifestly at utter war, in theportraitures of our novelists, with the realities handed down to us byour Parliamentary annals), on that _arena_ we are dealing withobjects of pure speculative curiosity. Far different is the samequestion, when practically treated for purposes of present legislationor philosophic inference. One hundred years ago, such was thedifficulty of social intercourse, simply from the difficulty oflocomotion (though even then this difficulty was much lowered to theEnglish, as beyond comparison the most equestrian of nations), that itis possible to imagine a shade of difference as still distinguishingthe town-bred man from the rustic; though, considering the multiplieddistribution of our assize towns, our cathedral towns, our sea-ports, and our universities, all so many recurring centres of civility, it isnot very easy to imagine such a thing in an island no larger than ours. But can any human indulgence be extended to the credulity which assumesthe same possibility as existing for us in the very middle of thenineteenth century? At a time when every week sees the town bankerdrawn from our rural gentry; railway directors in every quartertransferring themselves indifferently from town to country, fromcountry to town; lawyers, clergymen, medical men, magistrates, localjudges, &c. , all shifting in and out between town and country; ruralfamilies all intermarrying on terms of the widest freedom with townfamilies; all again, in the persons of their children, meeting forstudy at the same schools, colleges, military academies, &c. ; by whatfurious forgetfulness of the realities belonging to the case, has itbeen possible for writers in public journals to persist in arguingnational questions upon the assumption of a bisection in ourpopulation--a double current, on the one side steeped to the lips intown prejudices, on the other side traditionally sold to rustic viewsand doctrines? Such double currents, like the Rhone flowing through theLake of Geneva, and yet refusing to intermingle, probably _did_exist, and had an important significance in the Low Countries of thefifteenth century, or between the privileged cities and theunprivileged country of Germany down to the Thirty Years' War; but, forus, they are in the last degree fabulous distinctions, pure fairytales; and the social economist or the historian who builds on suchphantoms as that of a rustic aristocracy still retaining anysubstantial grounds of distinction from the town aristocracies, proclaims the hollowness of any and all his doctrines that depend uponsuch assumptions. Lord Carbery was a thorough fox-hunter. The fox-hunting of the adjacent county of Leicestershire was not then what itis now. The state of the land was radically different for the foot ofthe horse, the nature and distribution of the fences was different; sothat a class of horses thoroughly different was then required. Butthen, as now, it offered the finest exhibition of the fox-chase that isknown in Europe; and then, as now, this is the best adapted among allknown varieties of hunting to the exhibition of adventurous and skilfulriding, and generally, perhaps, to the development of manly andathletic qualities. Lord Carbery, during the season, might beimmoderately addicted to this mode of sporting, having naturally apleasurable feeling connected with his own reputation as a skilful andfearless horseman. But, though the chases were in those days longerthan they are at present, small was the amount of time reallyabstracted from that which he had disposable for general purposes;amongst which purposes ranked foremost his literary pursuits. And, however much he transcended the prevailing conception of his order, assketched by satiric and often ignorant novelists, he might be regarded, in all that concerned the liberalization of his views, as pretty fairlyrepresenting that order. Thus, through every _real_ experience, the crazy notion of a rural aristocracy flowing apart from the urbanaristocracy, and standing on a different level of culture as tointellect, of polish as to manners, and of interests as to socialobjects, a notion at all times false as a fact, now at length becamewith all thoughtful men monstrous as a possibility. 

Meantime Lord Massey was reached by reports, both through Lady Carberyand myself, of something which interested him more profoundly than allearthly records of horsemanship, or any conceivable questions connectedwith books. Lady Carbery, with a view to the amusement of Lady Masseyand my sister, for both of whom youth and previous seclusion hadcreated a natural interest in all such scenes, accepted two or threetimes in every week dinner invitations to all the families on hervisiting list, and lying within her winter circle, which was measured, by a radius of about seventeen miles. For, dreadful as were the roadsin those days, when the Bath, the Bristol, or the Dover mail wasequally perplexed oftentimes to accomplish Mr. Palmer's rate of sevenmiles an hour, a distance of seventeen was yet easily accomplished inone hundred minutes by the powerful Laxton horses. Magnificent was theLaxton turn-out; and in the roomy travelling coach of Lady Carbery, made large enough to receive upon occasion even a bed, it would havebeen an idle scruple to fear the crowding a party which mustered onlythree besides myself. For Lord Massey uniformly declined joining us; inwhich I believe that he was right. A schoolboy like myself hadfortunately no dignity to lose. But Lord Massey, a needy Irish peer(or, strictly speaking, since the Union no peer at all, though still anhereditary lord), was bound to be trebly vigilant over his survivinghonors. This he owed to his country as well as to his family. Herecoiled from what he figured to himself (but too often falselyfigured) as the haughty and disdainful English nobility---all so rich, all so polished in manner, all so punctiliously correct in the ritualof _bienséance_. Lord Carbery might face them gayly and boldly:for _he_ was rich, and, although possessing Irish estates and anIrish mansion, was a thorough Englishman by education and earlyassociation. "But I, " said Lord Massey, "had a careless Irisheducation, and am never quite sure that I may not be trespassing onsome mysterious law of English good-breeding. " In vain I suggested tohim that most of what passed amongst foreigners and amongst Irishmenfor English _hauteur_ was pure reserve, which, among all peoplethat were bound over by the inevitable restraints of their rank(imposing, it must be remembered, jealous duties as well asprivileges), was sure to become the operative feeling. I contended thatin the English situation there was no escaping this English reserve, except by great impudence and defective sensibility; and that, ifexamined, reserve was the truest expression of respect towards thosewho were its objects. In vain did Lady Carbery back me in thisrepresentation. He stood firm, and never once accompanied us to anydinner-party. Northamptonshire, I know not why, is (or then was) morethickly sown with aristocratic families than any in the kingdom. Manyelegant and pretty women there naturally were in these parties; butundoubtedly our two Laxton baronesses shone advantageously amongstthem. A boy like myself could lay no restraint upon the after-dinnerfeelings of the gentlemen; and almost uniformly I heard such verdictspassed upon the personal attractions of both, but especially LadyMassey, as tended greatly to soothe the feelings of Lord Massey. It issingular that Lady Massey universally carried off the palm of unlimitedhomage. Lady Carbery was a regular beauty, and publicly known for such;both were fine figures, and apparently not older than twenty-six; butin her Irish friend people felt something more thoroughly artless andfeminine--for the masculine understanding of Lady Carbery in some waycommunicated its commanding expression to her deportment. I reported toLord Massey, in terms of unexceptionable decorum, those flatteringexpressions of homage, which sometimes from the lips of young men, partially under the influence of wine, had taken a form somewhat tooenthusiastic for a literal repetition to a chivalrous and adoringhusband. 

Meantime, the reader has been kept long enough at Laxton to warrant mein presuming some curiosity or interest to have gathered within hismind about the mistress of the mansion. Who was Lady Carbery? what washer present position, and what had been her original position, insociety? All readers of Bishop Jeremy Taylor [Footnote: The Life ofJeremy Taylor, by Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta, is mostelaborately incorrect. From want of research, and a chronology in someplaces thoroughly erroneous, various important facts are utterlymisstated; and what is most to be regretted, in a matter deeplyaffecting the bishop's candor and Christian charity, namely, acontroversial correspondence with a Somersetshire Dissenting clergyman, the wildest misconception has vitiated the entire result. Thatfractional and splintered condition, into which some person had cut upthe controversy with a view to his own more convenient study of itschief elements, Heber had misconceived as the actual form in whichthese parts had been originally exchanged between the disputants--ablunder of the worst consequence, and having the effect of translatinggeneral expressions (such as recorded a moral indignation againstancient fallacies or evasions connected with the dispute) into directebullitions of scorn or displeasure personally against his immediateantagonist. And the charge of intolerance and defective charity becomesthus very much stronger against the poor bishop, because it takes theshape of a confession extorted by mere force of truth from an elsereluctant apologist, that would most gladly have denied everything thathe _could_ deny. The Life needs more than ever to be accuratelywritten, since it has been thus chaotically mis-narrated by a prelateof so much undeniable talent. I once began a very elaborate lifemyself, and in these words: "Jeremy Taylor, the most eloquent and thesubtlest of Christian philosophers, was the son of a barber, and theson-in-law of a king, "--alluding to the tradition (imperfectlyverified, I believe) that he married an illegitimate daughter ofCharles I. But this sketch was begun more than thirty years ago; and Iretired from the labor as too overwhelmingly exacting in all thatrelated to the philosophy and theology of that man 80 "myriad-minded, "and of that century so anarchical. ] must be aware of that religiousLady Carbery, who was the munificent (and, for her kindness, one mightsay the filial) patroness of the all-eloquent and subtle divine. Shedied before the Restoration, and, consequently, before her spiritualdirector could have ascended the Episcopal throne. The title of Carberywas at that time an earldom; the earl married again, arid his secondcountess was also a devout patroness of Taylor. Having no peerage athand, I do not know by what mode of derivation the modern title of thenineteenth century had descended from the old one of the seventeenth. Ipresume that some collateral branch of the original family hadsucceeded to the barony when the limitations of the original settlementhad extinguished the earldom. But to me, who saw revived anotherreligious Lady Carbery, distinguished for her beauty andaccomplishments, it was interesting to read of the two successiveladies who had borne that title one hundred and sixty years before, andwhom no reader of Jeremy Taylor is ever allowed to forget, since almostall his books are dedicated to one or other of the pious family thathad protected him. Once more there was a religious Lady Carbery, supporting locally the Church of England, patronizing schools, diffusing the most extensive relief to every mode of indigence ordistress. A century and a half ago such a Lady Carbery was in SouthWales, at the "Golden Grove;" now such another Lady Carbery was incentral England, at Laxton. The two cases, divided by six generations, interchanged a reciprocal interest, since in both cases it was youngladies, under the age of thirty, that originated the movement, and inboth cases these ladies bore the same title; and I will thereforeretrace rapidly the outline of that contemporary case so familiarlyknown to myself. 

Colonel Watson and General Smith had been amongst the earliest friendsof my mother's family. Both served for many years in India: the firstin the Company's army, the other upon the staff of the king's forces inthat country. Each, about the same time, made a visit to England, andeach of them, I believe, with the same principal purpose of providingfor the education of his daughter; for each happened to have one solechild, which child, in each case, was a girl of singular beauty; andboth of these little ladies were entitled to very large fortunes. Thecolonel and the general, being on brotherly terms of intimacy, resolvedto combine their plans for the welfare of their daughters. What theywanted was, not a lady that could teach them any special arts oraccomplishments--all these could be purchased;--but the twoqualifications indispensable for the difficult situation of lady-superintendent over two children so singularly separated from allrelatives whatever, were, in the first place, knowledge of the world, and integrity for keeping at a distance all showy adventurers thatmight else offer themselves, with unusual advantages, as suitors forthe favor of two great heiresses; and, secondly, manners exquisitelypolished. Looking to that last requisition, it seems romantic tomention, that the lady selected for the post, with the fullestapprobation of both officers, was one who began life as the daughter ofa little Lincolnshire farmer. What her maiden name had been, I do notat this moment remember; but this name was of very little importance, being soon merged in that of Harvey, bestowed on her at the altar by acountry gentleman. The squire--not very rich, I believe, but richenough to rank as a matrimonial prize in the lottery of a country girl, whom one single step of descent in life might have brought within sightof menial service--had been captivated by the young woman's beauty; andthis, at that period, when accompanied by the advantages of youth, musthave been resplendent. I, who had known her all my life, down to mysixteenth year (during which year she died), and who naturally, therefore, referred her origin back to some remote ancestralgeneration, nevertheless, in her sole case, was made to feel that theremight be some justification for the Church of England discountenancingin her Liturgy, "marriage with your great-grandmother; neither shaltthou marry thy great-grandfather's widow. " She, poor thing! at thattime was thinking little of marriage; for even then, though known onlyto herself and her _femme de chambre_, that dreadful organic malady(cancer) was raising its adder's crest, under which finally shedied. But, in spite of languor interchanging continually withdisfiguring anguish, she still impressed one as a regal beauty. Herperson, indeed, and figure, _would_ have tended towards such astandard; but all was counteracted, and thrown back into the mould ofsweet natural womanhood, by the cherubic beauty of her features. Theseit was--these features, so purely childlike--that reconciled me in amoment of time to great-grandmotherhood. The stories about Ninon del'Enclos are French fables--speaking plainly, are falsehoods; and sorryI am that a nation so amiable as the French should habitually disregardtruth, when coming into collision with their love for the extravagant. But, if anything could reconcile me to these monstrous old fibs aboutNinon at ninety, it would be the remembrance of this Englishenchantress on the high-road to seventy. Guess, reader, what she musthave been at twenty-eight to thirty-two, when she became the widow ofthe Gerenian horseman, Harvey. How bewitching she must have looked inher widow's caps! So had once thought Colonel Watson, who happened tobe in England at that period; and to the charming widow this man of warpropounded his hand in marriage. This hand, this martial hand, forreason inexplicable to me, Mrs. Harvey declined; and the colonelbounced off in a rage to Bengal. There were others who saw young Mrs. Harvey, as well as Colonel Watson. And amongst them was an ancientGerman gentleman, to what century belonging I do not know, who hadevery possible bad quality known to European experience, and a solitarygood one, namely, eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. The man'sname was Schreiber. Schreiber was an aggregate resulting from theconflux of all conceivable bad qualities. That was the elementary baseof Schreiber; and the superstructure, or Corinthian decoration of hisfrontispiece, was, that Schreiber cultivated one sole science, namely, the science of taking snuff. Here were two separate objects forcontemplation: one, bright as Aurora--that radiant Koh-i-noor, ormountain of light--the eight hundred thousand pounds; the other, sad, fuscous, begrimed with the snuff of ages, namely, the most ancientSchreiber. Ah! if they _could_ have been divided--these twin yoke-fellows--and that ladies might have the privilege of choosing betweenthem! For the moment there was no prudent course open to Mrs. Harvey, but that of marrying Schreiber (which she did, and survived); and, subsequently, when the state of the market became favorable to such"conversions" of stock, then the new Mrs. Schreiber parted fromSchreiber, and disposed of her interest in Schreiber at a settled ratein three per cent. Consols and terminable annuities; for every_coupon_ of Schreiber receiving a _bonus_ of so many thousand pounds, paid down according to the rate agreed on by the lawyers of thetwo parties; or, strictly speaking, _quarrelled on_ between theadverse factions; for agreement it was hard to effect upon any point. The deadly fear which had been breathed into him by Mrs. Schreiber'sscale of expenditure in a Park Lane house proved her most salutaryally. Coerced by this horrid vision, Schreiber consented (which else henever would have done) to grant her an allowance, for life, of abouttwo thousand per annum. Could _that_ be reckoned an anodyne forthe torment connected with a course of Schreiber? I pretend to noopinion. 

Such were the facts: and exactly at this point in her career had Mrs. Schreiber arrived, when, once more, Colonel Watson and General Smithwere visiting England, and for the last time, on the errand of settlingpermanently some suitable establishment for their two infant daughters. The superintendence of this they desired to devolve upon some lady, qualified by her manners and her connections for introducing the youngladies, when old enough, into general society. Mrs. Schreiber was thevery person required. Intellectually she had no great pretensions; butthese she did not need: her character was irreproachable, her mannerswere polished, and her own income placed her far above all mercenarytemptations. She had not thought fit to accept the station of ColonelWatson's wife, but some unavowed feeling prompted her to undertake, with enthusiasm, the duties of a mother to the colonel's daughter. Chiefly on Miss Watson's account it was at first that she extended hermaternal cares to General Smith's daughter; but very soon so sweet andwinning was the disposition of Miss Smith that Mrs. Schreiberapparently loved _her_ the best. 

Both, however, appeared under a combination of circumstances toosingularly romantic to fail of creating an interest that was universal. Both were solitary children, unchallenged by any relatives. Neither hadever known what it was to taste of love, paternal or maternal. Theirmothers had been long dead--not consciously seen by either; and theirfathers, not surviving their last departure from home long enough tosee them again, died before returning from India. What a world ofdesolation seemed to exist for them! How silent was every hall intowhich, by natural right, they should have had entrance! Several people, kind, cordial people, men and women, were scattered over England, that, during their days of infancy, would have delighted to receive them;but, by some fatality, when they reached their fifteenth year, andmight have been deemed old enough to undertake visits, all of thesepaternal friends, except two, had died; nor had they, by that time, anyrelatives at all that remained alive, or were eligible as associates. Strange, indeed, was the contrast between the silent past of theirlives and that populous future to which their large fortunes wouldprobably introduce them. Throw open a door in the rear that should laybare the long vista of chambers through which their childhood mightsymbolically be represented as having travelled--what silence! whatsolemn solitude! Open a door in advance that should do the samefigurative office for the future--suddenly what a jubilation! what atumult of festal greetings!

But the succeeding stages of life did not, perhaps, in either casefully correspond to the early promise. Rank and station the two youngladies attained; but rank and station do not always throw people uponprominent stages of action or display. Many a family, possessing bothrank and wealth, and not undistinguished possibly by natural endowmentsof an order fitted for brilliant popularity, never emerge fromobscurity, or not into any splendor that can be called national;sometimes, perhaps, from a temper unfitted for worthy struggles in thehead of the house; possibly from a haughty, possibly a dignifieddisdain of popular arts, hatred of petty rhetoric, petty sycophanticcourtships, petty canvassing tricks; or again, in many cases, becauseaccidents of ill-luck have intercepted the fair proportion of successdue to the merits of the person; whence, oftentimes, a hasty self-surrender to impulses of permanent disgust. But, more frequently thanany other cause, I fancy that impatience of the long struggle requiredfor any distinguished success interferes to thin the ranks ofcompetitors for the prizes of public ambition. Perseverance is soonrefrigerated in those who fall back under any result, defeated or notdefeated, upon splendid mansions and luxuries of every kind, alreadyfar beyond their needs or their wishes. The soldier described by theRoman satirist as one who had lost his purse, was likely enough, underthe desperation of his misfortune, to see nothing formidable in anyobstacle that crossed his path towards another supplementary purse;whilst the very same obstacle might reasonably alarm one who, inretreating, fell back under the battlements of twenty thousand perannum. In the present case, there was nothing at all to move wonder inthe final result under so continual a siege of temptation from theseductions of voluptuous ease; the only wonder is, that one of theyoung ladies, namely, Miss Watson, whose mind was masculine, and insome directions aspiring, should so readily have acquiesced in a resultwhich she might have anticipated from the beginning. 

Happy was the childhood, happy the early dawn of womanhood, which thesetwo young ladies passed under the guardianship of Mrs. Schreiber. Education in those days was not the austere old lady that she is now. At least, in the case of young ladies, her exactions were merciful andconsiderate. If Miss Smith sang pretty well, and Miss Watson_very_ well, and with the power of singing difficult _part_ musicat sight, they did so for the same reason that the lark sings, and chiefly under the same gentle tuition--that of nature, gladalmighty nature, breathing inspiration from her Delphic tripod ofhappiness, and health, and hope. Mrs. Schreiber pretended to nointellectual gifts whatever; and yet, practically, she was wiser thanmany who have the greatest. First of all other tasks which she imposedupon her wards, was that of daily exercise, and exercise carried to_excess_. She insisted upon four hours' exercise daily; and, asyoung ladies walk fast, _that_ would have yielded, at the rate ofthree and a half miles per hour, thirteen plus one third miles. Butonly two and a half hours were given to walking; the other one and ahalf to riding. No day was a day of rest; absolutely none. Days sostormy that they "kept the raven to her nest, " snow the heaviest, windsthe most frantic, were never listened to as any ground of reprieve fromthe ordinary exaction. I once knew (that is, not personally, for Inever saw her, but through the reports of her many friends) an intrepidlady, [Footnote: If I remember rightly, some account is given of thispalæstric lady and her stern Pædo-gymnastics, in a clever book onhousehold medicine and surgery under circumstances of inevitableseclusion from professional aid, written about the year 1820-22, by Mr. Haden, a surgeon of London. ] living in the city of London (that is, technically the _city_, as opposed to Westminster, etc. , Mary-le-bone, etc. ), who made a point of turning out her newborn infants for apretty long airing, even on the day of their birth. It made nodifference to her whether the month were July or January; good, undeniable air is to be had in either month. Once only she was baffled, and most indignant it made her, because the little thing chose to beborn at half-past nine P. M. ; so that, by the time its toilet wasfinished, bonnet and cloak all properly adjusted, the watchman wascalling "Past eleven, and a cloudy night;" upon which, mostreluctantly, she was obliged to countermand the orders for that day'sexercise, and considered herself, like the Emperor Titus, to have losta day. But what came of the London lady's or of Mrs. Schreiber'sSpartan discipline? Did the little blind kittens of Gracechurch-street, who were ordered by their penthesiléan mamma, on the very day of theirnativity, to face the most cruel winds--did _they_, or did Mrs. Schreiber's wards, justify, in after life, this fierce discipline, bycommensurate results of hardiness? In words written beyond all doubt byShakspeare, though not generally recognized as his, it might have beensaid to any one of this Amazonian brood, --

 "Now mild may be thy life; For a more blust'rous birth had never babe. Quiet and gentle be thy temperature; For thou'rt the rudeliest welcomed to this world That e'er was woman's child. Happy be the sequel! Thou hast as chiding a nativity As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven, can make, To herald thee from darkness!"--_Pericles, Act III. _

As to the city kittens, I heard that the treatment prospered; but theman who reported this added, that by original constitution they were asstrong as Meux's dray-horses; and thus, after all, they may simplyillustrate the old logical _dictum_ ascribed to some medical man, that the reason why London children of the wealthier classes arenoticeable even to a proverb for their robustness and bloom, is becausenone but those who are already vigorous to excess, and who start withadvantages of health far beyond the average scale, have much chance ofsurviving that most searching quarantine, which, in such [Footnote: Formyself, meantime, I am far from assenting to all the romantic abuseapplied to the sewerage and the church-yards of London, and even moreviolently to the river Thames. As a tidal river, even: beyond themetropolitan bridges, the Thames undoubtedly does much towardscleansing the atmosphere, whatever may be the condition of its waters. And one most erroneous postulate there is from which the _Times_starts in all its arguments, namely, this, that supposing the Thames tobe even a vast sewer, in short, the _cloaca maxima_ of London, there is in that arrangement of things any special reproach applying toour mighty English capital. On the contrary, _all_ great citiesthat ever were founded have sought out, as their first and elementarycondition, the adjacency of some great cleansing river. In the longprocess of development through which cities pass, commerce and otherfunctions of civilization come to usurp upon the earlier functions ofsuch rivers, and sometimes (through increasing efforts of luxuriousrefinement) may come entirely to absorb them. But, in the infancy ofevery great city, the chief function for which she looks to her riveris that of purification. Be thou my huge _cloaca_, says infantBabylon to the Euphrates, says infant Nineveh to the Tigris, saysinfant Rome to the Tiber. So far is that reproach from having anyspecial application to London. Smoke is not unwholesome; in manycircumstances it is salubrious, as a counter-agent to worse influences. Even sewerage is chiefly insalubrious from its moisture, and not, inany degree yet demonstrated, from its odor. ] an atmosphere, they aresummoned to weather at starting. Coming, however, to the special caseof Mrs. Schreiber's household, I am bound to report that in no instancehave I known young ladies so thoroughly steeled against all theordinary host of petty maladies which, by way of antithesis to thecapital warfare of dangerous complaints, might be called the_guerilla_ nosology; influenza, for instance, in milder forms, catarrh, headache, toothache, dyspepsia in transitory shapes, etc. Always the spirits of the two girls were exuberant; the enjoyment oflife seemed to be intense, and never did I know either of them tosuffer from _ennui_. My conscious knowledge of them commenced whenI was about two years old, they being from ten to twelve years older. Mrs. Schreiber had been amongst my mother's earliest friends as Mrs. Harvey, and in days when my mother had opportunities of doing herseasonable services. And as there were three special advantages whichadorned my mother, and which ranked in Mrs. Schreiber's estimate as thehighest which earth could show, namely: 1°, that she spoke and wroteEnglish with singular elegance; 2°, that her manners were eminentlypolished; and 3°, that, even in that early stage of my mother's life, acertain tone of religiosity, and even of ascetic devotion, was alreadydiffused as a luminous mist that served to exalt the coloring of hermorality. To this extent Mrs. Schreiber approved of religion; butnothing of a sectarian cast could she have tolerated; nor had sheanything of that nature to apprehend from my mother. Viewing my mother, therefore, as a pure model of an English matron, and feeling for her, besides, a deeper sentiment of friendship and affection than foranybody else on her visiting list, it was natural enough that sheshould come with her wards on an annual visit to "The Farm" (a pretty, rustic dwelling occupied by my father in the neighborhood ofManchester), and subsequently (when _that_ arose) to Greenhay. [Footnote: "_Greenhay_. "--As this name might, under a falseinterpretation, seem absurd as including incongruous elements, I ought, in justification of my mother, who devised the name, to have mentionedthat _hay_ was meant for the old English word (derived from theold French word _haie_) indicating a rural enclosure. Conventionally, a _hay_ or _haie_ was understood to mean a country-house within averdant ring-fence, narrower than a park: which word park, in Scotchuse, means any enclosure whatever, though not twelve feet square; butin English use (witness Captain Burt's wager about Culloden parks)means an enclosure measured by square miles, and usually accounted towant its appropriate furniture, unless tenanted by deer. By the way, itis a singular illustration of a fact illustrated in one way or otherevery hour, namely, of the imperfect knowledge which England possessesof England, that, within these last eight or nine months, I saw in the_Illustrated London News_ an article assuming that the red deer wasunknown in England. Whereas, if the writer had ever been at the Englishlakes during the hunting season, he might have seen it actually huntedover Martindale forest and its purlieus. Or, again, in Devonshire andCornwall, over Dartmoor, etc. , and, I believe, in many other regions, though naturally narrowing as civilization widens. The writer isequally wrong in supposing the prevailing deer of our parks to be the_roe_ deer, which are very little known. It is the _fallow_ deer thatchiefly people our parks. Red deer were also found at Blenheim, inOxfordshire, when it was visited by Dr. Johnson, as may be seen in"Boswell. "] As my father always retained a town-house in Manchester(somewhere in Fountain-street), and, though a plain, unpretending man, was literary to the extent of having written a book, all things were soarranged that there was no possibility of any commercial mementos everpenetrating to the rural retreat of his family; such mementos, I mean, as, by reviving painful recollections of that ancient Schreiber, whowas or ought to be by this time extinct, would naturally be odious anddistressing. Here, therefore, liberated from all jealousy ofoverlooking eyes, such as haunted persons of their expectations atBrighton, Weymouth, Sidmouth, or Bath, Miss Smith and Miss Watson usedto surrender themselves without restraint to their glad animal impulsesof girlish gayety, like the fawns of antelopes when suddenlytransferred from tiger-haunted thickets to the serene preserves ofsecluded rajahs. On these visits it was, that I, as a young pet whomthey carried about like a doll from my second to my eighth or ninthyear, learned to know them; so as to take a fraternal interest in thesucceeding periods of their lives. Their fathers I certainly had notseen; nor had they, consciously. These two fathers must both have diedin India, before my inquiries had begun to travel in that direction. But, as old acquaintances of my mother's, both had visited The Farmbefore I was born; and about General Smith, in particular, there hadsurvived amongst the servants a remembrance which seemed to us (that isto them and to myself) ludicrously awful, though, at that time, thepractice was common throughout our Indian possessions. He had a Hindooservant with him; and this servant every night stretched himself alongthe "sill" or outer threshold of the door; so that he might have beentrodden on by the general when retiring to rest; and from this it wasbut a moderate step in advance to say that he _was_ trodden on. Uponwhich basis many other wonders were naturally reared. Miss Smith'sfather, therefore, furnished matter for a not very amiable tradition;but Miss Smith herself was the sweetest-tempered and the loveliest ofgirls, and the most thoroughly English in the style of her beauty. Fardifferent every way was Miss Watson. In person she was a finishedbeauty of the very highest pretensions, and generally recognized assuch; that is to say, her figure was fine and queenly; her featureswere exquisitely cut, as regarded their forms and the correspondencesof their parts; and usually by artists her face was said to be Grecian. Perhaps the nostrils, mouth, and forehead, might be so; but nothingcould be less Grecian, or more eccentric in form and position, than theeyes. They were placed obliquely, in a way that I do not remember tohave seen repeated in any other face whatever. Large they were, andparticularly long, tending to an almond-shape; equally strange, infact, as to color, shape, and position: but the remarkable position ofthese eyes would have absorbed your gaze to the obliteration of allother features or peculiarities in the face, were it not for one othereven more remarkable distinction affecting her complexion: this lay ina suffusion that mantled upon her cheeks, of a color amounting almostto carmine. Perhaps it might be no more than what Pindar meant by the_porphyreon phos erotos_, which Gray has falsely [Footnote: Falsely, because poxphuxeos rarely, perhaps, means in the Greek use what we meanproperly by _purple_, and _could_ not mean it in the Pindaric passage;much oftener it denotes some shade of _crimson_, or else of _puniceus_, or blood-red. Gibbon was never more mistaken than when he argued thatall the endless disputing about the _purpureus_ of the ancients mighthave been evaded by attending to its Greek designation, namely, _porphyry_-colored: since, said he, porphyry is always of the samecolor. Not at all. Porphyry, I have heard, runs through as large agamut of hues as marble; but, if this should be an exaggeration, at allevents porphyry is far from being so monochromatic as Gibbon's argumentwould presume. The truth is, colors were as loosely andlatitudinarially distinguished by the Greeks and Romans as degrees ofaffinity and consanguinity are everywhere. _My son-in-law_, says awoman, and she means _my stepson. _ _My cousin_, she says, and she meansany mode of relationship in the wide, wide world. _Nos neveux_, says aFrench writer, and means not _our nephews_, but _our grandchildren_, or more generally _our descendants_. ] translated as "the bloom ofyoung desire, and PURPLE light of love. " It was not unpleasing, andgave a lustre to the eyes, but it added to the eccentricity of theface; and by all strangers it was presumed to be an artificial color, resulting from some mode of applying a preparation more brilliant thanrouge. But to us children, so constantly admitted to her toilet, it waswell known to be entirely natural. Generally speaking, it is not likelyto assist the effect of a young woman's charms, that she presents anysuch variety in her style of countenance as could naturally be called_odd_. But Miss Watson, by the somewhat scenical effect resultingfrom the harmony between her fine figure and her fine countenance, triumphed over all that might else have been thought a blemish; andwhen she was presented at court on occasion of her marriage, the kinghimself pronounced her, to friends of Mrs. Schreiber, the most splendidof all the brides that had yet given lustre to his reign. In such casesthe judgments of rustic, undisciplined tastes, though marked bynarrowness, and often by involuntary obedience to vulgar ideals (which, for instance, makes them insensible to all the deep sanctities ofbeauty that sleep amongst the Italian varieties of the Madonna face), is not without its appropriate truth. Servants and rustics all thrilledin sympathy with the sweet English loveliness of Miss Smith; but allalike acknowledged, with spontaneous looks of homage, the fine presenceand finished beauty of Miss Watson. Naturally, from the splendor withwhich they were surrounded, and the notoriety of their greatexpectations, --so much to dazzle in one direction, and, on the otherhand, something for as tender a sentiment as pity, in the fact of bothfrom so early an age having been united in the calamity of orphanage, --go where they might, these young women drew all eyes upon themselves;and from the _audible_ comparisons sometimes made between them, itmight be imagined that if ever there were a situation fitted to nourishrivalship and jealousy, between two girls, here it might be anticipatedin daily operation. But, left to themselves, the yearnings of thefemale heart tend naturally towards what is noble; and, unless where ithas been tried too heavily by artificial incitements applied to thepride, I do not believe that women generally are disposed to anyunfriendly jealousy of each other. Why should they? Almost every woman, when strengthened in those charms which nature has given to her by suchas she can in many ways give to herself, must feel that she has her ownseparate domain of empire unaffected by the most sovereign beauty uponearth. Every man that ever existed has probably his own peculiar talent(if only it were detected), in which he would be found to excel all therest of his race. And in every female face possessing any attractionsat all, no matter what may be her general inferiority, there lurks somesecret peculiarity of expression--some mesmeric individuality--which isvalid within its narrower range--limited superiority over the supremeof beauties within a narrow circle. It is unintelligibly butmesmerically potent, this secret fascination attached to featuresoftentimes that are absolutely plain; and as one of many cases withinmy own range of positive experience, I remember in confirmation, atthis moment, that in a clergyman's family, counting three daughters, all on a visit to my mother, the youngest, Miss F---- P----, who wasstrikingly and memorably plain, never walked out on the Clifton Downsunattended, but she was followed home by a crowd of admiring men, anxious to learn her rank and abode; whilst the middle sister, eminently handsome, levied no such _visible_ tribute of admirationon the public. 

I mention this fact, one of a thousand similar facts, simply by way ofreminding the reader of what he must himself have often witnessed;namely, that no woman is condemned by nature to any ignoble necessityof repining against the power of other women; her own may be far moreconfined, but within its own circle may possibly, measured against thatof the haughtiest beauty, be the profounder. However, waiving thequestion thus generally put here, and as it specially affected thesetwo young women that virtually were sisters, any question of precedencyin power or display, when brought into collision with sisterlyaffection, had not a momentary existence. Each had soon redundantproofs of her own power to attract suitors without end; and, for themore or the less, _that_ was felt to be a matter of accident. Never, on this earth, I am satisfied, did that pure sisterly lovebreathe a more steady inspiration than now into the hearts and throughthe acts of these two generous girls; neither was there any sacrificewhich either would have refused _to_ or _for_ the other. Theperiod, however, was now rapidly shortening during which they wouldhave any opportunity for testifying this reciprocal love. Suitors wereflocking around them, as rank as cormorants in a storm. The grim oldchancellor (one, if not both, of the young ladies having been a ward inChancery) had all his legal jealousies awakened on their behalf. Theworshipful order of _adventurers_ and _fortune-hunters_, at thattime chiefly imported from Ireland, as in times more recent fromGermany, and other moustachoed parts of the continent, could not liveunder the raking fire of Mrs. Schreiber, on the one side, with herfemale tact and her knowledge of life, and of the chancellor, with hishuge discretional power, on the other. That particular chancellor, whomthe chronology of the case brought chiefly into connection with MissWatson's interests, was (if my childish remembrances do not greatlymislead me) the iracund Lord Thurlow. Lovers and wooers this grimlawyer regarded as the most impertinent order of animals in universalzoology; and of these, in Miss Watson's case, he had a whole menagerieto tend. Penelope, according to some school-boy remembrance of mine, had one hundred and eighteen suitors. These young ladies had almost asmany. Heavens! I what a crew of Comus to follow or to lead! And what asuitable person was this truculent old lord on the woolsack to enactthe part of shepherd--Corydon, suppose, or Alphesibæus--to this goodlyset of lambs! How he must have admired the hero of the "Odyssey, " whoin one way or other accounted for all the wooers that "sorned" upon hishouse, and had a receipt for their bodies from the grave-digger ofIthaca! But even this wily descendant of Sisyphus would have found itno such easy matter to deal with the English suitors, who were not thefeeble voluptuaries of the Ionian Islands, that suffered themselves tobe butchered as unresistingly as sheep in the shambles--actuallystanding at one end of a banqueting-room to be shot at with bows andarrows, not having pluck enough to make a rush--but were _game_men; all young, strong, rich, and in most cases technically "noble;"all, besides, contending for one or other of two prizes a thousandtimes better fitted to inspire romantic ardor than the poor, witheredPenelope. One, by the way, amongst these suitors (I speak of those whoaddressed Miss Watson), merits a separate commemoration, as havingdrawn from Sheridan his very happiest _impromptu_--and an _impromptu_that was really such--(the rarest of all things from Sheridan). This was Lord Belgrave, eldest son of Lord Grosvenor—then anearl, but at some period, long subsequent to this, raised to theMarquisate of Westminster, a title naturally suggesting in itself aconnection with the vast Grosvenor property, sweeping across the wholearea of that most aristocratic region in the metropolis now called_Belgravia_, which was then a name unknown; and this Hesperianregion had as yet no architectural value, and consequently no ground-rent value, simply because the world of fashion and distinction had asyet not expanded itself in that direction. In those days theterritorial importance of this great house rested exclusively upon itsconnection with the county of Chester. In this connection it was thatthe young Viscount Belgrave had been introduced, by his familyinterest, into the House of Commons; he had delivered his maiden speechwith some effect; and had been heard favorably on various subsequentoccasions; on one of which it was that, to the extreme surprise of thehouse, he terminated his speech with a passage from Demosthenes--notpresented in English, but in sounding Attic Greek. Latin is aprivileged dialect in parliament. But Greek! It would not have been atall more startling to the usages of the house, had his lordship quotedPersic or Telinga. Still, though felt as something verging on theridiculous, there was an indulgent feeling to a young man fresh fromacademic bowers, which would not have protected a mature man of theworld. Everybody bit his lips, and as yet did _not_ laugh. But thefinal issue stood on the edge of a razor. A gas, an inflammableatmosphere, was trembling sympathetically through the whole excitedaudience; all depended on a match being applied to this gas whilst yetin the very act of escaping. Deepest silence still prevailed; and, hadany commonplace member risen to address the house in an ordinarybusiness key, all would have blown over. Unhappily for Lord Belgrave, in that critical moment up rose the one solitary man, to wit, Sheridan, whose look, whose voice, whose traditional character, formed a prologueto what was coming. Here let the reader understand that, throughout the"Iliad, " all speeches or commands, questions or answers, are introducedby Homer under some peculiar formula. For instance, replies are usuallyintroduced thus:

 "_But him answering thus addressed the sovereign Agamemnon;_"

or; in sonorous Greek:

 "Ton d' apameibomenos prosephé kreion Agamemnon;"

or, again, according to the circumstances:

 "But him sternly surveying saluted the swift-footed Achilles;" "Ton d'ar', upodra idon, prosephé podas okus Achilleus. "

This being premised, and that every one of the audience, thoughpretending to no Greek, yet, from his school-boy remembrances, was aswell acquainted with these _formulæ_ as with the scripturalformula of _Verily, verily, I say unto you, &c. _, Sheridan, without needing to break its force by explanations, solemnly openedthus:

 "Ton d' apameibomenos prosephé Sheridanios heros. "_

Simply to have commenced his answer in Greek would have sufficientlymet the comic expectation then thrilling the house; but, when ithappened that this Greek (so suitable to the occasion) was also the onesole morsel of Greek that everybody in that assembly understood, theeffect, as may be supposed, was overwhelming, and wrapt the whole housein what might be called a fiery explosion of laughter. Meantime, asprizes in the matrimonial lottery, and prizes in all senses, both youngladies were soon carried off. Miss Smith, whose expectations I neverhappened to hear estimated, married a great West India proprietor; andMiss Watson, who (according to the popular report) would succeed to sixthousand a year on her twenty-first birthday, married Lord Carbery. Miss Watson inherited also from her father something which would notgenerally be rated very highly, namely, a chancery lawsuit, with theEast India Company for defendant. However, if the company is a potentantagonist, thus far it is an eligible one, that, in the event oflosing the suit, the honorable company is solvent; and such an event, after some nine or ten years' delay, did really befall the company. Thequestion at issue respected some docks which Colonel Watson had builtfor the company in some Indian port. And in the end this lawsuit, though so many years doubtful in its issue, proved very valuable toMiss Watson; I have heard (but cannot vouch for it) not less valuablethan that large part of her property which had been paid over withoutdemur upon her twenty-first birth-day. Both young ladies marriedhappily; but in marriage they found their separation, and in thatseparation a shock to their daily comfort which was never replaced toeither. As to Miss Smith's husband, I did not know him; but LordCarbery was every way an estimable man; in some things worthy ofadmiration; and his wife never ceased to esteem and admire him. But sheyearned for the society of her early friend; and this being placed outof her reach by the accidents of life, she fell early into a sort ofdisgust with her own advantages of wealth and station, which, promisingso much, were found able to perform nothing at all in this first andlast desire of her heart. A portrait of her friend hung in the drawing-room; but Lady Carbery did not willingly answer the questions that weresometimes prompted by its extraordinary loveliness. There are women towhom a female friendship is indispensable, and cannot be supplied byany companion of the other sex. That blessing, therefore, of her goldenyouth, turned eventually into a curse for her after-life; for I believethat, through one accident or another, they never met again after theybecame married women. To me, as one of those who had known and lovedMiss Smith, Lady Carbery always turned the more sunny side of hernature; but to the world generally she presented a chilling andsomewhat severe aspect--as to a vast illusion that rested upon pillarsof mockery and frauds. Honors, beauty of the first order, wealth, andthe power which follows wealth as its shadow--what could these do? what_had_ they done? In proportion as they had settled heavily uponherself, she had found them to entail a load of responsibility; andthose claims upon her she had labored to fulfil conscientiously; butelse they had only precipitated the rupture of such tics as had givensweetness to her life. 

From the first, therefore, I had been aware, on this visit to Laxton, that Lady Carbery had changed, and was changing. She had becomereligious; so much I knew from my sister's letters. And, in fact, thischange had been due to her intercourse with my mother. But, in reality, her premature disgust with the world would, at any rate, have made hersuch; and, had any mode of monastic life existed for Protestants, Ibelieve that she would before this have entered it, supposing LordCarbery to have consented. People generally would have stated the casemost erroneously; they would have said that she was sinking into gloomunder religious influences; whereas the very contrary was the truth;namely, that, having sunk into gloomy discontent with life, and itsmiserable performances as contrasted with its promises, she soughtrelief and support to her wounded feelings from religion. 

But the change brought with it a difficult trial to myself. Sherecoiled, by natural temperament and by refinement of taste, from allmodes of religious enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a large word, and in manycases I could not go along with her; but _canting_ of all descriptionswas odious to both of us alike. To cultivate religious knowledge in anintellectual way, she very well understood that she must studydivinity. And she relied upon me for assisting her. Not that she madethe mistake of ascribing to me any knowledge on that subject; but Icould learn; and, whatsoever I _had_ learned, she knew, by experience, that I could make abundantly plain to her understanding. Wherever I did_not_ understand, I was far too sincere to dissemble that fact. Where I_did_ understand, I could enable _her_ to understand. 

On the subject of theology, it was not easy indeed for anybody, man orboy, to be more ignorant than myself. My studies in that field had beennone at all. Nor was this any subject for wonder, or (considering myage) for blame. In reality, to make theology into a captivating studyfor the young, it must be translated into controversial theology. Andin what way could such a polemic interest be evoked except throughpolitical partisanship? But such partisanship connects itself naturallywith the irritability of sectarianism, and but little with the majesticrepose of a church such as the Romish or the Anglican, founded upon thebroad basis of national majorities, and sheltered from danger, or thesense of danger, by state protection. Dissenters stand upon anotherfooting. The Dissenter from the national church, whether in England orin France, is reminded by his own distinguishing religious opinions ofthe historic struggles through which those opinions have travelled. Thedoctrines which give to his own sect a peculiar denomination are alsothose which record its honorable political conflicts; so that his ownconnection, through his religious brotherhood, with the civil historyof his country, furnishes a standing motive of pride for someacquaintance more or less with divinity; since it is by deviatingpainfully, conscientiously, and at some periods dangerously, from theestablished divinity, that his fathers have achieved their station inthe great drama of the national evolution. 

But, whilst I was ignorant of theology, as a direct and separate branchof study, the points are so many at which theology inosculates withphilosophy, and with endless casual and random suggestions of the self-prompted reason, that inevitably from that same moment in which I beganto find a motive for directing my thoughts to this new subject, Iwanted not something to say that might have perplexed an antagonist, or(in default of such a vicious associate) that might have amused afriend, more especially a friend so predisposed to a high estimate ofmyself as Lady Carbery. Sometimes I did more than amuse her; I startledher, and I even startled myself, with distinctions that to this hourstrike me as profoundly just, and as undeniably novel. Two out of manyI will here repeat; and with the more confidence, that in these two Ican be sure of repeating the exact thoughts; whereas, in very manyother cases, it would not be so certain that they might not have beeninsensibly modified by cross-lights or disturbing shadows fromintervening speculations. 

1. Lady Carbery one day told me that she could not see any reasonableground for what is said of Christ, and elsewhere of John the Baptist, that he opened his mission by preaching "repentance. " Why "repentance"?Why then, more than at any other time? Her reason for addressing thisremark to me was, that she fancied there might be some error in thetranslation of the Greek expression. I replied that, in my opinion, there was; and that I had myself always been irritated by the entireirrelevance of the English word, and by something very like cant, onwhich the whole burden of the passage is thrown. How was it any naturalpreparation for a vast spiritual revolution, that men should first ofall acknowledge any special duty of repentance? The repentance, if anymovement of that nature could intelligibly be supposed called for, should more naturally _follow_ this great revolution--which, asyet, both in its principle and in its purpose, was altogethermysterious--than herald it, or ground it. In my opinion, the Greek word_metanoia_ concealed a most profound meaning--a meaning of prodigiouscompass--which bore no allusion to any ideas whatever of repentance. The _meta_ carried with it an emphatic expression of its original idea--the idea of transfer, of translation, of transformation; or, if we prefer a Grecian to a Roman apparelling, the idea of a_metamorphosis_. And this idea, to what is it applied? Uponwhat object is this idea of spiritual transfiguration made tobear? Simply upon the _noetic_ or intellectual faculty--thefaculty of shaping and conceiving things under their true relations. The holy herald of Christ, and Christ himself the finisher of prophecy, made proclamation alike of the same mysterious summons, as a baptism orrite of initiation; namely, _Metanoei_. Henceforth transfigureyour theory of moral truth; the old theory is laid aside as infinitelyinsufficient; a new and spiritual revelation is established. _Metanoeite_--contemplate moral truth as radiating from a newcentre; apprehend it under transfigured relations. 

John the Baptist, like other earlier prophets, delivered a messagewhich, probably enough, he did not himself more than dimly understand, and never in its full compass of meaning. Christ occupied anotherstation. Not only was he the original Interpreter, but he was himselfthe Author--Founder, at once, and Finisher--of that greattransfiguration applied to ethics, which he and the Baptist alikeannounced as forming the code for the new and revolutionary era nowopening its endless career. The human race was summoned to bring atransfiguring sense and spirit of interpretation (_metanoia_) to atransfigured ethics--an altered organ to an altered object. This is byfar the grandest miracle recorded in Scripture. No exhibition of blankpower--not the arresting of the earth's motion--not the calling back ofthe dead unto life, can approach in grandeur to this miracle which weall daily behold; namely, the inconceivable mystery of having writtenand sculptured upon the tablets of man's heart a new code of moraldistinctions, all modifying--many reversing--the old ones. What wouldhave been thought of any prophet, if he should have promised totransfigure the celestial mechanics; if he had said, I will create anew pole-star, a new zodiac, and new laws of gravitation; briefly, Iwill make new earth and new heavens? And yet a thousand times moreawful it was to undertake the writing of new laws upon the spiritualconscience of man. _Metanoeite_ (was the cry from the wilderness), wheel into a new centre your moral system; _geocentric_ has thatsystem been up to this hour--that is, having earth and the earthly forits starting-point; henceforward make it _heliocentric_ (that is, with the sun, or the heavenly for its principle of motion). 

2. A second remark of mine was, perhaps, not more important, but itwas, on the whole, better calculated to startle the prevailingpreconceptions; for, as to the new system of morals introduced byChrist, generally speaking, it is too dimly apprehended in its greatdifferential features to allow of its miraculous character beingadequately appreciated; one flagrant illustration of which is furnishedby our experience in Affghanistan, where some officers, wishing toimpress Akhbar Khan with the beauty of Christianity, very judiciouslyrepeated to him the Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount, by bothof which the Khan was profoundly affected, and often recurred to them;but others, under the notion of conveying to him a more_comprehensive_ view of the Scriptural ethics, repeated to him theTen Commandments; although, with the sole exception of the two first, forbidding idolatry and Polytheism, there is no word in these whichcould have displeased or surprised a Pagan, and therefore nothingcharacteristic of Christianity. Meantime my second remark wassubstantially this which follows: What is a religion? To Christians itmeans, over and above a mode of worship, a dogmatic (that is, adoctrinal) system; a great body of doctrinal truths, moral andspiritual. But to the ancients (to the Greeks and Romans, forinstance), it meant nothing of the kind. A religion was simply a_cultus_, a _thræskeia_, a mode of ritual worship, in whichthere might be two differences, namely: 1. As to the particular deitywho furnished the motive to the worship; 2. As to the ceremonial, ormode of conducting the worship. But in no case was there so much as apretence of communicating any religious truths, far less any moraltruths. The obstinate error rooted in modern minds is, that, doubtless, the moral instruction was bad, as being heathen; but that still it wasas good as heathen opportunities allowed it to be. No mistake can begreater. Moral instruction had no existence even in the plan orintention of the religious service. The Pagan priest or flamen neverdreamed of any function like that of _teaching_ as in any wayconnected with his office. He no more undertook to teach morals than toteach geography or cookery. He taught nothing. What he undertook was, simply to _do_: namely, to present authoritatively (that is, authorized and supported by some civil community, Corinth, or Athens, or Rome, which he represented) the homage and gratitude of thatcommunity to the particular deity adored. As to morals or just opinionsupon the relations to man of the several divinities, all this wasresigned to the teaching of nature; and for any polemic functions theteaching was resigned to the professional philosophers--academic, peripatetic, stoic, etc. By religion it was utterly ignored. 

The reader must do me the favor to fix his attention upon the realquestion at issue. What I say--what then I said to Lady Carbery--isthis: that, by failing to notice as a _differential_ feature ofChristianity this involution of a doctrinal part, we elevate Paganismto a dignity which it never dreamed of. Thus, for instance, in theEleusinian mysteries, what was the main business transacted? I, for mypart, in harmony with my universal theory on this subject, --namely, that there could be no doctrinal truth delivered in a Pagan religion, --have always maintained that the only end and purpose of the mysterieswas a more solemn and impressive worship of a particular goddess. Warburton, on the other hand, would insist upon it that some greataffirmative doctrines, interesting to man, such as the immortality ofthe soul, a futurity of retribution, &c. , might be here commemorated. And now, nearly a hundred years after Warburton, what is the opinion ofscholars upon this point? Two of the latest and profoundest I willcite:--1. Lobeck, in his "Aglaophamus, " expressly repels all suchnotions; 2. Otfried Mueller, in the twelfth chapter, twenty-fourthsection, of his "Introduction to a System of Mythology, " says: "I havehere gone on the assumption which I consider unavoidable, that therewas no regular instruction, no dogmatical communication, connected withthe Grecian worship in general. _There could be nothing_ of thekind introduced into the public service from the way in which it wasconducted, for the priest _did not address the people at all_. "These opinions, which exactly tallied with my own assertion to LadyCarbery, that all religion amongst the Pagans resolved itself into amere system of ceremonial worship, a pompous and elaborate_cultus_, were not brought forward in Germany until about ten ortwelve years ago; whereas, my doctrine was expressly insisted on in1800; that is, forty years earlier than any of these German writers hadturned their thoughts in that direction. 

Had I, then, really all that originality on this subject which for manyyears I secretly claimed? Substantially I had, because this greatdistinction between the modern (or Christian) idea of "a religion" andthe ancient (or Pagan) idea of "a religion, " I had nowhere openly seenexpressed in words. To myself exclusively I was indebted for it. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that this conception must have been longago germinating in the world, and perhaps bearing fruit. This is pastall denial, since, about thirteen or fourteen years ago, I read in somejournal (a French journal, I think) this statement: namely, that someoriental people--Turks, according to my present impression, but itmight have been Arabs--make an old traditional distinction (so said theFrench journal) between what they call "religions of the book" and allother religions. The religions of the book, according to them, arethree, all equally founded upon written and producible documents, namely: first, the Judaic system, resting upon the Pentateuch, or moretruly, I should imagine, upon the Law and the Prophets; secondly, theChristian system, resting upon the Old and New Testaments; thirdly, theMahometan system, resting confessedly upon the Koran. The very meaning, therefore, of styling these systems, by way of honorable distinction, _religions of the book_, is, not that accidentally they hadwritten vouchers for their creed, whereas the others had only oralvouchers, but that they severally offer to men's acceptance a largebody of philosophic truth, such as requires and presupposes a book. Whereas the various religions contradistinguished from these three--namely, the whole body of Pagan idolatries--are mere forms of adorationaddressed to many different divinities; and the brief reason why theyare essentially opposed to religions of the book is, not that they_have_ not, but logically that they _cannot_ have, books ordocuments, inasmuch as they have no truths to deliver. They do notprofess to teach anything whatsoever. What they profess, as theirjustifying distinction, is, to adore a certain deity, or a certaincollective Pantheon, according to certain old authorized forms--authorized, that is to say, by fixed, ancient, and oftentimes localtraditions. 

What was the great practical inference from the new distinction which Ioffered? It was this: that Christianity (which included Judaism as itsown germinal principle, and Islamism as its own adaptation to abarbarous and imperfect civilization) carried along with itself its ownauthentication; since, whilst other religions introduced men simply toceremonies and usages, which could furnish no aliment or material fortheir intellect, Christianity provided an eternal _palæstra_ orplace of exercise for the human understanding vitalized by humanaffections: for every problem whatever, interesting to the humanintellect, provided only that it bears a _moral_ aspect, immediatelypasses into the field of religious speculation. Religion had thusbecome the great organ of human culture. Lady Carbery advancedhalf-way to meet me in these new views, finding my credentials as atheologian in my earnestness and my sincerity. She herself waspainfully and sorrowfully in earnest. She had come at this early age ofseven or eight and twenty, to the most bitter sense of hollowness, and(in a philosophic sense) of _treachery_ as under-lying all thingsthat stood round her; and she sought escape, if escape there were, through religion. Religion was to be sought in the Bible. But was theBible intelligible at the first glance? Far from it. Search theScriptures, was the cry in Protestant lands amongst all people, howevermuch at war with each other. But I often told her that this was a vainpretence, without some knowledge of Greek. Or perhaps not always andabsolutely a pretence; because, undoubtedly, it is true that oftentimesmere ignorant simplicity may, by bringing into direct collisionpassages that are reciprocally illustrative, restrain an error orilluminate a truth. And a reason, which I have since given in print (areason additional to Bentley's), for neglecting the thirty thousandvarious readings collected by the diligence of the New Testamentcollators, applied also to this case, namely: That, first, thetranscendent nature, and, secondly, the _recurrent_ nature, ofScriptural truths cause them to surmount verbal disturbances. Adoctrine, for instance, which is sowed broadcast over the Scriptures, and recurs, on an average, three times in every chapter, cannot beaffected by the casual inaccuracy of a phrase, since the phrase iscontinually varied. And, therefore, I would not deny the possibility ofan effectual searching by very unlearned persons. Our authorizedtranslators of the Bible in the Shakspearian age were not in anyexquisite sense learned men; they were very able men, and in a bettersense able than if they had been philologically profound scholars, which at that time, from the imperfect culture of philology, they couldnot easily have been; men they were whom religious feeling guidedcorrectly in choosing their expressions, and with whom the state of thelanguage in some respects cooperated, by furnishing a diction morehomely, fervent, and pathetic, than would now be available. For theirapostolic functions English was the language most in demand. But inpolemic or controversial cases Greek is indispensable. And of this LadyCarbery was sufficiently convinced by my own demur on the word_metanoia_. If I were right, how profoundly wrong must those havebeen whom my new explanation superseded. She resolved, therefore, immediately on my suggesting it, that she would learn Greek; or, atleast, that limited form of Greek which was required for the NewTestament. In the language of Terence, dictum factum--no sooner saidthan done. On the very next morning we all rode in to Stamford, ournearest town for such a purpose, and astounded the bookseller'sapprentice by ordering four copies of the Clarendon Press GreekTestament, three copies of Parkhurst's Greek and English Lexicon, andthree copies of some grammar, but what I have now forgotten. The bookswere to come down by the mail-coach without delay. Consequently, wewere soon at work. Lady Massey and my sister, not being sustained bythe same interest as Lady Carbery, eventually relaxed in theirattention. But Lady Carbery was quite in earnest, and very soon becameexpert in the original language of the New Testament. 

I wished much that she should have gone on to the study of Herodotus. And I described to her the situation of the vivacious and mercurialAthenian, in the early period of Pericles, as repeating in its mainfeatures, for the great advantage of that Grecian Froissart, thesituation of Adam during his earliest hours in Paradise, himself beingthe describer to the affable archangel. The same genial climate therewas; the same luxuriation of nature in her early prime; the sameignorance of his own origin in the tenant of this lovely scenery; andthe same eager desire to learn it. [Footnote: "About me round I saw Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains, And liquid lapse of murmuring streams; by these Creatures that lived and moved, and walked or flew; Birds on the branches warbling; all things smiled; With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflowed. Myself I then perused, and limb by limb Surveyed, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran With supple joints, as lively vigor led; _But who I was or where, or from what cause_, Knew not. "--_Paradise Lost_, Book viii. The _who_, the _where_ (in any extended sense, that is, asregarded the _external_ relations of his own country), and the_from what cause_--all these were precisely what the Grecian did_not_ know, and first learned from Herodotus. ] The very truth, andmere facts of history, reaching Herodotus through such a haze of remoteabstraction, and suffering a sort of refraction at each translationfrom atmosphere to atmosphere, whilst continually the uninterestingparts dropped away as the whole moved onwards, unavoidably assumed theattractions of romance. And thus it has happened that the air ofmarvellousness, which seems connected with the choice and preferencesof Herodotus, is in reality the natural gift of his position. Cullingfrom a field of many nations and many generations, reasonably hepreferred such narratives as, though possible enough, wore the coloringof romance. Without any violation of the truth, the mere extent of hisfield as to space and time gave him great advantages for the wild andthe marvellous. Meantime, this purpose of ours with regard to Herodotuswas defeated. Whilst we were making preparations for it, suddenly onemorning from his Limerick estate of Carass returned Lord Carbery. And, by accident, his welcome was a rough one; for, happening to find LadyCarbery in the breakfast-room, and naturally throwing his arm about herneck to kiss her, "Ruffian, " a monster of a Newfoundland dog, singularly beautiful in his coloring, and almost as powerful as aleopard, flew at him vindictively as at a stranger committing anassault, and his mistress had great difficulty in calling him off. LordCarbery smiled a little at our Greek studies; and, in turn, made ussmile, who knew the original object of these studies, when he suggestedmildly that three or four books of the "Iliad" would have been aseasily mastered, and might have more fully rewarded our trouble. Icontented myself with replying (for I knew how little Lady Carberywould have liked to plead the _religious_ motive to her husband), that Parkhurst (and there was at that time no other Greek-_English_ Lexicon) would not have been available for Homer;neither, it is true, would he have been available for Herodotus. But, considering the simplicity and uniformity of style in both theseauthors, I had formed a plan (not very hard of execution) forinterleaving Parkhurst with such additional words as might have beeneasily mustered from the special dictionaries (Græco-Latin) dedicatedseparately to the service of the historian and of the poet. I do notbelieve that more than fifteen hundred _extra_ words would havebeen required; and these, entered at the rate of twenty per hour, wouldhave occupied only ten days, for seven and a half hours each. However, from one cause or other, this plan was never brought to bear. Thepreliminary labor upon the lexicon always enforced a delay; and anydelay, in such case, makes an opening for the irruption of a thousandunforeseen hindrances, that finally cause the whole plan to droopinsensibly. The time came at last for leaving Laxton, and I did not seeLady Carbery again for nearly an entire year. 

In passing through the park-gates of Laxton, on my departure northward, powerfully, and as if "with the might of waters, " my mind turned roundto contemplate that strange enlargement of my experience which hadhappened to me within the last three months. I had seen, and becomefamiliarly acquainted with, a young man, who had in a manner died toevery object around him, had died an intellectual death, and suddenlyhad been called back to life and real happiness--had been, in effect, raised from the dead--by the accident of meeting a congenial femalecompanion. But, secondly, that very lady from whose lips I first heardthis remarkable case of blight and restoration, had herself passedthrough an equal though not a similar blight, and was now seekingearnestly, though with what success I could never estimate, somesimilar restoration to some new mode of hopeful existence, throughintercourse with religious philosophy. What vast revolutions (vast forthe individual) within how narrow a circle! What blindness toapproaching catastrophes, in the midst of what nearness to the light!And for myself, whom accident had made the silent observer of thesechanges, was it not likely enough that I also was rushing forward tocourt and woo some frantic mode of evading an endurance that bypatience might have been borne, or by thoughtfulness might have beendisarmed? Misgivingly I went forwards, feeling forever that, throughclouds of thick darkness, I was continually nearing a danger, or wasmyself perhaps wilfully provoking a trial, before which myconstitutional despondency would cause me to lie down without astruggle. 

II. 

THE PRIORY. 

To teach is to learn: according to an old experience, it is the verybest mode of learning--the surest, and the shortest. And hence, perhaps, it may be, that in the middle ages by the monkish word_scholaris_ was meant indifferently he that learned and he thattaught. Never in any equal number of months had my understanding somuch expanded as during this visit to Laxton. The incessant demand madeupon me by Lady Carbery for solutions of the many difficultiesbesetting the study of divinity and the Greek Testament, or for suchapproximations to solutions as my resources would furnish, forced meinto a preternatural tension of all the faculties applicable to thatpurpose. Lady Carbery insisted upon calling me her "AdmirableCrichton;" and it was in vain that I demurred to this honorary titleupon two grounds: first, as being one towards which I had no naturalaptitudes or predisposing advantages; secondly (which made her stare), as carrying with it no real or enviable distinction. The splendorsupposed to be connected with the attainments of Crichton I protestedagainst, as altogether imaginary. How far that person really had theaccomplishments ascribed to him, I waived as a question not worthinvestigating. My objection commenced at an earlier point: real or notreal, the accomplishments were, as I insisted, vulgar and trivial. Vulgar, that is, when put forward as exponents or adequate expressionsof intellectual grandeur. The whole rested on a misconception; thelimitary idea of knowledge was confounded with the infinite idea ofpower. To have a quickness in copying or mimicking other men, and inlearning to do dexterously what _they_ did clumsily, --ostentatiouslyto keep glittering before men's eyes a thaumaturgic versatilitysuch as that of a rope-dancer, or of an Indian juggler, in pettyaccomplishments, --was a mode of the very vulgarest ambition: oneeffort of productive power, --a little book, for instance, which shouldimpress or should agitate several successive generations of men, eventhough far below the higher efforts of human creative art--as, forexample, the "De Imitatione Christi, " or "The Pilgrim's Progress, " or"Robinson Crusoe, " or "The Vicar of Wakefield, "--was worth anyconceivable amount of attainments when rated as an evidence of anythingthat could justly denominate a man "admirable. " One felicitous balladof forty lines might have enthroned Crichton as really admirable, whilst the pretensions actually put forward on his behalf simplyinstall him as a cleverish or dexterous ape. However, as Lady Carberydid not forego her purpose of causing me to shine under every angle, itwould have been ungrateful in me to refuse my cooperation with herplans, however little they might wear a face of promise. Accordingly Isurrendered myself for two hours daily to the lessons in horsemanshipof a principal groom who ranked as a first-rate rough-rider; and Igathered manifold experiences amongst the horses--so different from thewild, hard-mouthed horses at Westport, that were often vicious, andsometimes trained to vice. Here, though spirited, the horses werepretty generally gentle, and all had been regularly broke. My educationwas not entirely neglected even as regarded sportsmanship; that greatbranch of philosophy being confided to one of the keepers, who was veryattentive to me, in deference to the interest in myself expressed byhis idolized mistress, but otherwise regarded me probably as an objectof mysterious curiosity rather than of sublunary hope. 

Equally, in fact, as regarded my physics and my metaphysics, --in short, upon all lines of advance that interested my ambition, --I was goingrapidly ahead. And, speaking seriously, in what regarded myintellectual expansion, never before or since had I been so distinctlymade aware of it. No longer did it seem to move upon the hour-hand, whose advance, though certain, is yet a pure matter of inference, butupon the seconds'-hand, which _visibly_ comes on at a trottingpace. Everything prospered, except my own present happiness, and thepossibility of any happiness for some years to come. About two monthsafter leaving Laxton, my fate in the worst shape I had anticipated wassolemnly and definitively settled. My guardians agreed that the mostprudent course, with a view to my pecuniary interests, was to place meat the Manchester Grammar School; not with a view to furtherimprovement in my classical knowledge, though the head-master was asound scholar, but simply with a view to one of the school_exhibitions_. [Footnote: "_Exhibitions_. "--This is the technicalname in many cases, corresponding to the _bursæ_ or _bursaries_of the continent; from which word bursæ is derived, I believe, the German term _Bursch_, --that is, a bursarius, or student, wholives at college upon the salary allowed by such a bursary. Some years ago the editor of a Glasgow daily paper called uponOxford and Cambridge, with a patronizing flourish, to imitate some oneor more of the Scottish universities in founding such systems ofaliment for poor students otherwise excluded from academic advantages. Evidently he was unaware that they had existed for centuries before thestate of civilization in Scotland had allowed any opening for thefoundation of colleges or academic life. Scottish bursaries, orexhibitions (a term which Shakspeare uses, very near the close of thefirst act in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona, " as the technical expressionin England), were few, and not generally, I believe, exceeding tenpounds a-year. The English were many, and of more ancient standing, andrunning from forty pounds to one hundred pounds a-year. Such was thesimple difference between the two countries: otherwise they agreedaltogether. ] Amongst the countless establishments, scattered all overEngland by the noble munificence of English men and English women inpast generations, for connecting the provincial towns with the tworoyal universities of the land, this Manchester school was one; inaddition to other great local advantages (namely, _inter alia_, afine old library and an ecclesiastical foundation, which in thispresent generation has furnished the materials for a bishopric ofManchester, with its deanery and chapter), this noble foundationsecured a number of exhibitions at Brasenose College, Oxford, to thosepupils of the school who should study at Manchester for threeconsecutive years. The pecuniary amount of these exhibitions has sincethen increased considerably through the accumulation of funds, whichthe commercial character of that great city had caused to be neglected. At that time, I believe each exhibition yielded about forty guineas a-year, and was legally tenable for seven successive years. Now, to methis would have offered a most seasonable advantage, had it beenresorted to some two years earlier. My small patrimonial inheritancegave to me, as it did to each of my four brothers, exactly one hundredand fifty pounds a-year: and to each of my sisters exactly one hundredpounds a-year. The Manchester exhibition of forty guineas a-year wouldhave raised this income for seven years to a sum close upon two hundredpounds a-year. But at present I was half-way on the road to thecompletion of my sixteenth year. Commencing my period of pupilage fromthat time, I should not have finished it until I had travelled half-waythrough my nineteenth year. And the specific evil that already weighedupon me with a sickening oppression was the premature expansion of mymind; and, as a foremost consequence, intolerance of boyish society. Iought to have entered upon my _triennium_ of school-boy servitudeat the age of thirteen. As things were, --a delay with which I hadnothing to do myself, --this and the native character of my mind hadthrown the whole arrangement awry. For the better half of the threeyears I endured it patiently. But it had at length begun to eat morecorrosively into my peace of mind than ever I had anticipated. Thehead-master was substantially superannuated for the duties of hisplace. Not that intellectually he showed any symptoms of decay: but inthe spirits and physical energies requisite for his duties he did: notso much age, as disease, it was that incapacitated him. In the courseof a long day, beginning at seven A. M. And stretching down to five P. M. , he succeeded in reaching the further end of his duties. But how?Simply by consolidating pretty nearly into one continuous scene oflabor the entire ten hours. The full hour of relaxation which thetraditions of this ancient school and the by-laws had consecrated tobreakfast was narrowed into ten, or even seven minutes. The two hours'interval, in like manner prescribed by the old usages from twelve totwo P. M. , was pared down to forty minutes, or less. In this way hewalked conscientiously through the services of the day, fulfilling tothe letter every section the minutest of the traditional rubric. But hepurchased this consummation at the price of all comfort to himself:and, having done _that_, he felt himself the more entitled toneglect the comfort of others. The case was singular: he neither showedany indulgence to himself more than to others (which, however, could donothing towards indemnifying others for the severe confinement whichhis physical decay inflicted upon them--a point wholly forgotten byhim); nor, secondly, in thus tenaciously holding on to his place did he(I am satisfied) govern himself by any mercenary thought or wish, butsimply by an austere sense of duty. He discharged his public functionswith constant fidelity, and with superfluity of learning; and felt, perhaps not unreasonably, that possibly the same learning united withthe same zeal might not revolve as a matter of course in the event ofhis resigning the place. I hide from myself no part of the honorablemotives which might (and probably _did_) exclusively govern him inadhering to the place. But not by one atom the less did the grievousresults of his inability to grapple with his duties weigh upon allwithin his sphere, and upon myself, by cutting up the time availablefor exercise, most ruinously. 

Precisely at the worst crisis of this intolerable darkness (for such, without exaggeration, it was in its effects upon my spirits) arose, andfor five or six months steadily continued, a consolation of that naturewhich hardly in dreams I could have anticipated. For even in dreamswould it have seemed reasonable, or natural, that Laxton, with itsentire society, should transfer itself to Manchester? Some mightycaliph, or lamp-bearing Aladdin, might have worked such marvels: butelse who, or by what machinery? Nevertheless, without either caliph orAladdin, and by the most natural of mere human agencies, this changewas suddenly accomplished. 

Mr. White, whom I have already had occasion to mention elsewhere, wasin those days the most eminent surgeon by much in the north of England. He had by one whole generation run before the phrenologists andcraniologists, --having already measured innumerable skulls amongst theomnigenous seafaring population of Liverpool, illustrating all theraces of men, --and was in society a most urbane and pleasant companion. On my mother's suggestion, he had been summoned to Laxton, in the hopethat he might mitigate the torments of Mrs. Schreiber's malady. If I amright in supposing that to have been cancer, I presume that he couldnot have added much to the prescriptions of the local doctor. And yet, on the other hand, it is a fact--so slowly did new views travel inthose days, when scientific journals were few, and roads were heavy--that ten years later than this period I knew a case, namely, the caseof a butcher's wife in Somersetshire who had never enjoyed the benefitof hemlock in relieving the pangs of a cancerous complaint, until anaccident brought Mr. Hey, son to the celebrated Hey of Leeds, into thepoor woman's neighborhood. 

What might be the quality or the extent of that relief with which Mr. White was able to crown the expectations of poor Mrs. Schreiber, I donot know; but that the relief could not have been imaginary is certain, for he was earnestly invited to repeat his visits, costly asunavoidably they were. Mrs. Schreiber did not reside at Laxton. Tenderly as she loved Lady Carbery, it did not seem consistent with herdignity that she should take a station that might have been grosslymisinterpreted; and accordingly she bought or hired a miniature kind ofvilla, called _Tixover_, distant about four miles from Laxton. Aresidence in such a house, so sad and silent at this period ofaffliction for its mistress, would have offered too cheerless a life toMr. White. He took up his abode, therefore, at Laxton during hisearliest visit; and this happened to coincide with that particularvisit of my own during which I was initiating Lady Carbery into themysteries of New Testament Greek. Already as an infant I had known Mr. White; but now, when daily riding over to Tixover in company, and dailymeeting at breakfast and dinner, we became intimate. Greatly I profitedby this intimacy; and some part of my pleasure in the Laxton plan ofmigration to Manchester was drawn from the prospect of renewing it. Such a migration was suggested by Mr. White himself; and fortunately he_could_ suggest it without even the appearance of any mercenaryviews. His interest lay the other way. The large special retainer, which it was felt but reasonable to pay him under circumstances sopeculiar, naturally disturbed Mr. White; whilst the benefits of visitsso discontinuous became more and more doubtful. He proposed it, therefore, as a measure of prudence, that Mrs. Schreiber should take upher abode in Manchester. This counsel was adopted; and the entireLaxton party in one week struck their Northamptonshire tents, dived, asit were, into momentary darkness, by a loitering journey of stages, short and few, out of consideration for the invalid, and rose again inthe gloomy streets of Manchester. 

Gloomy they were at that time--mud below, smoke above--for no torch ofimprovement had yet explored the ancient habitations of this Lancashirecapital. Elsewhere I have expressed the inexhaustible admiration whichI cherish for the _moral_ qualities, the unrivalled energy andperseverance, of that native Lancashire population, as yet not muchalloyed with Celtic adulteration. My feelings towards them are the sameas were eloquently and impressively avowed by the late eminent Dr. Cooke Taylor, after an _official_ inquiry into their situation. But in those days the Manchester people realized the aspiration of thenoble Scythian; not the place it was that glorified _them_, butthey that glorified the place. No great city (which technically it thenwas not, but simply a town or large village) could present so repulsivean exterior as the Manchester of that day. Lodgings of _any_ sortcould with difficulty be obtained, and at last only by breaking up theparty. The poor suffering lady, with her two friends, Lady Carbery andmy mother, hired one house, Lord and Lady Massey another, and twoothers were occupied by attendants--all the servants, except onelady's-maid, being every night separated by a quarter of a mile fromtheir mistresses. To me, however, all these discomforts were scarcelyapparent in the prodigious revolution for the better which was nowimpressed upon the tenor of my daily life. I lived in the house of thehead-master; but every night I had leave to adjourn for four or fivehours to the drawing-room of Lady Carbery. Her anxiety about Mrs. Schreiber would not allow of her going abroad into society, unless uponthe rarest occasions. And I, on my part, was too happy in herconversation--so bold, so novel, and so earnest--voluntarily to havemissed any one hour of it. 

Here, by the way, let me mention that on this occasion arose a case ofpretended "_tuft-hunting_, " which I, who stood by a silentobserver, could not but feel to involve a malicious calumny. Naturallyit happened that coroneted carriages, superb horses, and numerousservants, in a town so unostentatious and homely as the Manchester ofthat day, drew the public gaze, and effectually advertised the visit ofthe Laxton ladies. Respect for the motive which had prompted this visitcoöperated with admiration for the distinguished personal qualities ofLady Carbery, to draw upon her from several leading families in thetown such little services and attentions as pass naturally, under aspontaneous law of courtesy, between those who are at home and thosewho suffer under the disadvantages of _strangership_. The Manchesterpeople, who made friendly advances to Lady Carbery, did so, I ampersuaded, with no ulterior objects whatsoever of pressing intothe circle of an aristocratic person; neither did Lady Carbery herselfinterpret their attentions in any such ungenerous spirit, but acceptedthem cordially, as those expressions of disinterested goodness which Iam persuaded that in reality they were. Amongst the families that werethus attentive to her, in throwing open for her use various localadvantages of baths, libraries, picture-galleries, etc. , were the wifeand daughters of Mr. White himself. Now, one of these daughters washerself the wife of a baronet, Sir Richard Clayton, who had honorablydistinguished himself in literature by translating and _improving_the work of Tenhove the Dutchman (or Belgian?) upon the house of the_De' Medici_--a work which Mr. Roscoe considered "the most engagingwork that has, perhaps, ever appeared on a subject of literaryhistory. " Introduced as Lady Clayton had been amongst the elite of ouraristocracy, it could not be supposed that she would be at allsolicitous about an introduction to the wife of an Irish nobleman, simply _as_ such, and apart from her personal endowments. Thoseendowments, it is true, --namely, the beauty and the talents of LadyCarbery, made known in Manchester through Mr. White's report of them, and combined with the knowledge of her generous devotion to her dyingfriend, secluding her steadily from all society through a period ofvery many months, --did, and reasonably might, interest many Manchesterpeople on her behalf. In all this there was nothing to be ashamed of;and, judging from what personally I witnessed, this seems to have beenthe true nature and extent of the "tuft-hunting;" and I have noticed itat all simply because there is a habit almost national growing upamongst us of imputing to each other some mode of unmanly prostrationbefore the aristocracy, but with as little foundation for the chargegenerally, I believe, as I am satisfied there was in this particularinstance. 

Mr. White possessed a museum--formed chiefly by himself, andoriginally, perhaps, directed simply to professional objects, such aswould have little chance for engaging the attention of females. Butsurgeons and speculative physicians, beyond all other classes ofintellectual men, cultivate the most enlarged and liberal curiosity; sothat Mr. White's museum furnished attractions to an unusually largevariety of tastes. I had myself already seen it; and it struck me thatMr. White would be gratified if Lady Carbery would herself ask to seeit; which accordingly she did; and thus at once removed the painfulfeeling that he might be extorting from her an expression of interestin his collection which she did not really feel. 

Amongst the objects which gave a scientific interest to the collection, naturally I have forgotten one and all--first, midst, and last; forthis is one of the cases in which we all felicitate ourselves upon theart and gift of forgetting; that art which the great Athenian[Footnote: "The great Athenian"--Themistocles. ] noticed as amongst the_desiderata_ of human life--that gift which, if in some rare casesit belongs only to the regal prerogatives of the grave, fortunately inmany thousands of other cases is accorded by the treachery of a humanbrain. Heavens! what a curse it were, if every chaos, which is stampedupon the mind by fairs such as that London fair of St. Bartholomew inyears long past, or by the records of battles and skirmishes throughthe monotonous pages of history, or by the catalogues of librariesstretching over a dozen measured miles, could not be erased, butarrayed itself in endless files incapable of obliteration, as often asthe eyes of our human memory happened to throw back their gaze in thatdirection! Heaven be praised, I have forgotten everything; all theearthly trophies of skill or curious research; even the ærolithes, thatmight possibly _not_ be earthly, but presents from some superiorplanet. Nothing survives, except the _humanities_ of the collection;and amongst these, two only I will molest the reader by noticing. One of the two was a _mummy;_ the other was a _skeleton_. I, that had previously seen the museum, warned Lady Carbery of both; butmuch it mortified us that only the skeleton was shown. Perhapsthe mummy was too closely connected with the personal historyof Mr. White for exhibition to strangers; it was that of a ladywho had been attended medically for some years by Mr. White, and hadowed much alleviation of her sufferings to his inventive skill. Shehad, therefore, felt herself called upon to memorialize her gratitudeby a very large bequest--not less (I have heard) than twenty-fivethousand pounds; but with this condition annexed to the gift--that sheshould be embalmed as perfectly as the resources in that art of Londonand Paris could accomplish, and that once a year Mr. White, accompaniedby two witnesses of credit, should withdraw the veil from her face. Thelady was placed in a common English clock-case, having the usual glassface; but a veil of white velvet obscured from all profane eyes thesilent features behind. The clock I had myself seen, when a child, andhad gazed upon it with inexpressible awe. But, naturally, on my reportof the case, the whole of our party were devoured by a curiosity to seethe departed fair one. Had Mr. White, indeed, furnished us with the keyof the museum, leaving us to our own discretion, but restricting usonly (like a cruel Bluebeard) from looking into any ante-room, great ismy fear that the perfidious question would have arisen amongst us--whato'clock it was? and all possible ante-rooms would have given way to thejust fury of our passions. I submitted to Lady Carbery, as a libertywhich might be excused by the torrid extremity of our thirst afterknowledge, that she (as our leader) should throw out some anglingquestion moving in the line of our desires; upon which hint Mr. White, if he had any touch of indulgence to human infirmity--unless MountCaucasus were his mother, and a she-wolf his nurse--would surelyrelent, and act as his conscience must suggest. But Lady Carberyreminded me of the three Calendars in the "Arabian Nights, " and arguedthat, as the ladies of Bagdad were justified in calling upon a body ofporters to kick those gentlemen into the street, being people who hadabused the indulgences of hospitality, much more might Mr. White do sowith us; for the Calendars were the children of kings (Shahzades), which we were not; and had found their curiosity far more furiouslyirritated; in fact, Zobeide had no right to trifle with any man'scuriosity in that ferocious extent; and a counter right arose, as anychancery of human nature would have ruled, to demand a solution of whathad been so maliciously arranged towards an anguish of insupportabletemptation. Thus, however, it happened that the mummy, who left suchvaluable legacies, and founded such bilious fevers of curiosity, wasnot seen by us; nor even the miserable clock-case. 

The mummy, therefore, was not seen; but the skeleton was. Who was he?It is not every day that one makes the acquaintance of a skeleton; andwith regard to such a thing--thing, shall one say, or person?--there isa favorable presumption from beforehand; which is this: As he is of nouse, neither profitable nor ornamental to any person whatever, absolutely _de trop_ in good society, what but distinguished meritof some kind or other could induce any man to interfere with thatgravitating tendency that by an eternal _nisus_ is pulling himbelow ground? Lodgings are dear in England. True it is that, accordingto the vile usage on the continent, one room serves a skeleton for bed-room and sitting-room; neither is his expense heavy, as regards wax-lights, fire, or "bif-steck. " But still, even a skeleton is chargeable;and, if any dispute should arise about his maintenance, the parish willdo nothing. Mr. White's skeleton, therefore, being costly, waspresumably meritorious, before we had seen him or heard a word in hisbehalf. It was, in fact, the skeleton of an eminent robber, or perhapsof a murderer. But I, for my part, reserved a faint right of suspense. And as to the profession of robber in those days exercised on the roadsof England, it was a liberal profession, which required moreaccomplishments than either the bar or the pulpit: from the beginningit presumed a most bountiful endowment of heroic qualifications--strength, health, agility, and exquisite horsemanship, intrepidity ofthe first order, presence of mind, courtesy, and a generalambidexterity of powers for facing all accidents, and for turning to agood account all unlooked-for contingencies. The finest men in England, physically speaking, throughout the eighteenth century, the verynoblest specimens of man considered as an animal, were beyond a doubtthe mounted robbers who cultivated their profession on the greatleading roads, namely, on the road from London to York (technicallyknown as "the great north road"); on the road west to Bath, and thenceto Exeter and Plymouth; north-westwards from London to Oxford, andthence to Chester; eastwards to Tunbridge; southwards by east to Dover;then inclining westwards to Portsmouth; more so still, throughSalisbury to Dorsetshire and Wilts. These great roads were farmed outas so many Roman provinces amongst pro-consuls. Yes, but with adifference, you will say, in respect of moral principles. Certainlywith a difference; for the English highwayman had a sort of consciencefor gala-days, which could not often be said of the Roman governor orprocurator. At this moment we see that the opening for the forger ofbank-notes is brilliant; but practically it languishes, as being toobrilliant; it demands an array of talent for engraving, etc. , which, wherever it exists, is sufficient to carry a man forward uponprinciples reputed honorable. Why, then, should _he_ court dangerand disreputability? But in that century the special talents which ledto distinction upon the high road had oftentimes no career open to themelsewhere. The mounted robber on the highways of England, in an agewhen all gentlemen travelled with fire-arms, lived in an element ofdanger and adventurous gallantry; which, even from those who couldleast allow him any portion of their esteem, extorted sometimes a gooddeal of their unwilling admiration. By the necessities of the case, hebrought into his perilous profession some brilliant qualities--intrepidity, address, promptitude of decision; and, if to these headded courtesy, and a spirit (native or adopted) of forbearinggenerosity, he seemed almost a man that merited public encouragement;since very plausibly it might be argued that his profession was sure toexist; that, if he were removed, a successor would inevitably arise, and that successor might or might _not_ carry the same liberal andhumanizing temper into his practice. The man whose skeleton was nowbefore us had ranked amongst the most chivalrous of his order, and wasregarded by some people as vindicating the national honor in a pointwhere not very long before it had suffered a transient eclipse. In thepreceding generation, it had been felt as throwing a shade of disgraceover the public honor, that the championship of England upon the highroad fell for a time into French hands; upon French prowess rested theburden of English honor, or, in Gallic phrase, of English _glory_. Claude Duval, a French man of undeniable courage, handsome, and notedfor his chivalrous devotion to women, had been honored, on hiscondemnation to the gallows, by the tears of many ladies who attendedhis trial, and by their sympathizing visits during his imprisonment. But the robber represented by the skeleton in Mr. White's museum (whomlet us call X, since his true name has perished) added to the sameheroic qualities a person far more superb. Still it was a dreadfuldrawback from his pretensions, if he had really practised as amurderer. Upon what ground did that suspicion arise? In candor (forcandor is due even to a skeleton) it ought to be mentioned that thecharge, if it amounted to so much, arose with a lady from some part ofCheshire--the district of Knutsford, I believe;--but, wherever it was, in the same district, during the latter part of his career, had residedour X. At first he was not suspected even as a robber--as yet not somuch as suspected of being suspicious; in a simple rustic neighborhood, amongst good-natured peasants, for a long time he was regarded withsimple curiosity, rather than suspicion; and even the curiosity pointedto his horse more than to himself. The robber had made himself popularamongst the kind-hearted rustics by his general courtesy. Courtesy andthe spirit of neighborliness go a great way amongst country people; andthe worst construction of the case was, that he might be an embarrassedgentleman from Manchester or Liverpool, hiding himself from hiscreditors, who are notoriously a very immoral class of people. Atlength, however, a violent suspicion broke loose against him; for itwas ascertained that on certain nights, when, perhaps, he had_extra_ motives for concealing the fact of having been abroad, hedrew woollen stockings over his horse's feet, with the purpose ofdeadening the sound in riding up a brick-paved entry, common to his ownstable and that of a respectable neighbor. Thus far there was areasonable foundation laid for suspicion; but suspicion of what?Because a man attends to the darning of his horse's stockings, why musthe be meditating murder? The fact is--and known from the very first toa select party of amateurs--that X, our superb-looking skeleton, did, about three o'clock on a rainy Wednesday morning, in the dead ofwinter, ride silently out of Knutsford; and about forty-eight hoursafterwards, on a rainy Friday, silently and softly did that same superbblood-horse, carrying that same blood-man, namely, our friend thesuperb skeleton, pace up the quiet brick entry, in a neat pair ofsocks, on his return. 

During that interval of forty-eight hours, an atrocious murder wascommitted in the ancient city of Bristol. By whom? That question is tothis day unanswered. The scene of it was a house on the west side ofthe College Green, which is in fact that same quadrangle planted withtrees, and having on its southern side the Bristol Cathedral, up anddown which, early in the reign of George III. , Chatterton walked injubilant spirits with fair young women of Bristol; up and down which, some thirty years later, Robert Southey and S. T. C. Walked with youngBristol belles from a later generation. The subjects of the murder werean elderly lady bearing some such name as Rusborough, and her femaleservant. Mystery there was none as to the motive of the murder--manifestly it was a hoard of money that had attracted the assassin; butthere was great perplexity as to the agent or agents concerned in theatrocious act, and as to the mode by which an entrance, under the knownprecautions of the lady, could have been effected. Because a thorough-bred horse could easily have accomplished the distance to and fro (saythree hundred miles) within the forty-eight hours, and because the twoextreme dates of this forty-eight hours' absence tallied with therequisitions of the Bristol tragedy, it did not follow that X must havehad a hand in it. And yet, had these coincidences _then_ beenobserved, they would certainly--now that strong suspicions had beendirected to the man from the extraordinary character of his nocturnalprecautions--not have passed without investigation. But the remotenessof Bristol, and the rarity of newspapers in those days, caused theseindications to pass unnoticed. Bristol knew of no such Knutsfordhighwayman--Knutsford knew of no such Bristol murder. It is singularenough that these earlier grounds of suspicion against X were notviewed as such by anybody, until they came to be combined with anotherand final ground. Then the presumptions seemed conclusive. But, by thattime, X himself had been executed for a robbery; had been manufacturedinto a skeleton by the famous surgeon, Cruickshank, assisted by Mr. White and other pupils. All interest in the case had subsided inKnutsford, that could now have cleared up the case satisfactorily; andthus it happened that to this day the riddle, which was read prettydecisively in a northern county, still remains a riddle in the south. When I saw the College Green house in 1809-10, it was apparently empty, and, as I was told, had always been empty since the murder: forty yearshad not cicatrized the bloody remembrance; and, to this day, perhaps, it remains amongst the gloomy traditions of Bristol. 

But whether the Bristol house has or has not shaken off that odor ofblood which offended the nostrils of tenants, it is, I believe, certainthat the city annals have not shaken off the mystery: which yet tocertain people in Knutsford, as I have said, and to us the spectatorsof the skeleton, immediately upon hearing one damning fact from thelips of Mr. White, seemed to melt away and evaporate as convincingly asif we had heard the explanation issuing in the terms of a confessionfrom the mouth of the skeleton itself. What, then, _was_ the fact?With pain, and reluctantly, we felt its force, as we looked at theroyal skeleton, and reflected on the many evidences which he had givenof courage, and perhaps of other noble qualities. The ugly fact wasthis: In a few weeks after the College Green tragedy, Knutsford, andthe whole neighborhood as far as Warrington (the half-way town betweenLiverpool and Manchester), were deluged with gold and silver coins, moidores, and dollars, from the Spanish mint of Mexico, etc. These, during the frequent scarcities of English silver currency, werenotoriously current in England. Now, it is an unhappy fact, andsubsequently became known to the Bristol and London police, that aconsiderable part of poor Mrs. Rusborough's treasure lay in such coins, gold and silver, from the Spanish colonial mints. 

Lady Carbery at this period made an effort to teach me Hebrew, by wayof repaying in _kind_ my pains in teaching Greek to _her_. Where, and upon what motive, she had herself begun to learn Hebrew, Iforget: but in Manchester she had resumed this study with energy on acasual impulse derived from a certain Dr. Bailey, a clergyman of thiscity, who had published a Hebrew Grammar. The doctor was the mostunworldly and guileless of men. Amongst his orthodox brethren he wasreputed a "Methodist;" and not without reason; for some of his Low-Church views he pushed into practical extravagances that looked likefanaticism, or even like insanity. Lady Carbery wished naturally totestify her gratitude for his services by various splendid presents:but nothing would the good doctor accept, unless it assumed a shapethat might be available for the service of the paupers amongst hiscongregation. The Hebrew studies, however, notwithstanding the personalassistance which we drew from the kindness of Dr. Bailey, languished. For this there were several reasons; but it was enough that thesystematic vagueness in the pronunciation of this, as of the otherOriental languages, disgusted both of us. A word which could not bepronounced with any certainty, was not in a true sense possessed. Letit be understood, however, that it was not the correct and originalpronunciation that we cared for--_that_ has perished probablybeyond recall, even in the case of Greek, in spite of the Asiatic andthe Insular Greeks--what we demanded in vain was any pronunciationwhatever that should be articulate, apprehensible, and intercommunicable, such as might differentiate the words: whereas a system of mere vowelstoo inadequately strengthened by consonants, seemed to leave all wordspretty nearly alike. One day, in a pause of languor amongst these aridHebrew studies, I read to her, with a beating heart, "The AncientMariner. " It had been first published in 1798; and, about this time(1801), was re-published in the first _two_-volume edition of "TheLyrical Ballads. " Well I knew Lady Carbery's constitutional inaptitudefor poetry; and not for the world would I have sought sympathy from heror from anybody else upon that part of the L. B. Which belonged toWordsworth. But I fancied that the wildness of this tale, and the triplemajesties of Solitude, of Mist, and of the Ancient Unknown Sea, mighthave won her into relenting; and, in fact, she listened with gravityand deep attention. But, on reviewing afterwards in conversation suchpassages as she happened to remember, she laughed at the finest parts, and shocked me by calling the mariner himself "an old quiz;" protestingthat the latter part of his homily to the wedding guest clearly pointedhim out as the very man meant by Providence for a stipendiary curate tothe good Dr. Bailey in his over-crowded church. [Footnote: St. James', according to my present recollection. ] With an albatross perched on hisshoulder, and who might be introduced to the congregation as the immediateorgan of his conversion, and supported by the droning of a bassoon, sherepresented the mariner lecturing to advantage in English; the doctoroverhead in the pulpit enforcing it in Hebrew. Angry I was, thoughforced to laugh. But of what use is anger or argument in a duel withfemale criticism? Our ponderous masculine wits are no match for themercurial fancy of women. Once, however, I had a triumph: to my greatsurprise, one day, she suddenly repeated by heart, to Dr. Bailey, thebeautiful passage--

 "It ceased, yet still the sails made on, " &c. 

asking what he thought of _that?_ As it happened, the simple, childlike doctor had more sensibility than herself; for, though he hadnever in his whole homely life read more of poetry than he had drunk ofTokay or Constantia, --in fact, had scarcely heard tell of any poetrybut Watts' Hymns, --he seemed petrified: and at last, with a deep sigh, as if recovering from the spasms of a new birth, said, "I never heardanything so beautiful in my whole life. "

During the long stay of the Laxton party in Manchester, occurred aChristmas; and at Christmas--that is, at the approach of this greatChristian festival, so properly substituted in England for the Paganfestival of January and the New Year--there was, according to ancientusage, on the breaking up for the holidays, at the Grammar School, asolemn celebration of the season by public speeches. Among the sixspeakers, I, of course (as one of the three boys who composed the headclass), held a distinguished place; and it followed, also, as a matterof course, that all my friends congregated on this occasion to do mehonor. What I had to recite was a copy of Latin verses (Alcaics) on therecent conquest of Malta. _Melite Britannis Subacta_--this was thetitle of my worshipful nonsense. The whole strength of the Laxton partyhad mustered on this occasion. Lady Carbery made a point of bringing inher party every creature whom she could influence. And, probably, therewere in that crowded audience many old Manchester friends of my father, loving his memory, and thinking to honor it by kindness to his son. Furious, at any rate, was the applause which greeted me: furious was myown disgust. Frantic were the clamors as I concluded my nonsense. Frantic was my inner sense of shame at the childish exhibition towhich, unavoidably, I was making myself a party. Lady Carbery had, atfirst, directed towards me occasional glances, expressing a comicsympathy with the thoughts which she supposed to be occupying my mind. But these glances ceased; and I was recalled by the gloomy sadness inher altered countenance to some sense of my own extravagant anddisproportionate frenzy on this occasion: from the indulgent kindnesswith which she honored me, her countenance on this occasion became amirror to my own. At night she assured me, when talking over the case, that she had never witnessed an expression of such settled misery, andalso (so she fancied) of misanthropy, as that which darkened mycountenance in those moments of apparent public triumph, no matter howtrivial the occasion, and amidst an uproar of friendly felicitation. Ilook back to that state of mind as almost a criminal reproach tomyself, if it were not for the facts of the case. But, in excuse formyself, this fact, above all others, ought to be mentioned--that, overand above the killing oppression to my too sensitive system of themonotonous school tasks, and the ruinous want of exercise, I had fallenunder medical advice the most misleading that it is possible toimagine. The physician and the surgeon of my family were men tooeminent, it seemed to me, and, consequently, with time too notoriouslybearing a high pecuniary value, for any school-boy to detain them withcomplaints. Under these circumstances, I threw myself for aid, in acase so simple that any clever boy in a druggist's shop would haveknown how to treat it, upon the advice of an old, old apothecary, whohad full authority from my guardians to run up a most furious accountagainst me for medicine. This being the regular mode of payment, inevitably, and unconsciously, he was biased to a mode of treatment;namely, by drastic medicines varied without end, which fearfullyexasperated the complaint. This complaint, as I now know, was thesimplest possible derangement of the liver, a torpor in its action thatmight have been put to rights in three days. In fact, one week'spedestrian travelling amongst the Caernarvonshire mountains effected arevolution in my health such as left me nothing to complain of. 

An odd thing happened by the merest accident. I, when my Alcaics hadrun down their foolish larum, instead of resuming my official place asone of the trinity who composed the head class, took a seat by the sideof Lady Carbery. On the other side of her was seated a stranger: andthis stranger, whom mere chance had thrown next to her, was LordBelgrave, her old and at one time (as some people fancied) favoredsuitor. In this there was nothing at all extraordinary. Lord Grey deWilton, an old _alumnus_ of this Manchester Grammar School, and an_alumnus_ during the early reign of this same _Archididascalus_, made a point of showing honor to his ancient tutor, especially now whenreputed to be decaying; and with the same view he brought LordBelgrave, who had become his son-in-law after his rejectionby Lady Carbery. The whole was a very natural accident. ButLady Carbery was not sufficiently bronzed by worldly habits to treatthis accident with _nonchalance_. She did not _to the publiceye_ betray any embarrassment; but afterwards she told me that noincident could have been more distressing to her. 

Some months after this, the Laxton party quitted Manchester, having nofurther motive for staying. Mrs. Schreiber was now confessedly dying:medical skill could do no more for her; and this being so, there was noreason why she should continue to exchange her own quiet littleRutlandshire cottage for the discomforts of smoky lodgings. LadyCarbery retired like some golden pageant amongst the clouds; thickdarkness succeeded; the ancient torpor reestablished itself; and myhealth grew distressingly worse. Then it was, after dreadful self-conflicts, that I took the unhappy resolution of which the results arerecorded in the "Opium Confessions. " At this point, the reader mustunderstand, comes in that chapter of my life; and for all whichconcerns that delirious period I refer him to those "Confessions. " Someanxiety I had, on leaving Manchester, lest my mother should suffer toomuch from this rash step; and on that impulse I altered the directionof my wanderings; not going (as I had originally planned) to theEnglish Lakes, but making first of all for St. John's Priory, Chester, at that time my mother's residence. There I found my maternal uncle, Captain Penson, of the Bengal establishment, just recently come home ona two years' leave of absence; and there I had an interview with mymother. By a temporary arrangement I received a weekly allowance, whichwould have enabled me to live in _any_ district of Wales, eitherNorth or South; for Wales, both North and South, is (or at any rate_was_) a land of exemplary cheapness. For instance, at Talyllyn, in Merionethshire, or anywhere off the line of tourists, I and alieutenant in our English navy paid sixpence uniformly for a handsomedinner; sixpence, I mean, apiece. But two months later came a goldenblockhead, who instructed the people that it was "sinful" to chargeless than three shillings. In Wales, meantime, I suffered grievouslyfrom want of books; and fancying, in my profound ignorance of theworld, that I could borrow money upon my own expectations, or, atleast, that I could do so with the joint security of Lord Westport (nowEarl of Altamont, upon his father's elevation to the Marquisate ofSligo), or (failing _that_) with the security of his amiable andfriendly cousin, the Earl of Desart, I had the unpardonable folly toquit the deep tranquillities of North Wales for the uproars, andperils, and the certain miseries, of London. I had borrowed ten guineasfrom Lady Carbery; and at that time, when my purpose was known tonobody, I might have borrowed any sum I pleased. But I could neveragain avail myself of that resource, because I must have given someaddress, in order to insure the receipt of Lady Carbery's answer; andin that case, so sternly conscientious was she, that, under the notionof saving me from ruin, my address would have been immediatelycommunicated to my guardians, and by them would have been confided tothe unrivalled detective talents, in those days, of Townsend, or someother Bow-street officer. 

 * * * * *

That episode, or impassioned parenthesis in my life, which iscomprehended in "The Confessions of the Opium-Eater, " had finished;suppose it over and gone, and once more, after the storms of London, suppose me resting from my dreadful remembrances, in the deep monastictranquillity, of St. John's Priory; and just then, by accident, with noassociates except my mother and my uncle. What was the Priory like? Wasit young or old, handsome or plain? What was my uncle the captain like?Young or old, handsome or plain? Wait a little, my reader; give metime, and I will tell you all. My uncle's leave of absence from Indiahad not expired; in fact, it had nine or ten months still to run; andthis accident furnished us all with an opportunity of witnessing hispreternatural activity. One morning early in April of the year 1803, agentleman called at the Priory, and mentioned, as the news of themorning brought down by the London mail, that there had been a very hotand very sudden "press" along the Thames, and simultaneously at theoutports. Indeed, before this the spiteful tone of Sebastiani's Report, together with the arrogant comment in the _Moniteur_ on thesupposed inability of Great Britain to contend "single-handed" withFrance; and, finally, the public brutality to our ambassador, hadprepared us all for war. But, then, might not all this blow over? No;apart from any choice or preference of war on the part of Napoleon, hisvery existence depended upon war. He lived by and through the army. Without a succession of wars and martial glories in reserve for thearmy, what interest had _they_ in Napoleon? This was obscurelyacknowledged by everybody. More or less consciously perceived, afeeling deep and strong ran through the nation that it was vain to seekexpedients or delays; a mighty strife had to be fought out, which couldnot be evaded. Thence it was that the volunteer system was so rapidlyand earnestly developed. As a first stage in the process of nationalenthusiasm, this was invaluable. The first impulse drew out thematerial. 

Next, as might have been foreseen, came an experience which taught usseasonably that these redundant materials, crude and miscellaneous, required a winnowing and sifting, which very soon we had; and theresult was, an incomparable militia. Chester shone conspicuously inthis noble competition. But here, as elsewhere, at first there was nocavalry. Upon that arose a knot of gentlemen, chiefly those who hunted, and in a very few hours laid the foundation of a small cavalry force. Three troops were raised in the _city_ of Chester, one of thethree being given to my uncle. The whole were under the command ofColonel Dod, who had a landed estate in the county, and who (like myuncle) had been in India. But Colonel Dod and the captains of the twoother troops gave comparatively little aid. The whole workingactivities of the system rested with my uncle. Then first I saw energy:then first I knew what it meant. All the officers of the three troopsexchanged dinner-parties with each other; and consequently they dinedat the Priory often enough to make us acquainted with theircharacteristic qualities. That period had not yet passed away, thoughit was already passing, when gentlemen did not willingly leave thedinner-table in a state of absolute sobriety. Colonel Dod and my unclehad learned in Bengal, under the coërcion of the climate, habits oftemperance. But the others (though few, perhaps, might be systematicdrinkers) were careless in this respect, and drank under socialexcitement quite enough to lay bare the ruling tendencies of theirseveral characters. Being English, naturally the majority wereenergetic, and beyond all things despised dreaming _fainéans_(such, for instance, as we find the politicians, or even theconspirators, of Italy, Spain, and Germany, whose whole power of actionevaporates in talking, and histrionically gesticulating). Yet still thebest of them seemed inert by comparison with my uncle, and to regard_his_ standard of action and exertion as trespassing to a needlessdegree upon ordinary human comfort. 

Commonplace, meantime, my uncle was in the character of his intellect;there he fell a thousand leagues below my mother, to whom he looked upwith affectionate astonishment. But, as a man of action, he ran so farahead of men generally, that he ceased to impress one as commonplace. He, if any man ever did, realized the Roman poet's description of being_natus rebus agendis_--sent into this world not for talking, butfor doing; not for counsel, but for execution. On that field he was aportentous man, a monster; and, viewing him as such, I am disposed toconcede a few words to what modern slang denominates his "antecedents. "

Two brothers and one sister (namely, my mother) composed the householdchoir of children gathering round the hearth of my maternal grand-parents, whose name was Penson. My grandfather at one time held anoffice under the king; how named, I once heard, but have forgotten;only this I remember, that it was an office which conferred the titleof _Esquire;_ so that upon each and all of his several coffins, lead, oak, mahogany, he was entitled to proclaim himself an_Armiger;_ which, observe, is the newest, oldest, most classicmode of saying that one is privileged to bear arms in a senseintelligible only to the Herald's College. This _Armiger_, thisundeniable Squire, was doubly distinguished: first, by his ironconstitution and impregnable health; which were of such quality, andlike the sword of Michael, the warrior-angel ("Paradise Lost, " B. Vi. ), had "from the armory of God been given him tempered so, " that noinsurance office, trafficking in life-annuities, would have ventured tolook him in the face. People thought him good, like a cat, for eight ornine generations; nor did any man perceive at what avenue death couldfind, or disease could force, a practicable breach; and yet, suchanchorage have all human hopes, in the very midst of these windyanticipations, this same granite grandpapa of mine, not yet very farahead of sixty, being in fact three-score years and none, suddenlystruck his flag, and found himself, in his privileged character of_Armiger_, needing those door (coffin-door) plates, which allreasonable people had supposed to be reserved for the manufacturinghands of some remote century. "_Armiger_, pack up your traps"--"Collige sarcinas"--"Squire, you're wanted:" these dreadful citationswere inevitable; come they must; but surely, as everybody thought, notin the eighteenth, or, perhaps, even the nineteenth century. _Diisaliter visum. _ My grandfather, built for an _Æonian_ duration, did not come within hail of myself; whilst his gentle partner, mygrandmother, who made no show of extra longevity, lived down into myperiod, and had the benefit of my acquaintance through half a dozenyears. If she turned this piece of good fortune to no great practicalaccount, that (you know) was no fault of mine. Doubtless, I was readywith my advice, freely and gratuitously, if she had condescended to askfor it. Returning to my grandfather: the other distinguishingendowment, by which he was so favorably known and remembered amongsthis friends, was the magical versatility of his talents, and his powerof self-accommodation to all humors, tempers, and ages. 

 "Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res. "

And in allusion to this line from Horace it was, that amongst hisliterary friends he was known familiarly by the name of Aristippus. Hissons, Edward and Thomas, resembled him, by all accounts, in nothing;neither physically, nor in moral versatility. These two sons of theSquire, Edward and Thomas, through some traditional prejudice in thefamily, had always directed their views to the military profession. Insuch a case, the king's army is naturally that to which a young man'sexpectations turn. But to wait, and after all by possibility to wait invain, did not suit my fiery grandfather. The interest which he couldput into motion was considerable; but it was more applicable to theservice of the East India Company than to any branch of the homeservice. This interest was so exerted that in one day he obtained alieutenantcy in the Company's service for each of his sons. About 1780or 1781, both young men, aged severally sixteen and seventeen years, went out to join their regiments, both regiments being on the Bengalestablishment. Very different were their fates; yet theirqualifications ought to have been the same, or differing only assixteen differs from seventeen; and also as sixteen overflowing withlevity differs from seventeen prematurely thoughtful. Edward Penson wasearly noticed for his high principle, for his benignity, and for athoughtfulness somewhat sorrowful, that seemed to have caught inchildhood some fugitive glimpse of his own too brief career. Atnoonday, in some part of Bengal, he went out of doors bareheaded, anddied in a few hours. 

In 1800-1801, my mother had become dissatisfied with Bath as aresidence; and, being free from all ties connecting her with any onecounty of England rather than another, she resolved to traverse themost attractive parts of the island, and, upon personal inspection, toselect a home; not a ready-built home, but the ground on which shemight herself create one; for it happened that amongst the fewinfirmities besetting my mother's habits and constitution of mind, wasthe costly one of seeking her chief intellectual excitement inarchitectural creations. She individually might be said to have builtGreenhay; since to _her_ views of domestic elegance and proprietymy father had resigned _almost_ everything. This was her _coup-d'essai_; secondly, she built the complement to the Priory inCheshire, which cost about one thousand pounds; thirdly, Westhay, inSomersetshire, about twelve miles from Bristol, which, including theland attached to the house, cost twelve thousand five hundred pounds, not including subsequent additions; but this was built at the cost ofmy uncle; finally, Weston Lea, close to Bath, which being designedsimply for herself in old age, with a moderate establishment of fourservants (and some reasonable provision of accommodations for a fewvisitors), cost originally, I believe, not more than one thousandpounds--excluding, however, the cost of all after alterations. 

It may serve to show how inevitably an amateur architect, withoutprofessional aid and counsel, will be defrauded, that the first ofthese houses, which cost six thousand pounds, sold for no more thantwenty-five hundred pounds, and the third for no more than fivethousand pounds. The person who superintended the workmen, and had thewhole practical management of one amongst these four houses, was acommon builder, without capital or education, and the greatest knavethat personally I have known. It may illustrate the way in which ladyarchitects, without professional aid, are and ever will be defrauded, that, after all was finished, and the entire wood-work was to bemeasured and valued, each party, of course, needing to be representedby a professional agent, naturally the knavish builder was ready atearliest dawn with _his_ agent; but, as regarded my mother'sinterest, the task of engaging such an agent had been confided to aneighboring clergyman, --"evangelical, " of course, and a humblesycophant of Hannah More, but otherwise the most helpless of humanbeings, baptized or infidel. He contented himself with instructing ayoung gentleman, aged about fifteen, to take his pony and ride over toa distant cathedral town, which was honored by the abode of a virtuousthough drunken surveyor. This respectable drunkard he was to engage, and also with obvious discretion to fee beforehand. All which was done:the drunken surveyor had a sort of fits, it was understood, that alwaystowards sunset inclined him to assume the horizontal posture. Fortunately, however, for that part of mankind whom circumstances hadbrought under the necessity of communicating with him, these fits wereintermitting; so that, for instance, in the present case, upon a severecall arising for his pocketing the fee of ten guineas, he astonishedhis whole household by suddenly standing bolt upright as stiff as apoker; his sister remarking to the young gentleman that he (thevisitor) was in luck that evening: it wasn't everybody that could getthat length in dealing with Mr. X. O. However, it is distressing torelate that the fits immediately returned; and, with that degree ofexasperation which made it dangerous to suggest the idea of a receipt;since that must have required the vertical attitude. Whether thatattitude ever was recovered by the unfortunate gentleman, I do notknow. Forty-and-four years have passed since then. Almost everybodyconnected with the case has had time to assume permanently thehorizontal posture, --namely, that knave of a builder, whose knaveries(gilded by that morning sun of June) were controlled by nobody; thatsycophantish parson; that young gentleman of fifteen (now, alas! fifty-nine), who must long since have sown his wild oats; that unhappy ponyof eighteen (now, alas! sixty-two, if living; ah! venerable pony, thatmust (or mustest) now require thy oats to be boiled); in short, one andall of these venerabilities--knaves, ponies, drunkards, receipts--havedescended, I believe, to chaos or to Hades, with hardly one exception. Chancery itself, though somewhat of an Indian juggler, could not playwith such aerial balls as these. 

On what ground it was that my mother quarrelled with the advantages ofBath, so many and so conspicuous, I cannot guess. At that time, namely, the opening of the nineteenth century, the old traditionary custom ofthe place had established for young and old the luxury of sedan-chairs. Nine tenths, at least, of the colds and catarrhs, those initial stagesof all pulmonary complaints (the capital scourge of England), arecaught in the transit between the door of a carriage and the genialatmosphere of the drawing-room. By a sedan-chair all this danger wasevaded: your two chairmen marched right into the hall: the hall-doorwas closed; and not until then was the roof and the door of your chairopened: the translation was--from one room to another. To my mother, and many in her situation, the sedan-chair recommended itself also byadvantages of another class. Immediately on coming to Bath her carriagewas "laid up in ordinary. " The trifling rent of a coach-house, someslight annual repairs, and the tax, composed the whole annual cost. Atthat time, and throughout the war, the usual estimate for the cost of aclose carriage in London was three hundred and twenty pounds; since, inorder to have the certain services of two horses, it was indispensableto keep three. Add to this the coachman, the wear-and-tear of harness, and the duty; and, even in Bath, a cheaper place than London, you couldnot accomplish the total service under two hundred and seventy pounds. Now, except the duty, all this expense was at once superseded by thesedan-chair--rarely costing you above ten shillings a week, that is, twenty-five guineas a year, and liberating you from all care oranxiety. The duty on four wheels, it is true, was suddenly exalted byMr. Pitt's triple assessment from twelve guineas to thirty-six; butwhat a trifle by comparison with the cost of horses and coachman! And, then, no demands for money were ever met so cheerfully by my mother asthose which went to support Mr. Pitt's policy against Jacobinism andRegicide. At present, after five years' sinecure existence, unless onthe rare summons of a journey, this dormant carriage was suddenlyundocked, and put into commission. Taking with her two servants, andone of my sisters, my mother now entered upon a _periplus_, orsystematic circumnavigation of all England; and in England only--through the admirable machinery matured for such a purpose, namely, inns, innkeepers, servants, horses, all first-rate of their class--itwas possible to pursue such a scheme in the midst of domestic comfort. My mother's resolution was--to see all England with her own eyes, andto judge for herself upon the qualifications of each county, each town(not being a bustling seat of commerce), and each village (having anyadvantages of scenery), for contributing the main elements towards ahome that might justify her in building a house. The qualificationsinsisted on were these five: good medical advice somewhere in theneighborhood; first-rate means of education; elegant (or, what mostpeople might think, aristocratic) society; agreeable scenery: and sofar the difficulty was not insuperable in the way of finding all thefour advantages concentrated. But my mother insisted on a fifth, whichin those days insured the instant shipwreck of the entire scheme; thiswas a church of England parish clergyman, who was to be strictlyorthodox, faithful to the articles of our English church, yet to thesearticles as interpreted by Evangelical divinity. My mother's views wereprecisely those of her friend Mrs. Hannah More, of Wilberforce, ofHenry Thornton, of Zachary Macaulay (father of the historian), andgenerally of those who were then known amongst sneerers as "the Claphamsaints. " This one requisition it was on which the scheme foundered. Andthe fact merits recording as an exposition of the broad religiousdifference between the England of that day and of this. At present, nodifficulty would be found as to this fifth requisition. "Evangelical"clergymen are now sown broad-cast; at that period, there were not, onan average, above six or eight in each of the fifty-two counties. 

The conditions, as a whole, were in fact incapable of being realized;where two or three were attained, three or two failed. It was too muchto exact so many advantages from any one place, unless London; orreally, if any other place could be looked to with hope in such achase, that place was Bath--the very city my mother was preparing toleave. Yet, had this been otherwise, and the prospect of success morepromising, I have not a doubt that the pretty gem, which suddenly wasoffered at a price unintelligibly low, in the ancient city of Chester, would have availed (as instantly it _did_ avail, and, perhaps, ought to have availed) in obscuring those five conditions of which elseeach separately for itself had seemed a _conditio sine qua non_. This gem was an ancient house, on a miniature scale, called the_Priory_; and, until the dissolution of religious houses in theearlier half of the sixteenth century, had formed part of the Prioryattached to the ancient church (still flourishing) of St. John's. Towards the end of the sixteenth and through the first quarter of theseventeenth century, this Priory had been in the occupation of SirRobert Cotton, the antiquary, the friend of Ben Jonson, of Coke, ofSelden, etc. , and advantageously known as one of those who applied hislegal and historical knowledge to the bending back into constitutionalmoulds of those despotic twists which new interests and false counselshad developed in the Tudor and Stuart dynasties. It was an exceedinglypretty place; and the kitchen, upon the ground story, which had a noblegroined ceiling of stone, indicated, by its disproportionate scale, themagnitude of the establishment to which once it had ministered. Attached to this splendid kitchen were tributary offices, etc. On theupper story were exactly five rooms: namely, a servants' dormitory, meant in Sir Robert's day for two beds [Footnote: The contrivanceamongst our ancestors, even at haughty Cambridge and haughtier Oxford, was, that one bed rising six inches from the floor ran (in the day-time) under a loftier bed; it ran upon castors or little wheels. Thelearned word for a little wheel is _trochlea_; from which Grecianand Latin term comes the English word _truckle_-bed. ] at theleast; and a servants' sitting-room. These were shut off into aseparate section, with a little staircase (like a ship's companion-ladder) and a little lobby of its own. But the principal section onthis upper story had been dedicated to the use of Sir Robert, andconsisted of a pretty old hall, lighted by an old monastic-paintedwindow in the door of entrance; secondly, a rather elegant dining-room;thirdly, a bed-room. The glory of the house internally lay in themonastic kitchen; and, secondly, in what a Frenchman would have called, properly, Sir Robert's own _apartment_ [Footnote: _Apartment_. --Our English use of the word "apartment" is absurd, since it leads tototal misconceptions. We read in French memoirs innumerable of _theking's apartment_, of _the queen's apartment_, etc. , and for us Englishthe question arises, How? Had the king, had her majesty, only one room?But, my friend, they might have a thousand rooms, and yet have only oneapartment. An apartment means, in the continental use, a section or_compartment_ of an edifice. ] of three rooms; but, thirdly and chiefly, in a pile of ruined archways, most picturesque so far as they went, butso small that Drury Lane could easily have found room for them on itsstage. These stood in the miniature pleasure-ground, and wereconstantly resorted to by artists for specimens of architecturaldecays, or of nature working for the concealment of such decays by herordinary processes of gorgeous floral vegetation. Ten rooms there mayhave been in the Priory, as offered to my mother for less than fivehundred pounds. A drawing-room, bed-rooms, dressing-rooms, etc. , makingabout ten more, were added by my mother for a sum under one thousandpounds. The same miniature scale was observed in all these additions. And, as the Priory was not within the walls of the city, whilst theriver Dee, flowing immediately below, secured it from annoyance on oneside, and the church, with its adjacent church-yard, insulated it fromthe tumults of life on all the other sides, an atmosphere of conventualstillness and tranquillity brooded over it and all around it forever. 

Such was the house, such was the society, in which I now found myself;and upon the whole I might describe myself as being, according to themodern phrase, "in a false position. " I had, for instance, a vastsuperiority, as was to have been expected, in bookish attainments, andin adroitness of logic; whilst, on the other hand, I was ridiculouslyshort-sighted or blind in all fields of ordinary human experience. Itmust not be supposed that I regarded my own particular points ofsuperiority, or that I used them, with any vanity or view to presentadvantages. On the contrary, I sickened over them, and labored todefeat them. But in vain I sowed errors in my premises, or plantedabsurdities in my assumptions. Vainly I tried such blunders as puttingfour terms into a syllogism, which, as all the world knows, ought torun on three; a tripod it ought to be, by all rules known to man, and, behold, I forced it to become a quadruped. Upon my uncle's militaryhaste, and tumultuous energy in pressing his opinions, all suchdelicate refinements were absolutely thrown away. With disgust _I_saw, with disgust _he_ saw, that too apparently the advantage laywith me in the result; and, whilst I worked like a dragon to placemyself in the wrong, some fiend apparently so counterworked me, thateternally I was reminded of the Manx half-pennies, which lately I hadcontinually seen current in North Wales, bearing for their heraldicdistinction three human legs in armor, but so placed in relation toeach other that always one leg is vertical and mounting guard on behalfof the other two, which, therefore, are enabled to sprawl aloft in theair--in fact, to be as absurdly negligent as they choose, relying upontheir vigilant brother below, and upon the written legend or motto, STABIT QUOCUNQUE JECERIS (Stand it will upright, though you shouldfling it in any conceivable direction). What gave another feature ofdistraction and incoherency to my position was, that I still occupiedthe position of a reputed boy, nay, a child, in the estimate of myaudience, and of a child in disgrace. Time enough had not passed sincemy elopement from school to win for me, in minds so fresh from thatremembrance, a station of purification and assoilment. Oxford mightavail to assoil me, and to throw into a distant retrospect my boyishtrespasses; but as yet Oxford had not arrived. I committed, besides, agreat fault in taking often a tone of mock seriousness, when thedetection of the playful extravagance was left to the discernment orquick sympathy of the hearer; and I was blind to the fact, that neithermy mother nor my uncle was distinguished by any natural liveliness ofvision for the comic, or any toleration for the extravagant. My mother, for example, had an awful sense of conscientious fidelity in thepayment of taxes. Many a respectable family I have known that wouldprivately have encouraged a smuggler, and, in consequence, were besetcontinually by mock smugglers, offering, with airs of affected mystery, home commodities liable to no custom-house objections whatsoever, onlyat a hyperbolical price. I remember even the case of a duke, who boughtin Piccadilly, under laughable circumstances of complex disguise, somesilk handkerchiefs, falsely pretending to be foreign, and was soincensed at finding himself to have been committing no breach of lawwhatever, but simply to have been paying double the ordinary shopprice, that he pulled up the _soi-disant_ smuggler to Bowstreet, even at the certain price of exposure to himself. The charge he allegedagainst the man was the untenable one of _not_ being a smuggler. My mother, on the contrary, pronounced all such attempts at cheatingthe king, or, as I less harshly termed it, cheating the tax-gatherer, as being equal in guilt to a fraud upon one's neighbor, or to directappropriation of another man's purse. I, on my part, held, thatgovernment, having often defrauded me through its agent and creaturethe post-office, by monstrous over-charges on letters, had thus createdin my behalf a right of retaliation. And dreadfully it annoyed mymother, that I, stating this right in a very plausible rule-of-threeform--namely, As is the income of the said fraudulent government to mypoor patrimonial income of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, sois any one special fraud (as, for instance, that of yesterday morning, amounting to thirteen pence upon a single letter) to that equitablepenalty which I am entitled to recover upon the goods and chattels(wherever found) of the ill-advised Britannic government. During thewar with Napoleon, the income of this government ran, to all amounts, between fifty and seventy millions pounds sterling. Awful, therefore, seemed the inheritance of retaliation, inexhaustible the fund ofreprisals, into which I stepped. Since, even a single case of robbery, such as I could plead by dozens, in the course of a few years, thoughno more than thirteen pence, yet multiplied into seventy million timestwo hundred and forty pence, _minus_ one hundred and fifty pounds, made a very comfortable property. The right was clear; and the soledifficulty lay in asserting it; in fact, that same difficulty whichbeset the philosopher of old, in arguing with the Emperor Hadrian;namely, the want of thirty legions for the purpose of clearly pointingout to Cæsar where it was that the truth lay; the secret truth; thatrarest of all "nuggets. "

This counter-challenge of government, as the first mover in a system offrauds, annoyed, but also perplexed my mother exceedingly. For anargument that shaped itself into a rule-of-three illustration seemedreally to wear too candid an aspect for summary and absolute rejection. 

Such discussions wore to me a comic shape. But altogether serious werethe disputes upon INDIA--a topic on separate grounds equallyinteresting to us all, as the mightiest of English colonies, and thesuperbest monument of demoniac English energy, revealing itself in suchmen as Clive, Hastings, and soon after in the two Wellesleys. To mymother, as the grave of one brother, as the home of another, and as anew centre from which Christianity (she hoped) would mount like aneagle; for just about that time the Bible Society was preparing itsinitial movements; whilst to my uncle India appeared as the_arena_ upon which his activities were yet to find their adequatecareer. With respect to the Christianization of India, my uncle assumeda hope which he did not really feel; and in another point, more tryingto himself personally, he had soon an opportunity for showing thesincerity of this deference to his spiritual-minded sister. For, verysoon after his return to India, he received a civil appointment(_Superintendent of Military Buildings in Bengal_), highlylucrative, and the more so as it could be held conjointly with hismilitary rank; but a good deal of its pecuniary advantages was said tolie in fees, or perquisites, privately offered, but perfectly regularand official, which my mother (misunderstanding the Indian system)chose to call "bribes. " A very ugly word was _that_; but I arguedthat even at home, even in the courts at Westminster, in the veryfountains of justice, private fees constituted one part of thesalaries--a fair and official part, so long as Parliament had not madesuch fees illegal by commuting them for known and fixed equivalents. 

 It was mere ignorance of India, as I dutifully insisted against"Mamma, " that could confound these regular oriental "nuzzers" with theclandestine wages of corruption. The _pot-de-vin_ of Frenchtradition, the pair of gloves (though at one time very costly gloves)to an English judge of assize on certain occasions, never was offerednor received in the light of a bribe. And (until regularly abolished bythe legislature) I insisted--but vainly insisted--that these andsimilar _honoraria_ ought to be accepted, because else you werelowering the prescriptive rights and value of the office, which you--amere _locum tenens_ for some coming successor--had no right to doupon a solitary scruple or crotchet, arising probably from dyspepsia. Better men, no doubt, than ever stood in _your_ stockings, hadpocketed thankfully the gifts of ancient, time-honored custom. Myuncle, however, though not with the carnal recusancy which besieged thespiritual efforts of poor Cuthbert Headrigg, that incorrigibleworldling, yet still with intermitting doubts, followed my mother'searnest entreaties, and the more meritoriously (I conceive), as heyielded, in a point deeply affecting his interest, to a system ofarguments very imperfectly convincing to his understanding. He held theoffice in question for as much (I believe) as eighteen or nineteenyears; and, by knowing old bilious Indians, who laughed immoderately atmy uncle and my mother, as the proper growth of a priory or some suchmonastic establishment, I have been assured that nothing short of twohundred thousand pounds ought, under the long tenure of office, to havebeen remitted to England. But, then, said one of these gentlemen, ifyour uncle lived (as I have heard that he did) in Calcutta and Meer-ut, at the rate of four thousand pounds a year, _that_ would accountfor a considerable share of a mine which else would seem to have beenworked in vain. Unquestionably, my uncle's system of living was underno circumstances a self-denying one. To enjoy, and to make othersenjoy--_that_ was his law of action. Indeed, a more liberal creature, or one of more princely munificence, never lived. 

It might seem useless to call back any fragment of conversationsrelating to India which passed more than fifty years ago, were it notfor two reasons: one of which is this, --that the errors (natural atthat time) which I vehemently opposed, not from any greater knowledgethat I had, but from closer reflection, are even now the prevailingerrors of the English people. My mother, for instance, uniformly spokeof the English as the subverters of ancient thrones. I, on thecontrary, insisted that nothing political was ancient in India. Our ownoriginal opponents, the Rajahs of Oude and Bengal, had been allupstarts: in the Mysore, again, our more recent opponents, Hyder, andhis son Tippoo, were new men altogether, whose grandfathers were quiteunknown. Why was it that my mother, why is it that the English publicat this day, connect so false an image--that of high, cloudy antiquity--with the thrones of India? It is simply from an old habit ofassociating the spirit of change and rapid revolution with theactivities of Europe; so that, by a natural reaction of thought, theOrient is figured as the home of motionless monotony. In thingsreligious, in habits, in costume, it _is_ so. But so far otherwisein things political, that no instance can be alleged of any dynasty orsystem of government that has endured beyond a century or two in theEast. Taking India in particular, the Mogul dynasty, established byBaber, the great-grandson of Timour, did not subsist in any vigor fortwo centuries; and yet this was by far the most durable of allestablished princely houses. Another argument against England urged bymy mother (but equally urged by the English people at this day) was, that she had in no eminent sense been a benefactress to India; or, expressing it in words of later date, that the only memorials of ourrule, supposing us suddenly ejected from India, would be vast heaps ofchampagne-bottles. I, on the other hand, alleged that our benefits, like all truly great and lasting benefits (religious benefits, forinstance), must not be sought in external memorials of stone andmasonry. Higher by far than the Mogul gifts of mile-stones, ortravelling stations, or even roads and tanks, were the gifts ofsecurity, of peace, of law, and settled order. These blessings weretravelling as fast as our rule advanced. I could not _then_ appealto the cases of Thuggee extirpated, of the Pindanees (full fifteenthousand bloody murderers) forever exterminated, or of the Marhattasbridled forever--a robber nation that previously had descended atintervals with a force of sometimes one hundred and fifty thousandtroopers upon the afflicted province of Bengal, and Oude its neighbor;because these were events as yet unborn. But they were the naturalextensions of that beneficent system on which I rested my argument. Thetwo terrors of India at that particular time were Holkar and Scindiah(pronounced _Sindy_), who were soon cut short in their career bythe hostilities which they provoked with us, but would else haveproved, in combination, a deadlier scourge to India than either Hyderor his ferocious son. My mother, in fact, a great reader of the poetCowper, drew from _him_ her notions of Anglo-Indian policy and itseffects. Cowper, in his "Task, " puts the question, --

 "Is India free? and does she wear her plumed And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, Or do we grind her still?"

Pretty much the same authority it is which the British public of thisday has for its craze upon the subject of English oppression amongstthe Hindoos. 

My uncle, meantime, who from his Indian experience should reasonablyhave known so much better, was disposed, from the mere passive habitsof hearing and reading unresistingly so many assaults of this toneagainst our Indian policy, to go along with my mother. But he was toojust, when forced into reflection upon the subject, not to bend attimes to my way of stating the case for England. Suddenly, however, ourIndian discussions were brought to a close by the following incident. My uncle had brought with him to England some Arabian horses, andamongst them a beautiful young Persian mare, called Sumroo, thegentlest of her race. Sumroo it was that he happened to be riding, upona frosty day. Unused to ice, she came down with him, and broke hisright leg. This accident laid him up for a month, during which mymother and I read to him by turns. One book, which one day fell to myshare by accident, was De Foe's "Memoirs of a Cavalier. " This bookattempts to give a picture of the Parliamentary war; but in some placesan unfair, and everywhere a most superficial account. I said so; and myuncle, who had an old craze in behalf of the book, opposed me withasperity; and, in the course of what he said, under some movement ofill-temper, he asked me, in a way which I felt to be taunting, how Icould consent to waste my time as I did. Without any answering warmth, I explained that my guardians, having quarrelled with me, would notgrant for my use anything beyond my school allowance of one hundredpounds per annum. But was it not possible that even this sum might byeconomy be made to meet the necessities of the case? I replied that, from what I had heard, very probably it was. Would I undertake anOxford life upon such terms? Most gladly, I said. Upon that opening hespoke to my mother; and the result was, that, within seven days fromthe above conversation, I found myself entering that time-honoreduniversity. 

OXFORD. 

I. 

OXFORD. 

It was in winter, and in the wintry weather of the year 1803, that Ifirst entered Oxford with a view to its vast means of education, orrather with a view to its vast advantages for study. A ludicrous storyis told of a young candidate for clerical orders--that, being asked bythe bishop's chaplain if he had ever "been to Oxford, " as a colloquialexpression for having had an academic education, he replied, "No: buthe had twice been to Abingdon:" Abingdon being only seven milesdistant. In the same sense I might say that once before I had been atOxford: but _that_ was as a transient visitor with Lord W----, when we were both children. Now, on the contrary, I approached thesevenerable towers in the character of a student, and with the purpose ofa long connection; personally interested in the constitution of theuniversity, and obscurely anticipating that in this city, or at leastduring the period of my nominal attachment to this academic body, theremoter parts of my future life would unfold before me. All hearts wereat this time occupied with the public interests of the country. The"sorrow of the time" was ripening to a second harvest. Napoleon hadcommenced his Vandal, or rather Hunnish War with Britain, in the springof this year, about eight months before; and profound public interestit was, into which the very coldest hearts entered, that a littledivided with me the else monopolizing awe attached to the solemn act oflaunching myself upon the world. That expression may seem too strong asapplied to one who had already been for many months a houselesswanderer in Wales, and a solitary roamer in the streets of London. Butin those situations, it must be remembered, I was an unknown, unacknowledged vagrant; and without money I could hardly run much risk, except of breaking my neck. The perils, the pains, the pleasures, orthe obligations, of the world, scarcely exist in a proper sense for himwho has no funds. Perfect weakness is often secure; it is by imperfectpower, turned against its master, that men are snared and decoyed. Herein Oxford I should be called upon to commence a sort of establishmentupon the splendid English scale; here I should share in many duties andresponsibilities, and should become henceforth an object of notice to alarge society. Now first becoming separately and individuallyanswerable for my conduct, and no longer absorbed into the general unitof a family, I felt myself, for the first time, burthened with theanxieties of a man, and a member of the world. 

Oxford, ancient mother! hoary with ancestral honors, time-honored, and, haply, it may be, time-shattered power--I owe thee nothing! Of thy vastriches I took not a shilling, though living amongst multitudes who owedto thee their daily bread. Not the less I owe thee justice; for that isa universal debt. And at this moment, when I see thee called to thyaudit by unjust and malicious accusers--men with the hearts ofinquisitors and the purposes of robbers--I feel towards thee somethingof filial reverence and duty. However, I mean not to speak as anadvocate, but as a conscientious witness in the simplicity of truth;feeling neither hope nor fear of a personal nature, without fee, andwithout favor. 

I have been assured from many quarters that the great body of thepublic are quite in the dark about the whole manner of living in ourEnglish universities; and that a considerable portion of that public, misled by the totally different constitution of universities inScotland, Ireland, and generally on the continent, as well as by thedifferent arrangements of collegiate life in those institutions, are ina state worse than ignorant (that is, more unfavorable to the truth)--starting, in fact, from prejudices, and absolute errors of fact, whichoperate most uncharitably upon their construction of those insulatedstatements, which are continually put forward by designing men. Hence, I can well believe that it will be an acceptable service, at thisparticular moment, when the very constitution of the two Englishuniversities is under the unfriendly revision of Parliament, when someroving commission may be annually looked for, under a contingency whichI will not utter in words (for I reverence the doctrine of_euphæmismos_), far worse than Cromwellian, that is, merelypersonal, and to winnow the existing corporation from disaffection tothe state--a Henry the Eighth commission of sequestration, and levelledat the very integrity of the institution--under such prospects, I canwell believe that a true account of Oxford _as it is_ (which willbe valid also for Cambridge) must be welcome both to friend and foe. And instead of giving this account didactically, or according to alogical classification of the various items in the survey, I will giveit historically, or according to the order in which the most importantfacts of the case opened themselves before myself, under the accidentsof my own personal inquiry. No situation could be better adapted thanmy own for eliciting information; for, whereas most young men come tothe university under circumstances of absolute determination as to thechoice of their particular college, and have, therefore, no cause forsearch or inquiry, I, on the contrary, came thither in solitary self-dependence, and in the loosest state of indetermination. 

Though neither giving nor accepting invitations for the first two yearsof my residence, never but once had I reason to complain of a sneer, orindeed any allusion whatever to habits which might be understood toexpress poverty. Perhaps even then I had no reason to complain, for myown conduct in that instance was unwise; and the allusion, though apersonality, and so far ill-bred, might be meant in real kindness. Thecase was this: I neglected my dress in one point habitually; that is, Iwore clothes until they were threadbare--partly in the belief that mygown would conceal their main defects, but much more from carelessnessand indisposition to spend upon a tailor what I had destined for abookseller. At length, an official person, of some weight in thecollege, sent me a message on the subject through a friend. It wascouched in these terms: That, let a man possess what talents oraccomplishments he might, it was not possible for him to maintain hisproper station, in the public respect, amongst so many servants andpeople, servile to external impressions, without some regard to theelegance of his dress. 

A reproof so courteously prefaced I could not take offence at; and atthat time I resolved to spend some cost upon decorating my person. Butalways it happened that some book, or set of books, --that passion beingabsolutely endless, and inexorable as the grave, --stepped between meand my intentions; until one day, upon arranging my toilet hastilybefore dinner, I suddenly made the discovery that I had no waistcoat(or _vest_, as it is now called, through conceit or provincialism), which was not torn or otherwise dilapidated; whereupon, buttoning up mycoat to the throat, and drawing my gown as close about me as possible, I went into the public "hall" (so is called in Oxford the publiceating-room) with no misgiving. However, I was detected; for agrave man, with a superlatively grave countenance, who happened onthat day to sit next me, but whom I did not personally know, addressinghis friend sitting opposite, begged to know if he had seen the lastGazette, because he understood that it contained an order in councillaying an interdict upon the future use of waistcoats. His friendreplied, with the same perfect gravity, that it was a greatsatisfaction to his mind that his majesty's government should haveissued so sensible an order; which he trusted would be soon followed upby an interdict on breeches, they being still more disagreeable to payfor. This said, without the movement on either side of a single muscle, the two gentlemen passed to other subjects; and I inferred, upon thewhole, that, having detected my manoeuvre, they wished to put me on myguard in the only way open to them. At any rate, this was the solepersonality, or equivocal allusion of any sort, which ever met my earduring the years that I asserted my right to be as poor as I chose. And, certainly, my censors were right, whatever were the temper inwhich they spoke, kind or unkind; for a little extra care in the use ofclothes will always, under almost any extremity of poverty, pay for somuch extra cost as is essential to neatness and decorum, if not even toelegance. They were right, and I was wrong, in a point which cannot beneglected with impunity. 

But, to enter upon my own history, and my sketch of Oxford life. --Lateon a winter's night, in the latter half of December, 1803, when a snow-storm, and a heavy one, was already gathering in the air, a lazyBirmingham coach, moving at four and a half miles an hour, brought methrough the long northern suburb of Oxford, to a shabby coach-inn, situated in the Corn Market. Business was out of the question at thathour. But the next day I assembled all the acquaintances I had in theuniversity, or had to my own knowledge; and to them, in councilassembled, propounded my first question: What college would they, intheir superior state of information, recommend to my choice? Thisquestion leads to the first great characteristic of Oxford, asdistinguished from most other universities. Before me at this momentlie several newspapers, reporting, at length, the installation inoffice (as Chancellor) of the Duke of Wellington. The original Oxfordreport, having occasion to mention the particular college from whichthe official procession moved, had said, no doubt, that the gates ofUniversity, the halls of University, &c. , were at such a point of timethrown open. But most of the provincial editors, not at allcomprehending that the reference was to an individual college, known bythe name of University College, one of twenty-five such establishmentsin Oxford, had regularly corrected it into "gates of the University, "&c. Here is the first misconception of all strangers. And this featureof Oxford it is which has drawn such exclamations of astonishment fromforeigners. Lipsius, for example, protested with fervor, on firstseeing this vast establishment of Oxford, that one college of thisuniversity was greater in its power and splendor, that it glorified andillustrated the honors of literature more conspicuously by the pompswith which it invested the ministers and machinery of education, thanany entire university of the continent. 

What is a university almost everywhere else? It announces little more, as respects the academic buildings, than that here is to be found theplace of rendezvous--the exchange, as it were, or, under a differentfigure, the _palæstra_ of the various parties connected with theprosecution of liberal studies. This is their "House of Call, " theirgeneral place of muster and parade. Here it is that the professors andthe students converge, with the certainty of meeting each other. Here, in short, are the lecture-rooms in all the faculties. Well: thus far wesee an arrangement of convenience--that is, of convenience for one ofthe parties, namely, the professors. To them it spares the disagreeablecircumstances connected with a private reception of their students attheir own rooms. But to the students it is a pure matter ofindifference. In all this there is certainly no service done to thecause of good learning, which merits a state sanction, or the aid ofnational funds. Next, however, comes an academic library, sometimes agood one; and here commences a real use in giving a national station tosuch institutions, because their durable and monumental existence, liable to no flux or decay from individual caprice, or accidents oflife, and their authentic station, as expressions of the nationalgrandeur, point them out to the bequests of patriotic citizens. Theyfall also under the benefit of another principle--the conservativefeeling of amateurship. Several great collections have been bequeathedto the British Museum, for instance--not chiefly _as_ a nationalinstitution, and under feelings of nationality, but because, beingsuch, it was also permanent; and thus the painful labors of collectingwere guaranteed from perishing. Independently of all this, I, for mypart, willingly behold the surplus of national funds dedicated to theconsecration, as it were, of learning, by raising temples to its honor, even where they answer no purpose of direct use. Next, after theservice of religion, I would have the service of learning externallyembellished, recommended to the affections of men, and hallowed by thevotive sculptures, as I may say, of that affection, gathering in amountfrom age to age. _Magnificabo apostolatum meum_ is a languagealmost as becoming to the missionaries and ministers of knowledge, asto the ambassadors of religion. It is fit that by pompous architecturalmonuments, that a voice may forever be sounding audibly in human earsof homage to these powers, and that even alien feelings may becompelled into secret submission to their influence. Therefore, amongstthe number of those who value such things, upon the scale of directproximate utility, rank not me: that _arithmetica officina_ is inmy years abominable. But still I affirm that, in our analysis of anordinary university, or "college" as it is provincially called, we havenot yet arrived at any element of service rendered to knowledge oreducation, large enough to call for very extensive national aid. Honorhas thus far been rendered to the good cause by a public attestation, and that is well: but no direct promotion has been given to that cause, no impulse communicated to its progress, such that it can be held outas a result commensurate to the name and pretensions of a university. As yet there is nothing accomplished which is beyond the strength ofany little commercial town. And as to the library in particular, besides that in all essential departments it might be bought, to order, by one day's common subscription of Liverpool or Glasgow merchants, students very rarely indeed have admission to its free use. 

What other functions remain to a university? For those which I havementioned of furnishing a point of rendezvous to the great body ofprofessors and students, and a point of concentration to the differentestablishments of implements and machinery for elaborate researches[as, for instance, of books and MSS. , in the first place; secondly, ofmaps, charts, and globes; and, thirdly, perhaps of the costly apparatusrequired for such studies as Sideral astronomy, galvanic chemistry orphysiology, &c. ]; all these are uses which cannot be regarded in ahigher light than as conveniences merely incidental and collateral tothe main views of the founders. There are, then, two much loftier andmore commanding ends met by the idea and constitution of suchinstitutions, and which first rise to a rank of dignity sufficient tooccupy the views of a legislator, or to warrant a national interest. These ends are involved: 1st, in the practice of conferring_degrees_, that is, formal attestations and guarantees of competenceto give advice, instruction, or aid, in the three great branchesof liberal knowledge applicable to human life; 2d, in thatappropriation of fixed funds to fixed professorships, by means of whichthe uninterrupted succession of public and authorized teachers issustained in all the higher branches of knowledge, from generation togeneration, and from century to century. By the latter result it issecured that the great well-heads of liberal knowledge and of severescience shall never grow dry. By the former it is secured that thisunfailing fountain shall be continually applied to the production andto the _tasting_ of fresh labors in endless succession for thepublic service, and thus, in effect, that the great national fountainshall not be a stagnant reservoir, but, by an endless _derivation_(to speak in a Roman metaphor!), applied to a system of nationalirrigation. These are the two great functions and qualifications of acollegiate incorporation: one providing to each separate generation itsown separate rights of heirship to all the knowledge accumulated by itspredecessors, and converting a mere casual life-annuity into an estateof inheritance--a mere fleeting _agonisma_ into a _ktæma es æi_; theother securing for this eternal dowry as wide a distribution aspossible: the one function regarding the dimension of _length_ in theendless series of ages through which it propagates its gifts; the otherregarding the dimension of _breadth_ in the large applicationthroughout any one generation of these gifts to the public service. Here are grand functions, high purposes; but neither one nor the otherdemands any edifices of stone and marble; neither one nor the otherpresupposes any edifice at all built with human hands. A collegiateincorporation, the church militant of knowledge, in its everlastingstruggle with darkness and error, is, in this respect, like thechurch of Christ--that is, it is always and essentially invisibleto the fleshly eye. The pillars of this church are human champions; itsweapons are great truths so shaped as to meet the shifting forms oferror; its armories are piled and marshalled in human memories; itscohesion lies in human zeal, in discipline, in childlike docility; andall its triumphs, its pomps, and glories, must forever depend upontalent, upon the energies of the will, and upon the harmoniouscooperation of its several divisions. Thus far, I say, there is no callmade out for _any_ intervention of the architect. 

Let me apply all this to Oxford. Among the four functions commonlyrecognized by the founders of universities, which are--1st, to find aset of halls or places of meeting; 2d, to find the implements andaccessaries of study; 3d, to secure the succession of teachers andlearners; 4th, to secure the profitable application of theirattainments to the public service. Of these four, the two highest needno buildings; and the other two, which are mere collateral functions ofconvenience, need only a small one. Wherefore, then, and to what end, are the vast systems of building, the palaces and towers of Oxford?These are either altogether superfluous, mere badges of ostentation andluxurious wealth, or they point to some fifth function not so much ascontemplated by other universities, and, at present, absolutely andchimerically beyond their means of attainment. Formerly we used to hearattacks upon the Oxford discipline as fitted to the true_intellectual_ purposes of a modern education. Those attacks, weakand most uninstructed in facts, false as to all that they challenged, and puerile as to what implicitly they propounded for homage, aresilent. But, of late, the battery has been pointed against the Oxforddiscipline in its _moral_ aspects, as fitted for the governmentand restraint of young men, or even as at all contemplating any suchcontrol. The Beverleys would have us suppose, not only that the greatbody of the students are a licentious crew, acknowledging no disciplineor restraints, but that the grave elders of the university, and thosewho wield the nominal authority of the place, passively resign the veryshows of power, and connive at general excesses, even when they do notabsolutely authorize them in their personal examples. Now, when suchrepresentations are made, to what standard of a just discipline is itthat these writers would be understood as appealing? Is it to someideal, or to some existing and known reality? Would they have Englandsuppose that they are here comparing the actual Oxford with somepossible hypothetic or imaginable Oxford, --with some ideal case, thatis to say, about which great discussions would arise as to itsfeasibility, --or that they are comparing it with some known standard ofdiscipline actually realized and sustained for generations, in Leipsic, suppose, or Edinburgh, or Leyden, or Salamanca? This is the question ofquestions, to which we may demand an answer; and, according to thatanswer, observe the dilemma into which these furciferous knaves mustdrop. If they are comparing Oxford simply with some ideal and betterOxford, in some ideal and better world, in that case all they havesaid--waiving its falsehoods of fact--is no more than a flourish ofrhetoric, and the whole discussion may be referred to the shadowycombats of scholastic declamation-mongers--those mock gladiators, and_umbratiles doctores_. But if, on the other hand, they pretend totake their station upon the known basis of some existing institution, --if they will pretend that, in this impeachment of Oxford, they areproceeding upon a silent comparison with Edinburgh, Glasgow, Jena, Leipsic, Padua, &c. , --then are they self-exposed, as men not onlywithout truth, but without shame. For now comes in, as a suddenrevelation, and as a sort of _deus ex machina_, for the vindicationof the truth, the simple answer to that question proposed above, Wherefore, and to what end, are the vast edifices of Oxford? Auniversity, as universities are in general, needs not, I have shown, tobe a visible body--a building raised with hands. Wherefore, then, isthe _visible_ Oxford? To what _fifth_ end, refining upon theordinary ends of such institutions, is the far-stretching system ofOxford _hospitia_, or monastic hotels, directed by their founders, or applied by their present possessors? Hearken, reader, to the answer:

These vast piles are applied to an end, absolutely indispensable to anyeven tolerable system of discipline, and yet absolutely unattainableupon any commensurate scale in any other university of Europe. They areapplied to the personal settlement and domestication of the studentswithin the gates and walls of that college to whose discipline they areamenable. Everywhere else the young men live _where_ they pleaseand _as_ they please; necessarily distributed amongst the towns-people; in any case, therefore, liable to no control or supervisionwhatever; and in those cases where the university forms but a smallpart of a vast capital city, as it does in Paris, Edinburgh, Madrid, Vienna, Berlin, and Petersburg, liable to every mode of positivetemptation and distraction, which besiege human life in high-viced andluxurious communities. Here, therefore, it is a mockery to talk ofdiscipline; of a nonentity there can be no qualities; and we need notask for the description of the discipline in situations wherediscipline there can be none. One slight anomaly I have heard of asvarying _pro tanto_ the uniform features of this picture. InGlasgow I have heard of an arrangement by which young academicians areplaced in the family of a professor. Here, as members of a privatehousehold, and that household under the presiding eye of aconscientious, paternal, and judicious scholar, doubtless they wouldenjoy as absolute a shelter from peril and worldly contagion as parentscould wish; but not _more_ absolute, I affirm, than belongs, unavoidably, to the monastic seclusion of an Oxford college--the gatesof which open to no egress after nine o'clock at night, nor aftereleven to any ingress which is not regularly reported to a properofficer of the establishment. The two forms of restraint are, asrespects the effectual amount of control, equal; and were they equallydiffused, Glasgow and Oxford would, in this point, stand upon the samelevel of discipline. But it happens that the Glasgow case was apersonal accident; personal, both as regarded him who volunteered theexercise of this control, and those who volunteered to appropriate itsbenefits; whereas the Oxford case belongs to the very system, iscoextensive with the body of undergraduates, and, from the veryarrangement of Oxford life, is liable to no decay or intermission. 

Here, then, the reader apprehends the first great characteristicdistinction of Oxford--that distinction which extorted the rapturousadmiration of Lipsius as an exponent of enormous wealth, but which Inow mention as applying, with ruinous effect, to the late calumniesupon Oxford, as an inseparable exponent of her meritorious discipline. She, most truly and severely an "Alma Mater" gathers all the juvenilepart of her flock within her own fold, and beneath her own vigilantsupervision. In Cambridge there is, so far, a laxer administration ofthis rule, that, when any college overflows, undergraduates are allowedto lodge at large in the town. But in Oxford this increase of peril anddiscretionary power is thrown by preference upon the senior graduates, who are seldom below the age of twenty-two or twenty-three; and thecollege accommodations are reserved, in almost their whole extent, forthe most youthful part of the society. This extent is prodigious. Evenin my time, upwards of two thousand persons were lodged within thecolleges; none having fewer than two rooms, very many having three, andmen of rank, or luxurious habits, having often large suites of rooms. But that was a time of war, which Oxford experience has shown to haveoperated most disproportionably as a drain upon the numbers disposablefor liberal studies; and the total capacity of the university was farfrom being exhausted. There are now, I believe, between five and sixthousand names upon the Oxford books; and more than four thousand, Iunderstand, of constant residents. So that Oxford is well able tolodge, and on a very sumptuous scale, a small army of men; whichexpression of her great splendor I now mention (as I repeat) purely asapplying to the question of her machinery for enforcing discipline. This part of her machinery, it will be seen, is unique, and absolutelypeculiar to herself. Other universities, boasting no such enormouswealth, cannot be expected to act upon her system of seclusion. Certainly, I make it no reproach to other universities, that, notpossessing the means of sequestering their young men from worldlycommunion, they must abide by the evils of a laxer discipline. It istheir misfortune, and not their criminal neglect, which consents to sodismal a relaxation of academic habits. But let them not urge thismisfortune in excuse at one time, and at another virtually disavow it. Never let _them_ take up a stone to throw at Oxford, upon thiselement of a wise education; since in them, through that original vicein their constitution, the defect of all means for secluding andinsulating their society, discipline is abolished by anticipation--being, in fact, an impossible thing; for the walls of the college aresubservient to no purpose of life, but only to a purpose ofconvenience; they converge the students for the hour or two of what iscalled lecture; which over, each undergraduate again becomes _suijuris_, is again absorbed into the crowds of the world, resorts towhatsoever haunts he chooses, and finally closes his day at----if, inany sense, at home--at a home which is not merely removed from thesupervision and control, but altogether from the bare knowledge, of hisacademic superiors. How far this discipline is well administered inother points at Oxford, will appear from the rest of my account. But, thus far, at least, it must be conceded, that Oxford, by and throughthis one unexampled distinction--her vast disposable fund ofaccommodations for junior members within her own private cloisters--possesses an advantage which she could not forfeit, if she would, towards an effectual knowledge of each man's daily habits, and acontrol over him which is all but absolute. 

This knowledge and this control is much assisted and concentrated bythe division of the university into separate colleges. Here comesanother feature of the Oxford system. Elsewhere the university is asingle college; and this college is the university. But in Oxford theuniversity expresses, as it were, the army, and the colleges expressthe several brigades, or regiments. 

To resume, therefore, my own thread of personal narration. On the nextmorning after my arrival in Oxford, I assembled a small council offriends to assist me in determining at which of the various separatesocieties I should enter, and whether as a "commoner, " or as a"gentleman commoner. " Under the first question was couched thefollowing latitude of choice: I give the names of the colleges, and thenumerical account of their numbers, as it stood in January, 1832; forthis will express, as well as the list of that day, (which I do notaccurately know), the _proportions_ of importance amongst them. 

 Mem. 1. University College ................. 207 2. Balliol " ................. 257 3. Merton " ................. 124 4. Exeter " ................. 299 5. Oriel " ................. 293 6. Queen's " ................. 351 7. New " ................. 157 8. Lincoln " ................. 141 9. All Souls' " ................. 98 10. Magdalene " ................. 165 11. Brazennose " ................. 418 12. Corpus Christi " ................. 127 13. Christ Church " ................. 949 14. Trinity " ................. 259 15. St. John's " ................. 218 16. Jesus " ................. 167 17. Wadham " ................. 217 18. Pembroke " ................. 189 19. Worcester " ................. 231

Then, besides these colleges, five _Halls_, as they are technicallycalled, (the term _Hall_ implying chiefly that they are societies notendowed, or not endowed with fellowships as the colleges are), namely:

 Mem. 1. St. Mary Hall. .............. 83 2. Magdalen " .............. 178 3. New Inn " .............. 10 4. St. Alban " .............. 41 5. St. Edmund " .............. 96

Such being the names, and general proportions on the scale of localimportance, attached to the different communities, next comes the verynatural question, What are the chief determining motives for guidingthe selection amongst them? These I shall state. First of all, a mannot otherwise interested in the several advantages of the colleges has, however, in all probability, some choice between a small society and alarge one; and thus far a mere ocular inspection of the list will serveto fix his preference. For my part, supposing other things equal, Igreatly preferred the most populous college, as being that in which anysingle member, who might have reasons for standing aloof from thegeneral habits of expense, of intervisiting, etc. , would have the bestchance of escaping a jealous notice. However, amongst those "otherthings" which I presumed equal, one held a high place in my estimation, which a little inquiry showed to be very far from equal. All thecolleges have chapels, but all have not organs; nor, amongst thosewhich have, is the same large use made of the organ. Some preserve thefull cathedral service; others do not. Christ Church, meantime, fulfilled _all_ conditions: for the chapel here happens to be thecathedral of the diocese; the service, therefore, is full andceremonial; the college, also, is far the most splendid, both innumbers, rank, wealth, and influence. Hither I resolved to go; andimmediately I prepared to call on the head. 

The "head, " as he is called generically, of an Oxford college (his_specific_ appellation varies almost with every college--principal, provost, master, rector, warden, etc. ), is a greater manthan the uninitiated suppose. His situation is generally felt asconferring a degree of rank not much less than episcopal; and, in fact, the head of Brazennose at that time, who happened to be the Bishop ofBangor, was not held to rank much above his brothers in office. Suchbeing the rank of heads generally, _a fortiori_, that of ChristChurch was to be had in reverence; and this I knew. He is always, _exofficio_, dean of the diocese; and, in his quality of college head, he only, of all deans that ever were heard of, is uniformly considereda greater man than his own diocesan. But it happened that the presentdean had even higher titles to consideration. Dr. Cyril Jackson hadbeen tutor to the Prince of Wales (George IV. ); he had repeatedlyrefused a bishopric; and _that_, perhaps, is entitled to place aman one degree above him who has accepted one. He was also supposed tohave made a bishop, and afterwards, at least, it is certain that liemade his own brother a bishop. All things weighed, Dr. Cyril Jacksonseemed so very great a personage that I now felt the value of my longintercourse with great Dons in giving me confidence to face a lion ofthis magnitude. 

Those who know Oxford are aware of the peculiar feelings which havegathered about the name and pretensions of Christ Church; feelings ofsuperiority and leadership in the members of that college, and oftenenough of defiance and jealousy on the part of other colleges. Hence ithappens that you rarely find yourself in a shop, or other place ofpublic resort, with a Christ-Church man, but he takes occasion, ifyoung and frivolous, to talk loudly of the Dean, as an indirectexpression of his own connection with this splendid college; the titleof _Dean_ being exclusively attached to the headship of ChristChurch. The Dean, as may be supposed, partakes in this superior dignityof his "House;" he is officially brought into connection with allorders of the British aristocracy--often with royal personages; andwith the younger branches of the aristocracy his office places him in arelation of authority and guardianship--exercised, however, throughinferior ministry, and seldom by direct personal interference. Thereader must understand that, with rare exceptions, all the princes andnobles of Great Britain, who choose to benefit by an academiceducation, resort either to Christ Church College in Oxford, or toTrinity College in Cambridge; these are the alternatives. Naturallyenough, my young friends were somewhat startled at my determination tocall upon so great a man; a letter, they fancied, would be a bettermode of application. I, however, who did not adopt the doctrine that noman is a hero to his valet, was of opinion that very few men indeed areheroes to themselves. The cloud of external pomp, which invests them tothe eyes of the _attoniti_ cannot exist to their own; they do not, like Kehama, entering the eight gates of Padalon at once, meet andcontemplate their own grandeurs; but, more or less, are conscious ofacting a part. I did not, therefore, feel the tremor which was expectedof a novice, on being ushered into so solemn a presence. 

II. 

OXFORD. 

The Dean was sitting in a spacious library or study, elegantly, if notluxuriously furnished. Footmen, stationed as repeaters, as if at somefashionable rout, gave a momentary importance to my unimportant self, by the thundering tone of their annunciations. All the machinery ofaristocratic life seemed indeed to intrench this great Don'sapproaches; and I was really surprised that so very great a man shouldcondescend to rise on my entrance. But I soon found that, if the Dean'sstation and relation to the higher orders had made him lofty, thosesame relations had given a peculiar suavity to his manners. Here, indeed, as on other occasions, I noticed the essential misconception, as to the demeanor of men of rank, which prevails amongst those whohave no personal access to their presence. In the fabulous pictures ofnovels (such novels as once abounded), and in newspaper reports ofconversations, real or pretended, between the king and inferiorpersons, we often find the writer expressing _his_ sense ofaristocratic assumption, by making the king address people withouttheir titles. The Duke of Wellington, for instance, or Lord Liverpool, figures usually, in such scenes, as "Wellington, " or "Arthur, " and as"Liverpool. " Now, as to the private talk of George IV. In such cases, Ido not pretend to depose; but, speaking generally, I may say that thepractice of the highest classes takes the very opposite course. Nowhereis a man so sure of his titles or official distinctions as amongst_them_; for, it is upon giving to every man the very extremepunctilio of his known or supposed claims, that they rely for the dueobservance of their own. Neglecting no form of courtesy suited to thecase, they seek, in this way, to remind men unceasingly of what theyexpect; and the result is what I represent--that people in the higheststations, and such as bring them continually into contact withinferiors, are, of all people, the least addicted to insolence ordefect of courtesy. Uniform suavity of manner is indeed rarely found, except in men of high rank. Doubtless this may arise upon a motive ofself-interest, jealous of giving the least opening or invitation to theretorts of ill-temper or low breeding. But, whatever be its origin, such I believe to be the fact. In a very long conversation of a generalnature upon the course of my studies, and the present direction of myreading, Dr. Cyril Jackson treated me just as he would have done hisequal in station and in age. Coming, at length, to the particularpurpose of my visit at this time to himself, he assumed a little moreof his official stateliness. He condescended to say that it would havegiven him pleasure to reckon me amongst his flock; "But, sir, " he said, in a tone of some sharpness, "your guardians have acted improperly. Itwas their duty to have given me at least one year's notice of theirintention to place you at Christ Church. At present I have not a dog-kennel in my college untenanted. " Upon this, I observed that nothingremained for me to do but to apologize for having occupied so much ofhis time; that, for myself, I now first heard of this preliminaryapplication; and that, as to my guardians, I was bound to acquit themof all oversight in this instance, they being no parties to my presentscheme. The Dean expressed his astonishment at this statement. I, on mypart, was just then making my parting bows, and had reached the door, when a gesture of the Dean's, courteously waving me back to the sofa Ihad quitted, invited me to resume my explanations; and I had aconviction at the moment that the interview would have terminated inthe Dean's suspending his standing rule in my favor. But, just at thatmoment, the thundering heralds of the Dean's hall announced some man ofhigh rank: the sovereign of Christ Church seemed distressed for amoment; but then recollecting himself, bowed in a way to indicate thatI was dismissed. And thus it happened that I did not become a member ofChrist Church. 

A few days passed in thoughtless indecision. At the end of that time, atrivial difficulty arose to settle my determination. I had broughtabout fifty guineas to Oxford; but the expenses of an Oxford inn, withalmost daily entertainments to young friends, had made such inroadsupon this sum, that, after allowing for the contingencies incident to acollege initiation, enough would not remain to meet the usual demandfor what is called "caution money. " This is a small sum, properlyenough demanded of every student, when matriculated, as a pledge formeeting any loss from unsettled arrears, such as his sudden death orhis unannounced departure might else continually be inflicting upon hiscollege. By releasing the college, therefore, from all necessity fordegrading vigilance or persecution, this demand does, in effect, operate beneficially to the feelings of all parties. In most collegesit amounts to twenty-five pounds: in one only it was considerably less. And this trifling consideration it was, concurring with a reputation_at that time_ for relaxed discipline, which finally determined mein preferring W--- College to all others. This college had the capitaldisadvantage, in my eyes, that its chapel possessed no organ, and nomusical service. But any other choice would have driven me to aninstant call for more money--a measure which, as too flagrantly incontradiction to the whole terms on which I had volunteered toundertake an Oxford life, I could not find nerves to face. 

At W---- College, therefore, I entered: and here arises the properoccasion for stating the true costs of an Oxford education. First comesthe question of _lodging_. This item varies, as may be supposed;but my own case will place on record the two extremes of cost in oneparticular college, nowadays differing, I believe, from the generalstandard. The first rooms assigned me, being small and ill-lighted, aspart of an old Gothic building, were charged at four guineas a year. These I soon exchanged for others a little better, and for them I paidsix guineas. Finally, by privilege of seniority, I obtained a handsomeset of well-proportioned rooms, in a modern section of the college, charged at ten guineas a year. This set was composed of three rooms;namely, an airy bedroom, a study, and a spacious room for receivingvisitors. This range of accommodation is pretty general in Oxford, and, upon the whole, may be taken perhaps as representing the average amountof luxury in this respect, and at the average amount of cost. Thefurniture and the fittings up of these rooms cost me about twenty-fiveguineas; for the Oxford rule is, that if you take the rooms (which isat your own option), in that case, you _third_ the furniture andthe embellishments--that is, you succeed to the total cost diminishedby one third. You pay, therefore, two guineas out of each three to your_immediate_ predecessor. But, as he also may have succeeded to thefurniture upon the same terms, whenever there happens to have been arapid succession of occupants, the original cost to a remotepredecessor is sometimes brought down, by this process of diminution, to a mere fraction of the true value; and yet no individual occupantcan complain of any heavy loss. Whilst upon this subject, I may observethat, in the seventeenth century, in Milton's time, for example (about1624), and for more than sixty years after that era, the practice of_chumship_ prevailed: every set of chambers was possessed by twocooccupants; they had generally the same bed-room, and a common study;and they were called _chums_. This practice, once all but universal, isnow entirely extinct; and the extinction serves to mark the advance ofthe country, not so much in luxury as in refinement. 

The next item which I shall notice is that which in college bills isexpressed by the word _Tutorage_. This is the same in all colleges, I believe, namely, ten guineas per annum. And this head suggestsan explanation which is most important to the reputation of Oxford, and fitted to clear up a very extensive delusion. Some years ago, a most elaborate statement was circulated of the number and costlyendowment of the Oxford professorships. Some thirty or more there were, it was alleged, and five or six only which were not held as absolutesinecures. Now, this is a charge which I am not here meaning todiscuss. Whether defensible or not, I do not now inquire. It is thepractical interpretation and construction of this charge which I herewish to rectify. In most universities, except those of England, theprofessors are the body on whom devolves the whole duty and burthen ofteaching; they compose the sole fountains of instruction; and if thesefountains fail, the fair inference is, that the one great purpose ofthe institution is defeated. But this inference, valid for all otherplaces, is not so for Oxford and Cambridge. And here, again, thedifference arises out of the peculiar distribution of these bodies intoseparate and independent colleges. Each college takes upon itself theregular instruction of its separate inmates--of these and of no others;and for this office it appoints, after careful selection, trial, andprobation, the best qualified amongst those of its senior members whochoose to undertake a trust of such heavy responsibility. Theseofficers are called Tutors; and they are connected by duties and byaccountability, not with the university at all, but with their ownprivate colleges. The professors, on the other hand, are _public_functionaries, not connected (as respects the exercise of their duties)with any college whatsoever--not even with their own--but altogetherand exclusively with the whole university. Besides the public tutorsappointed in each college, on the scale of one to each dozen or scoreof students, there are also tutors strictly private, who attend anystudents in search of special and extraordinary aid, on terms settledprivately by themselves. Of these persons, or their existence, thecollege takes no cognizance; but between the two classes of tutors, themost studious young men--those who would be most likely to availthemselves of the lectures read by the professors--have their wholetime pretty severely occupied: and the inference from all this is, notonly that the course of Oxford education would suffer little if noprofessors at all existed, but also that, if the existing professorswere _ex abundanti_ to volunteer the most exemplary spirit ofexertion, however much this spectacle of conscientious dealing mightedify the university, it would contribute but little to the promotionof academic purposes. The establishment of professors is, in fact, athing of ornament and pomp. Elsewhere, they are the working servants;but, in Oxford, the ministers corresponding to them bear anothername, --they are called _Tutors_. These are the working agents in theOxford system; and the professors, with salaries in many cases merelynominal, are persons sequestered, and properly sequestered, to thesolitary cultivation and advancement of knowledge, which a differentorder of men is appointed to communicate. 

Here let us pause for one moment, to notice another peculiarity in theOxford system, upon the tendency of which I shall confidently make myappeal to the good sense of all unprejudiced readers. I have said thatthe _tutors_ of Oxford correspond to the _professors_ ofother universities. But this correspondence, which is absolute andunquestionable as regards the point then at issue, --namely, where weare to look for that limb of the establishment on which rests the mainteaching agency, --is liable to considerable qualification, when weexamine the mode of their teaching. In both cases, this is conveyed bywhat is termed "lecturing;"--but what is the meaning of a lecture inOxford and elsewhere? Elsewhere, it means a solemn dissertation, read, or sometimes histrionically declaimed, by the professor. In Oxford, itmeans an exercise performed orally by the students, occasionallyassisted by the tutor, and subject, in its whole course, to hiscorrections, and what may be called his _scholia_, or collateralsuggestions and improvements. Now, differ as men may as to otherfeatures of the Oxford, compared with the hostile system, here Iconceive that there is no room for doubt or demur. An Oxford lectureimposes a real, _bona fide_ task upon the student; it will notsuffer him to fall asleep, either literally or in the energies of hisunderstanding; it is a real drill, under the excitement, perhaps, ofpersonal competition, and under the review of a superior scholar. But, in Germany, under the declamations of the professor, the young men areoften literally sleeping; nor is it easy to see how the attention canbe kept from wandering, on this plan, which subjects the auditor to norisk of sudden question or personal appeal. As to the prizes given foressays, etc. , by the professors, these have the effect of drawing forthlatent talent, but they can yield no criterion of the attention paid tothe professor; not to say that the competition for these prizes is amatter of choice. Sometimes it is true that examinations take place;but the Oxford lecture is a daily examination; and, waiving _that_, what chance is there (I would ask) for searching examinations, forexaminations conducted with the requisite _auctoritas_ (or weight ofinfluence derived from personal qualities), if--which may Heavenprevent!--the German tenure of professorships were substituted for ourBritish one: that is, if for independent and liberal teachers weresubstituted poor mercenary haberdashers of knowledge--cap in hand toopulent students--servile to their caprices--and, at one blow, degrading the science they profess, the teacher, and the pupil? Yet Ihear that such advice _was_ given to a Royal Commission, sent toinvestigate one or more of the Scottish universities. In the Germanuniversities, every professor holds his situation, not in his goodbehavior, but on the capricious pleasure of the young men who resort tohis market. He opens a shop, in fact: others, without limit, generallymen of no credit or known respectability, are allowed to open rivalshops; and the result is, sometimes, that the whole kennel of scoundrelprofessors ruin one another; each standing with his mouth open, to leapat any bone thrown amongst them, from the table of the "Burschen;" allhating, fighting, calumniating each other, until the land is sick ofits base knowledge-mongers, and would vomit the loathsome crew, wereany natural channel open to their instincts of abhorrence. The mostimportant of the Scottish professorships--those which are fundamentallymorticed to the moral institutions of the land--are upon the footing ofOxford tutorships, as regards emoluments; that is, they are notsuffered to keep up a precarious mendicant existence, upon the alms ofthe students, or upon their fickle admirations. It is made imperativeupon a candidate for admission into the ministry of the Scottish Kirk, that he shall show a certificate of attendance through a given numberof seasons at given lectures. 

The next item in the quarterly (or, technically, the _term_) billsof Oxford is for servants. This, in my college, and, I believe, in allothers, amounted, nominally, to two guineas a year. That sum, however, was paid to a principal servant, whom, perhaps, you seldom or neversaw; the actual attendance upon yourself being performed by one of hisdeputies; and to this deputy--who is, in effect, a _factotum_, combining in his single person all the functions of chambermaid, valet, waiter at meals, and porter or errand-boy--by the custom of the placeand your own sense of propriety, you cannot but give something or otherin the shape of perquisites. I was told, on entering, that half aguinea a quarter was the customary allowance, --the same sum, in fact, as was levied by the college for his principal; but I gave mine aguinea a quarter, thinking that little enough for the many services heperformed; and others, who were richer than myself, I dare say, oftengave much more. Yet, sometimes, it struck me, from the gratitude whichhis looks testified, on my punctual payment of this guinea, --for it wasthe only bill with regard to which I troubled myself to practise anysevere punctuality, --that perhaps some thoughtless young man might givehim less, or might even forget to give anything; and, at all events, Ihave reason to believe that half that sum would have contented him. These minutiae I record purposely; my immediate object being to give arigorous statement of the real expenses incident to an Englishuniversity education, partly as a guide to the calculations of parents, and partly as an answer to the somewhat libellous exaggerations whichare current on this subject, in times like these, when even the truthitself, and received in a spirit of candor the most indulgent, may beall too little to defend these venerable seats of learning from theruin which seems brooding over them. Yet, no! Abominable is thelanguage of despair even in a desperate situation. And, therefore, Oxford, ancient mother! and thou, Cambridge, twin-light of England! bevigilant and erect, for the enemy stands at all your gates! Twocenturies almost have passed since the boar was within your vineyards, laying waste and desolating your heritage. Yet that storm was notfinal, nor that eclipse total. May this also prove but a trial and ashadow of affliction! which affliction, may it prove to you, mightyincorporations, what, sometimes, it is to us, poor, frail_homunculi_--a process of purification, a solemn and oracularwarning! And, when that cloud is overpast, then, rise, ancient powers, wiser and better--ready, like the _lampudæphoroi_ of old, to enterupon a second _stadium_, and to transmit the sacred torch througha second period of twice [Footnote: Oxford may confessedly claim aduration of that extent; and the pretensions of Cambridge, in thatrespect, if less aspiring, are, however, as I believe, less accuratelydetermined. ] five hundred years. So prays a loyal _alumnus_, whosepresumption, if any be, in taking upon himself a monitory tone, isprivileged by zeal and filial anxiety. 

To return, however, into the track from which I have digressed. Thereader will understand that any student is at liberty to have privateservants of his own, as many and of what denomination he pleases. Thispoint, as many others of a merely personal bearing, when they happen tostand in no relation to public discipline, neither the university northe particular college of the student feels summoned or even authorizedto deal with. Neither, in fact, does any other university in Europe;and why, then, notice the case? Simply thus: if the Oxford discipline, in this particular chapter, has nothing special or peculiar about it, yet the case to which it applies _has_, and is almost exclusivelyfound in our universities. On the continent it happens most rarely thata student has any funds disposable for luxuries so eminently such asgrooms or footmen; but at Oxford and Cambridge the case occurs oftenenough to attract notice from the least vigilant eye. And thus we findset down to the credit account of other universities the non-existenceof luxury in this or other modes, whilst, meantime, it is well known tothe fair inquirer that each or all are indulgences, not at all or somuch as in idea proscribed by the sumptuary edicts of thoseuniversities; but, simply, by the lower scale of their generalrevenues. And this lower scale, it will be said--how do you account forthat? I answer, not so much by the general inferiority of continentalEurope to Great Britain in _diffusive_ wealth (though that argumentgoes for something, it being notorious that, whilst immoderatewealth, concentrated in a small number of hands, exists in variouscontinental states upon a larger scale than with us, moderately largeestates, on the other hand, are, with them, as one to two hundred, oreven two hundred and fifty, in comparison of ours), but chiefly uponthis fact, which is too much overlooked, that the foreign universitiesare not peopled from the wealthiest classes, which are the class eitheralready noble, or wishing to become such. And why is that? Purely fromthe vicious constitution of society on the continent, where all thefountains of honor lie in the military profession or in the diplomatic. We English, haters and revilers of ourselves beyond all precedent, disparagers of our own eminent advantages beyond all sufferance ofhonor or good sense, and daily playing into the hands of foreignenemies, who hate us out of mere envy or shame, have amongst us somehundreds of writers who will die or suffer martyrdom upon thisproposition--that aristocracy, and the spirit and prejudices ofaristocracy, are more operative (more effectually and more extensivelyoperative) amongst ourselves, than in any other known society of men. Now, I, who believe all errors to arise in some narrow, partial, orangular view of truth, am seldom disposed to meet any sincereaffirmation by a blank, unmodified denial. Knowing, therefore, thatsome acute observers do really believe this doctrine as to thearistocratic forces, and the way in which they mould English society, Icannot but suppose that some symptoms do really exist of such aphenomenon; and the only remark I shall here make on the case is this, that, very often, where any force or influence reposes upon deeprealities, and upon undisturbed foundations, _there_ will be theleast heard of loquacious and noisy expressions of its power; whichexpressions arise most, not where the current is most violent, butwhere (being possibly the weakest) it is most fretted with resistance. 

In England, the very reason why the aristocratic feeling makes itselfso sensibly felt and so distinctly an object of notice to thecensorious observer is, because it maintains a troubled existenceamongst counter and adverse influences, so many and so potent. Thismight be illustrated abundantly. But, as respects the particularquestion before me, it will be sufficient to say this: With us theprofession and exercise of knowledge, as a means of livelihood, ishonorable; on the continent it is not so. The knowledge, for instance, which is embodied in the three learned professions, does, with us, leadto distinction and civil importance; no man can pretend to deny this;nor, by consequence, that the professors personally take rank with thehighest order of gentlemen. Are they not, I demand, everywhere with uson the same footing, in point of rank and consideration, as those whobear the king's commission in the army and navy? Can this be affirmedof the continent, either generally, or, indeed, partially? I say, _no_. Let us take Germany, as an illustration. Many towns (foranything I know, all) present us with a regular bisection of theresident _notables_, or wealthier class, into two distinct (oftenhostile) coteries: one being composed of those who are "_noble_;"the other, of families equally well educated and accomplished, but_not_, in the continental sense, "noble. " The meaning and value ofthe word is so entirely misapprehended by the best English writers, being, in fact, derived from our own way of applying it, that itbecomes important to ascertain its true value. A "nobility, " which isnumerous enough to fill a separate ball-room in every sixth-rate town, it needs no argument to show, cannot be a nobility in any Englishsense. In fact, an _edelmann_ or nobleman, in the German sense, isstrictly what we mean by a _born gentleman_; with this one onlydifference, that, whereas, with us, the rank which denominates a mansuch passes off by shades so insensible, and almost infinite, into theranks below, that it becomes impossible to assign it any strictdemarkation or lines of separation; on the contrary, the continentalnoble points to certain fixed barriers, in the shape of privileges, which divide him, _per saltum_, from those who are below his ownorder. But were it not for this one legal benefit of accuratecircumscription and slight favor, the continental noble, whether Baronof Germany, Count of France, or Prince of Sicily and of Russia, issimply on a level with the common landed _esquire_ of Britain, and_not_ on a level in very numerous cases. 

Such being the case, how paramount must be the spirit of aristocracy incontinental society! Our _haute noblesse_--our genuine nobility, who are such in the general feeling of their compatriots--will do_that_ which the phantom of nobility of the continent will not:the spurious nobles of Germany will not mix, on equal terms, with theiruntitled fellow-citizens, living in the same city and in the same styleas themselves; they will not meet them in the same ball or concert-room. Our great territorial nobility, though sometimes formingexclusive circles (but not, however, upon any principle of high birth), do so daily. They mix as equal partakers in the same amusements ofraces, balls, musical assemblies, with the baronets (or _elite_ ofthe gentry); with the landed esquires (or middle gentry); with thesuperior order of tradesmen (who, in Germany, are absolute ciphers, forpolitical weight, or social consideration, but, with us, constitute thelower and broader stratum of the nobilitas, [Footnote: It may benecessary to inform some readers that the word _noble_, by whichso large a system of imposition and fraud, as to the composition offoreign society, has long been practised upon the credulity of theBritish, corresponds to our word _gentlemanly_ (or, rather, to thevulgar word _genteel_, if that word were ever used legally, or_extra gradum_), not merely upon the argument of its _virtual_and operative value in the general estimate of men (that is, upon the argument that a count, baron, &c. , does not, _qua_such, command any deeper feeling of respect or homage than a Britishesquire), but also upon the fact, that, originally, in all Englishregisters, as, for instance, in the Oxford matriculation registers, allthe upper gentry (knights, esquires, &c. ) are technically designated bythe word _nobiles_. --_See Chambeilayuc_, &c. ] or gentry). Theobscure baronage of Germany, it is undeniable, insist upon having "anatmosphere of their own;" whilst the Howards, the Stanleys, theTalbots, of England; the Hamiltons, the Douglases, the Gordons, ofScotland, are content to acknowledge a sympathy with the liberal partof their untitled countrymen, in that point which most searchinglytries the principle of aristocratic pride, namely, in their pleasures. To have the same pursuits of business with another, may be a result ofaccident or position; to have the same pleasures, being a matter ofchoice, argues a community of nature in the _moral_ sensibilities, in that part of our constitution which differences one man from anotherin the capacities of greatness and elevation. As with their amusements, so with their graver employments; the same mutual repulsion continuesto divide the two orders through life. 

The nobles either live in gloomy seclusion upon their private funds, wherever the privilege of primogeniture has enabled them to do so; or, having no funds at all (the case of ninety-nine in one hundred), theygo into the army; that profession, the profession of arms, beingregarded as the only one compatible with an _edelmann's_ pretensions. Such was once the feeling in England; such is still the feelingon the continent. It is a prejudice naturally clinging to asemi-barbarous (because growing out of a barbarous) state, and, in itsdegree, clinging to every stage of imperfect civilization; and, werethere no other argument, this would be a sufficient one, that England, under free institutions, has outrun the continent, in realcivilization, by a century; a fact which is concealed by the forms ofluxurious refinement in a few exclusive classes, too often usurping thename and honors of radical civilization. 

From the super-appreciation of the military profession arises acorresponding contempt of all other professions whatsoever _paid byfellow-citizens_, and not by the king or the state. The clericalprofession is in the most abject degradation throughout SouthernGermany; and the reason why this forces itself less imperiously uponthe public notice is, that, in rural situations, from the absence of aresident gentry (speaking generally), the pastor is brought into rarecollision with those who style themselves _noble_; whilst, intowns, the clergy find people enough to countenance those who, being inthe same circumstances as to comfort and liberal education, are alsounder the same ban of rejection from the "nobility, " or born gentry. The legal profession is equally degraded; even a barrister or advocateholds a place in the public esteem little differing from that of an OldBailey attorney of the worst class. And this result is the less liableto modification from personal qualities, inasmuch as there is no greattheatre (as with us) for individual display. Forensic eloquence isunknown in Germany, as it is too generally on the continent, from thedefect of all popular or open judicatures. A similar defect ofdeliberative assemblies--such, at least, as represent any popularinfluences and debate with open doors--intercepts the very possibilityof senatorial eloquence. [Footnote: The subject is amusinglyillustrated by an anecdote of Goethe, recorded by himself in hisautobiography. Some physiognomist, or phrenologist, had found out, inGoethe's structure of head, the sure promise of a great orator. "Strange infatuation of nature!" observes Goethe, on this assurance, "to endow me so richly and liberally for that particular destinationwhich only the institutions of my country render impossible. Music forthe deaf! Eloquence without an audience!"] That of the pulpit onlyremains. But even of this--whether it be from want of the excitementand contagious emulation from the other fields of oratory, or from thepeculiar genius of Lutheranism--no models have yet arisen that could, for one moment, sustain a comparison with those of England or France. The highest names in this department would not, to a foreign ear, carrywith them any of that significance or promise which surrounds the namesof Jeremy Taylor or Barrow, Bossuet or Bourdaloue, to those even whohave no personal acquaintance with their works. This absence of allfields for gathering public distinctions cooperates, in a very powerfulway, with the contempt of the born gentry, to degrade theseprofessions; and this double agency is, a third time, reinforced bythose political arrangements which deny every form of state honor orconspicuous promotion to the very highest description of excellence, whether of the bar, the pulpit, or the civic council. Not "the fluentMurray, " or the accomplished Erskine, from the English bar--notPericles or Demosthenes, from the fierce democracies of Greece--notPaul preaching at Athens--could snatch a wreath from public homage, nora distinction from the state, nor found an influence, nor leave behindthem an operative model, in Germany, as now constituted. Other walks ofemolument are still more despised. Alfieri, a continental "noble, " thatis, a born gentleman, speaks of bankers as we in England should of aJewish usurer, or tricking money-changer. The liberal trades, such asthose which minister to literature or the fine arts, which, with us, confer the station of gentleman upon those who exercise them, are, inthe estimate of a continental "noble, " fitted to assign a certain rankor place in the train and equipage of a gentleman, but not to entitletheir most eminent professors to sit down, except by sufferance, in hispresence. And, upon this point, let not the reader derive his notionsfrom the German books: the vast majority of German authors are not"noble;" and, of those who are, nine tenths are liberal in thisrespect, and speak the language of liberality, not by sympathy withtheir own order, or as representing _their_ feelings, but in virtueof democratic or revolutionary politics. 

Such as the rank is, and the public estimation of the leadingprofessions, such is the natural condition of the universities whichrear them. The "nobles" going generally into the army, or leading livesof indolence, the majority by far of those who resort to universitiesdo so as a means of future livelihood. Few seek an academic life inGermany who have either money to throw away on superfluities andexternal show, or who have such a rank to support as might stimulatetheir pride to expenses beyond their means. Parsimony is, therefore, inthese places, the governing law; and pleasure, not less fervently wooedthan at Oxford or at Cambridge, putting off her robes of elegance andceremony, descends to grossness, and not seldom to abject brutality. 

The sum of my argument is--that, because, in comparison of the army, noother civil profession is, in itself, held of sufficient dignity; andnot less, perhaps, because, under governments essentially unpopular, none of these professions has been so dignified artificially by thestate, or so attached to any ulterior promotion, either through thestate or in the state, as to meet the demands of aristocratic pride--none of them is cultivated as a means of distinction, but originally asa means of livelihood; that the universities, as the nurseries of theseunhonored professions, share naturally in _their_ degradation; andthat, from this double depreciation of the place and its final objects, few or none resort thither who can be supposed to bring any extra fundsfor supporting a system of luxury; that the general temperance, orsobriety of demeanor, is far enough, however, from keeping pace withthe absence of costly show; and that, for this absence even, we are tothank their poverty rather than their will. It is to the great honor, in my opinion, of our own country, that those often resort to herfountains who have no motive but that of disinterested reverence forknowledge; seeking, as all men perceive, neither emolument directlyfrom university funds, nor knowledge as the means of emolument. Doubtless, it is neither dishonorable, nor, on a large scale, possibleto be otherwise, that students should pursue their academic careerchiefly as ministerial to their capital object of a future livelihood. But still I contend that it is for the interest of science and goodletters that a considerable body of volunteers should gather abouttheir banners, without pay or hopes of preferment. This takes place ona larger scale at Oxford and Cambridge than elsewhere; and it is but atrivial concession in return, on the part of the university, that sheshould allow, even if she had the right to withhold, the privilege ofliving within her walls as they would have lived at their fathers'seats; with one only reserve, applied to all modes of expense that are, in themselves, immoral excesses, or occasions of scandal, or of anature to interfere too much with the natural hours of study, orspecially fitted to tempt others of narrower means to ruinousemulation. 

Upon these principles, as it seems to me, the discipline of theuniversity is founded. The keeping of hunters, for example, isunstatutable. Yet, on the other hand, it is felt to be inevitable thatyoung men of high spirit, familiar with this amusement, will find meansto pursue it in defiance of all the powers, however exerted, that canproperly be lodged in the hands of academic officers. The range of theproctor's jurisdiction is limited by positive law; and what shouldhinder a young man, bent upon his pleasure, from fixing the station ofhis hunter a few miles out of Oxford, and riding to cover on a hack, unamenable to any censure? For, surely, in this age, no man couldpropose so absurd a thing as a general interdiction of riding. How, infact, does the university proceed? She discountenances the practice;and, if forced upon her notice, she visits it with censure, and thatsort of punishment which lies within her means. But she takes no painsto search out a trespass, which, by the mere act of seeking to evadepublic display in the streets of the university, already tends to limititself; and which, besides, from its costliness, can never become aprominent nuisance. This I mention as illustrating the spirit of herlegislation; and, even in this case, the reader must carry along withhim the peculiar distinction which I have pressed with regard toEnglish universities, in the existence of a large volunteer order ofstudents seeking only the liberalization, and not the profits, ofacademic life. In arguing upon their case, it is not the fair logic tosay: These pursuits taint the decorum of the studious character; it isnot fair to calculate how much is lost to the man of letters by suchaddiction to fox-hunting; but, on the contrary, what is gained to thefox-hunter, who would, at any rate, be such, by so considerable ahomage paid to letters, and so inevitable a commerce with men oflearning. Anything whatsoever attained in this direction, is probablyso much more than would have been attained under a system of lesstoleration. _Lucro ponamus_, we say, of the very least success insuch a case. But, in speaking of toleration as applied to acts orhabits positively against the statutes, I limit my meaning to thosewhich, in their own nature, are morally indifferent, and arediscountenanced simply as indirectly injurious, or as peculiarly opento excess. Because, on graver offences (as gambling, &c. ), themalicious impeachers of Oxford must well have known that no tolerationwhatsoever is practised or thought of. Once brought under the eye ofthe university in a clear case and on clear evidence, it would bepunished in the most exemplary way open to a limited authority; by_rustication_, at least--that is, banishment for a certain numberof terms, and consequent loss of these terms--supposing the utmostpalliation of circumstances; and, in an aggravated case, or in a secondoffence, most certainly by final expulsion. 

But it is no part of duty to serve the cause even of good morals byimpure means; and it is as difficult beforehand to prevent theexistence of vicious practices so long as men have, and ought to have, the means of seclusion liable to no violation, as it is afterwardsdifficult, without breach of honor, to obtain proof of their existence. Gambling has been known to exist in some dissenting institutions; and, in my opinion, with no blame to the presiding authorities. As to Oxfordin particular, no such habit was generally prevalent in my time; it isnot an English vice; nor did I ever hear of any great losses sustainedin this way. But, were it otherwise, I must hold, that, considering thenumbers, rank, and great opulence, of the students, such a habit wouldimpeach the spirit and temper of the age rather than the vigilance ormagisterial fidelity of the Oxford authorities. They are limited, likeother magistrates, by honor and circumstances, in a thousand ways; andif a knot of students will choose to meet for purposes of gaming, theymust always have it in their power to baffle every honorable orbecoming attempt at detecting them. But upon this subject I shall maketwo statements, which may have some effect in moderating theuncharitable judgments upon Oxford discipline. The first respects theage of those who are the objects of this discipline; on which point avery grave error prevails. In the last Parliament, not once, but manytimes over, Lord Brougham and others assumed that the students ofOxford were chiefly _boys_; and this, not idly or casually, butpointedly, and with a view to an ulterior argument; for instance, byway of proving how little they were entitled to judge of those thirty-nine articles to which their assent was demanded. Now, this argued avery extraordinary ignorance; and the origin of the error showed thelevity in which their legislation was conducted. These noble lords haddrawn their ideas of a university exclusively from Glasgow. Here, it iswell known, and I mention it neither for praise nor blame, thatstudents are in the habit of coming at the early age of fourteen. Thesemay allowably be styled _boys_. But, with regard to Oxford, eighteen is about the _earliest_ age at which young men begintheir residence: twenty and upwards is, therefore, the age of themajority; that is, twenty is the _minimum_ of age for the vastmajority; as there must always be more men of three years' standing, than of two or of one. Apply this fact to the question of discipline:young men beyond twenty, generally, --that is to say, of the age whichqualifies men for seats in the national council, --can hardly, withdecency, either be called or treated as boys; and many things becomeimpossible as applied to _them_, which might be of easy impositionupon an assemblage _really_ childish. In mere justice, therefore, when speculating upon this whole subject of Oxford discipline, thereader must carry along with him, at every step, the recollection ofthat signal difference as to age, which I have now stated, betweenOxonians and those students whom the hostile party contemplate in theirarguments. [Footnote: Whilst I am writing, a debate of the presentParliament, reported on Saturday, March 7, 1835, presents us with adeterminate repetition of the error which I have been exposing; and, again, as in the last Parliament, this error is not _inert_, butis used for a hostile (apparently a malicious) purpose; nay, which isremarkable, it is the _sole_ basis upon which the followingargument reposes. Lord Radnor again assumes that the students of Oxfordare "boys;" he is again supported in this misrepresentation by LordBrougham; and again the misrepresentation is applied to a purpose ofassault upon the English universities, but especially upon Oxford. Andthe nature of the assault does not allow any latitude in construing theword _boys_, nor any room for evasion as respects the totalcharge, except what goes the length of a total retraction. The chargeis, that, in a requisition made at the very threshold of academic life, upon the under standing and the honor of the students, the universityburdens their consciences to an extent, which, in after life, whenreflection has enlightened them to the meaning of their engagements, proves either a snare to those who trifle with their engagements, or aninsupportable burden to those who do not. For the inculpation of theparty imposing such oaths, it is essential that the party taking themshould be in a childish condition of the moral sense, and the sense ofresponsibility; whereas, amongst the Oxonian _under_-graduates, Iwill venture to say that the number is larger of those who rise abovethan of those who fall below twenty; and, as to sixteen (assumed as therepresentative age by Lord Radnor), in my time, I heard of only onestudent, amongst, perhaps, sixteen hundred, who was so young. I grieveto see that the learned prelate, who replied to the assailants, was somuch taken by surprise; the defence might have been made triumphant. With regard to oaths incompatible with the spirit of modern manners, and yet formally unrepealed--_that_ is a case of neglect andindolent oversight. But the _gravamen_ of that reproach does notpress exclusively upon Oxford; all the ancient institutions of Europeare tainted in the same way, more especially the monastic orders of theRomish church. ] Meantime, to show that, even under every obstaclepresented by this difference of age, the Oxford authorities do, nevertheless, administer their discipline with fidelity, withintrepidity, and with indifference as respects the high and the low, Ishall select from a crowd of similar recollections two anecdotes, whichare but trifles in themselves, and yet are not such to him whorecognizes them as expressions of a uniform system of dealing. 

A great whig lord (Earl C----) happened (it may be ten years ago) topresent himself one day at Trinity (the leading college of Cambridge), for the purpose of introducing Lord F----ch, his son, as a futuremember of that splendid society. Possibly it mortified his aristocraticfeelings to hear the head of the college, even whilst welcoming theyoung nobleman in courteous terms, yet suggesting, with some solemnity, that, before taking any final resolution in the matter, his lordshipwould do well to consider whether he were fully prepared to submithimself to college discipline; for that, otherwise, it became his ownduty frankly to declare that the college would not look upon hisaccession to their society as any advantage. This language arose out ofsome recent experience of refractory and turbulent conduct upon thepart of various young men of rank; but it is very possible that thenoble earl, in his surprise at a salutation so uncourtly, might regardit, in a tory mouth, as having some lurking reference to his own whigpolitics. If so, he must have been still more surprised to hear ofanother case, which would meet him before he left Cambridge, and whichinvolved some frank dealing as well as frank speaking, when a privilegeof exception might have been presumed, if tory politics, or servicesthe most memorable, could ever create such a privilege. The Duke of W----had two sons at Oxford. The affair is now long past; and it cannotinjure either of them to say, that one of the brothers trespassedagainst the college discipline, in some way, which compelled (or wasthought to compel) the presiding authorities into a solemn notice ofhis conduct. Expulsion appeared to be the appropriate penalty of hisoffences: but, at this point, a just hesitation arose. Not in anyservile spirit, but under a proper feeling of consideration for soeminent a public benefactor as this young nobleman's father, the rulerspaused--and at length signified to him that he was at liberty towithdraw himself privately from the college, but also, and at the sametime, from the university. He did so; and his brother, conceiving himto have been harshly treated, withdrew also; and both transferredthemselves to Cambridge. That could not be prevented: but there theywere received with marked reserve. One was _not_ received, Ibelieve, in a technical sense; and the other was receivedconditionally; and such restrictions were imposed upon his futureconduct as served most amply, and in a case of great notoriety, tovindicate the claims of discipline, and, in an extreme case, a case soeminently an extreme one that none like it is ever likely to recur, toproclaim the footing upon which the very highest rank is received atthe English universities. Is that footing peculiar _to them_? Iwillingly believe that it is not; and, with respect to Edinburgh andGlasgow, I am persuaded that their weight of dignity is quitesufficient, and would be exerted to secure the same subordination frommen of rank, if circumstances should ever bring as large a number ofthat class within their gates, and if their discipline were equallyapplicable to the habits of students not domiciled within their walls. But, as to the smaller institutions for education within the pale ofdissent, I feel warranted in asserting, from the spirit of theanecdotes which have reached me, that they have not the_auctoritas_ requisite for adequately maintaining their dignity. 

So much for the aristocracy of our English universities: their gloryis, and the happiest application of their vast influence, that theyhave the power to be republican, as respects their internal condition. Literature, by substituting a different standard of rank, tends torepublican equality; and, as one instance of this, properly belongingto the chapter of _servants_, which originally led to thisdiscussion, it ought to be known that the class of "servitors, " once alarge body in Oxford, have gradually become practically extinct underthe growing liberality of the age. They carried in their academic dressa mark of their inferiority; they waited at dinner on those of higherrank, and performed other menial services, humiliating to themselves, and latterly felt as no less humiliating to the general name andinterests of learning. The better taste, or rather the relaxingpressure of aristocratic prejudice, arising from the vast diffusion oftrade and the higher branches of mechanic art, have gradually causedthese functions of the order (even where the law would not permit theextinction of the order) to become obsolete. In my time, I wasacquainted with two servitors: but one of them was rapidly pushedforward into a higher station; and the other complained of nodegradation, beyond the grievous one of exposing himself to the noticeof young women in the streets, with an untasselled cap; but this hecontrived to evade, by generally going abroad without his academicdress. The _servitors_ of Oxford are the _sizars_ of Cambridge; and Ibelieve the same changes [Footnote: These changes have beenaccomplished, according to my imperfect knowledge of the case, intwo ways: first, by dispensing with the services whenever that could bedone; and, secondly, by a wise discontinuance of the order itself inthose colleges which were left to their own choice in this matter. ]have taken place in both. 

One only account with the college remains to be noticed; but this isthe main one. It is expressed in the bills by the word _battels_, derived from the old monkish word _patella_ (or batella), a plate;and it comprehends whatsoever is furnished for dinner and for supper, including malt liquor, but not wine, as well as the materials forbreakfast, or for any casual refreshment to country visitors, exceptingonly groceries. These, together with coals and fagots, candles, wine, fruit, and other more trifling _extras_, which are matters ofpersonal choice, form so many private accounts against your name, andare usually furnished by tradesmen living near to the college, andsending their servants daily to receive orders. Supper, as a meal notuniversally taken, in many colleges is served privately in thestudent's own room; though some colleges still retain the ancientcustom of a public supper. But dinner is, in all colleges, a publicmeal, taken in the refectory or "hall" of the society; which, with thechapel and library, compose the essential public _suite_ belongingto every college alike. No absence is allowed, except to the sick, orto those who have formally applied for permission to give a dinner-party. A fine is imposed on all other cases of absence. Wine is notgenerally allowed in the public hall, except to the "high table, " thatis, the table at which the fellows and some other privileged personsare entitled to dine. The head of the college rarely dines in public. The other tables, and, after dinner, the high table, usually adjourn totheir wine, either upon invitations to private parties, or to what arecalled the "common rooms" of the several orders--graduates andundergraduates, &c. The dinners are always plain, and withoutpretensions--those, I mean, in the public hall; indeed, nothing_can_ be plainer in most colleges--a simple choice between two orthree sorts of animal food, and the common vegetables. No fish, even asa regular part of the fare; no soups, no game; nor, except on some veryrare festivity, did I ever see a variation from this plain fare atOxford. This, indeed, is proved sufficiently by the average amount ofthe _battels_. Many men "battel" at the rate of a guinea a week: Idid so for years: that is, at the rate of three shillings a day foreverything connected with meals, excepting only tea, sugar, milk, andwine. It is true that wealthier men, more expensive men, and morecareless men, often "battelled" much higher; but, if they persisted inthis excess, they incurred censures, more and more urgent, from thehead of the college. 

Now, let us sum up; premising that the extreme duration of residence inany college at Oxford amounts to something under thirty weeks. It ispossible to keep "short terms, " as the phrase is, by a residence ofthirteen weeks, or ninety-one days; but, as this abridged residence isnot allowed, except in here and there a college, I shall assume--assomething beyond the strict _maximum_ of residence--thirty weeksas my basis. The account will then stand thus:

 1. Rooms, ......................................... £10 10 0 2. Tutorage, ................ ..................... 10 10 0 3. Servants (subject to the explanations made above), say........................................... 5 5 0 4. Battels (allowing one shilling a day beyond what I and others spent in much dearer times; that is, allowing twenty-eight shillings weekly), for thirty weeks, .................................. 40 4 0 -------- £66 9 0

This will be a liberal calculation for the college bill. What remains?1. Candles, which the reader will best calculate upon the standard ofhis own general usage in this particular. 2. Coals, which areremarkably dear at Oxford--dearer, perhaps, than anywhere else in theisland; say, three times as dear as at Edinburgh. 3. Groceries. 4. Wine. 5. Washing. This last article was, in my time, regulated by thecollege, as there were certain privileged washer-women, between whomand the students it was but fair that some proper authority shouldinterfere to prevent extortion, in return for the monopoly granted. Sixguineas was the regulated sum; but this paid for everything, --table-linen, &c. , as well as for wearing apparel; and it was understood tocover the whole twenty-eight or thirty weeks. However, it was open toevery man to make his own arrangements, by insisting on a separatecharge for each separate article. All other expenses of a merelypersonal nature, such as postage, public amusements, books, clothes, &c. , as they have no special connection with Oxford, but would, probably, be balanced by corresponding, if not the very same, expensesin any other place or situation, I do not calculate. What I havespecified are the expenses which would accrue to a student inconsequence of leaving his father's house. The rest would, in thesedays, be the same, perhaps, everywhere. How much, then, shall we assumeas the total charge on account of Oxford? Candles, considering thequantity of long days amongst the thirty weeks, may be had for oneshilling and sixpence a week; for few students--unless they have livedin India, after which a physical change occurs in the sensibility ofthe nostrils--are finical enough to burn wax-lights. This will amountto two pounds, five shillings. Coals, say sixpence a day; forthreepence a day will amply feed one grate in Edinburgh; and there aremany weeks in the thirty which will demand no fire at all. Groceriesand wine, which are all that remain, I cannot calculate. But suppose weallow for the first a shilling a day, which will be exactly ten guineasfor thirty weeks; and for the second, nothing at all. Then the extras, in addition to the college bills, will stand thus:

 Washing for thirty weeks, at the privileged rate, .. £6 6 0 Candles, ........................................... 2 5 0 Fire, .............................................. 5 5 0 Groceries, ......................................... 10 10 0 --------- Total, ..... £24 6 0

The college bills, therefore, will be sixty-six pounds, nine shillings;the extras, not furnished by the college, will be about twenty-fourpounds, six shillings, --making a total amount of ninety pounds, fifteenshillings. And for this sum, annually, a man may defray _every_expense incident to an Oxford life, through a period of weeks (namely, thirty) something more than he will be permitted to reside. It is true, that, for the _first_ year, there will be, in addition to this, his outfit: and for _every_ year there will be his journeys. Therewill also be twenty-two weeks uncovered by this estimate; but for theseit is not my business to provide, who deal only with Oxford. 

That this estimate is true, I know too feelingly. Would that it were_not_! would that it were false! Were it so, I might the betterjustify to myself that commerce with fraudulent Jews which led me soearly to commence the dilapidation of my small fortune. It _is_true; and true for a period (1804-8) far dearer than this. And to anyman who questions its accuracy I address this particular request--thathe will lay his hand upon the special item which he disputes. Ianticipate that he will answer thus: "I dispute none: it is not bypositive things that your estimate errs, but by negations. It is theabsence of all allowance for indispensable items that vitiates thecalculation. " Very well: but to this, as to other things, we may applythe words of Dr. Johnson--"Sir, the reason I drink no wine, is becauseI can practise abstinence, but not temperance. " Yes: in all things, abstinence is easier than temperance; for a little enjoyment hasinvariably the effect of awaking the sense of enjoyment, irritating it, and setting it on edge. I, therefore, recollecting my own case, haveallowed for _no_ wine-parties. Let our friend, the abstraction weare speaking of, give breakfast-parties, if he chooses to give any; andcertainly to give none at all, unless he were dedicated to study, wouldseem very churlish. Nobody can be less a friend than myself to monkishand ascetic seclusion, unless it were for twenty-three hours out of thetwenty-four. 

But, however this be settled, let no mistake be made; nor let that becharged against the system which is due to the habits of individuals. Early in the last century, Dr. Newton, the head of a college in Oxford, wrote a large book against the Oxford system, as ruinously expensive. But then, as now, the real expense was due to no cause over which thecolleges could exercise any effectual control. It is due exclusively tothe habits of social intercourse amongst the young men; from which_he_ may abstain who chooses. But, for any academic authorities tointerfere by sumptuary laws with the private expenditure of grown men, many of them, in a legal sense, _of age_, and all near it, mustappear romantic and extravagant, for this (or, indeed, any) stage ofsociety. A tutor being required, about 1810, to fix the amount ofallowance for a young man of small fortune, nearly related to myself, pronounced three hundred and twenty pounds little enough. He had thisallowance, and was ruined in consequence of the credit which itprocured for him, and the society it connected him with. The majorityhave two hundred pounds a year: but my estimate stands good, for allthat. 

Having stated, generally, the expenses of the Oxford system, I ambound, in candor, to mention one variety in the mode of carrying thissystem into effect, open to every man's adoption, which confers certainprivileges, but, at the same time (by what exact mode, I know not), considerably increases the cost, and in that degree disturbs mycalculation. The great body of undergraduates, or students, are dividedinto two classes--_Commoners_, and _Gentlemen Commoners_. Perhapsnineteen out of twenty belong to the former class; and it isfor that class, as having been my own, that I have made my estimate. The other class of _Gentlemen Commoners_ (who, at Cambridge, bearthe name of _Fellow Commoners_) wear a peculiar dress, and havesome privileges which naturally imply some corresponding increase ofcost; but why this increase should go to the extent of doubling thetotal expense, as it is generally thought to do, or how it _can_go to that extent, I am unable to explain. The differences which attachto the rank of "Gentlemen Commoners" are these: At his entrance he paysdouble "caution money;" that is, whilst Commoners in general pay abouttwenty-five guineas, he pays fifty; but this can occur only once; and, besides, in strict point of right, this sum is only a deposit, and isliable to be withdrawn on leaving the university, though it is commonlyenough finally presented to the college in the shape of plate. The nextdifference is, that, by comparison with the Commoner, he wears a muchmore costly dress. The Commoner's gown is made of what is called_prince's stuff_; and, together with the cap, costs about fiveguineas. But the Gentleman Commoner has two gowns--an undress for themorning, and a full dress-gown for the evening; both are made of silk, and the latter is very elaborately ornamented. The cap also is morecostly, being covered with velvet instead of cloth. At Cambridge, again, the tassel is made of gold fringe or bullion, which, in Oxford, is peculiar to the caps of noblemen; and there are many other varietiesin that university, where the dress for "pensioners" (that is, theOxford "Commoners") is specially varied in almost every college; theobject being, perhaps, to give a ready means to the academic officersfor ascertaining, at a glance, not merely the general fact that such orsuch a delinquent is a gownsman (which is all that can be ascertainedat Oxford), but also the particular college to which he belongs. Allowance being made for these two items of "dress" and "caution-money, " both of which apply only to the original outfit, I know of noothers in which the expenditure of a Gentleman Commoner ought toexceed, or could with propriety exceed, those of a Commoner. He has, indeed, a privilege as regards the choice of rooms; he chooses first, and probably chooses those rooms which, being best, are dearest; thatis, they are on a level with the best; but usually there are many setsalmost equally good; and of these the majority will be occupied byCommoners. So far, there is little opening for a difference. Moreoften, again, it will happen that a man of this aristocratic classkeeps a private servant; yet this happens also to Commoners, and is, besides, no properly college expense. Tutorage is charged double to aGentleman Commoner--namely, twenty guineas a year: this is done upon afiction (as it sometimes turns out) of separate attention, or aid givenin a private way to his scholastic pursuits. Finally, there arisesnaturally another and peculiar source of expense to the "GentlemanCommoner, " from a fact implied in his Cambridge designation of"_Fellow_ Commoner, " _commensalis_--namely, that he associatesat meals with the "fellows" and other authorities of the college. Yet this again expresses rather the particular shape which hisexpenditure assumes than any absolute increase in its amount. Hesubscribes to a regular mess, and pays, therefore, whether present ornot; but so, in a partial sense, does the Commoner, by his forfeits for"absent commons. " He subscribes also to a regular fund for wine; and, therefore, he does not enjoy that immunity from wine-drinking which isopen to the Commoner. Yet, again, as the Commoner does but rarely availhimself of this immunity, as he drinks no less wine than the GentlemanCommoner, and, generally speaking, wine not worse in quality, it isdifficult to see any ground for a regular assumption of higherexpenditure in the one class than the other. However, the universalimpression favors that assumption. All people believe that the rank ofGentleman Commoner imposes an expensive burden, though few people everask why. As a matter of fact, I believe it to be true that GentlemenCommoners spend more by a third, or a half, than any equal number ofCommoners, taken without selection. And the reason is obvious: thosewho become Gentlemen Commoners are usually determined to that course bythe accident of having very large funds; they are eldest sons, or onlysons, or men already in possession of estates, or else (which is ascommon a case as all the rest put together) they are the heirs ofnewly-acquired wealth--sons of the _nouveaux riches_--a classwhich often requires a generation or two to rub off the insolence of atoo conscious superiority. I have called them an "aristocratic" class;but, in strictness, they are not such; they form a privileged class, indeed, but their privileges are few and trifling, not to add thatthese very privileges are connected with one or two burdens, more thanoutweighing them in the estimate of many; and, upon the whole, thechief distinction they enjoy is that of advertising themselves to thepublic as men of great wealth, or great expectations; and, therefore, as subjects peculiarly adapted to fraudulent attempts. Accordingly, itis not found that the sons of the nobility are much inclined to enterthis order: these, if they happen to be the eldest sons of earls, or ofany peers above the rank of viscount, so as to enjoy a title themselvesby the courtesy of England, have special privileges in bothuniversities as to length of residence, degrees, &c. ; and their rank isascertained by a special dress. These privileges it is not usual toforego; though sometimes that happens, as, in my time, in the instanceof Lord George Grenville (now Lord Nugent); he neither entered at thearistocratic college (Christ Church), nor wore the dress of a nobleman. Generally, however, an elder son appears in his true character ofnobleman; but the younger sons rarely enter the class of GentlemenCommoners. They enter either as "Commoners, " or under some of thosevarious designations ("scholars, " "demies, " "students, " "juniorfellows") which imply that they stand upon the foundation of thecollege to which they belong, and are aspirants for academicemoluments. 

Upon the whole, I am disposed to regard this order of GentlemenCommoners as a standing temptation held out by authority to expensivehabits, and a very unbecoming proclamation of honor paid to thearistocracy of wealth. And I know that many thoughtful men regard it inthe same light with myself, and regret deeply that any suchdistribution of ranks should be authorized, as a stain upon thesimplicity and general manliness of the English academic laws. It is anopen profession of homage and indulgence to wealth, _as_ wealth--to wealth disconnected from everything that might ally it to theancestral honors and heraldries of the land. It is also an invitation, or rather a challenge, to profuse expenditure. Regularly, and by law, aGentleman Commoner is liable to little heavier burdens than a Commoner;but, to meet the expectations of those around him, and to act up to thepart he has assumed, he must spend more, and he must be more carelessin controlling his expenditure, than a moderate and prudent Commoner. In every light, therefore, I condemn the institution, and give it up tothe censures of the judicious. So much in candor I concede. But, toshow equal candor on the other side, it must be remembered that thisinstitution descends to us from ancient times, when wealth was not sooften divided from territorial or civic honors, conferring a realprecedency. 

III. 

OXFORD. 

There was one reason why I sought solitude at that early age, andsought it in a morbid excess, which must naturally have conferred uponmy character some degree of that interest which belongs to allextremes. My eye had been couched into a secondary power of vision, bymisery, by solitude, by sympathy with life in all its modes, byexperience too early won, and by the sense of danger criticallyescaped. Suppose the case of a man suspended by some colossal arm overan unfathomed abyss, --suspended, but finally and slowly withdrawn, --itis probable that he would not smile for years. That was my case: for Ihave not mentioned, in the "Opium Confessions, " a thousandth part ofthe sufferings I underwent in London and in Wales; partly because themisery was too monotonous, and, in that respect, unfitted fordescription; but, still more, because there is a mysterious sensibilityconnected with real suffering which recoils from circumstantialrehearsal or delincation, as from violation offered to somethingsacred, and which is, or should be, dedicated to privacy. Grief doesnot parade its pangs, nor the anguish of despairing hunger willinglycount again its groans or its humiliations. Hence it was that Ledyard, the traveller, speaking of his Russian experiences, used to say thatsome of his miseries were such, that he never _would_ reveal them. Besides all which, I really was not at liberty to speak, without manyreserves, on this chapter of my life, at a period (1821) not twentyyears removed from the actual occurrences, unless I desired to courtthe risk of crossing at every step the existing law of libel, so fullof snares and man-traps, to the careless equally with the conscientiouswriter. This is a consideration which some of my critics have lostsight of in a degree which surprises me. One, for example, puts it tohis readers whether any house such as I describe as the abode of mymoney-lending friend could exist "_in_ Oxford-street;" and, at thesame time, he states, as circumstances drawn from my description, but, in fact, pure coinages of his own, certain romantic impossibilities, which, doubtless, could as little attach to a house in Oxford-street asthey could to a house in any other quarter of London. Meantime, I hadsufficiently indicated that, whatsoever street _was_ concerned inthat affair, Oxford-street was _not_; and it is remarkable enough, as illustrating this amiable reviewer's veracity, that no one street inLondon was absolutely excluded but one; and that one, Oxford-street. For I happened to mention that, on such a day (my birth-day), I hadturned aside _from_ Oxford-street to look at the house in question. I will now add that this house was in Greek-street: so much itmay be safe to say. But every candid reader will see that bothprudential restraints, and also disinterested regard to the feelings ofpossibly amiable descendants from a vicious man, would operate with anythoughtful writer, in such a case, to impose reserve upon his pen. Hadmy guardians, had my money-lending friend of Jewry, and othersconcerned in my memoirs, been so many shadows, bodiless abstractions, and without earthly connections, I might readily have given my ownnames to my own creations, and have treated them as unceremoniously asI pleased. Not so under the real circumstances of the case. My chiefguardian, for instance, though obstinate to a degree which risked thehappiness and the life of his ward, was an upright man otherwise; andhis children are entitled to value his memory. 

Again, my Greek-street _trapexitæs_, the "_foenerator Alpheus_, "who delighted to reap where he had not sown, and too often (I fear)allowed himself in practices which not impossibly have longsince been found to qualify him for distant climates and "Botanic"regions, --even he, though I might truly describe him as a merehighwayman, whenever he happened to be aware that I had received afriendly loan, yet, like other highwaymen of repute, and "gentlethieves, " was not inexorable to the petitions of his victim: he wouldsometimes toss back what was required for some instant necessity of theroad; and at _his_ breakfast-table it was, after all, as elsewhererecorded, that I contrived to support life; barely, indeed, and mostslenderly, but still with the final result of escaping absolutestarvation. With that recollection before me, I could not allow myselfto probe his frailties too severely, had it even been certainly safe todo so. But enough; the reader will understand that a year spent eitherin the valleys of Wales, or upon the streets of London, a wanderer, toooften houseless in both situations, might naturally have peopled themind of one constitutionally disposed to solemn contemplations withmemorials of human sorrow and strife too profound to pass away foryears. 

Thus, then, it was--past experience of a very peculiar kind, theagitations of many lives crowded into the compass of a year or two, incombination with a peculiar structure of mind--offered one explanationof the very remarkable and unsocial habits which I adopted at college;but there was another not less powerful, and not less unusual. Instating this, I shall seem, to some persons, covertly designing anaffront to Oxford. But that is far from my intention. It is nowayspeculiar to Oxford, but will, doubtless, be found in every universitythroughout the world, that the younger part of the members--theundergraduates, I mean, generally, whose chief business must have lainamongst the great writers of Greece and Rome--cannot have found leisureto cultivate extensively their own domestic literature. Not so muchthat time will have been wanting; but that the whole energy of themind, and the main course of the subsidiary studies and researches, will naturally have been directed to those difficult languages amongstwhich lie their daily tasks. I make it no subject of complaint orscorn, therefore, but simply state it as a fact, that few or none ofthe Oxford undergraduates, with whom parity of standing threw me intocollision at my first outset, knew anything at all of Englishliterature. The _Spectator_ seemed to me the only English book ofa classical rank which they had read; and even this less for itsinimitable delicacy, humor, and refined pleasantry in dealing withmanners and characters, than for its insipid and meagre essays, ethicalor critical. This was no fault of theirs: they had been sent to thebook chiefly as a subject for Latin translations, or of otherexercises; and, in such a view, the vague generalities of superficialmorality were more useful and more manageable than sketches of manneror character, steeped in national peculiarities. To translate the termsof whig politics into classical Latin, would be as difficult as itmight be for a whig himself to give a consistent account of thosepolitics from the year 1688. Natural, however, and excusable, as thisignorance might be, to myself it was intolerable and incomprehensible. Already, at fifteen, I had made myself familiar with the great Englishpoets. About sixteen, or not long after, my interest in the story ofChatterton had carried me over the whole ground of the Rowleycontroversy; and that controversy, by a necessary consequence, had sofamiliarized me with the "Black Letter, " that I had begun to find anunaffected pleasure in the ancient English metrical romances; and inChaucer, though acquainted as yet only with part of his works, I hadperceived and had felt profoundly those divine qualities, which, evenat this day, are so languidly acknowledged by his unjust countrymen. With this knowledge, and this enthusiastic knowledge of the elderpoets--of those most remote from easy access--I could not well be astranger in other walks of our literature, more on a level with thegeneral taste, and nearer to modern diction, and, therefore, moreextensively multiplied by the press. 

Yet, after all--as one proof how much more commanding is that part of aliterature which speaks to the elementary affections of men, than thatwhich is founded on the mutable aspects of manners--it is a fact that, even in our elaborate system of society, where an undue value isunavoidably given to the whole science of social intercourse, and acontinual irritation applied to the sensibilities which point in thatdirection; still, under all these advantages, Pope himself is lessread, less quoted, less thought of, than the elder and graver sectionof our literature. It is a great calamity for an author such as Pope, that, generally speaking, it requires so much experience of life toenjoy his peculiar felicities as must argue an age likely to haveimpaired the general capacity for enjoyment. For my part, I had myselfa very slender acquaintance with this chapter of our literature; andwhat little I had was generally, at that period of my life, as, withmost men, it continues to be to the end of life, a reflex knowledge, acquired through those pleasant miscellanies, half gossip, halfcriticism--such as Warton's Essay on Pope, Boswell's Johnson, Mathias'Pursuits of Literature, and many scores beside of the sameindeterminate class; a class, however, which do a real service toliterature, by diffusing an indirect knowledge of fine writers in theirmost effective passages, where else, in a direct shape, it would oftennever extend. 

In some parts, then, having even a profound knowledge of ourliterature, in all parts having some, I felt it to be impossible that Ishould familiarly associate with those who had none at all; not so muchas a mere historical knowledge of the literature in its capital namesand their chronological succession. Do I mention this in disparagementof Oxford? By no means. Among the undergraduates of higher standing, and occasionally, perhaps, of my own, I have since learned that manymight have been found eminently accomplished in this particular. Butseniors do not seek after juniors; they must be sought; and, with myprevious bias to solitude, a bias equally composed of impulses andmotives, I had no disposition to take trouble in seeking any man forany purpose. 

But, on this subject, a fact still remains to be told, of which I amjustly proud; and it will serve, beyond anything else that I can say, to measure the degree of my intellectual development. On coming toOxford, I had taken up one position in advance of my age by full thirtyyears: that appreciation of Wordsworth, which it has taken full thirtyyears to establish amongst the public, I had already made, and had madeoperative to my own intellectual culture in the same year when Iclandestinely quitted school. Already, in 1802, I had addressed aletter of fervent admiration to Mr. Wordsworth. I did not send it untilthe spring of 1803; and, from misdirection, it did not come into hishands for some months. But I had an answer from Mr. Wordsworth before Iwas eighteen; and that my letter was thought to express the homage ofan enlightened admirer, may be inferred from the fact that his answerwas long and full. On this anecdote I do not mean to dwell; but Icannot allow the reader to overlook the circumstances of the case. Atthis day, it is true, no journal can be taken up which does nothabitually speak of Mr. Wordsworth as of a great if not _the_great poet of the age. Mr. Bulwer, living in the intensest pressure ofthe world, and, though recoiling continually from the judgments of theworld, yet never in any violent degree, ascribes to Mr. Wordsworth (inhis _England and the English_, p. 308) "an influence of a morenoble and purely intellectual character, than _any_ writer of ourage or nation has exercised. " Such is the opinion held of this greatpoet in 1835; but what were those of 1805-15, --nay, of 1825? For twentyyears after the date of that letter to Mr. Wordsworth above referredto, language was exhausted, ingenuity was put on the rack, in thesearch after images and expressions vile enough--insolent enough--toconvey the unutterable contempt avowed for all that he had written, bythe fashionable critics. One critic--who still, I believe, edits arather popular journal, and who belongs to that class, feeble, fluttering, ingenious, who make it their highest ambition not to lead, but, with a slave's adulation, to obey and to follow all the capricesof the public mind--described Mr. Wordsworth as resembling, in thequality of his mind, an old nurse babbling in her paralytic dotage tosucking babies. If this insult was peculiarly felt by Mr. Wordsworth, it was on a consideration of the unusual imbecility of him who offeredit, and not because in itself it was baser or more insolent than thelanguage held by the majority of journalists who then echoed the publicvoice. _Blackwood's Magazine_ (1817) first accustomed the publicear to the language of admiration coupled with the name of Wordsworth. This began with Professor Wilson; and well I remember--nay, the proofsare still easy to hunt up--that, for eight or ten years, thissingularity of opinion, having no countenance from other journals, wastreated as a whim, a paradox, a bold extravagance, of the_Blackwood_ critics. Mr. Wordsworth's neighbors in Westmoreland, who had (generally speaking) a profound contempt for him, used to rebutthe testimony of _Blackwood_ by one constant reply--"Ay, _Blackwood_praises Wordsworth, but who else praises him?" In short, up to 1820, the name of Wordsworth was trampled under foot; from 1820 to 1830, itwas militant; from 1830 to 1835, it has been triumphant. In 1803, whenI entered at Oxford, that name was absolutely unknown; and the fingerof scorn, pointed at it in 1802 by the first or second number of the_Edinburgh Review_, failed to reach its mark from absolute defect ofknowledge in the public mind. Some fifty beside myself knew who wasmeant by "that poet who had cautioned his friend against growingdouble, " etc. ; to all others it was a profound secret. 

These things must be known and understood properly to value theprophetic eye and the intrepidity of two persons, like Professor Wilsonand myself, who, in 1802-3, attached themselves to a banner not yetraised and planted; who outran, in fact, their contemporaries by oneentire generation; and did _that_ about 1802 which the rest of theworld are doing in chorus about 1832. 

Professor Wilson's period at Oxford exactly coincided with my own; yet, in that large world, we never met. I know, therefore, but little of hispolicy in regard to such opinions or feelings as tended to dissociatehim from the mass of his coevals. This only I know, that he lived as itwere in public; and must, therefore, I presume, have practised astudied reserve as to his deepest admirations; and, perhaps, at thatday (1803-8) the occasions would be rare in which much dissimulationwould be needed. Until Lord Byron had begun to pilfer from Wordsworthand to abuse him, allusions to Wordsworth were not frequent inconversation; and it was chiefly on occasion of some question arisingabout poetry in general, or about the poets of the day, that it becamedifficult to dissemble. For my part, hating the necessity fordissimulation as much as the dissimulation itself, I drew from thispeculiarity also of my own mind a fresh reinforcement of my othermotives for sequestering myself; and, for the first two years of myresidence in Oxford, I compute that I did not utter one hundred words. 

I remember distinctly the first (which happened also to be the last)conversation that I ever held with my tutor. It consisted of threesentences, two of which fell to his share, one to mine. On a finemorning, he met me in the Quadrangle, and, having then no guess of thenature of my pretensions, he determined (I suppose) to probe them. Accordingly, he asked me, "What I had been lately reading?" Now, thefact was, that I, at that time immersed in metaphysics, had really beenreading and studying very closely the _Parmenides_, of whichobscure work some Oxford men, early in the last century, published aseparate edition. Yet, so profound was the benignity of my nature, that, in those days, I could not bear to witness, far less to cause, the least pain or mortification to any human being. I recoiled, indeed, from the society of most men, but not with any feelings of dislike. Onthe contrary, in order that I _might_ like all men, I wished toassociate with none. Now, then, to have mentioned the _Parmenides_to one who, fifty thousand to one, was a perfect stranger to its wholedrift and purpose, looked too _méchant_, too like a trick ofmalice, in an age when such reading was so very unusual. I felt that itwould be taken for an express stratagem for stopping my tutor's mouth. All this passing rapidly through my mind, I replied, withouthesitation, that I had been reading Paley. My tutor's rejoinder I havenever forgotten: "Ah! an excellent author; excellent for his matter;only you must be on your guard as to his style; he is very vicious_there_. " Such was the colloquy; we bowed, parted, and never more(I apprehend) exchanged one word. Now, trivial and trite as thiscomment on Paley may appear to the reader, it struck me forcibly thatmore falsehood, or more absolute falsehood, or more direct inversion ofthe truth, could not, by any artifice of ingenuity, have been crowdedinto one short sentence. Paley, as a philosopher, is a jest, thedisgrace of the age; and, as regards the two universities, and theenormous responsibility they undertake for the books which theysanction by their official examinations for degrees, the name of Paleyis their great opprobrium. But, on the other hand, for style, Paley isa master. Homely, racy, vernacular English, the rustic vigor of a stylewhich intentionally foregoes the graces of polish on the one hand, andof scholastic precision on the other--that quality of merit has neverbeen attained in a degree so eminent. This first interchange of thoughtupon a topic of literature did not tend to slacken my previousdisposition to retreat into solitude; a solitude, however, which at notime was tainted with either the moroseness or the pride of a cynic. 

Neither must the reader suppose that, even in that day, I belonged tothe party who disparage the classical writers, or the classicaltraining of the great English schools. The Greek drama I loved andrevered. But, to deal frankly, because it is a subject which I shallhereafter bring before the public, I made great distinctions. I was notthat indiscriminate admirer of Greek and Roman literature, which thosetoo generally are who admire it at all. This protesting spirit, againsta false and blind idolatry, was with me, at that time, a matter ofenthusiasm--almost of bigotry. I was a bigot against bigots. Let ustake the Greek oratory, for example:--What section of the Greekliterature is more fanatically exalted, and studiously in depreciationof our own? Let us judge of the sincerity at the base of these hollowaffectations, by the downright facts and the producible records. Toadmire, in any sense which can give weight and value to youradmiration, presupposes, I presume, some acquaintance with its object. As the earliest title to an opinion, one way or other, of the Greekeloquence, we ought to have studied some of its most distinguishedartists; or, say _one_, at least; and this one, we may be sure, will be, as it ought to be, Demosthenes. Now, it is a fact, that allthe copies of Demosthenes sold within the last hundred years would notmeet the demand of one considerable town, were that orator a subject ofstudy amongst even classical scholars. I doubt whether, at this day, there exist twenty men in Europe who can be said to have even once readDemosthenes; and, therefore, it was that, when Mr. Mitford, in his"History of Greece, " took a new view of this orator's politicaladministration--a view which lowered his character for integrity--hefound an unresisting acceder to his doctrines in a public having noprevious opinion upon the subject, and, therefore, open to any casualimpression of malice or rash judgment. Had there been any acquaintancewith the large remains which we still possess of this famous orator, nosuch wrong could have been done. I, from my childhood, had been areader, nay, a student of Demosthenes; and, simply, for this reason, that, having meditated profoundly on the true laws and philosophy ofdiction, and of what is vaguely denominated style, and finding nothingof any value in modern writers upon this subject, and not much asregards the grounds and ultimate principles even in the ancientrhetoricians, I have been reduced to collect my opinions from the greatartists and practitioners, rather than from the theorists; and, amongthose artists, in the most plastic of languages, I hold Demosthenes tohave been the greatest. 

The Greek is, beyond comparison, the most plastic of languages. It wasa material which bent to the purposes of him who used it beyond thematerial of other languages; it was an instrument for a larger compassof modulations; and it happens that the peculiar theme of an oratorimposes the very largest which is consistent with a prose diction. Onestep further in passion, and the orator would become a poet. An oratorcan exhaust the capacities of a language--an historian, never. Moreover, the age of Demosthenes was, in my judgment, the age ofhighest development for arts dependent upon social refinement. Thatgeneration had fixed and ascertained the use of words; whereas, theprevious generation of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, &c. , was atransitional period: the language was still moving, and tending to ameridian not yet attained; and the public eye had been directedconsciously upon language, as in and for itself an organ ofintellectual delight, for too short a time, to have mastered the wholeart of managing its resources. All these were reasons for studyingDemosthenes, as the one great model and standard of Attic prose; and, studied him I _had_, more than any other prose writer whatever. _Paripassu_, I had become sensible that others had _not_ studiedhim. One monotonous song of applause I found raised on every side;something about being "like a torrent, that carries everythingbefore it. " This original image is all we get in the shape ofcriticism; and never any attempt even at illustrating what is greatestin him, or characterizing what is most peculiar. The same persons whodiscovered that Lord Brougham was the modern Bacon have alsocomplimented him with the title of the English Demosthenes. Upon thishint, Lord Brougham, in his address to the Glasgow students, hasdeluged the great Athenian with wordy admiration. There is an obviousprudence in lodging your praise upon an object from which you countupon a rebound to yourself. But here, as everywhere else, you look invain for any marks or indications of a personal and _direct_acquaintance with the original orations. The praise is built ratherupon the popular idea of Demosthenes, than upon the real Demosthenes. And not only so, but even upon style itself, and upon the art ofcomposition _in abstracto_, Lord Brougham does not seem to haveformed any clear conceptions--principles he has none. Now, it isuseless to judge of an artist until you have some principles on theart. The two capital secrets in the art of prose composition are these:1st, The philosophy of transition and connection, or the art by whichone step in an evolution of thought is made to arise out of another:all fluent and effective composition depends on the _connections_;--2dly, The way in which sentences are made to modify each other; for, the most powerful effects in written eloquence arise out ofthis reverberation, as it were, from each other in a rapidsuccession of sentences; and, because some limitation is necessary tothe length and complexity of sentences, in order to make thisinterdependency felt, hence it is that the Germans have no eloquence. The construction of German prose tends to such immoderate length ofsentences, that no effect of intermodification can ever be apparent. Each sentence, stuffed with innumerable clauses of restriction, andother parenthetical circumstances, becomes a separate section--anindependent whole. But, without insisting on Lord Brougham'soversights, or errors of defect, I will digress a moment to onepositive caution of his, which will measure the value of his philosophyon this subject. He lays it down for a rule of indefinite application, that the Saxon part of our English idiom is to be favored at theexpense of that part which has so happily coalesced with the languagefrom the Latin or Greek. This fancy, often patronized by other writers, and even acted upon, resembles that restraint which some metricalwriters have imposed upon themselves--of writing a long copy of verses, from which some particular letter, or from each line of which somedifferent letter, should be carefully excluded. What followed? Was thereader sensible, in the practical effect upon his ear, of any beautyattained? By no means; all the difference, sensibly perceived, lay inthe occasional constraints and affectations to which the writer hadbeen driven by his self-imposed necessities. The same chimera exists inGermany; and so much further is it carried, that one great puritan inthis heresy (Wolf) has published a vast dictionary, the rival ofAdelung's, for the purpose of expelling every word of foreign originand composition out of the language, by assigning some equivalent termspun out from pure native Teutonic materials. _Bayonet_, forexample, is patriotically rejected, because a word may be readilycompounded tantamount to _musket-dirk_; and this sort ofcomposition thrives showily in the German, as a language running intocomposition with a fusibility only surpassed by the Greek. 

But what good purpose is attained by such caprices? In three sentencesthe sum of the philosophy may be stated. It has been computed (see_Duclos_) that the Italian opera has not above six hundred wordsin its whole vocabulary: so narrow is the range of its emotions, and solittle are these emotions disposed to expand themselves into anyvariety of thinking. The same remark applies to that class of simple, household, homely passion, which belongs to the early ballad poetry. Their passion is of a quality more venerable, it is true, and deeperthan that of the opera, because more permanent and coextensive withhuman life; but it is not much wider in its sphere, nor more apt tocoalesce with contemplative or philosophic thinking. Pass from thesenarrow fields of the intellect, where the relations of the objects areso few and simple, and the whole prospect so bounded, to theimmeasurable and sea-like arena upon which Shakspeare careers--co-infinite with life itself--yes, and with something more than life. Hereis the other pole, the opposite extreme. And what is the choice ofdiction? What is the _lexis_? Is it Saxon exclusively, or is itSaxon by preference? So far from that, the Latinity is intense--not, indeed, in his construction, but in his choice of words; and socontinually are these Latin words used, with a critical respect totheir earliest (and, where _that_ happens to have existed, totheir unfigurative) meaning, that, upon this one argument I would relyfor upsetting the else impregnable thesis of Dr. Farmer as toShakspeare's learning. Nay, I will affirm that, out of this regard tothe Latin acceptation of Latin words, may be absolutely explained theShakspearian meaning of certain words, which has hitherto baffled allhis critics. For instance, the word _modern_, of which Dr. Johnsonprofesses himself unable to explain the _rationale_ or principleregulating its Shakspearian use, though he felt its value, it is to bededuced thus: First of all, change the pronunciation a little, bysubstituting for the short _o_, as we pronounce it in _modern_, thelong _o_, as heard in _modish_, and you will then, perhaps, perceivethe process of analogy by which it passed into the Shakspearian use. The _matter_ or substance of a thing is, usually, so much moreimportant than its fashion or _manner_, that we have hence adopted, asone way for expressing what is important as opposed to what is trivial, the word _material_. Now, by parity of reason, we are entitled toinvert this order, and to express what is unimportant by some wordindicating the mere fashion or external manner of an object as opposedto its substance. This is effected by the word _modal_ or _modern_, as the adjective from _modus_, a fashion or manner; and in that senseShakspeare employs the word. Thus, Cleopatra, undervaluing to Caesar'sagent the bijouterie which she has kept back from inventory, and whichher treacherous steward had betrayed, describes them as mere trifles

 "Such gifts as we greet modern friends withal;"

where all commentators have _felt_ that modern must form theposition, mean, slight, arid inconsiderable, though perplexed to sayhow it came by such a meaning. A _modern_ friend is, in theShakspearian sense, with relation to a real and serviceable friend, that which the fashion of a thing is, by comparison with its substance. But a still better illustration may be taken from a common line, quotedevery day, and ludicrously misinterpreted. In the famous picture oflife--"All the world's a stage"--the justice of the piece is describedas

 "Full of wise saws and modern instances;"

which (_horrendum dictu!_) has been explained, and, I verilybelieve, is generally understood to mean, _full of wise sayings andmodern illustrations_. The true meaning is--full of proverbialmaxims of conduct and of trivial arguments; that is, of pettydistinctions, or verbal disputes, such as never touch the point atissue. The word _modern_ I have already deduced; the word_instances_ is equally Latin, and equally used by Shakspeare inits Latin sense. It is originally the word _instantia_, which, bythe monkish and scholastic writers, is uniformly used in the sense ofan argument, and originally of an argument urged in objection to someprevious argument. [Footnote: I cannot for a moment believe that theoriginal and most eloquent critic in _Blackwood_ is himself thedupe of an argument, which he has alleged against this passage, undertoo open a hatred of Shakspeare, as though it involved a contradictionto common sense, by representing _all_ human beings of such an ageas school-boys, all of such another age as soldiers, of such another asmagistrates, &c. Evidently the logic of the famous passage is thisthat whereas every age has its peculiar and appropriate temper, thatprofession or employment is selected for the exemplification whichseems best fitted, in each case, to embody the characteristic orpredominating quality. Thus, because impetuosity, self-esteem, andanimal or irreflective courage, are qualities most intense in youth, next it is considered in what profession those qualities find theirmost unlimited range; and because that is obviously the militaryprofession, therefore it is that the soldier is selected as therepresentative of young men. For the same reason, as best embodying thepeculiar temper of garrulous old age, the magistrate comes forward assupporting the part of that age. Not that old men are not alsosoldiers; but that the military profession, so far from strengthening, moderates and tempers the characteristic temper of old age. ]

I affirm, therefore, that Lord Brougham's counsel to the Glasgowstudents is not only bad counsel, --and bad counsel for the result, aswell as for the grounds, which are either capricious or nugatory, --butalso that, in the exact proportion in which the range of thoughtexpands, it is an impossible counsel, an impracticable counsel--acounsel having for its purpose to embarrass and lay the mind infetters, where even its utmost freedom and its largest resources willbe found all too little for the growing necessities of the intellect. "Long-tailed words in _osity_ and _ation_!" What does _that_describe? Exactly the Latin part of our language. Now, thosevery terminations speak for themselves:--All high abstractionsend in _ation_; that is, they are Latin; and, just in proportionas the abstracting power extends and widens, do the circles of thoughtwiden, and the horizon or boundary (contradicting its own Grecian name)melts into the infinite. On this account it was that Coleridge(_Biographia Literaria_) remarks on Wordsworth's philosophicalpoetry, that, in proportion as it goes into the profound of passion andof thought, do the words increase which are vulgarly called"_dictionary_ words. " Now, these words, these "dictionary" words, what are they? Simply words of Latin or Greek origin: no other words, no Saxon words, are ever called by illiterate persons dictionary words. And these dictionary words are indispensable to a writer, not only inthe proportion by which he transcends other writers as to extent and asto subtility of thinking, but also as to elevation and sublimity. Milton was not an extensive or discursive thinker, as Shakspeare was;for the motions of his mind were slow, solemn, sequacious, like thoseof the planets; not agile and assimilative; not attracting all thingswithin its own sphere; not multiform: repulsion was the law of hisintellect--he moved in solitary grandeur. Yet, merely from this qualityof grandeur, unapproachable grandeur, his intellect demanded a largerinfusion of Latinity into his diction. 

For the same reason (and, without such aids, he would have had noproper element in which to move his wings) he enriched his diction withHellenisms and with Hebraisms; [Footnote: The diction of Milton is acase absolutely unique in literature: of many writers it has been said, but of him only with truth, that he created a peculiar language. Thevalue must be tried by the result, not by inferences from _apriori_ principles; such inferences might lead us to anticipate anunfortunate result; whereas, in fact, the diction of Milton is suchthat no other could have supported his majestic style of thinking. Thefinal result is a _transcendant_ answer to all adverse criticism;but still it is to be lamented that no man properly qualified hasundertaken the examination of the Miltonic diction as a separateproblem. Listen to a popular author of this day (Mr. Bulwer). He, speaking on this subject, asserts (_England and the English_, p. 329), that, "_There is scarcely an English idiom which Milton has notviolated, or a foreign one which he has not borrowed. _" Now, inanswer to this extravagant assertion, I will venture to say that thetwo following are the sole cases of questionable idiom throughoutMilton:--1st, "Yet virgin of Proserpine from Jove;" and, in this case, the same thing might be urged in apology which Aristotle urges inanother argument, namely, that _anonymon to pathos_, the case isunprovided with _any_ suitable expression. How would it bepossible to convey in good English the circumstances here indicated--namely, that Ceres was yet in those days of maiden innocence, when shehad borne no daughter to Jove? Second, I will cite a case which, so faras I remember, has been noticed by no commentator; and, probably, because they have failed to understand it. The case occurs in the"Paradise Regained;" but where I do not at this moment remember. "Willthey _transact_ with God?" This is the passage; and a most flagrantinstance it offers of pure Latinism. _Transigere_, in the languageof the civil law, means to make a compromise; and the word_transact_ is here used in that sense--a sense utterly unknown tothe English language. This is the worst case in Milton; and I do notknow that it has been ever noticed. Yet even here it may be doubtedwhether Milton is not defensible; asking if they proposed to terminatetheir difference with God after the fashion in use amongst courts oflaw, he points properly enough to these worldly settlements by thetechnical term which designated them. Thus, might a divine say: Will hearrest the judgments of God by a _demurrer_? Thus, again, Hamletapostrophizes the lawyer's skull by the technical terms used in actionsfor assault, &c. Besides, what proper term is there in English forexpressing a compromise? Edmund Burke, and other much older authors, express the idea by the word _temperament_; but that word, thougha good one, was at one time considered an exotic term--equally aGallicism and a Latinism. ] but never, as could be easy to show, withouta full justification in the result. Two things may be asserted of allhis exotic idioms--1st, That they express what could not have beenexpressed by any native idiom; 2d, That they harmonize with the Englishlanguage, and give a coloring of the antique, but not any sense ofstrangeness to the diction. Thus, in the double negative, "Nor did theynot perceive, " &c. , which is classed as a Hebraism--if any man fancythat it expresses no more than the simple affirmative, he shows that hedoes not understand its force; and, at the same time, it is a form ofthought so natural and universal, that I have heard English people, under corresponding circumstances, spontaneously fall into it. Inshort, whether a man differ from others by greater profundity or bygreater sublimity, and whether he write as a poet or as a philosopher, in any case, he feels, in due proportion to the necessities of hisintellect, an increasing dependence upon the Latin section of theEnglish language; and the true reason why Lord Brougham failed toperceive this, or found the Saxon equal to his wants, is one which Ishall not scruple to assign, inasmuch as it does not reflect personallyon Lord Brougham, or, at least, on him exclusively, but on the wholebody to which he belongs. That thing which he and they call by thepompous name of statesmanship, but which is, in fact, _statescraft_--the art of political intrigue--deals (like the opera) with ideas so fewin number, and so little adapted to associate themselves with otherideas, that, possibly, in the one case equally as in the other, sixhundred words are sufficient to meet all their demands. 

I have used my privilege of discursiveness to step aside fromDemosthenes to another subject, no otherwise connected with the Atticorator than, first, by the common reference of both subjects torhetoric; but, secondly, by the accident of having been jointlydiscussed by Lord Brougham in a paper, which (though now forgotten)obtained, at the moment, most undue celebrity. For it is one of theinfirmities of the public mind with us, that whatever is said or doneby a public man, any opinion given by a member of Parliament, howevermuch out of his own proper jurisdiction and range of inquiry, commandsan attention not conceded even to those who speak under the knownprivilege of professional knowledge. Thus, Cowper was not discovered tobe a poet worthy of any general notice, until Charles Fox, a mostslender critic, had vouchsafed to quote a few lines, and that, not somuch with a view to the poetry, as to its party application. But now, returning to Demosthenes, I affirm that his case is the case of nearlyall the classical writers, --at least, of all the prose writers. It is, I admit, an extreme one; that is, it is the general case in a moreintense degree. Raised almost to divine honors, never mentioned butwith affected rapture, the classics of Greece and Rome are seldom read, most of them never; are they, indeed, the closet companions of any man?Surely it is time that these follies were at an end; that our practicewere made to square a little better with our professions; and that ourpleasures were sincerely drawn from those sources in which we pretendthat they lie. 

The Greek language, mastered in any eminent degree, is the very rarestof all accomplishments, and precisely because it is unspeakably themost difficult. Let not the reader dupe himself by popular cant. To bean accomplished Grecian, demands a very peculiar quality of talent; andit is almost inevitable that one who is such should be vain of adistinction which represents so much labor and difficulty overcome. Formyself, having, as a school-boy, attained to a very unusual masteryover this language, and (though as yet little familiar with theelaborate science of Greek metre) moving through all the obstacles andresistances of a Greek book with the same celerity and ease as throughthose of the French and Latin, I had, in vanquishing the difficultiesof the language, lost the main stimulus to its cultivation. Still, Iread Greek daily; but any slight vanity which I might connect with apower so rarely attained, and which, under ordinary circumstances, soreadily transmutes itself into a disproportionate admiration of theauthor, in me was absolutely swallowed up in the tremendous hold takenof my entire sensibilities at this time by our own literature. Withwhat fury would I often exclaim: He who loveth not his brother whom hehath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen? You, Mr. A, L, M, O, you who care not for Milton, and value not the dark sublimitieswhich rest ultimately (as we all feel) upon dread realities, how canyou seriously thrill in sympathy with the spurious and fancifulsublimities of the classical poetry--with the nod of the Olympian Jove, or the seven-league strides of Neptune? Flying Childers had the mostprodigious stride of any horse on record; and at Newmarket that isjustly held to be a great merit; but it is hardly a qualification for aPantheon. The parting of Hector and Andromache--that is tender, doubtless; but how many passages of far deeper, far diviner tenderness, are to be found in Chaucer! Yet in these cases we give our antagonistthe benefit of an appeal to what is really best and most effective inthe ancient literature. For, if we should go to Pindar, and some othergreat names, what a revelation of hypocrisy as respects the _fade_enthusiasts for the Greek poetry!

Still, in the Greek tragedy, however otherwise embittered againstancient literature by the dismal affectations current in the scenicalpoetry, at least I felt the presence of a great and original power. Itmight be a power inferior, upon the whole, to that which presides inthe English tragedy; I believed that it was; but it was equallygenuine, and appealed equally to real and deep sensibilities in ournature. Yet, also, I felt that the two powers at work in the two formsof the drama were essentially different; and without having read a lineof German at that time, or knowing of any such controversy, I began tomeditate on the elementary grounds of difference between the Pagan andthe Christian forms of poetry. The dispute has since been carried onextensively in France, not less than in Germany, as between the_classical_ and the _romantic_. But I will venture to assertthat not one step in advance has been made, up to this day. The shapeinto which I threw the question it may be well to state; because I ampersuaded that out of that one idea, properly pursued, might be evolvedthe whole separate characteristics of the Christian and the antique:Why is it, I asked, that the Christian idea of _sin_ is an ideautterly unknown to the Pagan mind? The Greeks and Romans had a clearconception of a moral ideal, as we have; but this they estimated by areference to the will; and they called it virtue, and the antithesisthey called vice. The _lacheté_ or relaxed energy of the will, bywhich it yielded to the seductions of sensual pleasure, that was vice;and the braced-up tone by which it resisted these seductions wasvirtue. But the idea of holiness, and the antithetic idea of sin, as aviolation of this awful and unimaginable sanctity, was so utterlyundeveloped in the Pagan mind, that no word exists in classical Greekor classical Latin which approaches either pole of this synthesis;neither the idea of _holiness_, nor of its correlate, _sin_, could be so expressed in Latin as at once to satisfy Cicero and ascientific Christian. Again (but this was some years after), I foundSchiller and Goethe applauding the better taste of the ancients, insymbolizing the idea of death by a beautiful youth, with a torchinverted, &c. , as compared with the Christian types of a skeleton andhour-glasses, &c. And much surprised I was to hear Mr. Coleridgeapproving of this German sentiment. Yet, here again I felt the peculiargenius of Christianity was covertly at work moving upon a differentroad, and under opposite ideas, to a just result, in which the harshand austere expression yet pointed to a dark reality, whilst thebeautiful Greek adumbration was, in fact, a veil and a disguise. Thecorruptions and the other "dishonors" of the grave, and whatsoevercomposes the sting of death in the Christian view, is traced up to sinas its ultimate cause. Hence, besides the expression of Christianhumility, in thus nakedly exhibiting the wrecks and ruins made by sin, there is also a latent profession indicated of Christian hope. For theChristian contemplates steadfastly, though with trembling awe, thelowest point of his descent; since, for him, that point, the last ofhis fall, is also the first of his reäscent, and serves, besides, as anexponent of its infinity; the infinite depth becoming, in the rebound, a measure of the infinite reäscent. Whereas, on the contrary, with thegloomy uncertainties of a Pagan on the question of his finalrestoration, and also (which must not be overlooked) with his utterperplexity as to the nature of his restoration, if any were by accidentin reserve, whether in a condition tending downwards or upwards, it wasthe natural resource to consult the general feeling of anxiety anddistrust, by throwing a thick curtain and a veil of beauty over thewhole too painful subject. To place the horrors in high relief, couldhere have answered no purpose but that of wanton cruelty; whereas, withthe Christian hopes, the very saddest memorials of the havocs made bydeath are antagonist prefigurations of great victories in the rear. 

These speculations, at that time, I pursued earnestly; and I thenbelieved myself, as I yet do, to have ascertained the two great andopposite laws under which the Grecian and the English tragedy has eachseparately developed itself. Whether wrong or right in that belief, sure I am that those in Germany who have treated the case of classicaland romantic are not entitled to credit for any discovery at all. TheSchlegels, who were the hollowest of men, the windiest and wordiest (atleast, Frederic was so), pointed to the distinction; barely indicatedit; and that was already some service done, because a presumption arosethat the antique and the modern literatures, having clearly someessential differences, might, perhaps, rest on foundations originallydistinct, and obey different laws. And hence it occurred that manydisputes, as about the unities, etc. , might originate in a confusion ofthese laws. This checks the presumption of the shallow criticism, andpoints to deeper investigations. Beyond this, neither the German northe French disputers on the subject have talked to any profitablepurpose. 

I have mentioned Paley as accidentally connected with my _début_in literary conversation; and I have taken occasion to say how much Iadmired his style and its unstudied graces, how profoundly I despisedhis philosophy. I shall here say a word or two more on that subject. Asrespects his style, though secretly despising the opinion avowed by mytutor (which was, however, a natural opinion for a stiff lover of theartificial and the pompous), I would just as unwillingly be supposed toadopt the extravagant opinions, in the other extreme, of Dr. Parr andMr. Coleridge. These two gentlemen, who privately hated Paley, and, perhaps, traduced him, have hung like bees over one particularparagraph in his Evidences, as though it were a flower transplantedfrom Hymettus. Dr. Parr pronounced it the finest sentence in theEnglish language. It is a period (that is, a cluster of sentences)moderately well, but not _too_ well constructed, as the Germannurses are accustomed to say. Its felicity depends on a trick easilyimitated--on a balance happily placed (namely, "_in which the wisestof mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest totheir inquiries_"). As a _bravura_, or _tour de force_, inthe dazzling fence of rhetoric, it is surpassed by many hundreds ofpassages which might be produced from rhetoricians; or, to confinemyself to Paley's contemporaries, it is very far surpassed by aparticular passage in Burke's letter upon the Duke of Bedford's baseattack upon him in the House of Lords; which passage I shall elsewhereproduce, because I happen to know, on the authority of Burke'sexecutors, that Burke himself considered it the finest period which hehad ever written. At present, I will only make one remark, namely, thatit is always injudicious, in the highest degree, to cite for admirationthat which is not a _representative_ specimen of the author'smanner. In reading Lucian, I once stumbled on a passage of Germanpathos, and of German effect. Would it have been wise, or would it havebeen intellectually just, to quote this as the text of an eulogium onLucian? What false criticism it would have suggested to every reader!what false anticipations! To quote a formal and periodic pile ofsentences, was to give the feeling that Paley was what the regularrhetorical artists designate as a periodic writer, when, in fact, noone conceivable character of style more pointedly contradicted the truedescription of his merits. 

But, leaving the style of Paley, I must confess that I agree with Mr. Bulwer (_England and the English_) in thinking it shocking andalmost damnatory to an English university, the great well-heads ofcreeds, moral and evangelical, that authors such in respect of doctrineas Paley and Locke should hold that high and influential station asteachers, or rather oracles of truth, which has been conceded to them. As to Locke, I, when a boy, had made a discovery of one blunder full oflaughter and of fun, which, had it been published and explained inLocke's lifetime, would have tainted his whole philosophy withsuspicion. It relates to the Aristotelian doctrine of syllogism, whichLocke undertook to ridicule. Now, a flaw, a hideous flaw, in the_soi-disant_ detecter of flaws, a ridicule in the exposer of theridiculous--_that_ is fatal; and I am surprised that Lee, whowrote a folio against Locke in his lifetime, and other examiners, should have failed in detecting this. I shall expose it elsewhere; and, perhaps, one or two other exposures of the same kind will give animpetus to the descent of this falling philosophy. With respect toPaley, and the naked _prudentialism_ of his system, it is truethat in a longish note Paley disclaims that consequence. But to this wemay reply, with Cicero, _Non quoero quid neget Epicurus, sed quidcongruenter neget_. Meantime, waiving all this as too notorious, andtoo frequently denounced, I wish to recur to this trite subject, by wayof stating an objection made to the Paleyan morality in my seventeenthyear, and which I have never since seen reason to withdraw. It isthis:--I affirm that the whole work, from first to last, proceeds uponthat sort of error which the logicians call _ignoratio elenchi_, that is, ignorance of the very question concerned--of the point atissue. For, mark, in the very vestibule of ethics, two questionsarise--two different and disconnected questions, A and B; and Paley hasanswered the wrong one. Thinking that he was answering A, and meaningto answer A, he has, in fact, answered B. One question arises thus:Justice is a virtue; temperance is a virtue; and so forth. Now, what isthe common principle which ranks these several species under the samegenus? What, in the language of logicians, is the common differentialprinciple which determines these various aspects of moral obligation toa common genius? Another question, and a more interesting question tomen in general, is this, --What is the motive to virtue? By whatimpulse, law, or motive, am I impelled to be virtuous rather thanvicious? Whence is the motive derived which should impel me to one lineof conduct in preference to the other? This, which is a practicalquestion, and, therefore, more interesting than the other, which is apure question of speculation, was that which Paley believed himself tobe answering. And his answer was, --That utility, a perception of theresulting benefit, was the true determining motive. Meantime, it wasobjected that often the most obvious results from a virtuous actionwere far otherwise than beneficial. Upon which, Paley, in the long notereferred to above, distinguished thus: That whereas actions have manyresults, some proximate, some remote, just as a stone thrown into thewater produces many concentric circles, be it known that he, Dr. Paley, in what he says of utility, contemplates only the final result, thevery outermost circle; inasmuch as he acknowledges a possibility thatthe first, second, third, including the penultimate circle, may allhappen to clash with utility; but then, says he, the outermost circleof all will never fail to coincide with the absolute maximum ofutility. Hence, in the first place, it appears that you cannot applythis test of utility in a practical sense; you cannot say, This isuseful, _ergo_, it is virtuous; but, in the inverse order, youmust say, This is virtuous, _ergo_, it is useful. You do not relyon its usefulness to satisfy yourself of its being virtuous; but, onthe contrary, you rely on its virtuousness, previously ascertained, inorder to satisfy yourself of its usefulness. And thus the wholepractical value of this test disappears, though in that view it wasfirst introduced; and a vicious circle arises in the argument; as youmust have ascertained the virtuousness of an act, in order to apply thetest of its being virtuous. But, _secondly_, it now comes out thatPaley was answering a very different question from that which hesupposed himself answering. Not any practical question as to the motiveor impelling force in being virtuous, rather than vicious, --that is, tothe _sanctions_ of virtue, --but a purely speculative question, asto the issue of virtue, or the common _vinculum_ amongst theseveral modes or species of virtue (justice, temperance, etc. )--thiswas the real question which he was answering. I have often remarkedthat the largest and most subtle source of error in philosophicspeculations has been the confounding of the two great principles somuch insisted on by the Leibnitzians, namely, the _ratiocognoscendi_ and the _ratio essendi_. Paley believed himself tobe assigning--it was his full purpose to assign--the _ratiocognoscendi_; but, instead of that, unconsciously and surreptitiously, he has actually assigned the _ratio essendi_; and, after all, a falseand imaginary _ratio essendi_. 

THE PAGAN ORACLES

It is remarkable--and, without a previous explanation, it might seemparadoxical to say it--that oftentimes under a continual accession oflight important subjects grow more and more enigmatical. In times whennothing was explained, the student, torpid as his teacher, saw nothingwhich called for explanation--all appeared one monotonous blank. But nosooner had an early twilight begun to solicit the creative faculties ofthe eye, than many dusky objects, with outlines imperfectly defined, began to converge the eye, and to strengthen the nascent interest ofthe spectator. It is true that light, in its final plenitude, iscalculated to disperse all darkness. But this effect belongs to itsconsummation. In its earlier and _struggling_ states, light doesbut reveal darkness. It makes the darkness palpable and "visible. " Ofwhich we may see a sensible illustration in a gloomy glass-house, wherethe sullen lustre from the furnace does but mass and accumulate thethick darkness in the rear upon which the moving figures are relieved. Or we may see an intellectual illustration in the mind of the savage, on whose blank surface there exists no doubt or perplexity at all, noneof the pains connected with ignorance; he is conscious of no darkness, simply because for _him_ there exists no visual ray of speculation--novestige of prelusive light. 

Similar, and continually more similar, has been the condition ofancient history. Once yielding a mere barren crop of facts and dates, slowly it has been kindling of late years into life and deep interestunder superior treatment. And hitherto, as the light has advanced, _pari passu_ have the masses of darkness strengthened. Everyquestion solved has been the parent of three new questions unmasked. And the power of breathing life into dry bones has but seemed tomultiply the skeletons and lifeless remains; for the very naturalreason--that these dry bones formerly (whilst viewed as incapable ofrevivification) had seemed less numerous, because everywhere confoundedto the eye with stocks and stones, so long as there was no motive ofhope for marking the distinction between them. 

Amongst all the illustrations which might illuminate this truth, noneis so instructive as the large question of PAGAN ORACLES. Every part, indeed, of the Pagan religion, the course, geographically orethnographically, of its traditions, the vast labyrinth of itsmythology, the deductions of its contradictory genealogies, thedisputed meaning of its many secret "mysteries" [_teletai_--symbolic rites or initiations], all these have been submitted of lateyears to the scrutiny of glasses more powerful, applied under morecombined arrangements, and directed according to new principles morecomprehensively framed. We cannot in sincerity affirm--always withimmediate advantage. But even where the individual effort may have beena failure as regarded the immediate object, rarely, indeed, it hashappened but that much indirect illumination has resulted--which, afterwards entering into combination with other scattered currents oflight, has issued in discoveries of value; although, perhaps, any onecontribution, taken separately, had been, and would have remained, inoperative. Much has been accomplished, chiefly of late years; and, confining our view to ancient history, almost exclusively amongst theGermans--by the Savignys, the Niebuhrs, the Otfried Muellers. And, ifthat _much_ has left still more to do, it has also brought themeans of working upon a scale of far accelerated speed. 

The books now existing upon the ancient oracles, above all, upon theGreek oracles, amount to a small library. The facts have been collectedfrom all quarters, --examined, sifted, winnowed. Theories have beenraised upon these facts under every angle of aspect; and yet, afterall, we profess ourselves to be dissatisfied. Amongst much that issagacious, we feel and we resent with disgust a taint of falsehooddiffused over these recent speculations from vulgar and evencounterfeit incredulity; the one gross vice of German philosophy, notless determinate or less misleading than that vice which, heretofore, through many centuries, had impoverished this subject, and had stoppedits discussion under the anile superstition of the ecclesiasticalfathers. 

These fathers, both Greek and Latin, had the ill fortune to beextravagantly esteemed by the church of Rome; whence, under a naturalreaction, they were systematically depreciated by the great leaders ofthe Protestant Reformation. And yet hardly in a corresponding degree. For there was, after all, even among the reformers, a deep-seatedprejudice in behalf of all that was "primitive" in Christianity; underwhich term, by some confusion of ideas, the fathers often benefited. Primitive Christianity was reasonably venerated; and, on this argument, that, for the first three centuries, it was necessarily more sincere. We do not think so much of that sincerity which affronted the fear ofpersecution; because, after all, the searching persecutions were rareand intermitting, and not, perhaps, in any case, so fiery as they havebeen represented. We think more of that gentle but insidiouspersecution which lay in the solicitations of besieging friends, andmore still of the continual temptations which haunted the irresoluteChristian in the fascinations of the public amusements. The theatre, the circus, and, far beyond both, the cruel amphitheatre, constituted, for the ancient world, a passionate enjoyment, that by many authors, and especially through one period of time, is described as going to theverge of frenzy. And we, in modern times, are far too little aware inwhat degree these great carnivals, together with another attraction ofgreat cities, the pomps and festivals of the Pagan worship, broke themonotony of domestic life, which, for the old world, was even moreoppressive than it is for us. In all principal cities, so as to bewithin the reach of almost all provincial inhabitants, there was ahippodrome, often uniting the functions of the circus and theamphitheatre; and there was a theatre. From all such pleasures theChristian was sternly excluded by his very profession of faith. Fromthe festivals of the Pagan religion his exclusion was even moreabsolute; against them he was a sworn militant protester from the hourof his baptism. And when these modes of pleasurable relaxation had beensubtracted from ancient life, what could remain? Even less, perhaps, than most readers have been led to consider. For the ancients had nosuch power of extensive locomotion, of refreshment for their weariedminds, by travelling and change of scene, as we children of moderncivilization possess. No ships had then been fitted up for passengers, nor public carriages established, nor roads opened extensively, norhotels so much as imagined hypothetically; because the relation of_xenia_, or the obligation to reciprocal hospitality, and latterlythe Roman relation of patron and client, had stifled the first motionsof enterprise of the ancients; in fact, no man travelled but thesoldier, and the man of political authority. Consequently, insacrificing public amusements, the Christians sacrificed _all_pleasure whatsoever that was not rigorously domestic; whilst in facingthe contingencies of persecutions that might arise under the rapidsuccession of changing emperors, they faced a perpetual _anxiety_more trying to the fortitude than any fixed and measurable evil. Here, certainly, we have a guarantee for the deep faithfulness of earlyChristians, such as never can exist for more mixed bodies ofprofessors, subject to no searching trials. 

Better the primitive Christians were (by no means individually better, but better on the total body), yet they were not in any intellectualsense wiser. Unquestionably the elder Christians participated in thelocal follies, prejudices, superstitions, of their several provincesand cities, except where any of these happened to be too conspicuouslyat war with the spirit of love or the spirit of purity which exhaled atevery point from the Christian faith; and, in all intellectualfeatures, as were the Christians generally, such were the fathers. Amongst the Greek fathers, one might be unusually learned, as Clementof Alexandria; and another might be reputed unusually eloquent, asGregory Nazianzen, or Basil. Amongst the Latin fathers, one might be aman of admirable genius, as far beyond the poor, vaunted Rousseau inthe impassioned grandeur of his thoughts, as he was in truth and purityof heart; we speak of St. Augustine (usually called St. Austin), andmany might be distinguished by various literary merits. But could theseadvantages anticipate a higher civilization? Most unquestionably someof the fathers were the _élite_ of their own age, but not inadvance of their age. They, like all their contemporaries, werebesieged by errors, ancient, inveterate, traditional; and accidentally, from one cause special to themselves, they were not merely liable toerror, but usually prone to error. This cause lay in the _polemic_form which so often they found a necessity, or a convenience, or atemptation for assuming, as teachers or defenders of the truth. 

He who reveals a body of awful truth to a candid and willing auditoryis content with the grand simplicities of truth in the quality of hisproofs. And truth, where it happens to be of a high order, is generallyits own witness to all who approach it in the spirit of childlikedocility. But far different is the position of that teacher whoaddresses an audience composed in various proportions of scepticalinquirers, obstinate opponents, and malignant scoffers. Less than anapostle is unequal to the suppression of all human reactions incidentto wounded sensibilities. Scorn is too naturally met by retorted scorn:malignity in the Pagan, which characterized all the known cases ofsignal opposition to Christianity, could not but hurry many good meninto a vindictive pursuit of victory. Generally, where truth iscommunicated _polemically_ (this is, not as it exists in its owninner simplicity, but as it exists in external relation to error), thetemptation is excessive to use those arguments which will tell at themoment upon the crowd of bystanders, by preference to those which willapprove themselves ultimately to enlightened disciples. Hence it is, that, like the professional rhetoricians of Athens, not seldom theChristian fathers, when urgently pressed by an antagonist equallymendacious and ignorant, could not resist the human instinct foremploying arguments such as would baffle and confound the unprincipledopponent, rather than such as would satisfy the mature Christian. If aman denied himself all specious arguments, and all artifices ofdialectic subtlety, he must renounce the hopes of a _present_triumph; for the light of absolute truth on moral or on spiritualthemes is too dazzling to be sustained by the diseased optics of thosehabituated to darkness. And hence we explain not only the many grossdelusions of the fathers, their sophisms, their errors of fact andchronology, their attempts to build great truths upon fantasticetymologies, or upon popular conceits in science that have long sinceexploded, but also their occasional unchristian tempers. To contendwith an unprincipled and malicious liar, such as Julian the Apostate, in its original sense the first deliberate _miscreant_, offered adreadful snare to any man's charity. And he must be a furious bigot whowill justify the rancorous lampoons of Gregory Nazianzen. Are we, then, angry on behalf of Julian? So far as _he_ was interested, not fora moment would we have suspended the descending scourge. Cut him to thebone, we should have exclaimed at the time! Lay the knout into every"raw" that can be found! For we are of opinion that Julian's duplicityis not yet adequately understood. But what was right as regarded theclaims of the criminal, was _not_ right as regarded the duties ofhis opponent. Even in this mischievous renegade, trampling with hisorangoutang hoofs the holiest of truths, a Christian bishop ought stillto have respected his sovereign, through the brief period that he_was_ such, and to have commiserated his benighted brother, however wilfully astray, and however hatefully seeking to quench thatlight for other men, which, for his own misgiving heart, we couldundertake to show that he never _did_ succeed in quenching. We donot wish to enlarge upon a theme both copious and easy. But here, andeverywhere, speaking of the fathers as a body, we charge them withanti-christian practices of a two-fold order: sometimes as supportingtheir great cause in a spirit alien to its own, retorting in a tempernot less uncharitable than that of their opponents; sometimes, again, as adopting arguments that are unchristian in their ultimate grounds;resting upon errors the reputation of errors; upon superstitions theoverthrow of superstitions; and drawing upon the armories of darknessfor weapons that, to be durable, ought to have been of celestialtemper. Alternately, in short, the fathers trespass against thoseaffections which furnish to Christianity its moving powers, and againstthose truths which furnish to Christianity its guiding lights. Indeed, Milton's memorable attempt to characterize the fathers as a body, contemptuous as it is, can hardly be challenged as overcharged. 

Never in any instance were these aberrations of the fathers morevividly exemplified than in their theories upon the Pagan Oracles. Onbehalf of God, they were determined to be wiser than God; and, indemonstration of scriptural power, to advance doctrines which theScriptures had nowhere warranted. At this point, however, we shall takea short course; and, to use a vulgar phrase, shall endeavor to "killtwo birds with one stone. " It happens that the earliest book in ourmodern European literature, which has subsequently obtained a stationof authority on the subject of the ancient Oracles, applied itselfentirely to the erroneous theory of the fathers. This is the celebrated_Antonii Van Dale, "De Ethnicorum Oraculis Dissertationes_, " whichwas published at Amsterdam _at least_ as early as the year 1682;that is, one hundred and sixty years ago. And upon the same subjectthere has been no subsequent book which maintains an equal rank. VanDale might have treated his theme simply with a view to theinvestigation of the truth, as some recent inquirers have preferreddoing; and, in that case, the fathers would have been noticed only asincidental occasions might bring forward their opinions--true or false. But to this author the errors of the fathers seemed capital; worthy, infact, of forming his _principal_ object; and, knowing their greatauthority in the Papal church, he anticipated, in the plan of attachinghis own views to the false views of the fathers, an opening to a doublepatronage--that of the Protestants, in the first place, as interestedin all doctrines seeming to be anti-papal; that of the sceptics, in thesecond place, as interested in the exposure of whatever had oncecommanded, but subsequently lost, the superstitious reverence ofmankind. On this policy, he determined to treat the subjectpolemically. He fastened, therefore, upon the fathers with a deadly_acharnement_, that evidently meant to leave no arrears of workfor any succeeding assailant; and it must be acknowledged that, simplyin relation to this purpose of hostility, his work is triumphant. Somuch was not difficult to accomplish; for barely to enunciate theleading doctrine of the fathers is, in the ear of any chronologist, tooverthrow it. But, though successful enough in its functions ofdestruction, on the other hand, as an affirmative or constructive work, the long treatise of Van Dale is most unsatisfactory. It leaves us witha hollow sound ringing in the ear, of malicious laughter from gnomesand imps grinning over the weaknesses of man--his paralytic facility inbelieving--his fraudulent villany in abusing this facility--but in nopoint accounting for those real effects of diffusive social benefitsfrom the Oracle machinery, which must arrest the attention of candidstudents, amidst some opposite monuments of incorrigible credulity, orof elaborate imposture. 

As a book, however, belonging to that small cycle (not numbering, perhaps, on _all_ subjects, above three score), which may be saidto have moulded and controlled the public opinion of Europe through thelast five generations, already for itself the work of Van Dale merits aspecial attention. It is confessedly the _classical_ book--theoriginal _fundus_ for the arguments and facts applicable to thisquestion; and an accident has greatly strengthened its authority. Fontenelle, the most fashionable of European authors, at the opening ofthe eighteenth century, writing in a language at that time even morepredominant than at present, did in effect employ all his advantages topropagate and popularize the views of Van Dale. Scepticism naturallycourts the patronage of France; and in effect that same remark which alearned Belgian (Van Brouwer) has found frequent occasion to make uponsingle sections of Fontenelle's work, may be fairly extended into arepresentative account of the whole--"_L'on trouve les mêmesarguments chez Fontenelle, mais dégagés des longueurs du savant VanDale, et exprimés avec plus d'élégance. _" This _rifaccimento_did not injure the original work in reputation: it caused Van Dale tobe less read, but to be more esteemed; since a man confessedlydistinguished for his powers of composition had not thought it beneathhis ambition to adopt and recompose Van Dale's theory. This importantposition of Van Dale with regard to the effectual creed of Europe--sothat, whether he were read directly or were slighted for a morefashionable expounder, equally in either case it was _his_ doctrineswhich prevailed--must always confer a circumstantial value upon theoriginal dissertations, "_De Ethnicorum Oraculis_. "

This original work of Van Dale is a book of considerable extent. But, in spite of its length, it divides substantially into two greatchapters, and no more, which coincide, in fact, with the two separatedissertations. The first of these dissertations, occupying one hundredand eighty-one pages, inquires into the failure and extinction of theOracles; when they failed, and under what circumstances. The second ofthese dissertations inquires into the machinery and resources of theOracles during the time of their prosperity. In the first dissertation, the object is to expose the folly and gross ignorance of the fathers, who insisted on representing the history of the case roundly in thisshape--as though all had prospered with the Oracles up to the nativityof Christ; but that, after his crucifixion, and simultaneously with thefirst promulgation of Christianity, all Oracles had suddenly drooped;or, to tie up their language to the rigor of their theory, had suddenlyexpired. All this Van Dale peremptorily denies; and, in these days, itis scarcely requisite to add, triumphantly denies; the whole hypothesisof the fathers having literally not a leg to stand upon; and being, infact, the most audacious defiance to historical records that, perhaps, the annals of human folly present. 

In the second dissertation, Van Dale combats the other notion of thefathers--that, during their prosperous ages, the Oracles had moved byan agency of evil spirits. He, on the contrary, contends that, from thefirst hour to the last of their long domination over the minds andpractice of the Pagan world, they had moved by no agencies whatever, but those of human fraud, intrigue, collusion, applied to humanblindness, credulity, and superstition. 

We shall say a word or two upon each question. As to the first, namely, _when_ it was that the Oracles fell into decay and silence, thanksto the headlong rashness of the Fathers, Van Dale's assault cannot berefused or evaded. In reality, the evidence against them is tooflagrant and hyperbolical. If we were to quote from Juvenal--"Delphiset Oracula cessant, " in that case, the fathers challenge it as anargument on _their_ side, for that Juvenal described a state ofthings immediately posterior to Christianity; yet even here the word_cessant_ points to a distinction of cases which already in itselfis fatal to their doctrine. By _cessant_ Juvenal means evidentlywhat we, in these days, should mean in saying of a ship in action thather fire was slackening. This powerful poet, therefore, wiser so farthan the Christian fathers, distinguishes two separate cases: first, the state of torpor and languishing which might be (and in fact was)the predicament of many famous Oracles through centuries not fewer thanfive, six, or even eight; secondly, the state of absolute dismantlingand utter extinction which, even before his time, had confoundedindividual Oracles of the inferior class, not from changes affectingreligion, whether true or false, but from political revolutions. Here, therefore, lies the first blunder of the fathers, that they confoundwith total death the long drooping which befell many great Oracles fromlanguor in the popular sympathies, under changes hereafter to benoticed; and, consequently, from revenues and machinery continuallydecaying. That the Delphic Oracle itself--of all oracles the mostillustrious--had not expired, but simply slumbered for centuries, thefathers might have been convinced themselves by innumerable passages inauthors contemporary with themselves; and that it was continuallythrowing out fitful gleams of its ancient power, when any very greatman (suppose a Caesar) thought fit to stimulate its latent vitality, isnotorious from such cases as that of Hadrian. He, in his earlier days, whilst yet only dreaming of the purple, had not found the Oraclesuperannuated or palsied. On the contrary, he found it but too clear-sighted; and it was no contempt in him, but too ghastly a fear andjealousy, which labored to seal up the grander ministrations of theOracle for the future. What the Pythia had foreshown to himself, shemight foreshow to others; and, when tempted by the same princelybribes, she might authorize and kindle the same aspiring views in othergreat officers. Thus, in the new condition of the Roman power, therewas a perpetual peril, lest an oracle, so potent as that of Delphi, should absolutely create rebellions, by first suggesting hopes to menin high commands. Even as it was, all treasonable assumptions of thepurple, for many generations, commenced in the hopes inspired byauguries, prophecies, or sortileges. And had the great Delphic Oracle, consecrated to men's feelings by hoary superstition, and _privilegedby secrecy_, come forward to countersign such hopes, many more wouldhave been the wrecks of ambition, and even bloodier would have been theblood-polluted line of the imperial successions. Prudence, therefore, it was, and state policy, not the power of Christianity, which gave the_final_ shock (of the _original_ shock we shall speak elsewhere)to the grander functions of the Delphic Oracle. But, in the meantime, the humbler and more domestic offices of this oracle, thoughnaturally making no noise at a distance, seem long to have survived itsstate relations. And, apart from the sort of galvanism notoriouslyapplied by Hadrian, surely the fathers could not have seen Plutarch'saccount of its condition, already a century later than our Saviour'snativity. The Pythian priestess, as we gather from _him_, had bythat time become a less select and dignified personage; she was nolonger a princess in the land--a change which was proximately due tothe impoverished income of the temple; but she was still in existence;still held in respect; still trained, though at inferior cost, to herdifficult and showy ministrations. And the whole establishment of theDelphic god, if necessarily contracted from that scale which had beensuitable when great kings and commonwealths were constant suitorswithin the gates of Delphi, still clung (like the Venice of moderncenturies) to her old ancestral honors, and kept up that decenthousehold of ministers which corresponded to the altered ministrationsof her temple. In fact, the evidences on behalf of Delphi as a princelyhouse, that had indeed partaken in the decaying fortunes of Greece, butnaturally was all the prouder from the irritating contrast of her greatremembrances, are so plentifully dispersed through books, that thefathers must have been willingly duped. That in some way they_were_ duped is too notorious from the facts, and might be suspectedeven from their own occasional language; take, as one instance, amongsta whole _harmony_ of similar expressions, this short passage fromEusebius--_hoi Hellenes homologentes ekleloipenai auton ta chresteria_:the Greeks admitting that their Oracles have failed. (There is, however, a disingenuous vagueness in the very word _ekleloipenai_), _ed' allote pote ex aionos_--and when? why, at no other crisis throughthe total range of their existence--_e kata tes chrones tes euangelikesdidaskalias_--than precisely at the epoch of the evangelicaldispensation, etc. Eusebius was a man of too extensive reading to beentirely satisfied with the Christian representations upon this point. And in such indeterminate phrases as _kata tes chrones_ (which mightmean indifferently the entire three centuries then accomplished fromthe first promulgation of Christianity, or specifically that narrowpunctual limit of the earliest promulgation), it is easy to trace anambidextrous artifice of compromise between what would satisfy his ownbrethren, on the one hand, and what, on the other hand, he could hopeto defend against the assaults of learned Pagans. 

In particular instances it is but candid to acknowledge that thefathers may have been misled by the remarkable tendencies to erroramongst the ancients, from their want of public journals, combined withterritorial grandeur of empire. The greatest possible defect of harmonyarises naturally in this way amongst ancient authors, locally remotefrom each other; but more especially in the post-christian periods, when reporting any aspects of change, or any results from a revolutionvariable and advancing under the vast varieties of the Roman empire. Having no newspapers to effect a level amongst the inequalities andanomalies of their public experience in regard to the Christianrevolution, when collected from innumerable tribes so widely differingas to civilization, knowledge, superstition, &c. ; hence it happenedthat one writer could report with truth a change as having occurredwithin periods of ten to sixty years, which for some other provincewould demand a circuit of six hundred. For example, in Asia Minor, allthe way from the sea coast to the Euphrates, towns were scatteredhaving a dense population of Jews. Sometimes these were the mostmalignant opponents of Christianity; that is, wherever they happened torest in the _letter_ of their peculiar religion. But, on the otherhand, where there happened to be a majority (or, if not numerically amajority, yet influentially an overbalance) in that section of the Jewswho were docile children of their own preparatory faith and discipline, no bigots, and looking anxiously for the fulfilment of their prophecies(an expectation at that time generally diffused), --under thosecircumstances, the Jews were such ready converts as to accountnaturally for sudden local transitions, which in other circumstances orplaces might not have been credible. 

This single consideration may serve to explain the apparentcontradictions, the irreconcilable discrepancies, between thestatements of contemporary Christian bishops, locally at a vastdistance from each other, or (which is even more important) reportingfrom communities occupying different stages of civilization. There wasno harmonizing organ of interpretation, in Christian or in Pagannewspapers, to bridge over the chasms that divided different provinces. A devout Jew, already possessed by the purest idea of the SupremeBeing, stood on the very threshold of conversion: he might, by onehour's conversation with an apostle, be transfigured into anenlightened Christian; whereas a Pagan could seldom in one generationpass beyond the infirmity of his novitiate. His heart and affections, his will and the habits of his understanding, were too deeply diseasedto be suddenly transmuted. And hence arises a phenomenon, which has toolanguidly arrested the notice of historians; namely, that already, andfor centuries before the time of Constantine, wherever the Jews hadbeen thickly sown as colonists, the most potent body of Christian zealstood ready to kindle under the first impulse of encouragement from thestate; whilst in the great capitals of Rome and Alexandria, where theJews were hated and neutralized politically by Pagan forces, not for ahundred years later than Constantine durst the whole power of thegovernment lay hands on the Pagan machinery, except with timidprecautions, and by graduations so remarkably adjusted to thecircumstances, that sometimes they wear the shape of compromises withidolatry. We must know the ground, the quality of the population, concerned in any particular report of the fathers, before we can judgeof its probabilities. Under local advantages, insulated cases ofOracles suddenly silenced, of temples and their idol-worshipoverthrown, as by a rupture of new-born zeal, were not less certain toarise as rare accidents from rare privileges, or from rare coincidencesof unanimity in the leaders of the place, than on the other hand theywere certain _not_ to arise in that unconditional universalitypretended by the fathers. Wheresoever Paganism was interwoven with thewhole moral being of a people, as it was in Egypt, or with thepolitical tenure and hopes of a people, as it was in Rome, _there_a long struggle was inevitable before the revolution could be effected. Briefly, as against the fathers, we find a sufficient refutation inwhat _followed_ Christianity. If, at a period five, or even sixhundred years after the birth of Christ, you find people stillconsulting the local Oracles of Egypt, in places sheltered from thepoint-blank range of the state artillery, --there is an end, once andforever, to the delusive superstition that, merely by its silentpresence in the world, Christianity must instantaneously come intofierce activity as a reägency of destruction to all forms of idolatrouserror. That argument is multiplied beyond all power of calculation; andto have missed it is the most eminent instance of wilful blindnesswhich the records of human folly can furnish. But there is anotherrefutation lying in an opposite direction, which presses the fatherseven more urgently in the rear than this presses them in front; anyauthor posterior to Christianity, who should point to the decay ofOracles, they would claim on their own side. But what would they havesaid to Cicero, --by what resource of despair would they have parriedhis authority, when insisting (as many times he does insist), forty andeven fifty years before the birth of Christ, on the languishingcondition of the Delphic Oracle? What evasion could they imagine here?How could that languor be due to Christianity, which far anticipatedthe very birth of Christianity? For, as to Cicero, who did not "faranticipate the birth of Christianity. " we allege _him_ ratherbecause his work _De Divinatione_ is so readily accessible, andbecause his testimony on any subject is so full of weight, than becauseother and much older authorities cannot be produced to the same effect. The Oracles of Greece had lost their vigor and their palmy pride fulltwo centuries before the Christian era. Historical records show this_à posteriori_, whatever were the cause; and the cause, which wewill state hereafter, shows it _à priori_, apart from the records. 

Surely, therefore, Van Dale needed not to have pressed his victory overthe helpless fathers so unrelentingly, and after the first ten pages bycases and proofs that are quite needless and _ex abundanti_;simply the survival of any one distinguished Oracle upwards of fourcenturies _after_ Christ--that is sufficient. But if with thisfact we combine the other fact, that all the principal Oracles hadalready begun to languish, more than two centuries _before_Christianity, there can be no opening for a whisper of dissent upon anyreal question between Van Dale and his opponents; namely, both as tothe possibility of Christianity coexisting with such forms of error, and the possibility that oracles should be overthrown by merely Pagan, or internal changes. The less plausible, however, that we find thiserror of the fathers, the more curiosity we naturally feel about thesource of that error; and the more so, because Van Dale never turns hiseyes in that direction. 

This source lay (to speak the simple truth) in abject superstition. Thefathers conceived of the enmity between Christianity and Paganism, asthough it resembled that between certain chemical poisons and theVenetian wine-glass, which (according to the belief [Footnote: Whichbelief we can see no reason for rejecting so summarily as is usuallydone in modern times. It would be absurd, indeed, to suppose a kind ofglass qualified to expose all poisons indifferently, considering thevast range of their chemical differences. But, surely, as against thatone poison then familiarly used for domestic murders, a chemicalreagency might have been devised in the quality of the glass. At least, there is no _prima facie_ absurdity in such a supposition. ] ofthree centuries back) no sooner received any poisonous fluid, thanimmediately it shivered into crystal splinters. They thought to honorChristianity, by imaging it as some exotic animal of more powerfulbreed, such as we English have witnessed in a domestic case, cominginto instant collision with the native race, and exterminating iteverywhere upon the first conflict. In this conceit they substituted afoul fiction of their own, fashioned on the very model of Paganfictions, for the unvarying analogy of the divine procedure. Christianity, as the last and consummate of revelations, had the highdestination of working out its victory through what was greatest in aman--through his reason, his will, his affections. But, to satisfy thefathers, it must operate like a drug--like sympathetic powders--like anamulet--or like a conjurer's charm. Precisely the monkish effect of aBible when hurled at an evil spirit--not the true rational effect ofthat profound oracle read, studied, and laid to heart--was that whichthe fathers ascribed to the mere proclamation of Christianity, whenfirst piercing the atmosphere circumjacent to any oracle; and, in fact, to their gross appreciations, Christian truth was like the scavengerbird in Eastern climates, or the stork in Holland, which signalizes itspresence by devouring all the native brood of vermin, or nuisances, asfast as they reproduce themselves under local distemperatures ofclimate or soil. 

It is interesting to pursue the same ignoble superstition, which, infact, under Romish hands, soon crept like a parasitical plant overChristianity itself, until it had nearly strangled its natural vigor, back into times far preceding that of the fathers. Spite of all thatcould be wrought by Heaven, for the purpose of continually confoundingthe local vestiges of popular reverence which might have gathered roundstocks and stones, so obstinate is the hankering after this mode ofsuperstition in man that his heart returns to it with an elastic recoilas often as the openings are restored. Agreeably to this infatuation, the temple of the true God--even its awful _adytum_--the holy ofholies--or the places where the ark of the covenant had rested in itsmigrations--all were conceived to have an eternal and a self-vindicating sanctity. So thought man: but God himself, though to man'sfolly pledged to the vindication of his own sanctities, thought farotherwise; as we know by numerous profanations of all holy places inJudea, triumphantly carried through, and avenged by no plausiblejudgments. To speak only of the latter temple, three men are memorableas having polluted its holiest recesses: Antiochus Epiphanes, Pompeyabout a century later, and Titus pretty nearly by the same exactinterval later than Pompey. Upon which of these three did any judgmentdescend? Attempts have been made to impress that coloring of the sequelin two of these cases, indeed, but without effect upon _any_ man'smind. Possibly in the case of Antiochus, who seems to have moved undera burning hatred, not so much of the insurgent Jews as of the truefaith which prompted their resistance, there is some colorable argumentfor viewing him in his miserable death as a monument of divine wrath. But the two others had no such malignant spirit; they were tolerant, and even merciful; were authorized instruments for executing thepurposes of Providence; and no calamity in the life of either can bereasonably traced to his dealings with Palestine. Yet, if Christianitycould not brook for an instant the mere coëxistence of a Pagan oracle, how came it that the Author of Christianity had thus brooked (nay, bymany signs of coöperation, had promoted) that ultimate desecration, which planted "the abomination of desolation" as a victorious crest ofPaganism upon his own solitary altar? The institution of the Sabbath, again--what part of the Mosaic economy could it more plausibly havebeen expected that God should vindicate by some memorable interference, since of all the Jewish institutions it was that one which only andwhich frequently became the occasion of wholesale butchery to the pious(however erring) Jews? The scruple of the Jews to fight, or even toresist an assassin, on the Sabbath, was not the less pious in itsmotive because erroneous in principle; yet no miracle interfered tosave them from the consequences of their infatuation. And this seemedthe more remarkable in the case of their war with Antiochus, because_that_ (if any that history has recorded) was a holy war. But, after one tragical experience, which cost the lives of a thousandmartyrs, the Maccabees--quite as much on a level with their scrupulousbrethren in piety as they were superior in good sense--began to reflectthat they had no shadow of a warrant from Scripture for counting uponany miraculous aid; that the whole expectation, from first to last, hadbeen human and presumptuous; and that the obligation of fightingvaliantly against idolatrous compliances was, at all events, paramountto the obligation of the Sabbath. In one hour, after unyokingthemselves from this monstrous millstone of their own forging, abouttheir own necks, the cause rose buoyantly aloft as upon wings ofvictory; and, as their very earliest reward--as the first fruits fromthus disabusing their minds of windy presumptions--they found the verycase itself melting away which had furnished the scruple; since theircowardly enemies, now finding that they would fight on all days alike, had no longer any motive for attacking them on the Sabbath; besidesthat their own astonishing victories henceforward secured to them oftenthe choice of the day not less than of the ground. 

But, without lingering on these outworks of the true religion, namely, 1st, the Temple of Jerusalem; 2dly, the Sabbath, --both of which thedivine wisdom often saw fit to lay prostrate before the presumption ofidolatrous assaults, on principles utterly irreconcilable with theOracle doctrine of the fathers, --there is a still more flagrantargument against the fathers, which it is perfectly confounding to findboth them and their confuter overlooking. It is this. Oracles, takethem at the very worst, were no otherwise hostile to Christianity thanas a branch of Paganism. If, for instance, the Delphic establishmentwere hateful (as doubtless it was) to the holy spirit of truth whichburned in the mind of an apostle, _why_ was it hateful? Notprimarily in its character of Oracle, but in its universal character ofPagan temple; not as an authentic distributor of counsels adapted tothe infinite situations of its clients--often very wise counsels; butas being ultimately engrafted on the stem of idolatrous religion--asderiving, in the last resort, their sanctions from Pagan deities, and, therefore, as sharing _constructively_ in all the pollutions ofthat tainted source. Now, therefore, if Christianity, according to thefancy of the fathers, could not tolerate the co-presence of so muchevil as resided in the Oracle superstition, --that is, in thederivative, in the secondary, in the not unfrequently neutralized oreven redundantly compensated mode of error, --then, _à fortiori_, Christianity could not have tolerated for an hour the parentsuperstition, the larger evil, the fontal error, which diseased thevery organ of vision--which not merely distorted a few objects on theroad, but spread darkness over the road itself. Yet what is the fact?So far from any mysterious repulsion _externally_ betweenidolatrous errors and Christianity, as though the two schemes of beliefcould no more coexist in the same society than two queen-bees in ahive, --as though elementary nature herself recoiled from the abominable_concursus_, --do but open a child's epitome of history, and youfind it to have required four entire centuries before the destroyer'shammer and crowbar began to ring loudly against the temples ofidolatrous worship; and not before five, nay, locally six, or evenseven centuries had elapsed, could the better angel of mankind havesung gratulations announcing that the great strife was over--that manwas inoculated with the truth; or have adopted the impressive languageof a Latin father, that "the owls were to be heard in _every_village hooting from the dismantled fanes of heathenism, or the gauntwolf disturbing the sleep of peasants as he yelled in winter from thecold, dilapidated altars. " Even this victorious consummation was trueonly for the southern world of civilization. The forests of Germany, though pierced already to the south in the third and fourth centuriesby the torch of missionaries, --though already at that time illuminatedby the immortal Gothic version of the New Testament preceding Ulppilas, and still surviving, --sheltered through ages in the north and east vasttribes of idolaters, some awaiting the baptism of Charlemagne in theeighth century and the ninth, others actually resuming a fiercecountenance of heathenism for the martial zeal of crusading knights inthe thirteenth and fourteenth. The history of Constantine has grosslymisled the world. It was very early in the fourth century (313 A. D. )that Constantine found himself strong enough to take his _earliest_steps for raising Christianity to a privileged station; whichstation was not merely an effect and monument of its progress, but a further cause of progress. In this latter light, as a poweradvancing and moving, but politically still militant, Christianityrequired exactly one other century to carry out and accomplish even itseastern triumph. Dating from the era of the very inaugurating andmerely local acts of Constantine, we shall be sufficiently accurate insaying that the corresponding period in the fifth century (namely, fromabout 404 to 420 A. D. ) first witnessed those uproars of ruin in Egyptand Alexandria--fire racing along the old carious timbers, battering-rams thundering against the ancient walls of the most horrid temples--which rang so searchingly in the ears of Zosimus, extorting, at everyblow, a howl of Pagan sympathy from that ignorant calumniator ofChristianity. So far from the fact being, according to the generalprejudice, as though Constantine had found himself able to destroyPaganism, and to replace it by Christianity; on the contrary, it wasboth because he happened to be far too weak, in fact, for such a mightyrevolution, and because he _knew_ his own weakness, that he fixedhis new capital, as a preliminary caution, upon the Propontis. 

There were other motives to this change, and particularly (as we haveattempted to show in a separate dissertation) motives of high politicaleconomy, suggested by the relative conditions of land and agriculturein Thrace and Asia Minor, by comparison with decaying Italy; but aparamount motive, we are satisfied, and the earliest motive, was theincurable Pagan bigotry of Rome. Paganism for Rome, it ought to havebeen remembered by historians, was a mere necessity of her Paganorigin. Paganism was the fatal dowry of Rome from her inauguration; notonly she had once received a retaining fee on behalf of Paganism, inthe mysterious _Ancile_, supposed to have fallen from heaven, butshe actually preserved this bribe amongst her rarest jewels. Shepossessed a palladium, such a national amulet or talisman as manyGrecian or Asiatic cities had once possessed--a _fatal_ guaranteeto the prosperity of the state. Even the Sibylline books, whateverravages they might be supposed by the intelligent to have sustained ina lapse of centuries, were popularly believed, in the latest period ofthe Western empire, to exist as so many charters of supremacy. Jupiterhimself in Rome had put on a peculiar Roman physiognomy, whichassociated him with the destinies of the gigantic state. Above all, thesolemn augury of the twelve vultures, so memorably passed downwardsfrom the days of Romulus, through generations as yet uncertain of theevent, and, therefore, chronologically incapable of participation inany fraud--an augury _always_ explained as promising twelvecenturies of supremacy to Rome, from the year 748 or 750 B. C. --coöperated with the endless other Pagan superstitions in anchoring thewhole Pantheon to the Capitol and Mount Palatine. So long as Rome had aworldly hope surviving, it was impossible for her to forget the VestalVirgins, the College of Augurs, or the indispensable office and the_indefeasible_ privileges of the _Pontifex Maximus_, which(though Cardinal Baronius, in his great work, for many years sought tofight off the evidences for that fact, yet afterwards partially heconfessed his error) actually availed--historically and _medallically_can be demonstrated to have availed--for the temptation of ChristianCæsars into collusive adulteries with heathenism. Here, for instance, came an emperor that timidly recorded his scruples--feebly protested, but gave way at once as to an ugly necessity. There came another, moredeeply religious, or constitutionally more bold, who fought long andstrenuously against the compromise. "What! should he, the delegate ofGod, and the standard-bearer of the true religion, proclaim himselfofficially head of the false? No; that was too much for hisconscience. " But the fatal meshes of prescription, of superstitionsancient and gloomy, gathered around him; he heard that he was noperfect Cæsar without this office, and eventually the very same reasonwhich had obliged Augustus not to suppress, but himself to assume, thetribunitian office, namely, that it was a popular mode of leavingdemocratic organs untouched, whilst he neutralized their democraticfunctions by absorbing them into his own, availed to overthrow allChristian scruples of conscience, even in the most Christian of theCæsars, many years _after_ Constantine. The pious Theodosius foundhimself literally compelled to become a Pagan pontiff. A _bon mot_[Footnote: "A _bon mot_. "--This was built on the accident that acertain _Maximus_ stood in notorious circumstances of rivalship to theemperor [Theodosius]: and the bitterness of the jest took this turn—that if the emperor should persist in declining the office of _Pont. _Maximus_, in that case, "erit Pontifex Maximus;" that is, Maximus (thesecret aspirant) shall be our Pontifex. _So_ the words sounded to thosein the secret [_synetoisi_], whilst to others they seemed to have nomeaning at all. ] circulating amongst the people warned him that, if heleft the cycle of imperial powers incomplete, if he suffered thegalvanic battery to remain imperfect in its circuit of links, prettysoon he would tempt treason to show its head, and would even for thepresent find but an imperfect obedience. Reluctantly therefore theemperor gave way: and perhaps soothed his fretting conscience, byoffering to heaven, as a penitential litany, that same petition whichNaaman the Syrian offered to the prophet Elijah as a reason for apersonal dispensation. Hardly more possible it was that a camel shouldgo through the eye of a needle, than that a Roman senator shouldforswear those inveterate superstitions with which his own system ofaristocracy had been riveted for better and worse. As soon would theVenetian senator, the gloomy "magnifico" of St. Mark, have consented toRenounce the annual wedding of his republic with the Adriatic, as theRoman noble, whether senator, or senator elect, or of senatorialdescent, would have dissevered his own solitary stem from the greatforest of his ancestral order; and this he must have done by doubtingthe legend of Jupiter Stator, or by withdrawing his allegiance fromJupiter Capitolinus. The Roman people universally became agitatedtowards the opening of the fifth century after Christ, when their owntwelfth century was drawing near to its completion. Rome had nowreached the very condition of Dr. Faustus--having originally received aknown term of prosperity from some dark power; but at length hearingthe hours, one after the other, tolling solemnly from the church-tower, as they exhausted the waning minutes of the very final day marked downin the contract. The more profound was the faith of Rome in the flightof the twelve vultures, once so glorious, now so sad, an augury, thedeeper was the depression as the last hour drew near that had been somysteriously prefigured. The reckoning, indeed, of chronology wasslightly uncertain. The Varronian account varied from others. But thesetrivial differences might tell as easily against them as for them, anddid but strengthen the universal agitation. Alaric, in the opening ofthe fifth century [about 4l0]--Attila, near the middle [445]--alreadyseemed prelusive earthquakes running before the final earthquake. AndChristianity, during this era of public alarm, was so far from assuminga more winning aspect to Roman eyes, as a religion promising to survivetheir own, that already, under that character of reversionary triumph, this gracious religion seemed a public insult, and this meek religion aperpetual defiance; pretty much as a king sees with scowling eyes, whenrevealed to him in some glass of Cornelius Agrippa, the portraits ofthat mysterious house which is destined to supplant his own. 

Now, from this condition of feeling at Rome, it is apparent not only asa fact that Constantine did not overthrow Paganism, but as apossibility that he could not have overthrown it. In the fierceconflict he would probably have been overthrown himself; and, even forso much as he _did_ accomplish, it was well that he attempted itat a distance from Rome. So profoundly, therefore, are the fathers inerror, that instead of that instant victory which they ascribe toChristianity, even Constantine's revolution was merely local. Nearlyfive centuries, in fact, it cost, and not three, to Christianize eventhe entire Mediterranean empire of Rome; and the premature effort ofConstantine ought to be regarded as a mere _fluctus decumanus_ inthe continuous advance of the new religion, --one of those ambitiousbillows which sometimes run far ahead of their fellows in a tidesteadily gaining ground, but which inevitably recede in the nextmoment, marking only the strength of that tendency which sooner orlater is destined to fill the whole capacity of the shore. 

To have proved, therefore, if it could have been proved, thatChristianity had been fatal in the way of a magical charm to theOracles of the world, would have proved nothing but a perplexinginconsistency, so long as the fathers were obliged to confess thatPaganism itself, as a gross total, as the parent superstition (sure toreproduce Oracles faster than they could be extinguished), had beensuffered to exist for many centuries concurrently with Christianity, and had finally been overthrown by the simple majesty of truth thatcourts the light, as matched against falsehood that shuns it. 

As applied, therefore, to the first problem in the whole question uponOracles, --_When, and under what circumstances, did they cease?_--the _Dissertatio_ of Van Dale, and the _Histoire des Oracles_by Fontenelle, are irresistible, though not written in a proper spiritof gravity, nor making use of that indispensable argument which we haveourselves derived from the analogy of all scriptural precedents. 

But the case is far otherwise as concerns the second problem, --_How, and by what machinery, did the Oracles, in the days of theirprosperity, conduct their elaborate ministrations?_ To this problemno justice at all is done by the school of Van Dale. A spirit ofmockery and banter is ill applied to questions that at any time havebeen centres of fear, and hope, and mysterious awe, to long trains ofhuman generations. And the coarse assumption of systematic fraud in theOracles is neither satisfactory to the understanding, as failing tomeet many important aspects of the case, nor is it at all countenancedby the kind of evidences that have been hitherto alleged. The fathershad taken the course--vulgar and superstitious--of explainingeverything sagacious, everything true, everything that by possibilitycould seem to argue prophetic functions in the greater Oracles, as theproduct indeed of inspiration, but of inspiration emanating from anevil spirit. This hypothesis of a diabolic inspiration is rejected bythe school of Van Dale. Both the power of at all looking into thefuture, and the fancied source of that power, are dismissed ascontemptible chimeras. Upon the first of these dark pretensions weshall have occasion to speak at another point. Upon the other we agreewith Van Dale. Yet, even here, the spirit of triumphant ridicule, applied to questions not wholly within the competence of humanresources, is displeasing in grave discussions: grave they are bynecessity of their relations, howsoever momentarily disfigured bylevity and the unseasonable grimaces of self-sufficient "philosophy. "This temper of mind is already advertised from the first to theobserving reader of Van Dale by the character of his engravedfrontispiece. Men are there exhibited in the act of juggling, and stillmore odiously as exulting over their juggleries by gestures of thebasest collusion, such as protruding the tongue, inflating one cheek bymeans of the tongue, grinning, and winking obliquely. These vilenessesare so ignoble, that for his own sake a man of honor (whether as awriter or a reader) shrinks from dealing with any case to which they doreally adhere; such a case belongs to the province of police courts, not of literature. But, in the ancient apparatus of the Oraclesalthough frauds and _espionage_ did certainly form an occasionalresource, the artifices employed were rarely illiberal in their mode, and always ennobled by their motive. As to the mode, the Oracles hadfortunately no temptation to descend into any tricks that could looklike "thimble-rigging;" and as to the motive, it will be seen that thiscould never be dissociated from some regard to public or patrioticobjects in the first place; to which if any secondary interest wereoccasionally attached, this could rarely descend so low as even to anordinary purpose of gossiping curiosity, but never to a base, mercenarypurpose of fraud. Our views, however, on this phasis of the question, will speedily speak for themselves. 

Meantime, pausing for one moment to glance at the hypothesis of thefathers, we confess ourselves to be scandalized by its unnecessaryplunge into the ignoble. Many sincere Christian believers have doubtedaltogether of any evil spirits, as existences, warranted by Scripture, that is, as beings whose principle was evil ["evil, be thou my good:"P. L. ]; others, again, believing in the possibility that spiritualbeings had been (in ways unintelligible to us) seduced from their stateof perfection by temptations analogous to those which had seduced man, acquiesced in the notion of spirits tainted with evil, but nottherefore (any more than man himself) essentially or causelesslymalignant. Now, it is well known, and, amongst others, Eichhorn_(Einletung in das alte Testament) has noticed the fact, which willbe obvious, on a little reflection, to any even unlearned student ofthe Scriptures who can throw his memory back through a real familiaritywith those records, that the Jews derived their obstinate notions offiends and demoniacal possessions (as accounting even for bodilyaffections) entirely from their Chaldean captivity. Not before thatgreat event in Jewish history, and, therefore, in consequence of thatevent, were the Jews inoculated with this Babylonian, Persian, andMedian superstition. Now, if Eichhorn and others are right, it followsthat the elder Scriptures, as they ascend more and more into the pureratmosphere of untainted Hebrew creeds, ought to exhibit an increasingfreedom from all these modes of demoniacal agency. And accordingly sowe find it. Messengers of God are often concerned in the early recordsof Moses; but it is not until we come down to Post-Mosaical records, Job, for example (though that book is doubtful as to its chronology), and the chronicles of the Jewish kings (_Judaic or Israelitish)_, that we first find any allusion to malignant spirits. As againstEichhorn, however, though readily conceding that the agency is notoften recognized, we would beg leave to notice, that there is a three-fold agency of evil, relatively to man, ascribed to certain spirits inthe elder Scriptures, namely: 1, of _misleading_ (as in the caseof the Israelitish king seduced into a fatal battle by a falsehoodoriginating with a spiritual being); 2, of _temptation_; 3, ofcalumnious _accusation_ directed against absent parties. It is notabsolutely an untenable hypothesis, that these functions of malignityto man, as at first sight they appear, may be in fact reconcilable withthe general functions of a being not malignant, and not evil in anysense, but simply obedient to superior commands: for none of ussupposes, of course, that a "destroying angel" must be an evil spirit, though sometimes appearing in a dreadful relation of hostility to_all_ parties (as in the case of David's punishment). But, waivingall these speculations, one thing is apparent, that the negativeallowance, the toleration granted to these later Jewish modes of beliefby our Saviour, can no more be urged as arguing any positive sanctionto such existences (to _demons_ in the bad sense), than histoleration of Jewish errors and conceits in questions of science. Oncefor all, it was no purpose of his mission to expose errors in mattersof pure curiosity, and in speculations _not_ moral, but exclusivelyintellectual. And, besides the ordinary argument for rejectingsuch topics of teaching, as not necessarily belonging to any knownpurpose of the Christian revelation (which argument is merelynegative, and still leaves it open to have regarded such communicationsas a possible _extra_ condescension, as a _lucro ponatur_, not absolutely to have been expected, but if granted as all the moremeritorious in Christianity), we privately are aware of an argument, far more rigorous and coërcive, which will place this question uponquite another basis. This argument, which, in a proper situation, andwith ampler disposable space, we shall expose in its strength, willshow that it was not that neutral possibility which men have supposed, for the founder of our faith to have granted light, casually orindirectly, upon questions of curiosity. One sole revelation was madeby Him, as to the nature of the intercourse and the relations inanother world; but _that_ was for the purpose of forestalling avile, unspiritual notion, already current amongst the childish Jews, and sure to propagate itself even to our own days, unless an utter_averruncatio_ were applied to it. This was its purpose, and notany purpose of gratification to unhallowed curiosity; we speak of thequestion about the reversionary rights of marriage in a future state. This memorable case, by the way, sufficiently exposes the gross, infantine sensualism of the Jewish mind at that period, and throws anindirect light on their creed as to demons. With this one exception, standing by itself and self-explained, there never was a gleam ofrevelation granted by any authorized prophet to speculative curiosity, whether pointing to science, or to the mysteries of the spiritualworld. And the true argument on this subject would show that thisabstinence was not accidental; was not merely on a motive ofconvenience, as evading any needless extension of labors in teaching, which is the furthest point attained by any existing argument; but, onthe contrary, that there was an obligation of consistency, stern, absolute, insurmountable, which made it _essential_ to withholdsuch revelations; and that had but one such condescension, even to aharmless curiosity, been conceded, there would have arisen instantly arent--a fracture--a schism--in another vast and collateral purpose ofProvidence. 

From all considerations of the Jewish condition at the era ofChristianity, the fathers might have seen the license for doubt as tothe notions of a diabolic inspiration. Why must the prompting spirits, if really assumed to be the efficient agency behind the Oracles, befigured as holding any relation at all to moral good or moral evil? Whynot allow of demoniac powers, excelling man in beauty, power, prescience, but otherwise neutral as to all purposes of man's moralnature? Or, if revolting angels were assumed, why degrade their agencyin so vulgar and unnecessary a way, by adopting the vilest relation toman which can be imputed to a demon--his function of secret_calumnious accusation_; from which idea, lowering the Miltonic"archangel ruined" into the assessor of thieves, as a private slanderer(_diabolos_), proceeds, through the intermediate Italian _diavolo_, our own grotesque vulgarism of the _devil_; [Footnote: But, says anunlearned man, Christ uses the word _devil_. Not so. The word used is_diabolos_. Translate v. G. "The accuser and his angels. "] an ideawhich must ever be injurious, in common with all base conceptions, to agrand and spiritual religion. If the Oracles _were_ supported bymysterious agencies of spiritual beings, it was still open to havedistinguished between mere modes of power or of intelligence, and modesof illimitable evil. The _results_ of the Oracles were beneficent: thatwas all which the fathers had any right to know: and their unwarrantedintroduction of wicked or rebel angels was as much a surreptitiousfraud upon their audiences, as their neglect to distinguish between theconditions of an extinct superstition and a superstition dormant ordecaying. 

To leave the fathers, and to state our own views on the final questionargued by Van Dale--"What was the essential machinery by which theOracles moved?"--we shall inquire, 1. What was the relation of the Oracles (and we would wish to beunderstood as speaking particularly of the Delphic Oracle) to thecredulity of Greece?

2. What was the relation of that same Oracle to the absolute truth?

3. What was its relation to the public welfare of Greece?

Into this trisection we shall decompose the coarse unity of thequestion presented by Van Dale and his Vandals, as though the one sole"issue, " that could be sent down for trial before a jury, were thelikelihoods of fraud and gross swindling. It is not with the deceptionsor collusions of the Oracles, as mere matters of fact, that we in thisage are primarily concerned, but with those deceptions as they affectedthe contemporary people of Greece. It is important to know whether thegeneral faith of Greece in the mysterious pretensions of Oracles wereunsettled or disturbed by the several agencies at work that naturallytended to rouse suspicion; such, for instance, as these four whichfollow:--1. Eminent instances of scepticism with regard to the oracularpowers, from time to time circulating through Greece in the shape of_bon mots_; or, 2, which silently amounted to the same virtualexpression of distrust, Refusals (often more speciously wearing thename of _neglects_) to consult the proper Oracle on some hazardousenterprize of general notoriety and interest; 3. Cases of directfailure in the event, as understood to have been predicted by theOracle, not unfrequently accompanied by tragical catastrophes to theparties misled by this erroneous construction of the Oracle; 4. (whichis, perhaps, the climax of the exposures possible under thesuperstitions of Paganism), A public detection of known oraculartemples doing business on a considerable scale, as accomplices withfelons. 

Modern appraisers of the oracular establishments are too commonly inall moral senses anachronists. We hear it alleged with someplausibility against Southey's portrait of Don Roderick, thoughotherwise conceived in a spirit proper for bringing out the wholesentiment of his pathetic situation, that the king is too Protestant, and too evangelical, after the model of 1800, in his modes ofpenitential piety. The poet, in short, reflected back upon one who wastoo certain in the eighth century to have been the victim of darkpopish superstitions, his own pure and enlightened faith. But theanachronistic spirit in which modern sceptics react upon the PaganOracles is not so elevating as the English poet's. Southey reflectedhis own superiority upon the Gothic prince of Spain. But the scepticsreflect their own vulgar habits of mechanic and compendious officebusiness upon the large institutions of the ancient Oracles. To satisfythem, the Oracle should resemble a modern coach-office--whereundoubtedly you would suspect fraud, if the question "How far toDerby?" were answered evasively, or if the grounds of choice betweentwo roads were expressed enigmatically. But the _to loxon_, ormysterious indirectness of the Oracle, was calculated far more tosupport the imaginative grandeur of the unseen God, and was designed todo so, than to relieve the individual suitor in a perplexity seldom ofany capital importance. In this way every oracular answer operated uponthe local Grecian neighborhood in which it circulated as one of theimpulses which, from time to time, renewed the sense of a mysteriousinvolution in the invisible powers, as though they were incapable ofdirect correspondence or parallelism with the monotony and slightcompass of human ideas. As the symbolic dancers of the ancients, whonarrated an elaborate story, _Saltando Hecubam_, or _SaltandoLoadamiam_, interwove the passion of the advancing incidents intothe intricacies of the figure--something in the same way, it wasunderstood by all men, that the Oracle did not so much evade thedifficulty by a dark form of words, as he revealed his own hieroglyphicnature. All prophets, the true equally with the false, have felt theinstinct for surrounding themselves with the majesty of darkness. Andin a religion like the Pagan, so deplorably meagre and starved as tomost of the draperies connected with the mysterious and sublime, wemust not seek to diminish its already scanty wardrobe. But let us passfrom speculation to illustrative anecdotes. We have imagined severalcases which might seem fitted for giving a shock to the general Paganconfidence in Oracles. Let us review them. 

The first is the case of any memorable scepticism published in apointed or witty form; as Demosthenes avowed his suspicions "that theOracle was _Philippizing_. " This was about 344 years B. C. Exactlyone hundred years earlier, in the 444th year B. C. , or the _locus_of Pericles, Herodotus (then forty years old) is universally supposedto have read, which for _him_ was publishing, his history. In thiswork two insinuations of the same kind occur: during the invasion ofDarius the Mede (about 490 B. C. ) the Oracle was charged with_Medizing_; and in the previous period of Pisistratus (about 555B. C. ) the Oracle had been almost convicted of _Alcmœonidizing_. The Oracle concerned was the same, --namely, the Delphic, --in all threecases. In the case of Darius, fear was the ruling passion; in theearlier case, a near self-interest, but not in a base sense selfish. The Alemœonidae, an Athenian house hostile to Pisistratus, beingexceedingly rich, had engaged to rebuild the ruined temple of theOracle; and had fulfilled their promise with a munificence outrunningthe letter of their professions, particularly with regard to thequality of marble used in facing or "veneering" the front elevation. Now, these sententious and rather witty expressions gave wings andbuoyancy to the public suspicions, so as to make them fly from one endof Greece to the other; and they continued in lively remembrance forcenturies. Our answer we reserve until we have illustrated the otherheads. 

In the second case, namely, that of sceptical slights shown to theOracle, there are some memorable precedents on record. Everybody knowsthe ridiculous stratagem of Crœsus, the Lydian king, for trying thepowers of the Oracle, by a monstrous culinary arrangement of pots andpans, known (as he fancied) only to himself. Generally the course ofthe Delphic Oracle under similar insults was--warmly to resent them. But Crœsus, as a king, a foreigner, and a suitor of unexampledmunificence, was privileged, especially because the ministers of theDelphic temple had doubtless found it easy to extract the secret bybribery from some one of the royal mission. A case, however, much moreinteresting, because arising between two leading states of Greece, andin the century subsequent to the ruder age of Crœsus (who was aboutcoeval with Pisistratus, 555 B. C. ), is reported by Xenophon of theLacedæmonians and Thebans. They concluded a treaty of peace without anycommunication, not so much as a civil notification to the Oracle; _tomen Teo ouden ekoinosanto, hopis hæ eirpnp genoito_--to the god (theDelphic god) they made no communication at all as to the terms of thepeace; _outoi de ebeleuonto_, but they personally pursued theirnegotiations in private. That this was a very extraordinary reach ofpresumption, is evident from the care of Xenophon in bringing it beforehis readers; it is probable, indeed, that neither of the highcontracting parties had really acted in a spirit of religiousindifference, though it is remarkable of the Spartans, that of allGreek tribes they were the most facile and numerous delinquents underall varieties of foreign temptations to revolt from their hereditaryallegiance--a fact which measures the degree of unnatural constraintand tension which the Spartan usages involved; but in this case werather account for the public outrage to religion and universal usage, by a strong political jealousy lest the provisions of the treaty shouldtranspire prematurely amongst states adjacent to Bœotia. 

Whatever, meantime, were the secret motive to this policy, it did notfail to shock all Greece profoundly. And, in a slighter degree, thesame effect upon public feeling followed the act of Agesipolis, who, after obtaining an answer from the Oracle of Delphi, carried forwardhis suit to the more awfully ancient Oracle of Dodona; by way oftrying, as he alleged, "whether the child agreed with its papa. " Theseopen expressions of distrust were generally condemned; and theirresistible proof that they were, lies in the fact that they led to noimitations. Even in a case mentioned by Herodotus, when a man had theaudacity to found a colony without seeking an oracular sanction, noprecedent was established; though the journey to Delphi must often havebeen peculiarly inconvenient to the founders of colonies movingwestwards from Greece; and the expenses of such a journey, with thesubsequent offerings, could not but prove unseasonable at the momentwhen every drachma was most urgently needed. Charity begins at home, was a thought quite as likely to press upon a Pagan conscience, inthose circumstances, as upon our modern Christian consciences underheavy taxation; yet, for all that, such was the regard to a piousinauguration of all colonial enterprises, that no one provision orpledge of prosperity was held equally indispensable by all parties tosuch hazardous speculations. The merest worldly foresight, indeed, tothe most irreligious leader, would suggest this sanction as anecessity, under the following reason:--colonies the most enviablyprosperous upon the whole, have yet had many hardships to contend within their noviciate of the first five years; were it only from thesummer failure of water under circumstances of local ignorance, or fromthe casual failure of crops under imperfect arrangements of culture. Now, the one great qualification for wrestling strenuously with suchdifficult contingencies in solitary situations, is the spirit ofcheerful hope; but, when any room had been left for apprehending asupernatural curse resting upon their efforts--equally in the mostthoughtfully pious man and the most crazily superstitious--all spiritof hope would be blighted at once; and the religious neglect would, even in a common human way, become its own certain executor, throughmere depression of spirits and misgiving of expectations. Well, therefore, might Cicero in a tone of defiance demand, "Quam vero Græciacoloniam misit in Ætoliam, Ioniam, Asiam, Siciliam, Italiam, sinePythio (the Delphic), aut Dodonseo, aut Hammonis oraculo?" An oracularsanction must be had, and from a leading oracle--the three mentioned byCicero were the greatest; [Footnote: To which at one time must beadded, as of equal rank, the Oracle of the Branchides, in Asia Minor. But this had been destroyed by the Persians, in retaliation of theAthenian outrages at Sardis. ] and, if a minor oracle could havesatisfied the inaugurating necessities of a regular colony, we may besure that the Dorian states of the Peloponnesus, who had twenty-fivedecent oracles at home (that is, within the peninsula), would not soconstantly have carried their money to Delphi. Nay, it is certain thateven where the colonial counsels of the greater oracles seemedextravagant, though a large discretion was allowed to remonstrance, andeven to very homely expostulations, still, in the last resort, nodoubts were felt that the oracle must be right. Brouwer, the Belgicscholar, who has so recently and so temperately treated these subjects(Histoire de la Civilisation Morale et Religieuse chez les Grecs: 6tomes: Groningue--1840), alleges a case (which, however, we do notremember to have met) where the client ventured to object:--"_Mon roiApollon, je crois que tu es fou. _" But cases are obvious which lookthis way, though not going so far as to charge lunacy upon the lord ofprophetic vision. Battus, who was destined to be the eldest father ofCyrene, so memorable as the first ground of Greek intercourse with theAfrican shore of the Mediterranean, never consulted the Delphic Oraclein reference to his eyes, which happened to be diseased, but that hewas admonished to prepare for colonizing Libya. --"Grant me patience, "would Battus reply; "here am I getting into years, and never do Iconsult the Oracle about my precious sight, but you, King Phœbus, beginyour old yarn about Cyrene. Confound Cyrene! Nobody knows where it is. But, if you are serious, speak to my son--he's a likely young man, andworth a hundred of old rotten hulks, like myself. " Battus was provokedin good earnest; and it is well known that the whole scheme went tosleep for several years, until King Phoebus sent in a gentle refresherto Battus and his islanders, in the shape of failing crops, pestilence, and his ordinary chastisements. The people were roused--the colony wasfounded--and, after utter failure, was again re-founded, and theresults justified the Oracle. But, in all such cases, and where theremonstrances were least respectful, or where the resistance of_inertia_ was longest, we differ altogether from M. Brouwer in hisbelief, that the suitors fancied Apollo to have gone distracted. Ifthey ever said so, this must have been merely by way of putting theOracle on its mettle, and calling forth some _plainer_--not anyessentially different--answer from the enigmatic god; for there it wasthat the doubts of the clients settled, and on that it was thepractical demurs hinged. Not because even Battus, vexed as he was abouthis precious eyesight, distrusted the Oracle, but because he felt surethat the Oracle had not spoken out freely; therefore, had he and manyothers in similar circumstances presumed to delay. A second edition waswhat they waited for, corrected and _enlarged_. We have a memorableinstance of this policy in the Athenian envoys, who, upon receiving amost ominous doom, but obscurely expressed, from the Delphic Oracle, which politely concluded by saying, "And so get out, you vagabonds, from my temple--don't cumber my decks any longer;" were advised toanswer sturdily--"No!--we shall _not_ get out--we mean to sit hereforever, until you think proper to give us a more reasonable reply. "Upon which spirited rejoinder, the Pythia saw the policy of revisingher truly brutal rescript as it had stood originally. 

The necessity, indeed, was strong for not acquiescing in the Oracle, until it had become clearer by revision or by casual illustrations, aswill be seen even under our next head. This head concerns the case ofthose who found themselves deceived by the _event_ of any oracularprediction. As usual, there is a Spartan case of this nature. Cleomenescomplained bitterly that the Oracle of Delphi had deluded him byholding out as a possibility, and under given conditions as acertainty, that he should possess himself of Argos. But the Oracle wasjustified: there was an inconsiderable place outside the walls of Argoswhich bore the same name. Most readers will remember the case ofCambyses, who had been assured by a legion of oracles that he shoulddie at Ecbatana. Suffering, therefore, in Syria from a scratchinflicted upon his thigh by his own sabre, whilst angrily sabring aridiculous quadruped whom the Egyptian priests had put forward as agod, he felt quite at his ease so long as he remembered his vastdistance from the mighty capital of Media, to the eastward of theTigris. The scratch, however, inflamed, for his intemperance hadsaturated his system with combustible matter; the inflammation spread;the pulse ran high: and he began to feel twinges of alarm. At lengthmortification commenced: but still he trusted to the old prophecy aboutEcbatana, when suddenly a horrid discovery was made--that the verySyrian village at his own head-quarters was known by the pompous nameof Ecbatana. Josephus tells a similar story of some man contemporarywith Herod the Great. And we must all remember that case in Shakspeare, where the first king of the _red_ rose, Henry IV. , had longfancied his destiny to be that he should meet his death in Jerusalem;which naturally did not quicken his zeal for becoming a crusader. "Alltime enough, " doubtless he used to say; "no hurry at all, gentlemen!"But at length, finding himself pronounced by the doctor ripe for dying, it became a question whether the prophet were a false prophet, or thedoctor a false doctor. However, in such a case, it is something to havea collision of opinions--a prophet against a doctor. But, behold, itsoon transpired that there was no collision at all. It was theJerusalem chamber, occupied by the king as a bed-room, to which theprophet had alluded. Upon which his majesty reconciled himself at onceto the ugly necessity at hand

 "In that Jerusalem shall Harry die. "

The last case--that of oracular establishments turning out to beaccomplices of thieves--is one which occurred in Egypt on a scale ofsome extent; and is noticed by Herodotus. This degradation argued greatpoverty in the particular temples: and it is not at all improbablethat, amongst a hundred Grecian Oracles, some, under a similartemptation, would fall into a similar disgrace. But now, as regardseven this lowest extremity of infamy, much more as regards thequalified sort of disrepute attending the three minor cases, one singledistinction puts all to rights. The Greeks never confounded the temple, and household of officers attached to the temple service, with the darkfunctions of the presiding god. In Delphi, besides the Pythia andpriests, with their train of subordinate ministers directly billeted onthe temple, there were two orders of men outside, Delphic citizens, onestyled _Arizeis_, the other styled _Hosioi_, --a sort of honorarymembers, whose duty was probably _inter alia_, to attach themselvesto persons of corresponding rank in the retinues of the envoysor consulting clients, and doubtless to collect from them, inconvivial moments, all the secrets or general information which thetemple required for satisfactory answers. If they personally went toofar in their intrigues or stratagems of decoy, the disgrace no morerecoiled on the god, than, in modern times, the vices or crimes of apriest can affect the pure religion at whose altars he officiates. 

Meantime, through these outside ministers--though unaffected by theirfollies or errors as trepanners--the Oracle of Delphi drew that vastand comprehensive information, from every local nook or recess ofGreece, which made it in the end a blessing to the land. The greaterror is, to suppose the majority of cases laid before the DelphicOracle strictly questions for _prophetic_ functions. Ninety-ninein a hundred respected marriages, state-treaties, sales, purchases, founding of towns or colonies, &c. , which demanded no faculty whateverof divination, but the nobler faculty (though unpresumptuous) ofsagacity, that calculates the natural consequences of human acts, cooperating with elaborate investigation of the local circumstances. If, in any paper on the general civilization of Greece (that greatmother of civilization for all the world), we should ever attempt totrace this element of Oracles, it will not be difficult to prove thatDelphi discharged the office of a central _bureau d'administration_, a general depot of political information, an organ of universalcombination for the counsels of the whole Grecian race. And that whichcaused the declension of the Oracles was the loss of politicalindependence and autonomy. After Alexander, still more after the Romanconquest, each separate state, having no powers and no motive forasking counsel on state measures, naturally confined itself more andmore to its humbler local interests of police, or even at last to itsfamily arrangements. 

THE REVOLUTION OF GREECE. 

[1833. ]

It is falsely charged upon itself by this age, in its character of_censor morum_, that effeminacy in a practical sense lies eitheramongst its full-blown faults, or amongst its lurking tendencies. Arich, a polished, a refined age, may, by mere necessity of inference, be presumed to be a luxurious one; and the usual principle, by whichmoves the whole trivial philosophy which speculates upon the characterof a particular age or a particular nation, is first of all to adoptsome one central idea of its characteristics, and then without furthereffort to pursue its integration; that is, having assumed (or, supposeeven having demonstrated) the existence of some great influentialquality in excess sufficient to overthrow the apparent equilibriumdemanded by the common standards of a just national character, thespeculator then proceeds, as in a matter of acknowledged right, to pushthis predominant quality into all its consequences, and all its closestaffinities. To give one illustration of such a case, now perhapsbeginning to be forgotten: Somewhere about the year 1755, the oncecelebrated Dr. Brown, after other little attempts in literature andparadox, took up the conceit that England was ruined at her heart'score by excess of luxury and sensual self-indulgence. He had persuadedhimself that the ancient activities and energies of the country weresapped by long habits of indolence, and by a morbid plethora ofenjoyment in every class. Courage, and the old fiery spirit of thepeople, had gone to wreck with the physical qualities which hadsustained them. Even the faults of the public mind had given way underits new complexion of character; ambition and civil dissension wereextinct. It was questionable whether a good hearty assault and battery, or a respectable knock-down blow, had been dealt by any man in Londonfor one or two generations. The doctor carried his reveries so far, that he even satisfied himself and one or two friends (probably bylooking into the parks at hours propitious to his hypothesis) thathorses were seldom or ever used for riding; that, in fact, thisaccomplishment was too boisterous or too perilous for the gentlepropensities of modern Britons; and that, by the best accounts, few menof rank or fashion were now seen on horseback. This pleasant collectionof dreams did Doctor Brown solemnly propound to the English public, intwo octavo volumes, under the title of "An Estimate of the Manners andPrinciples of the Times;" and the report of many who lived in thosedays assures us that for a brief period the book had a prodigious run. In some respects the doctor's conceits might seem too startling andextravagant; but, to balance _that_, every nation has some pleasurein being heartily abused by one of its own number; and the Englishnation has always had a special delight in being alarmed, and inbeing clearly convinced that it is and ought to be on the brink ofruin. With such advantages in the worthy doctor's favor, he might havekept the field until some newer extravaganza had made his own obsolete, had not one ugly turn in political affairs given so smashing arefutation to his practical conclusions, and called forth so sudden arebound of public feeling in the very opposite direction, that a bomb-shell descending right through the whole impression of his book couldnot more summarily have laid a chancery "injunction" upon its furthersale. This arose under the brilliant administration of the first Mr. Pitt: England was suddenly victorious in three quarters of the globe;land and sea echoed to the voice of her triumphs; and the poor DoctorBrown, in the midst of all this hubbub, cut his own throat with his ownrazor. Whether this dismal catastrophe were exactly due to hismortification as a baffled visionary, whose favorite conceit hadsuddenly exploded like a rocket into smoke and stench, is more than weknow. But, at all events, the sole memorial of his hypothesis which nowreminds the English reader that it ever existed is one solitary noticeof good-humored satire pointed at it by Cowper. [Footnote: "TheInestimable Estimate of Brown. "] And the possibility of such exceedingfolly in a man otherwise of good sense and judgment, not depraved byany brain-fever or enthusiastic infatuation, is to be found in thevicious process of reasoning applied to such estimates; the doctor, having taken up one novel idea of the national character, proceededafterwards by no tentative inquiries, or comparison with actual factsand phenomena of daily experience, but resolutely developed out of hisone idea all that it appeared analytically to involve; and postulatedaudaciously as a solemn fact whatsoever could be exhibited in anypossible connection with his one central principle, whether in the wayof consequence or of affinity. 

Pretty much upon this unhappy Brunonian mode of deducing our nationalcharacter, it is a very plausible speculation, which has been and willagain be chanted, that we, being a luxurious nation, must by force ofgood logical dependency be liable to many derivative taints andinfirmities which ought of necessity to besiege the blood of nations inthat predicament. All enterprise and spirit of adventure, all heroismand courting of danger for its own attractions, ought naturally tolanguish in a generation enervated by early habits of personalindulgence. Doubtless they _ought; a priori_, it seems strictlydemonstrable that such consequences should follow. Upon the purestforms of inference in _Barbara_ or _Celarent_, it can be shownsatisfactorily that from all our tainted classes, _a fortiori_then from our most tainted classes--our men of fashion and ofopulent fortunes--no description of animal can possibly arise butpoltroons and _fainéans_. In fact, pretty generally, under theknown circumstances of our modern English education and of our socialhabits, we ought, in obedience to all the _precognita_ of ourposition, to show ourselves rank cowards; yet, in spite of so muchexcellent logic, the facts are otherwise. No age has shown in its youngpatricians a more heroic disdain of sedentary ease; none in a martialsupport of liberty or national independence has so gayly volunteeredupon services the most desperate, or shrunk less from martyrdom on thefield of battle, whenever there was hope to invite their disinterestedexertions, or grandeur enough in the cause to sustain them. Which of usforgets the gallant Mellish, the frank and the generous, who reconciledhimself so gayly to the loss of a splendid fortune, and from the verybosom of luxury suddenly precipitated himself upon the hardships ofPeninsular warfare? Which of us forgets the adventurous Lee of Lime, whom a princely estate could not detain in early youth from courtingperils in Nubia and Abyssinia, nor (immediately upon his return) fromalmost wooing death as a volunteer aide-de-camp to the Duke ofWellington at Waterloo? So again of Colonel Evans, who, after losing afine estate long held out to his hopes, five times over put himself atthe head of _forlorn hopes_. Such cases are memorable, and wereconspicuous at the time, from the lustre of wealth and high connectionswhich surrounded the parties; but many thousand others, in which thesacrifices of personal ease were less noticeable from their narrowerscale of splendor, had equal merit for the cheerfulness with whichthose sacrifices were made. [Footnote: History of the Greek Revolution, by Thomas Gordon. ] Here, again, in the person of the author before us, we have another instance of noble and disinterested heroism, which, from the magnitude of the sacrifices that it involved, must place himin the same class as the Mellishes and the Lees. This gallant Scotsman, who was born in 1788, or 1789, lost his father in early life. Inheriting from him a good estate in Aberdeenshire, and one moreconsiderable in Jamaica, he found himself, at the close of a longminority, in the possession of a commanding fortune. Under the vigilantcare of a sagacious mother, Mr. Gordon received the very amplestadvantages of a finished education, studying first at the University ofAberdeen, and afterwards for two years at Oxford; whilst he hadpreviously enjoyed as a boy the benefits of a private tutor fromOxford. Whatever might be the immediate result from this carefultuition, Mr. Gordon has since completed his own education in the mostcomprehensive manner, and has carried his accomplishments as a linguistto a point of rare excellence. Sweden and Portugal excepted, weunderstand that he has personally visited every country in Europe. Hehas travelled also in Asiatic Turkey, in Persia, and in Barbary. Fromthis personal residence in foreign countries, we understand that Mr. Gordon has obtained an absolute mastery over certain modern languages, especially the French, the Italian, the modern Greek, and theTurkish. [Footnote: Mr. Gordon is privately known to be the translatorof the work written by a Turkish minister, "_Tchebi Effendi_"published in the Appendix to Wilkinson's Wallachia, and frequentlyreferred to by the _Quarterly Review_ in its notices of Orientalaffairs. ] Not content, however, with this extensive education in aliterary sense, Mr. Gordon thought proper to prepare himself for thepart which he meditated in public life, by a second, or militaryeducation, in two separate services;--first, in the British, where heserved in the Greys, and in the forty-third regiment; and subsequently, during the campaign of 1813, as a captain on the Russian staff. 

Thus brilliantly accomplished for conferring lustre and benefit uponany cause which he might adopt amongst the many revolutionary movementsthen continually emerging in Southern Europe, he finally carried thewhole weight of his great talents, prudence, and energy, together withthe unlimited command of his purse, to the service of Greece in herheroic struggle with the Sultan. At what point his services and hiscountenance were appreciated by the ruling persons in Greece, will bebest collected from the accompanying letter, translated from theoriginal, in modern Greek, addressed to him by the provisionalgovernment of Greece, in 1822. It will be seen that this officialdocument notices with great sorrow Mr. Gordon's absence from Greece, and with some surprise, as a fact at that time unexplained andmysterious; but the simple explanation of this mystery was, that Mr. Gordon had been brought to the very brink of the grave by a contagiousfever, at Tripolizza, and that his native air was found essential tohis restoration. Subsequently, however, he returned, and rendered themost powerful services to Greece, until the war was brought to a close, as much almost by Turkish exhaustion, as by the armed interference ofthe three great conquerors of Navarino. 

"The government of Greece to the SIGNOR GORDON, a man worthy of alladmiration, and a friend of the Grecians, health and prosperity. 

"It was not possible, most excellent sir, nor was it a thing endurableto the descendants of the Grecians, that they should be deprived anylonger of those imprescriptible rights which belong to the inheritanceof their birth--rights which a barbarian of a foreign soil, an anti-christian tyrant, issuing from the depths of Asia, seized upon with arobber's hand, and, lawlessly trampling under foot, administered up tothis time the affairs of Greece, after his own lust and will. Needs itwas that we, sooner or later, shattering this iron and heavy sceptre, should recover, at the price of life itself (if _that_ were foundnecessary), our patrimonial heritage, that thus our people might againbe gathered to the family of free and self-legislating states. Moving, then, under such impulses, the people of Greece advanced with oneheart, and perfect unanimity of council, against an oppressivedespotism, putting their hands to an enterprise beset withdifficulties, and hard indeed to be achieved, yet, in our presentcircumstances, if any one thing in this life, most indispensable. This, then, is the second year which we are passing since we have begun tomove in this glorious contest, once again struggling, to allappearance, upon unequal terms, but grasping our enterprise with theright hand and the left, and with all our might stretching forward tothe objects before us. 

"It was the hope of Greece that, in these seasons of emergency, shewould not fail of help and earnest resort of friends from the Christiannations throughout Europe. For it was agreeable neither to humanity norto piety, that the rights of nations, liable to no grudges of malice orscruples of jealousy, should be surreptitiously and wickedly filchedaway, or mocked with outrage and insult; but that they should besettled firmly on those foundations which Nature herself has furnishedin abundance to the condition of man in society. However, so it was, that Greece, cherishing these most reasonable expectations, met withmost unmerited disappointments. 

"But you, noble and generous Englishman, no sooner heard the trumpet ofpopular rights echoing melodiously from the summits of Taygetus, ofIda, of Pindus, and of Olympus, than, turning with listening ears tothe sound, and immediately renouncing the delights of country, offamily ties, and (what is above all) of domestic luxury and ease, andthe happiness of your own fireside, you hurried to our assistance. Butsuddenly, and in contradiction to the universal hope of Greece, byleaving us, you have thrown us all into great perplexity and amazement, and that at a crisis when some were applying their minds to militarypursuits, some to the establishment of a civil administration, othersto other objects, but all alike were hurrying and exerting themselveswherever circumstances seemed to invite them. 

"Meantime, the government of Greece having heard many idle rumors andunauthorized tales disseminated, but such as seemed neither incorrespondence with their opinion of your own native nobility from rankand family, nor with what was due to the newly-institutedadministration, have slighted and turned a deaf ear to them all, comingto this resolution--that, in absenting yourself from Greece, you aredoubtless obeying some strong necessity; for that it is not possiblenor credible of a man such as you displayed yourself to be whilstliving amongst us, that he should mean to insult the wretched--least ofall, to insult the unhappy and much-suffering people of Greece. Underthese circumstances, both the deliberative and the executive bodies ofthe Grecian government, assembling separately, have come to aresolution, without one dissentient voice, to invite you back toGreece, in order that you may again take a share in the Greciancontest--a contest in itself glorious, and not alien from yourcharacter and pursuits. For the liberty of any one nation cannot be amatter altogether indifferent to the rest, but naturally it is a commonand diffusive interest; and nothing can be more reasonable than thatthe Englishman and the Grecian, in such a cause, should make themselvesyoke-fellows, and should participate as brothers in so holy a struggle. Therefore, the Grecian government hastens, by this presentdistinguished expression of its regard, to invite you to the soil ofGreece, a soil united by such tender memorials with yourself; confidentthat you, preferring glorious poverty and the hard living of Greece tothe luxury and indolence of an obscure seclusion, will hasten yourreturn to Greece, agreeably to your native character, restoring to usour valued English connection. Farewell!

"The Vice-president of the Executive, "ATHANASIUS KANAKARES. 

"The Chief-Secretary, Minister of Foreign Relations, NEGENZZ. "

Since then, having in 1817 connected himself in marriage with abeautiful young lady of Armenian Greek extraction, and having purchasedland and built a house in Argos, Mr. Gordon may be considered in somesense as a Grecian citizen. Services in the field having now for someyears been no longer called for, he has exchanged his patriotic swordfor a patriotic pen--judging rightly that in no way so effectually canGreece be served at this time with Western Europe, as by recordingfaithfully the course of her revolution, tracing the difficulties whichlay or which arose in her path, the heroism with which she surmountedthem, and the multiplied errors by which she raised up others toherself. Mr. Gordon, of forty authors who have partially treated thistheme, is the first who can be considered either impartial orcomprehensive; and upon his authority, not seldom using his words, weshall now present to our readers the first continuous abstract of thismost interesting and romantic war:

GREECE, in the largest extent of that term, having once belonged to theByzantine empire, is included, by the misconception of hasty readers, in the great wreck of 1453. They take it for granted that, concurrentlywith Constantinople, and the districts adjacent, these provinces passedat that disastrous era into the hands of the Turkish conqueror; butthis is an error. Parts of Greece, previously to that era, had beendismembered from the Eastern empire;--other parts did not, until long_after_ it, share a common fate with the metropolis. Venice had adeep interest in the Morea; _in_ that, and _for_ that, she fought withvarious success for generations; and it was not until the year 1717, nearly three centuries from the establishment of the crescent inEurope, that "the banner of St. Mark, driven finally from the Morea andthe Archipelago, " was henceforth exiled (as respected Greece) to theIonian Islands. 

In these contests, though Greece was the prize at issue, the childrenof Greece had no natural interest, whether the cross prevailed or thecrescent; the same, for all substantial results, was the fate whichawaited themselves. The Moslem might be the more intolerant by hismaxims, and he might be harsher in his professions; but a slave is notthe less a slave, though his master should happen to hold the samecreed with himself; and towards a member of the Greek church one wholooked westward to Rome for his religion was likely to be little lessof a bigot than one who looked to Mecca. So that we are not surprisedto find a Venetian rule of policy recommending, for the daily allowanceof these Grecian slaves, "a _little_ bread, and a liberal applicationof the cudgel"! Whichever yoke were established was sure to be hated;and, therefore, it was fortunate for the honor of the Christian name, that from the year 1717 the fears and the enmity of the Greeks were tobe henceforward pointed exclusively towards _Mahometan_ tyrants. 

To be hated, however, sufficiently for resistance, a yoke must havebeen long and continuously felt. Fifty years might be necessary toseason the Greeks with a knowledge of Turkish oppression; and less thantwo generations could hardly be supposed to have manured the wholeterritory with an adequate sense of the wrongs they were enduring, andthe withering effects of such wrongs on the sources of publicprosperity. Hatred, besides, without hope, is no root out of which aneffective resistance can be expected to grow; and fifty years almosthad elapsed before a great power had arisen in Europe, having in anycapital circumstance a joint interest with Greece, or speciallyauthorized, by visible right and power, to interfere as her protector. The semi-Asiatic power of Russia, from the era of the Czar Peter theGreat, had arisen above the horizon with the sudden sweep and splendorof a meteor. The arch described by her ascent was as vast in compass asit was rapid; and, in all history, no political growth, not that of ourown Indian empire, had travelled by accelerations of speed soterrifically marked. Not that even Russia could have really grown instrength according to the _apparent_ scale of her progress. Thestrength was doubtless there, or much of it, before Peter andCatherine; but it was latent: there had been no such sudden growth aspeople fancied; but there had been a sudden evolution. Infiniteresources had been silently accumulating from century to century; but, before the Czar Peter, no mind had come across them of power sufficientto reveal their situation, or to organize them for practical effects. In some nations, the manifestations of power are coincident with itsgrowth; in others, from vicious institutions, a vast crystallizationgoes on for ages blindly and in silence, which the lamp of somemeteoric mind is required to light up into brilliant display. Thus ithad been in Russia; and hence, to the abused judgment of allChristendom, she had seemed to leap like Pallas from the brain ofJupiter--gorgeously endowed, and in panoply of civil array, for allpurposes of national grandeur, at the _fiat_ of one coarsebarbarian. As the metropolitan home of the Greek church, she could notdisown a maternal interest in the humblest of the Grecian tribes, holding the same faith with herself, and celebrating their worship bythe same rites. This interest she could, at length, venture to expressin a tone of sufficient emphasis; and Greece became aware that shecould, about the very time when Turkish oppression had begun to uniteits victims in aspirations for redemption, and had turned their eyesabroad in search of some great standard under whose shadow they couldflock for momentary protection, or for future hope. What cabals werereared upon this condition of things by Russia, and what prematuredreams of independence were encouraged throughout Greece in the reignof Catherine II. , may be seen amply developed, in the once celebratedwork of Mr. William Eton. 

Another great circumstance of hope for Greece, coinciding with the dawnof her own earliest impetus in this direction, and travelling _puripassu_ almost with the growth of her mightiest friend, was theadvancing decay of her oppressor. The wane of the Turkish crescent hadseemed to be in some secret connection of fatal sympathy with thegrowth of the Russian cross. Perhaps the reader will thank us forrehearsing the main steps by which the Ottoman power had flowed andebbed. The foundations of this empire were laid in the thirteenthcentury, by Ortogrul, the chief of a Turkoman tribe, residing in tentsnot far from Dorylæum, in Phrygia (a name so memorable in the earlycrusades), about the time when Jenghiz had overthrown the Seljukiandynasty. His son Osman first assumed the title of Sultan; and, in 1300, having reduced the city of Prusa, in Bithynia, he made it the capitalof his dominions. The Sultans who succeeded him for some generations, all men of vigor, and availing themselves not less of the decrepitudewhich had by that time begun to palsy the Byzantine sceptre, than ofthe martial and religious fanaticism which distinguished their ownfollowers, crossed the Hellespont, conquering Thrace and the countriesup to the Danube. In 1453, the most eminent of these Sultans, MahometII. , by storming Constantinople, put an end to the Roman empire; andbefore his death he placed the Ottoman power in Europe pretty nearly onthat basis to which it had again fallen back by 1821. The long intervalof time between these two dates involved a memorable flux and reflux ofpower, and an oscillation between two extremes of panic-strikinggrandeur, in the ascending scale (insomuch that the Turkish Sultan wassupposed to be charged in the Apocalypse with the dissolution of theChristian thrones), and in the descending scale of paralytic dotagetempting its own instant ruin. In speculating on the causes of theextraordinary terror which the Turks once inspired, it is amusing, andillustrative of the revolutions worked by time, to find it imputed, inthe first place, to superior discipline; for, if their discipline wasimperfect, they had, however, a _standing_ army of Janissaries, whilst the whole of Christian Europe was accustomed to fight merelysummer campaigns with hasty and untrained levies; a second cause lay intheir superior finances, for the Porte had a regular revenue, when theother powers of Europe relied upon the bounty of their vassals andclergy; and, thirdly, which is the most surprising feature of the wholestatement, the Turks were so far ahead of others in the race ofimprovement, that to them belongs the credit of having first adoptedthe extensive use of gunpowder, and of having first brought battering-trains against fortified places. To his artillery and his musketry itwas that Selim the Ferocious (grandson of that Sultan who tookConstantinople) was indebted for his victories in Syria and Egypt. Under Solyman the Magnificent (the well-known contemporary of theEmperor Charles Y. ) the crescent is supposed to have attained itsutmost altitude; and already for fifty years the causes had been insilent progress which were to throw the preponderance into theChristian scale. In the reign of his son, Selim the Second, this crisiswas already passed; and the battle of Lepanto, in 1571, which crippledthe Turkish navy in a degree never wholly recovered, gave the firstovert signal to Europe of a turn in the course of their prosperity. Still, as this blow did not equally affect the principal arm of theirmilitary service, and as the strength of the German empire was too muchdistracted by Christian rivalship, the _prestige_ of the Turkishname continued almost unbroken until their bloody overthrow in 1664, atSt. Gothard, by the imperial General Montecuculi. In 1673 they receivedanother memorable defeat from Sobieski, on which occasion they losttwenty-five thousand men. In what degree, however, the Turkish Samsonhad been shorn of his original strength, was not yet made known toEurope by any adequate expression, before the great catastrophe of1683. In that year, at the instigation of the haughty vizier, KaraMustafa, the Turks had undertaken the siege of Vienna; and great wasthe alarm of the Christian world. But, on the 12th of September, theirarmy of one hundred and fifty thousand men was totally dispersed byseventy thousand Poles and Germans, under John Sobieski--"He conquering_through_ God, and God by him. " [Footnote: See the sublime Sonnetof Chiabrora on this subject, as translated by Mr. Wordsworth. ] Thenfollowed the treaty of Carlovitz, which stripped the Porte of Hungary, the Ukraine, and other places; and "henceforth" says Mr. Gordon, "Europe ceased to dread the Turks; and began even to look upon theirexistence as a necessary element of the balance of power among itsstates. " Spite of their losses, however, during the first half of theeighteenth century, the Turks still maintained a respectable attitudeagainst Christendom. But the wars of the Empress Catherine II. , and theFrench invasion of Egypt, demonstrated that either their native vigorwas exhausted and superannuated, or, at least, that the institutionswere superannuated by which their resources had been so longadministered. Accordingly, at the commencement of the present century, the Sultan Selim II. Endeavored to reform the military discipline; butin the first collision with the prejudices of his people, and theinterest of the Janissaries, he perished by sedition. Mustafa, whosucceeded to the throne, in a few months met the same fate. But then(1808) succeeded a prince formed by nature for such struggles, --cool, vigorous, cruel, and intrepid. This was Mahmoud the Second. Heperfectly understood the crisis, and determined to pursue the plans ofhis uncle Selim, even at the hazard of the same fate. Why was it thatTurkish soldiers had been made ridiculous in arms, as often as they hadmet with French troops, who yet were so far from being the best inChristendom, that Egypt herself, and the beaten Turks, had seen_them_ in turn uniformly routed by the British? Physically, theTurks were equal, at the very least, to the French. In what lay theirinferiority? Simply in discipline, and in their artillery. And so longas their constitution and discipline continued what they had been, suited (that is) to centuries long past and gone, and to a condition ofChristendom obsolete for ages, so long it seemed inevitable that thesame disasters should follow the Turkish banners. And to this point, accordingly, the Sultan determined to address his earliest reforms. Butcaution was necessary; he waited and watched. He seized allopportunities of profiting by the calamities or the embarrassments ofhis potent neighbors. He put down all open revolt. He sapped theauthority of all the great families in Asia Minor, whose hereditaryinfluence could be a counterpoise to his own. Mecca and Medina, theholy cities of his religion, he brought again within the pale of hisdominions. He augmented and fostered, as a counterbalancing force tothe Janissaries, the corps of the Topjees or artillery-men. He amassedpreparatory treasures. And, up to the year 1820, "his government, " saysMr. Gordon, "was highly unpopular; but it was strong, stern, anduniform; and he had certainly removed many impediments to the executionof his ulterior projects. "

Such was the situation of Turkey at the moment when her Grecian vassalprepared to trample on her yoke. In her European territories shereckoned, at the utmost, eight millions of subjects. But these, besidesbeing more or less in a semi-barbarous condition, and scattered over avery wide surface of country, were so much divided by origin, bylanguage, and religion, that, without the support of her Asiatic arm, she could not, according to the general opinion, have stood at all. Therapidity of her descent, it is true, had been arrested by the energy ofher Sultans during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century. But for the last thirty of the eighteenth she had made a headlongprogress downwards. So utterly, also, were the tables turned, that, whereas in the fifteenth century her chief superiority over Christendomhad been in the three points of artillery, discipline, and fixedrevenue, precisely in these three she had sunk into utterinsignificance, whilst all Christendom had been continually improving. Selim and Mahmoud indeed had made effectual reforms in the corps ofgunners, as we have said, and had raised it to the amount of sixtythousand men; so that at present they have respectable field-artillery, whereas previously they had only heavy battering-trains. But thedefects in discipline cannot be remedied, so long as the want of asettled revenue obliges the Sultan to rely upon hurried levies from theprovincial militias of police. Turkey, however, might be looked upon asstill formidable for internal purposes, in the haughty and fanaticalcharacter of her Moslem subjects. And we may add, as a concludingcircumstance of some interest, in this sketch of her modern condition, that pretty nearly the same European territories as were assigned tothe eastern Roman empire at the time of its separation from thewestern, [Footnote: "The vitals of the monarchy lay within that vasttriangle circumscribed by the Danube, the Save, the Adriatic, Euxine, and Egean Seas, whose altitude may be computed at five hundred, and thelength of its base at seven hundred geographical miles. "--GORDON. ]were included within the frontier line of Turkey, on the first ofJanuary, 1821. 

Precisely in this year commenced the Grecian revolution. Concurrentlywith the decay of her oppressor the Sultan, had been the prodigiousgrowth of her patron the Czar. In what degree she looked up to thatthrone, and the intrigues which had been pursued with a view to thatconnection, may be seen (as we have already noticed) in Eton's Turkey--a book which attracted a great deal of notice about thirty years ago. Meantime, besides this secret reliance on Russian countenance or aid, Greece had since that era received great encouragement to revolt fromthe successful experiment in that direction made by the Turkishprovince of Servia. In 1800, Czerni George came forward as the asserterof Servian independence, and drove the Ottomans out of that province. _Personally_ he was not finally successful. But his exampleoutlived him; and, after fifteen years' struggle, Servia (says Mr. Gordon) offered "the unwonted spectacle of a brave and armed Christiannation living under its own laws in the heart of Turkey, " and retainingno memorial of its former servitude, but the payment of a slender andprecarious tribute to the Sultan, with a _verbal_ profession ofallegiance to his sceptre. Appearances were thus saved to the pride ofthe haughty Moslem by barren concessions which cost no real sacrificeto the substantially victorious Servian. 

Examples, however, are thrown away upon a people utterly degraded bylong oppression. And the Greeks were pretty nearly in that condition. "It would, no doubt, " says Mr. Gordon, "be possible to cite a more_cruel_ oppression than that of the Turks towards their Christiansubjects, but none _so fitted to break men's spirit_. " The Greeks, in fact (under which name are to be understood, not only those whospeak Greek, but the Christian Albanians of Roumelia and the Morea, speaking a different language, but united with the Greeks in spiritualobedience to the same church), were, in the emphatic phrase of Mr. Gordon, "the slaves of slaves:" that is to say, not only were theyliable to the universal tyranny of the despotic Divan, but "throughoutthe empire they were in the habitual intercourse of life subjected tovexations, affronts, and exactions, from Mahometans of every rank. Spoiled of their goods, insulted in their religion and domestic honor, they could rarely obtain justice. The slightest flash of courageousresentment brought down swift destruction on their heads; and cringinghumility alone enabled them to live in ease, or even in safety. "Stooping under this iron yoke of humiliation, we have reason to wonderthat the Greeks preserved sufficient nobility of mind to raise so muchas their wishes in the direction of independence. In a condition ofabasement, from which a simple act of apostasy was at once sufficientto raise them to honor and wealth, "and from the meanest serfs gatheredthem to the caste of oppressors, " we ought not to wonder that some ofthe Greeks should be mean, perfidious, and dissembling, but rather thatany (as Mr. Gordon says) "had courage to adhere to their religion, andto eat the bread of affliction. " But noble aspirations are fortunatelyindestructible in human nature. And in Greece the lamp of independenceof spirit had been partially kept alive by the existence of a nativemilitia, to whom the Ottoman government, out of mere necessity, hadcommitted the local defence. These were called _Armatoles_ (orGendarmerie); their available strength was reckoned by Pouqueville (forthe year 1814) at ten thousand men; and, as they were a very effectuallittle host for maintaining, from age to age, the "true faith militant"of Greece, namely, that a temporary and a disturbed occupation of thebest lands in the country did not constitute an absolute conquest onthe part of the Moslems, most of whom flocked for security with theirfamilies into the stronger towns; and, as their own martial appearance, with arms in their hands, lent a very plausible countenance to theirinsinuations that they, the Christian Armatoles, were the true _bonafide_ governors and possessors of the land under a Moslem Suzerain;and, as the general spirit of hatred to Turkish insolence was notmerely maintained in their own local stations, [Footnote: Originally, it seems, there were fourteen companies (or _capitanerias_)settled by imperial diplomas in the mountains of Olympus, Othryx, Pindus, and Œta; and distinct appropriations were made by the Divan fortheir support. _Within_ the Morea, the institution of theArmatoles was never tolerated; but there the same spirit was kept aliveby tribes, such as the Mainatts, whose insurmountable advantages ofnatural position enabled them eternally to baffle the most powerfulenemy. ] but also propagated thence with activity to every part ofGreece;--it may be interesting to hear Mr. Gordon's account of theirpeculiar composition and habits. 

"The Turks, " says he, "from the epoch of Mahommed the Second, did not(unless in Thessaly) generally settle there. Beyond Mount Œta, althoughthey seized the best lands, the Mussulman inhabitants were chieflycomposed of the garrisons of towns with their families. Finding itimpossible to keep in subjection with a small force so many ruggedcantons, peopled by a poor and hardy race, and to hold in check therobbers of Albania, the Sultans embraced the same policy which hasinduced them to court the Greek hierarchy, and respect ecclesiasticalproperty, --by enlisting in their service the armed bands that theycould not destroy. When wronged or insulted, these Armatoles threw offtheir allegiance, infested the roads, and pillaged the country; whilesuch of the peasants as were driven to despair by acts of oppressionjoined their standard; the term Armatole was then exchanged for that ofKlefthis [_Kleptæs_] or Thief, a profession esteemed highlyhonorable, when it was exercised sword in hand at the expense of theMoslems. [Footnote: And apparently, we may add, when exercised at theexpense of whomsoever at sea. The old Grecian instinct, whichThucydides states so frankly, under which all seafarers were dedicatedto spoil as people who courted attack, seems never to have been fullyrooted out from the little creeks and naval fastnesses of the Morea, and of some of the Egean islands. Not, perhaps, the mere spirit ofwrong and aggression, but some old traditionary conceits and maxims, brought on the great crisis of piracy, which fell under no less terrorsthan of the triple thunders of the great allies. ] Even in theirquietest mood, these soldiers curbed Turkish tyranny; for, the captainsand Christian primates of districts understanding each other, theformer, by giving to some of their men a hint to desert and turnKlefts, could easily circumvent Mahometans who came on a missiondisagreeable to the latter. The habits and manners of the Armatoles, living among forests and in mountain passes, were necessarily rude andsimple: their magnificence consisted in adorning with silver theirguns, pistols, and daggers; their amusements, in shooting at a mark, dancing, and singing the exploits of the most celebrated chiefs. Extraordinary activity, and endurance of hardships and fatigue, madethem formidable light troops in their native fastnesses; wrapped inshaggy cloaks, they slept on the ground, defying the elements; and thepure mountain air gave them robust health. Such were the warriors that, in the very worst times, kept alive a remnant of Grecian spirit. "

But all these facts of history, or institutions of policy, nay, eventhe more violent appeals to the national pride in such memorabletransactions as the expatriation of the illustrious Suliotes (as alsoof some eminent predatory chieftains from the Morea), were, after all, no more than indirect excitements of the insurrectionary spirit. If itwere possible that any adequate occasion should arise for combining theGreeks in one great movement of resistance, such continued irritationsmust have the highest value, as keeping alive the national spirit, which must finally be relied on to improve it and to turn it toaccount; but it was not to be expected that any such local irritationscould ever of themselves avail to create an occasion of sufficientmagnitude for imposing silence on petty dissensions, and for organizinginto any unity of effort a country so splintered and naturally cut intoindependent chambers as that of Greece. That task, transcending thestrength (as might seem) of any real agencies or powers then existingin Greece, was assumed by a mysterious, [Footnote: Epirus andAcarnania, etc. , to the north-west; Roumelia, Thebes, Attica, to theeast; the Morea, or Peloponnesus, to the south-west; and the islands sowidely dispersed in the Egean, had from position a separate interestover and above their common interest as members of a Christianconfederacy. And in the absence of some great representative society, there was no voice commanding enough to merge the local interest in theuniversal one of Greece. The original (or _Philomuse_ society), which adopted literature for its ostensible object, as a mask to itspolitical designs, expired at Munich in 1807; but not before it hadfounded a successor more directly political. Hence arose a confusion, under which many of the crowned heads in Europe were judgeduncharitably as dissemblers or as traitors to their engagements. Theyhad subscribed to the first society; but they reasonably held that thisdid not pledge them to another, which, though inheriting the secretpurposes of the first, no longer masked or disavowed them. ] and, insome sense, a fictitious society of corresponding members, stylingitself the _Hetæria_. A more astonishing case of mighty effectsprepared and carried on to their accomplishment by small means, magnifying their own extent through great zeal and infiniteconcealment, and artifices the most subtle, is not to be found inhistory. The _secret tribunal_ of the middle ages is not to becompared with it for the depth and expansion of its combinations, orfor the impenetrability of its masque. Nor is there in the whole annalsof man a manoeuvre so admirable as that, by which this society, silently effecting its own transfiguration, and recasting as in acrucible its own form, organs, and most essential functions, contrived, by mere force of seasonable silence, or by the very pomp of mystery, tocarry over from the first or innoxious model of the Hetæria, to its neworganization, all those weighty names of kings or princes who would nothave given their sanction to any association having political objects, however artfully veiled. The early history of the Hetæria is shroudedin the same mystery as the whole course of its political movements. Some suppose that Alexander Maurocordato, ex-Hospodar of Wallachia, during his long exile in Russia, founded it for the promotion ofeducation, about the beginning of the present century. Others ascribeit originally to Riga. At all events, its purposes were purelyintellectual in its earliest form. In 1815, in consequence chiefly ofthe disappointment which the Greeks met with in their dearest hopesfrom the Congress of Vienna, the Hetæria first assumed a politicalcharacter under the secret influence of Count Capodistria, of Corfu, who, having entered the Russian service as mere private secretary toAdmiral Tchitchagoff, in 1812, had, in a space of three years, insinuated himself into the favor of the Czar, so far as to have becomehis private secretary, and a cabinet minister of Russia. He, however, still masked his final objects under plans of literature and scientificimprovement. In deep shades he organized a vast apparatus of agents andapostles; and then retired behind the curtain to watch or to direct theworking of his blind machine. It is an evidence of some latent nobilityin the Greek character, in the midst of that levity with which allEurope taxes it, that never, except once, were the secrets of thesociety betrayed; nor was there the least ground for jealousy offeredeither to the stupid Moslems, in the very centre of whom, and roundabout them, the conspiracy was daily advancing, or even to the rigorouspolice of Moscow, where the Hetæria had its head-quarters. In thesingle instance of treachery which occurred, it happened that theZantiote, who made the discovery to Ali Pacha on a motion of revenge, was himself too slenderly and too vaguely acquainted with the finalpurposes of the Hetæria for effectual mischief, having been fortunatelyadmitted only to its lowest degree of initiation; so that all passedoff without injury to the cause, or even personally to any of itssupporters. There were, in fact, five degrees in the Hetæria. Acandidate of the lowest class (styled _Adelphoi_, or brothers), after a minute examination of his past life and connections, and aftertaking a dreadful oath, under impressive circumstances, to be faithfulin all respects to the society and his afflicted country, and even toassassinate his nearest and dearest relation, if detected in treachery, was instructed only in the general fact that a design was on foot toameliorate the condition of Greece. The next degree of _Systimenoi_, or bachelors, who were selected with more anxious discrimination, were informed that this design was to move towards its object _by means of a revolution_. The third class, called _Priestsof Eleusis_, were chosen from the aristocracy; and to them itwas made known that _this revolution was near at hand_; and, also, that there were in the society higher ranks than their own. The fourth class was that of the _prelates_; and to this order, which never exceeded the number of one hundred and sixteen, andcomprehended the leading men of the nation, the most unreservedinformation was given upon all the secrets of the Hetæria; after whichthey were severally appointed to a particular district, assuperintendent of its interests, and as manager of the wholecorrespondence on its concerns with the Grand Arch. This, the crowningorder and key-stone of the society, was reputed to comprehend sixteen"mysterious and illustrious names, " amongst which were obscurelywhispered those of the Czar, the Crown Prince of Bavaria and ofWurtemburg, of the Hospodar of Wallachia, of Count Capodistria, andsome others. The orders of the Grand Arch were written in cipher, andbore a seal having in sixteen compartments the same number of initialletters. The revenue which it commanded must have been considerable;for the lowest member, on his noviciate, was expected to give at leastfifty piastres (at this time about two pounds sterling); and those ofthe higher degrees gave from three hundred to one thousand each. Themembers communicated with each other, in mixed society, by masonicsigns. 

It cannot be denied that a secret society, with the grand and almostawful purposes of the Hetæria, spite of some taint which it hadreceived in its early stages from the spirit of German mummery, isfitted to fill the imagination, and to command homage from the coldest. Whispers circulating from mouth to mouth of some vast conspiracy miningsubterraneously beneath the very feet of their accursed oppressors;whispers of a great deliverer at hand, whose mysterious _Labarum_, or mighty banner of the Cross, was already dimly descried throughnorthern mists, and whose eagles were already scenting the carnage and"savor of death" from innumerable hosts of Moslems; whispers of arevolution which was again to call, as with the trumpet ofresurrection, from the grave, the land of Timoleon and Epaminondas;such were the preludings, low and deep, to the tempestuous overture ofrevolt and patriotic battle which now ran through every nook of Greece, and caused every ear to tingle. 

The knowledge that this mighty cause must be sowed in dishonor, --propagated, that is, in respect to the knowledge of its plans, byredoubled cringings to their brutal masters, in order to shield it fromsuspicion, --but that it would probably be reaped in honor; the beliefthat the poor Grecian, so abject and trampled under foot, would soonreappear amongst the nations who had a name, in something of hisoriginal beauty and power; these dim but elevating perceptions, andthese anticipations, gave to every man the sense of an ennobling secretconfided to his individual honor, and, at the same time, thrilled hisheart with sympathetic joy, from approaching glories that were to provea personal inheritance to his children. Over all Greece a sense ofpower, dim and vast, brooded for years; and a mighty phantom, under themysterious name of _Arch_, in whose cloudy equipage were descried, gleaming at intervals, the crowns and sceptres of great potentates, sustained, whilst it agitated their hearts. _London_ was one ofthe secret watchwords in their impenetrable cipher; _Moscow_ was acountersign; Bavaria and Austria bore mysterious parts in the drama;and, though no sound was heard, nor voice given to the powers that wereworking, yet, as if by mere force of secret sympathy, all mankind whowere worthy to participate in the enterprise seemed to be linked inbrotherhood with Greece. These notions were, much of them, merephantasms and delusions; but they were delusions of mighty efficacy forarming the hearts of this oppressed country against the terrors thatmust be faced; and for the whole of them Greece was indebted to theHetæria, and to its organized agency of apostles (as they weretechnically called), who compassed land and sea as pioneers for thecoming crusade. [Footnote: Considering how very much the contest didfinally assume a religious character (even Franks being attached, notas friends of Greece, but simply as Christians), one cannot but wonderthat this romantic term has not been applied to the Greek war inWestern Europe. ]

By 1820 Greece was thoroughly inoculated with the spirit of resistance;all things were ready, so far, perhaps, as it was possible that theyshould ever be made ready under the eyes and scimitars of the enemy. Now came the question of time, --_when_ was the revolt to begin?Some contend, says Mr. Gordon, that the Hetæria should have waited fora century, by which time they suppose that the growth of means in favorof Greece would have concurred with a more than corresponding decay inher enemy. But, to say nothing of the extreme uncertainty which attendssuch remote speculation, and the utter impossibility of training menwith no personal hopes to labor for the benefit of distant generations, there was one political argument against that course, which Mr. Gordonjustly considers unanswerable. It is this: Turkey in Europe has beenlong tottering on its basis. Now, were the attempt delayed until Russiahad displaced her and occupied her seat, Greece would then havereceived her liberty as a boon from the conqueror; and the constructionwould have been that she held it by sufferance, and under a Russianwarrant. This argument is conclusive. But others there were who fanciedthat 1825 was the year at which all the preparations for a successfulrevolt could have been matured. Probably some gain in such a case wouldhave been balanced against some loss. But it is not necessary todiscuss that question. Accident, it was clear, might bring on the firsthostile movement at any hour, when the _minds_ of all men wereprepared, let the means in other respects be as deficient as theymight. Already, in 1820, circumstances made it evident that theoutbreak of the insurrection could not long be delayed. And, accordingly, in the following year all Greece was in flames. 

This affair of 1820 has a separate interest of its own, connected withthe character of the very celebrated person to whom it chiefly relates;but we notice it chiefly as the real occasion, the momentary spark, which, alighting upon the combustibles, by this time accumulatedeverywhere in Greece, caused a general explosion of the long-hoardedinsurrectionary fury. Ali Pacha, the far-famed vizier of Yannina, hadlong been hated profoundly by the Sultan, who in the same proportionloved and admired his treasures. However, he was persuaded to wait forhis death, which could not (as it seemed) be far distant, rather thanrisk anything upon the chances of war. And in this prudent resolutionhe would have persevered, but for an affront which he could notoverlook. An Albanian, named Ismael Pasho Bey, once a member of Ali'shousehold, had incurred his master's deadly hatred; and, flying fromhis wrath to various places under various disguises, had at lengthtaken refuge in Constantinople, and there sharpened the malice of Aliby attaching himself to his enemies. Ali was still further provoked byfinding that Ismael had won the Sultan's favor, and obtained anappointment in the palace. Mastered by his fury, Ali hired assassins toshoot his enemy in the very midst of Constantinople, and under the veryeyes of imperial protection. The assassins failed, having only woundedhim; they were arrested, and disclosed the name of their employer. 

Here was an insult which could not be forgiven: Ali Pacha was declareda rebel and a traitor; and solemnly excommunicated by the head of theMussulman law. The Pachas of Europe received orders to march againsthim; and a squadron was fitted out to attack him by sea. 

In March, 1820, Ali became acquainted with these strong measures; whichat first he endeavored to parry by artifice and bribery. But, finding_that_ mode of proceeding absolutely without hope, he took thebold resolution of throwing himself, in utter defiance, upon the nativeenergies of his own ferocious heart. Having, however, but smallreliance on his Mahometan troops in a crisis of this magnitude, heapplied for Christian succors, and set himself to _court_ theChristians generally. As a first step, he restored the Armatoles--thatvery body whose suppression had been so favorite a measure of hispolicy, and pursued so long, so earnestly, and so injuriously to hiscredit amongst the Christian part of the population. It happened, atthe first opening of the campaign, that the Christians were equallycourted by the Sultan's generalissimo, Solyman, the Pacha of Thessaly. For this, however, that Pacha was removed and decapitated; and a newleader was now appointed in the person of that very enemy, IsmaelPasho, whose attempted murder had brought the present storm upon Ali. Ismael was raised to the rank of Serasker (or generalissimo), and wasalso made Pacha of Yannina and Del vino. Three other armies, besides afleet under the Captain Bey, advanced upon Ali's territoriessimultaneously from different quarters. But at that time, in defianceof these formidable and overwhelming preparations, bets were stronglyin Ali's favor amongst all who were acquainted with his resources: forhe had vast treasures, fortresses of great strength, inexhaustiblesupplies of artillery and ammunition, a country almost inaccessible, and fifteen thousand light troops, whom Mr. Gordon, upon personalknowledge, pronounces "excellent. "

Scarcely had the war commenced, when Ali was abandoned by almost thewhole of his partisans, in mere hatred of his execrable cruelty andtyrannical government. To Ali, however, this defection brought nodespondency; and with unabated courage he prepared to defend himself tothe last, in three castles, with a garrison of three thousand men. Thathe might do so with entire effect, he began by destroying his owncapital of Yannina, lest it should afford shelter to the enemy. Stillhis situation would have been most critical, but for the state ofaffairs in the enemy's camp. The Serasker was attended by more thantwenty other Pashas. But they were all at enmity with each other. Oneof them, and the bravest, was even poisoned by the Serasker. Provisionswere running short, in consequence of their own dissensions. Winter wasfast approaching; the cannonading had produced no conspicuous effect;and the soldiers were disbanding. In this situation, the Sultan'slieutenants again saw the necessity of courting aid from the Christianpopulation of the country. Ali, on his part, never scrupled to bidagainst them at any price; and at length, irritated by the ill-usage ofthe Turks on their first entrance, and disgusted with the obviousinsincerity of their reluctant and momentary kindness, some of thebravest Christian tribes (especially the celebrated Suliotes) consentedto take Ali's bribes, forgot his past outrages and unnumberedperfidies, and, reading his sincerity in the extremity of his peril, these bravest of the brave ranged themselves amongst the Sultan'senemies. During the winter they gained some splendid successes; otheralienated friends came back to Ali; and even some Mahometan Beys werepersuaded to take up arms in his behalf. Upon the whole, the TurkishDivan was very seriously alarmed; and so much so, that it supersededthe Serasker Ismael, replacing him with the famous Kourshid Pacha, atthat time viceroy of the Morea. And so ended the year 1820. 

This state of affairs could not escape the attention of the vigilantHetæria. Here was Ali Pacha, hitherto regarded as an insurmountableobstacle in their path, absolutely compelled by circumstances to betheir warmest friend. The Turks again, whom no circumstances couldentirely disarm, were yet crippled for the time, and their wholeattention preoccupied by another enemy, most alarming to their policy, and most tempting to their cupidity. Such an opportunity it seemedunpardonable to neglect. Accordingly, it was resolved to begin theinsurrection. At its head was placed Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, a sonof that Hospodar of Wallachia whose deposition by the Porte hadproduced the Russian war of 1806. This prince's qualificationsconsisted in his high birth, in his connection with Russia (for he hadrisen to the rank of major-general in that service), and, finally (ifsuch things can deserve a mention), in an agreeable person and manners. For all other and higher qualifications he was wholly below thesituation and the urgency of the crisis. His first error was in thechoice of his ground. For some reasons, which are not sufficientlyexplained, --possibly on account of his family connection with thoseprovinces, --he chose to open the war in Moldavia and Wallachia. Thisresolution he took in spite of every warning, and the most intelligentexpositions of the absolute necessity that, to be at all effectual, thefirst stand should be made in Greece. He thought otherwise; and, managing the campaign after his own ideas, he speedily involved himselfin quarrels, and his army, through the perfidy of a considerableofficer, in ruinous embarrassments. This unhappy campaign iscircumstantially narrated by Mr. Gordon in his first book; but, as itnever crossed the Danube, and had no connection with Greece except byits purposes, we shall simply rehearse the great outline of its course. The signal for insurrection was given in January, 1821; and PrinceYpsilanti took the field, by crossing the Pruth in March. Early inApril he received a communication from the Emperor of Russia, which atonce prostrated his hopes before an enemy was seen. He was formallydisavowed by that prince, erased from his army-list, and severelyreproached for his "_folly and ingratitude_, " in letters from twomembers of the Russian cabinet; and on the 9th of April this fact waspublicly notified in Yassy, the capital of Moldavia, by the Russianconsul-general. His army at this time consisted of three thousand men, which, however, was afterwards reinforced, but with no gunpowder exceptwhat was casually intercepted, and no lead except some that had beenstripped from the roof of an ancient cathedral. On the 12th of May thePacha of Ibrail opened the campaign. A few days after, the Turkishtroops began to appear in considerable force; and on the 8th of June analarm was suddenly given "that the white turbans were upon them. " Inthe engagement which followed, the insurgent army gave way; and, thoughtheir loss was much smaller than that of the Turks, yet, from the manyblunders committed, the consequences were disastrous; and, had theTurks pursued, there would on that day have been an end of theinsurrection. But far worse and more decisive was the subsequentdisaster of the 17th. Ypsilanti had been again reinforced; and hisadvanced guard had surprised a Turkish detachment of cavalry in such asituation that their escape seemed impossible. Yet all was ruined byone officer of rank, who got drunk, and advanced with an air ofbravado--followed, on a principle of honor, by a sacred battalion[_hieros lochos_], composed of five hundred Greek volunteers, ofbirth and education, the very _élite_ of the insurgent infantry. The Turks gave themselves up for lost; but, happening to observe thatthis drunkard seemed unsupported by other parts of the army, theysuddenly mounted, came down upon the noble young volunteers before theycould even form in square; and nearly the whole, disdaining to fly, were cut to pieces on the ground. An officer of rank, and a brave man, appalled by this hideous disaster, the affair of a few moments, rode upto the spot, and did all he could to repair it. But the cowardlydrunkard had fled at the first onset, with all his Arnauts; panicspread rapidly; and the whole force of five thousand men fled beforeeight hundred Turks, leaving four hundred men dead on the field, ofwhom three hundred and fifty belonged to the sacred battalion. 

The Turks, occupied with gathering a trophy of heads, neglected topursue. But the work was done. The defeated advance fell back upon themain body; and that same night the whole army, panic-struck, ashamed, and bewildered, commenced a precipitate retreat. From this momentPrince Ypsilanti thought only of saving himself. This purpose heeffected in a few days, by retreating into Austria, from whichterritory he issued his final order of the day, taxing his army, inviolent and unmeasured terms, with cowardice and disobedience. This wasin a limited sense true; many distinctions, however, were called for inmere justice; and the capital defects, after all, were in himself. Hisplan was originally bad; and, had it been better, he was quite unequalto the execution of it. The results were unfortunate to all concernedin it. Ypsilanti himself was arrested by Austria, and thrown into theunwholesome prison of Mongatz, where, after languishing for six years, he perished miserably. Some of the subordinate officers prolonged thestruggle in a guerilla style for some little time; but all were finallysuppressed. Many were put to death; many escaped into neutral ground;and it is gratifying to add, that of two traitors amongst the higherofficers, one was detected and despatched in a summary way of vengeanceby his own associates; the other, for some unexplained reason, wasbeheaded by his Turkish friends at the very moment when he had puthimself into their power, in fearless obedience to their own summons to_come and receive his well-merited reward_, and under an expressassurance from the Pacha of Silistria that he was impatiently waitingto invest him with a pelisse of honor. Such faith is kept withtraitors; such faith be ever kept with the betrayers of nations andtheir holiest hopes! Though in this instance the particular motives ofthe Porte are still buried in mystery. 

Thus terminated the first rash enterprise, which resulted from the tootempting invitation held out in the rebellion then agitating Epirus, locking up, as it did, and neutralizing, so large a part of thedisposable Turkish forces. To this we return. Kourshid Pacha quittedthe Morea with a large body of troops, in the first days of January, 1821, and took the command of the army already before Yannina. But, with all his great numerical superiority to the enemy with whom hecontended, and now enjoying undisturbed union in his own camp, he foundit impossible to make his advances rapidly. Though in hostility to thePorte, and though now connected with Christian allies, Ali Pacha wasyet nominally a Mahometan. Hence it had been found impossible as yet togive any color of an anti-Christian character to the war; and thenative Mahometan chieftains had therefore no scruple in coalescing withthe Christians of Epirus, and making joint cause with Ali. Gradually, from the inevitable vexations incident to the march and residence of alarge army, the whole population became hostile to Kourshid; and theirremembrance of Ali's former oppressions, if not effaced, was yetsuspended in the presence of a nuisance so immediate and so generallydiffused; and most of the Epirots turned their arms against the Porte. The same feelings which governed _them_ soon spread to the provincesof Etolia and Acarnania; or rather, perhaps, being previously ripefor revolt, these provinces resolved to avail themselves of thesame occasion. Missolonghi now became the centre of rebellion; andKourshid's difficulties were daily augmenting. In July of this year(1821) these various insurgents, actively cooperating, defeated theSerasker in several actions, and compelled a Pacha to lay down his armson the road between Yannina and Souli. It was even proposed by thegallant partisan, Mark Bozzaris, that all should unite to hem in theSerasker; but a wound, received in a skirmish, defeated this plan. InSeptember following, however, the same Mark intercepted and routedHassan Pacha in a defile on his march to Yannina; and in general theTurks were defeated everywhere except at the headquarters of theSerasker, and with losses in men enormously disproportioned to theoccasions. This arose partly from the necessity under which they lay ofattacking expert musketeers under cover of breastworks, and partly fromtheir own precipitance and determination to carry everything by summaryforce; "whereas, " says Mr. Gordon, "a little patience would surely havecaused them to succeed, and at least saved them much dishonor, andthousands of lives thrown away in mere wantonness. " But, in spite ofall blunders, and every sort of failure elsewhere, the Serasker wasstill advancing slowly towards his main objects--the reduction of AliPacha. And by the end of October, on getting possession of an importantpart of Ali's works, he announced to the Sultan that he should soon beable to send him the traitor's head, for that he was already reduced tosix hundred men. A little before this, however, the celebratedMaurocordato, with other persons of influence, had arrived atMissolonghi with the view of cementing a general union of Christian andMahometan forces against the Turks. In this he was so far successful, that in November a combined attack was made upon Ismael, the old enemyof Ali, and three other Pachas, shut up in the town of Arta. Thisattack succeeded partially; but it was attempted at a momentdramatically critical, and with an effect ruinous to the wholecampaign, as well as that particular attack. The assailing party, aboutthirty-four hundred men, were composed in the proportion of twoChristians to one Mahometan. They had captured one half of the town;and, Mark Bozzaris having set this on fire to prevent plundering, thefour Pachas were on the point of retreating under cover of the smoke. At that moment arrived a Mahometan of note, instigated by Kourshid, whowas able to persuade those of his own faith that the Christians werenot fighting with any sincere views of advantage to Ali, but withulterior purposes hostile to Mahometanism itself. On this, theChristian division of the army found themselves obliged to retirewithout noise, in order to escape their own allies, now suddenly unitedwith the four Pachas. Nor, perhaps, would even this have been effected, but for the precaution of Mark Bozzaris in taking hostages from twoleading Mahometans. Thus failed the last diversion in favor of AliPacha, who was henceforward left to his own immediate resources. Allthe Mahometan tribes now ranged themselves on the side of Kourshid; andthe winter of 1821-2 passed away without further disturbance in Epirus. 

Meantime, during the absence of Kourshid Pacha from the Morea, theopportunity had not been lost for raising the insurrection in thatimportant part of Greece. Kourshid had marched early in January, 1821;and already in February symptoms of the coming troubles appeared atPatrass, "the most flourishing and populous city of the Peloponnesus, the emporium of its trade, and residence of the foreign consuls andmerchants. " Its population was about eighteen thousand, of which numbertwo thirds were Christian. In March, when rumors had arrived of theinsurrection beyond the Danube, under Alexander Ypsilanti, thefermentation became universal; and the Turks of Patrass hastilyprepared for defence. By the twenty-fifth, the Greeks had purchased allthe powder and lead which could be had; and about the second of Aprilthey raised the standard of the Cross. Two days after this, fightingbegan at Patrass. The town having been set on fire, "the Turkish castlethrew shot and shells at random; the two parties fought amongst theruins, and massacred each other without mercy; the only prisoners thatwere spared owed their lives to fanaticism; some Christian youths beingcircumcised by the Mollahs, and some Turkish boys baptized by thepriests. "

"While the commencement of the war, " says Mr. Gordon, "was thussignalized by the ruin of a flourishing city, the insurrection gainedground with wonderful rapidity; and from mountain to mountain, andvillage to village, propagated itself to the furthest corner of thePeloponnesus. Everywhere the peasants flew to arms; and those Turks whoresided in the open country or unfortified towns were either cut topieces, or forced to fly into strongholds. " On the second of April, theflag of independence was hoisted in Achaia. On the ninth, a Greciansenate met at Calamata, in Messenia, having for its presidentMavromichalis, Prince or Bey of Maina, a rugged territory in theancient Sparta, famous for its hardy race of robbers and pirates. [Footnote: These Mainates have been supposed to be of Sclavonianorigin; but Mr. Gordon, upon the authority of the Emperor ConstantinePorphyrogenitos, asserts that they are of pure Laconian blood, andbecame Christians in the reign of that emperor's grandfather, Basil theMacedonian. They are, and over have been, robbers by profession;robbers by land, pirates by sea; for which last branch of their mixedoccupation they enjoy singular advantages in their position at thepoint of junction between the Ionian and Egean seas. To illustratetheir condition of perpetual warfare, Mr. Gordon mentions that therewere very lately individuals who had lived for twenty years in towers, not daring to stir out lest their neighbors should shoot them. Theywere supplied with bread and cartridges by their wives; for the personsof women are sacred in Maina. Two other good features in theircharacter are their hospitality and their indisposition to bloodshed. They are in fact _gentle thieves_--the Robin Hoods of Greece. ]

On the sixth of April, the insurrection had spread to the narrowterritory of Megaris, situated to the north of the isthmus. TheAlbanian population of this country, amounting to about ten thousand, and employed by the Porte to guard the defiles of the entrance intoPeloponnesus, raised the standard of revolt, and marched to invest theAcrocorinthus. In the Messenian territory, the Bishop of Modon, havingmade his guard of Janissaries drunk, cut the whole of them to pieces;and then encamping on the heights of Navarin, his lordship blockadedthat fortress. The abruptness of these movements, and their almostsimultaneous origin at distances so considerable, sufficiently provehow ripe the Greeks were for this revolt as respected temper; and inother modes of preparation they never _could_ have been ripewhilst overlooked by Turkish masters. That haughty race now retreatedfrom all parts of the Morea, within the ramparts of Tripolizza. 

In the first action which occurred, the Arcadian Greeks did not behavewell; they fled at the very sound of the Moslem tread. Colocotronicommanded; and he rallied them again; but again they deserted him atthe sight of their oppressors; "and I, " said Colocotroni afterwards, when relating the circumstances of this early affair, "having with meonly ten companions including my horse, sat down in a bush and wept. "

Meantime, affairs went ill at Patrass. Yussuf Pacha, having beendetached from Epirus to Eubœa by the Scrasker, heard on his route ofthe insurrection in Peloponnesus. Upon which, altering his course, hesailed to Patrass, and reached it on the fifteenth of April. This wasPalm Sunday, and it dawned upon the Greeks with evil omens. First camea smart shock of earthquake; next a cannonade announcing the approachof the Pacha; and, lastly, an Ottoman brig of war, which saluted thefort and cast anchor before the town. 

The immediate consequences were disastrous. The Greeks retreated; andthe Pacha detached Kihaya-Bey, a Tartar officer of distinguishedenergy, with near three thousand men, to the most important points ofthe revolt. On the fifth of May, the Tartar reached Corinth, but foundthe siege already raised. Thence he marched to Argos, sending beforehim a requisition for bread. He was answered by the men of Argos thatthey had no bread, but only powder and ball at his service. Thisthreat, however, proved a gasconade; the Kihaya advanced in threecolumns; cavalry on each wing, and infantry in the centre; on which, after a single discharge, the Argives fled. [Footnote: It has a sublimeeffect in the record of this action to hear that the Argives were drawnup behind a wall originally raised as a defence _against the delugeof Inachus_. ] Their general, fighting bravely, was killed, togetherwith seven hundred others, and fifteen hundred women captured. TheTurks, having sacked and burned Argos, then laid siege to a monastery, which surrendered upon terms; and it is honorable to the memory of thisTartar general, that, according to the testimony of Mr. Gordon, at atime when the war was managed with merciless fury and continualperfidies on both sides, he observed the terms with rigorous fidelity, treated all his captives with the utmost humanity, and even liberatedthe women. 

Thus far the tide had turned against the Greeks; but now came adecisive reaction in their favor; and, as if forever to proclaim thefolly of despair, just at the very crisis when it was least to havebeen expected, the Kihaya was at this point joined by the Turks ofTripolizza, and was now reputed to be fourteen thousand strong. Thisproved to be an exaggeration; but the subsequent battle is the morehonorable to those who believed it. At a council of war, in the Greekcamp, the prevailing opinion was that an action could not prudently berisked. One man thought otherwise; this was Anagnostoras; he, by urgingthe desolations which would follow a retreat, brought over the rest tohis opinion; and it was resolved to take up a position at Valtezza, avillage three hours' march from Tripolizza. Thither, on the twenty-seventh of May, the Kihaya arrived with five thousand men, in threecolumns, having left Tripolizza at dawn; and immediately raisedredoubts opposite to those of the Greeks, and placed three heavy piecesof cannon in battery. He hoped to storm the position; but, if he shouldfail, he had a reason for still anticipating a victory, and _that_was the situation of the fountains, which must soon have drawn theGreeks out of their position, as they had water only for twenty-fourhours' consumption. 

The battle commenced: and the first failure of the Kihaya was in thecannonade; for his balls, passing over the Greeks, fell amongst a corpsof his own troops. These now made three assaults; but were repulsed inall. Both sides kept up a fire till night; and each expected that hisenemy would retire in the darkness. The twenty-eighth, however, foundthe two armies still in the same positions. The battle was renewed forfive hours; and then the Kihaya, finding his troops fatigued, and thathis retreat was likely to be intercepted by Nikitas (a brave partisanofficer bred to arms in the service of England), who was coming up byforced marches from Argos with eight hundred men, gave the signal forretreat. This soon became a total rout; the Kihaya lost his horse; andthe Greeks, besides taking two pieces of cannon, raised a trophy offour hundred Moslem heads. 

Such was the battle of Yaltezza, the inaugural performance of theinsurrection; and we have told it thus circumstantially, because Mr. Gordon characterizes it as "remarkable for the moral effect itproduced;" and he does not scruple to add, that it "certainly decidedthe campaign in Peloponnesus, _and perhaps even the fate of therevolution_. "

Three days after, that is, on the last day of May, 1821, followed thevictory of Doliana, in which the Kihaya, anxious to recover his lostground, was encountered by Nikitas. The circumstances were peculiarlybrilliant. For the Turkish general had between two and three thousandmen, besides artillery; whereas Nikitas at first sustained the attackin thirteen barricaded houses, with no more than ninety-six soldiers, and thirty armed peasants. After a resistance of eleven hours, he wassupported by seven hundred men; and in the end he defeated the Kihayawith a very considerable loss. 

These actions raised the enthusiasm of the Morea to a high point; andin the mean time other parts of Greece had joined in the revolt. In thefirst week of April an insurrection burst out in the eastern provincesof Greece, Attica, Boeotia, and Phocis. The insurgents first appearednear Livadia, one of the best cities in northern Greece. On thethirteenth, they occupied Thebes without opposition. Immediately after, Odysseus propagated the revolt in Phocis, where he had formerlycommanded as a lieutenant of Ali Pacha's. Next arose the Albanianpeasantry of Attica, gathering in armed bodies to the west of Athens. Towards the end of April, the Turks, who composed one fifth of theAthenian population (then rated at ten thousand), became greatlyagitated; and twice proposed a massacre of the Christians. This wasresisted by the humane Khadi; and the Turks, contenting themselves withpillaging absent proprietors, began to lay up stores in the Acropolis. With ultra Turkish stupidity, however, out of pure laziness, at thiscritical moment, they confided the night duty on the ramparts of thecity to Greeks. The consequence may be supposed. On the eighth of May, the Ottoman standard had been raised and blessed by an Tman. On thefollowing night, a rapid discharge of musketry, and the shouts of_Christ has risen! Liberty! Liberty!_ proclaimed the capture ofAthens. Nearly two thousand peasants, generally armed with clubs, hadscaled the walls and forced the gates. The prisoners taken were treatedwith humanity. But, unfortunately, this current of Christian sentimentwas immediately arrested by the conduct of the Turks in the Acropolis, in killing nine hostages, and throwing over the walls some naked andheadless bodies. 

The insurrection next spread to Thessaly; and at last even toMacedonia, from the premature and atrocious violence of the Pacha ofSalonika. Apprehending a revolt, he himself drew it on, by cutting offthe heads of the Christian merchants and clergy (simply as a measure ofprecaution), and enforcing his measures on the peasantry by militaryexecution. Unfortunately, from its extensive plains, this country ispeculiarly favorable to the evolutions of the Turkish cavalry; theinsurgents were, therefore, defeated in several actions; and ultimatelytook refuge in great numbers amongst the convents on Mount Athos, whichalso were driven into revolt by the severity of the Pacha. Here thefugitives were safe from the sabres of their merciless pursuers; but, unless succored by sea, ran a great risk of perishing by famine. But amore important accession to the cause of independence, within one monthfrom its first outbreak in the Morea, occurred in the Islands of theArchipelago. The three principal of these in modern times, are Hydra, Spezzia, and Psarra. [Footnote: Their insignificance in ancient timesis proclaimed by the obscurity of their ancient names--Aperopia, Tiparenus, and Psyra. ] They had been colonized in the precedingcentury, by some poor families from Peloponnesus and Ionia. At thattime they had gained a scanty subsistence as fishermen. Gradually theybecame merchants and seamen. Being the best sailors in the Sultan'sdominions, they had obtained some valuable privileges, amongst whichwas that of exemption from Turkish magistrates; so that, if they couldnot boast of _autonomy_, they had at least the advantage ofexecuting the bad laws of Turkish imposition by chiefs of their ownblood. And they had the further advantage of paying but a moderatetribute to the Sultan. So favored, their commerce had flourished beyondall precedent. And latterly, when the vast extension of Europeanwarfare had created first-rate markets for grain, selecting, of course, those which were highest at the moment, they sometimes doubled theircapitals in two voyages; and seven or eight such trips in a year werenot an unusual instance of good fortune. What had been the result, maybe collected from the following description, which Mr. Gordon gives us, of Hydra: "Built on a sterile rock, which does not offer, at anyseason, the least trace of vegetation, it is one of the best cities inthe Levant, and _infinitely superior to any other in Greece_; thehouses are all constructed of white stone; and those of thearistocracy--erected at an immense expense, floored with costlymarbles, and splendidly furnished--_might pass for palaces even inthe capitals of Italy_. Before the revolution, poverty was unknown;all classes being comfortably lodged, clothed, and fed. Its inhabitantsat this epoch exceeded twenty thousand, of whom four thousand wereable-bodied seamen. "

The other islands were, with few exceptions, arid rocks; and most ofthem had the inestimable advantage of being unplagued with a Turkishpopulation. Enjoying that precious immunity, it may be wondered whythey should have entered into the revolt. But for this there were twogreat reasons: they were ardent Christians in the first place, anddisinterested haters of Mahometanism on its own merits; secondly, asthe most powerful [Footnote: Mr. Gordon says that "they could, withoutdifficulty, fit out a hundred sail of ships, brigs, and schooners, armed with from twelve to twenty-four guns each, and manned by seventhousand stout and able sailors. " Pouqueville ascribes to them, in1813, a force considerably greater. But the peace of Paris (one yearafter Pouqueville's estimates) naturally reduced their power, as theirextraordinary gains were altogether dependent on war and navalblockades. ] nautical confederacy in the Levant, they anticipated alarge booty from captures at sea. In that expectation, at first, theywere not disappointed. But it was a source of wealth soon exhausted;for, naturally, as soon as their ravages became known, the Mussulmansceased to navigate. Spezzia was the first to hoist the independentflag; this was on the ninth of April, 1821. Psarra immediately followedher example. Hydra hesitated, and at first even declined to do so; but, at last, on the 28th of April, this island also issued a manifesto ofadherence to the patriotic cause. On the third of May, a squadron ofeleven Hydriot and seven Spezzia vessels sailed from Hydra, having onthe mainmast "an address to the people of the Egean sea, inviting themto rally round the national standard: an address that was received withenthusiasm in every quarter of the Archipelago where the Turks were notnumerous enough to restrain popular feeling. "

"The success of the Greek marine in this first expedition, " says Mr. Gordon, "was not confined to merely spreading the insurrectionthroughout the Archipelago: a swarm of swift armed ships swept the seafrom the Hellespont to the waters of Crete and Cyprus; captured everyOttoman trader they met with, and put to the sword, or flung overboard, the Mahometan crews and passengers; for the contest already assumed acharacter of terrible ferocity. It would be vain to deny that they wereguilty of shocking barbarities; at the little island of Castel Rosso, on the Karamanian shore, they butchered, in cold blood, severalbeautiful Turkish females; and a great number of defenceless pilgrims(mostly old men), who, returning from Mecca, fell into their power, offCyprus, were slain without mercy, because they would not renounce theirfaith. " Many such cases of hideous barbarity had already occurred, anddid afterwards occur, on the mainland. But this is the eternal law andprovidential retribution of oppression. The tyrant teaches to his slavethe crimes and the cruelties which he inflicts; blood will have blood;and the ferocious oppressor is involved in the natural reaction of hisown wickedness, by the frenzied retaliation of the oppressed. Now wasindeed beheld the realization of the sublime imprecation in Shakspeare:"one spirit of the first-born Cain" did indeed reign in the hearts ofmen; and now, if ever upon this earth, it seemed likely, from thedreadful _acharnement_ which marked the war on both sides, --the_acharnement_ of long-hoarded vengeance and maddening remembrancesin the Grecian, of towering disdain in the alarmed oppressor, --that, invery simplicity of truth, "_Darkness would be the burier of thedead. _"

Such was the opening scene in the astonishing drama of the Greekinsurrection, which, through all its stages, was destined to move byfire and blood, and beyond any war in human annals to command theinterest of mankind through their sterner affections. We have said thatit was eminently a romantic war; but not in the meaning with which weapply that epithet to the semi-fabulous wars of Charlemagne and hisPaladins, or even to the Crusaders. Here are no memorable contests ofgenerosity; no triumphs glorified by mercy; no sacrifices of interestthe most basely selfish to martial honor; no ear on either side for thepleadings of desolate affliction; no voice in any quarter of commandingjustice; no acknowledgment of a common nature between the belligerents;nor sense of a participation in the same human infirmities, dangers, ornecessities. To the fugitive from the field of battle there wasscarcely a retreat; to the prisoner there was absolutely no hope. Sternretribution, and the very rapture of vengeance, were the passions whichpresided on the one side; on the other, fanaticism and the cruelty offear and hatred, maddened by old hereditary scorn. Wherever the warraged there followed upon the face of the land one blank Aceldama. Adesert tracked the steps of the armies, and a desert in which was nooasis; and the very atmosphere in which men lived and breathed was achaos of murderous passions. Still it is true that the war was a greatromance. For it was filled with change, and with elastic rebound fromwhat seemed final extinction; with the spirit of adventure carried tothe utmost limits of heroism; with self-devotion on the sublimestscale, and the very frenzy of patriotic martyrdom; with resurrection ofeverlasting hope upon ground seven times blasted by the blightingpresence of the enemy; and with flowers radiant in promise springingforever from under the very tread of the accursed Moslem. 

NOTE. --We have thought that we should do an acceptable service to thereader by presenting him with a sketch of the Suliotes, and the mostmemorable points in their history. We have derived it (as to the facts)from a little work originally composed by an Albanian in modern Greek, and printed at Venice in 1815. This work was immediately translatedinto Italian, by Gherardini, an Italian officer of Milan; and, tenyears ago, with some few omissions, it was reproduced in an Englishversion; but in this country it seems never to have attracted publicnotice, and is probably now forgotten. 

With respect to the name of Suli, the Suliotes themselves trace it toan accident:--"Some old men, " says the Albanian author, reciting hisown personal investigations amongst the oldest of the Suliotes, "replied that they did not remember having any information from theirancestors concerning the first inhabitants of Suli, except this only:that some goat and swine herds used to lead their flocks to graze onthe mountains where Suli and Ghiafa now stand; that these mountainswere not only steep and almost inaccessible, but clothed with thicketsof wood, and infested by wild boars; that these herdsmen, beingoppressed by the tyranny of the Turks of a village called to this dayGardichi, took the resolution of flying for a distance of six hours'journey to this sylvan and inaccessible position, of sharing in commonthe few animals which they had, and of suffering voluntarily everyphysical privation, rather than submit to the slightest wrong fromtheir foreign tyrants. This resolution, they added, must be presumed tohave been executed with success; because we find that, in the lapse offive or six years, these original occupants of the fastness were joinedby thirty other families. Somewhere about that time it was that theybegan to awaken the jealousy of the Turks; and a certain Turk, namedSuli, went in high scorn and defiance, with many other associates, toexpel them from this strong position; but our stout forefathers metthem with arms in their hands. Suli, the leader and inciter of theTurks, was killed outright upon the ground; and, on the very spot wherehe fell, at this day stands the centre of our modern Suli, which tookits name, therefore, from that same slaughtered Turk, who was the firstinsolent and malicious enemy with whom our country in its days ofinfancy had to contend for its existence. "

Such is the most plausible account which can now be obtained of the_incunabula_ of this most indomitable little community, and of thecircumstances under which it acquired its since illustrious name. Itwas, perhaps, natural that a little town, in the centre of insolent andbitter enemies, should assume a name which would long convey to theirwhole neighborhood a stinging lesson of mortification, and ofprudential warning against similar molestations. As to the_chronology_ of this little state, the Albanian author assures us, upon the testimony of the same old Suliotes, that "seventy yearsbefore" there were barely one hundred men fit for the active duties ofwar, which, in ordinary states of society, would imply a totalpopulation of four hundred souls. That may be taken, therefore, as theextreme limit of the Suliote population at a period of seventy yearsantecedently to the date of tke conversation on which he founds hisinformation. But, as he has unfortunately omitted to fix the exact eraof these conversations, the whole value of his accuracy is neutralizedby his own carelessness. However, it is probable, from the internalevidence of his book, which brings down affairs below the year 1812, that his information was collected somewhere about 1810. We must carryback the epoch, therefore, at which Suli had risen to a population offour hundred, pretty nearly to the year 1740; and since, by the sametraditionary evidence, Suli had then accomplished an independentexistence through a space of eighty years, we have reason to concludethat the very first gatherings of poor Christian herdsmen to thissylvan sanctuary, when stung to madness by Turkish insolence andpersecution, would take place about the era of the Restoration (of ourCharles II. ), that is, in 1660. 

In more modern times, the Suliotes had expanded into four separatelittle towns, peopled by five hundred and sixty families, from whichthey were able to draw one thousand first-rate soldiers. But, by a verypolitic arrangement, they had colonized with sixty-six other familiesseven neighboring towns, over which, from situation, they had long beenable to exercise a military preponderance. The benefits wereincalculable which they obtained by this connection. At the first alarmof war the fighting men retreated with no incumbrances but their arms, ammunition, and a few days' provision, into the four towns of Suliproper, which all lay within that ring fence of impregnable positionfrom which no armies could ever dislodge them; meantime, they secretlydrew supplies from the seven associate towns, which were bettersituated than themselves for agriculture, and which (apparently takingno part in the war) pursued their ordinary labors unmolested. Theirtactics were simple, but judicious; if they saw a body of five or sixthousand advancing against their position, knowing that it was idle forthem to meet such a force in the open field, they contented themselveswith detaching one hundred and fifty or two hundred men to skirmish ontheir flanks, and to harass them according to the advantages of theground; but if they saw no more than five hundred or one thousand inthe hostile column, they then issued in equal or superior numbers, inthe certainty of beating them, striking an effectual panic into theirhearts, and also of profiting largely by plunder and by ransom. 

In so small and select a community, where so much must continuallydepend upon individual qualities and personal heroism, it may readilybe supposed that the women would play an important part; in fact, "thewomen carry arms and fight bravely. When the men go to war, the womenbring them food and provisions; when they see their strength decliningin combat, they run to their assistance, and fight along with them;but, if by any chance their husbands behave with cowardice, they snatchtheir arms from them, and abuse them, calling them mean, and unworthyof having a wife. " Upon these feelings there has even been built a lawin Suli, which must deeply interest the pride of women in the martialhonor of their husbands; agreeably to this law, any woman whose husbandhas distinguished himself in battle, upon going to a fountain to drawwater, has the liberty to drive away another woman whose husband istainted with the reproach of cowardice; and all who succeed her, "fromdawn to dewy eve, " unless under the ban of the same withering stigma, have the same privilege of taunting her with her husband's baseness, and of stepping between her or her cattle until their own wants arefully supplied. 

This social consideration of the female sex, in right of theirhusbands' military honors, is made available for no trifling purposes;on one occasion it proved the absolute salvation of the tribe. In oneof the most desperate assaults made by Ali Pacha upon Suli, when thattyrant was himself present at the head of eight thousand picked men, animated with the promise of five hundred piastres a man, to as many asshould enter Suli, after ten hours' fighting under an enfeebling sun, and many of the Suliote muskets being rendered useless by continualdischarges, a large body of the enemy had actually succeeded inoccupying the sacred interior of Suli itself. At that critical moment, when Ali was in the very paroxysms of frantic exultation, the Suliotewomen, seeing that the general fate hinged upon the next five minutes, turned upon the Turks _en masse_, and with such a rapture ofsudden fury, that the conquering army was instantly broken--thrown intopanic, pursued; and, in that state of ruinous disorder, was met andflanked by the men, who were now recovering from their defeat. Theconsequences, from the nature of the ground, were fatal to the Turkisharmy and enterprise; the whole camp equipage was captured; none savedtheir lives but by throwing away their arms; one third of the Turks(one half by some accounts) perished on the retreat; the rest returnedat intervals as an unarmed mob; and the bloody, perfidious Pachahimself saved his life only by killing two horses in his haste. Sototal was the rout, and so bitter the mortification of Ali, who hadseen a small band of heroic women snatch the long-sought prize out ofhis very grasp, that for some weeks he shut himself up in his palace atYannina, would receive no visits, and issued a proclamation imposinginstant death upon any man detected in looking out at a window or otheraperture--as being _presumably_ engaged in noticing the variousexpressions of his defeat which were continually returning to Yannina. 

The wars, in which the adventurous courage of the Suliotes (togetherwith their menacing position) could not fail to involve them, were inall eleven. The first eight of these occurred in times before theFrench Revolution, and with Pachas who have left no memorials behindthem of the terrific energy or hellish perfidy which marked thecharacter of Ali Pacha. These Pachas, who brought armies at the lowestof five thousand, and at the most of twelve thousand men, wereuniformly beaten; and apparently were content to be beaten. Sometimes aPacha was even made prisoner; but, as the simple [Footnote: On the sameoccasion the Pacha's son, and sixty officers of the rank of _Aga_, were also made prisoners by a truly rustic mode of assault. The Turkshad shut themselves up in a church; into this, by night, the Suliotesthrew a number of hives, full of bees, whose insufferable stings soonbrought the haughty Moslems into the proper surrendering mood. Thewhole body were afterwards ransomed for so trifling a sum as onethousand sequins. ] Suliotes little understood the art of improvingadvantages, the ransom was sure to be proportioned to the value of thesaid Pacha's sword-arm in battle, rather than to his rank and abilityto pay; so that the terms of liberation were made ludicrously easy tothe Turkish chiefs. 

These eight wars naturally had no other ultimate effect than to extendthe military power, experience, and renown, of the Suliotes. But theirninth war placed them in collision with a new and far more perilousenemy than any they had yet tried; above all, he was so obstinate andunrelenting an enemy, that, excepting the all-conquering mace of death, it was certain that no obstacles born of man ever availed to turn himaside from an object once resolved on. The reader will understand, ofcourse, that this enemy was Ali Pacha. Their ninth war was with him;and he, like all before him, was beaten; but _not_ like all beforehim did Ali sit down in resignation under his defeat. His hatred wasnow become fiendish; no other prosperity or success had any grace inhis eyes, so long as Suli stood, by which he had been overthrown, trampled on, and signally humbled. Life itself was odious to him, if hemust continue to witness the triumphant existence of the abhorredlittle mountain village which had wrung laughter at his expense fromevery nook of Epirus. _Delenda est Carthago! Suli must beexterminated!_ became, therefore, from this time, the masterwatchword of his secret policy. And on the 1st of June, in the year1792, he commenced his second war against the Suliotes, at the head oftwenty-two thousand men. This was the second war of Suli with AliPacha; but it was the tenth war on their annals; and, as far as theirown exertions were concerned, it had the same result as all the rest. But, about the sixth year of the war, in an indirect way, Ali made onestep towards his final purpose, which first manifested its disastroustendency in the new circumstances which succeeding years broughtforward. In 1797 the French made a lodgment in Corfu; and, agreeably totheir general spirit of intrigue, they had made advances to Ali Pacha, and to all other independent powers in or about Epirus. Amongst otherstates, in an evil hour for that ill-fated city, they wormed themselvesinto an alliance with Prevesa; and in the following year their ownquarrel with Ali Pacha gave that crafty robber a pretence, which he hadlong courted in vain, for attacking the place with his overwhelmingcavalry, before they could agree upon the mode of defence, and longbefore _any_ mode could have been tolerably matured. The resultwas one universal massacre, which raged for three days, and involvedevery living Prevesan, excepting some few who had wisely made theirescape in time, and excepting those who were reserved to be torturedfor Ali's special gratification, or to be sold for slaves in theshambles. This dreadful catastrophe, which in a few hours rooted fromthe earth an old and flourishing community, was due in about equaldegrees to the fatal intriguing of the interloping French, and to therankest treachery in a quarter where it could least have been heldpossible; namely, in a Suliote, and a very distinguished Suliote, Captain George Botzari; but the miserable man yielded up his honor andhis patriotism to Ali's bribe of one hundred purses (perhaps at thattime equal to twenty-five hundred pounds sterling). The way in whichthis catastrophe operated upon Ali's final views was obvious toeverybody in that neighborhood. Parga, on the sea-coast, was anindispensable ally to Suli; now, Prevesa stood in the same relation toParga, as an almost indispensable ally, that Parga occupied towardsSuli. 

This shocking tragedy had been perpetrated in the October of 1798; and, in less than two years from that date, namely, on the 2d of June, 1800, commenced the eleventh war of the Suliotes; being their third with Ali, and the last which, from their own guileless simplicity, meeting withthe craft of the most perfidious amongst princes, they were everdestined to wage. For two years, that is, until the middle of 1802, thewar, as managed by the Suliotes, rather resembles a romance, or somelegend of the acts of Paladins, than any grave chapter in modernhistory. Amongst the earliest victims it is satisfactory to mention thetraitor, George Botzari, who, being in the power of the Pacha, wasabsolutely compelled to march with about two hundred of his kinsmen, whom he had seduced from Suli, against his own countrymen, under whoseavenging swords the majority of them fell, whilst the arch-traitorhimself soon died of grief and mortification. After this, Ali himselfled a great and well-appointed army in various lines of assault againstSuli. But so furious was the reception given to the Turks, so deadlyand so uniform their defeat, that panic seized on the whole army, whodeclared unanimously to Ali that they would no more attempt to contendwith the Suliotes--"Who, " said they, "neither sit nor sleep, but areborn only for the destruction of men. " Ali was actually obliged tosubmit to this strange resolution of his army; but, by way ofcompromise, he built a chain of forts pretty nearly encircling Suli;and simply exacted of his troops that, being forever released from thedangers of the open field, they should henceforward shut themselves upin these forts, and constitute themselves a permanent blockading forcefor the purpose of bridling the marauding excursions of the Suliotes. It was hoped that, from the close succession of these forts, theSuliotes would find it impossible to slip between the cross fires ofthe Turkish musketry; and that, being thus absolutely cut off fromtheir common resources of plunder, they must at length be reduced bymere starvation. That termination of the contest was in fact repeatedlywithin a trifle of being accomplished; the poor Suliotes were reducedto a diet of acorns; and even of this food had so slender a quantitythat many died, and the rest wore the appearance of blackenedskeletons. All this misery, however, had no effect to abate one jot oftheir zeal and their undying hatred to the perfidious enemy who wasbending every sinew to their destruction. It is melancholy to recordthat such perfect heroes, from whom force the most disproportioned, normisery the most absolute, had ever wrung the slightest concession oradvantage, were at length entrapped by the craft of their enemy; and bytheir own foolish confidence in the oaths of one who had never beenknown to keep any engagement which he had a momentary interest inbreaking. Ali contrived first of all to trepan the matchless leader ofthe Suliotes, Captain Foto Giavella, who was a hero after the mostexquisite model of ancient Greece, Epaminondas, or Timoleon, and whosecounsels were uniformly wise and honest. After that loss, all harmonyof plan went to wreck amongst the Suliotes; and at length, about themiddle of December, 1803, this immortal little independent state ofSuli solemnly renounced by treaty to Ali Pacha its sacred territory, its thrice famous little towns, and those unconquerable positions amongthe crests of wooded inaccessible mountains which had baffled all thearmies of the crescent, led by the most eminent of the Ottoman Pachas, and not seldom amounting to twenty, twenty-five, and in one instanceeven to more than thirty thousand men. The articles of a treaty, whichon one side there never was an intention of executing, are scarcelyworth repeating; the amount was--that the Suliotes had perfect libertyto go whither they chose, retaining the whole of their arms andproperty, and with a title to payment in cash for every sort of warlikestore which could not be carried off. In excuse for the poor Suliotesin trusting to treaties of any kind with an enemy whom no oaths couldbind for an hour, it is but fair to mention that they were nowabsolutely without supplies either of ammunition or provisions; andthat, for seven days, they had suffered under a total deprivation ofwater, the sources of which were now in the hands of the enemy, andturned into new channels. The winding up of the memorable tale is soontold:--the main body of the fighting Suliotes, agreeably to thetreaty, immediately took the route to Parga, where they were sure of ahospitable reception, that city having all along made common cause withSuli against their common enemy, Ali. The son of Ali, who had concludedthe treaty, and who inherited all his father's treachery, as fast aspossible despatched four thousand Turks in pursuit, with orders tomassacre the whole. But in this instance, through the gallantassistance of the Parghiotes, and the energetic haste of the Suliotes, the accursed wretch was disappointed of his prey. As to all the otherdetachments of the Suliotes, who were scattered at different points, and were necessarily thrown everywhere upon their own resources withoutwarning or preparation of any kind, --they, by the terms of the treaty, had liberty to go away or to reside peaceably in any part of Ali'sdominions. But as these were mere windy words, it being well understoodthat Ali's fixed intention was to cut every throat among the Suliotes, whether of man, woman, or child, --nay, as he thought himself dismallyill-used by every hour's delay which interfered with the execution ofthat purpose, --what rational plan awaited the choice of the poorSuliotes, finding themselves in the centre of a whole hostile nation, and their own slender divisions cut off from communication with eachother? What could people so circumstanced propose to themselves as asuitable resolution for their situation? Hope there was none; sublimedespair was all that their case allowed; and, considering theunrivalled splendors of their past history for more than one hundredand sixty years, perhaps most readers would reply, in the famous wordsof Corneille--_Qu'ils mourussent_. That was their own reply to thequestion now so imperatively forced upon them; and die they all did. Itis an argument of some great original nobility in the minds of thesepoor people, that none disgraced themselves by useless submissions, andthat all alike, women as well as men, devoted themselves in the "highRoman fashion" to the now expiring cause of their country. The firstcase which occurred exhibits the very perfection of _nonchalance_in circumstances the most appalling. Samuel, a Suliote monk, ofsomewhat mixed and capricious character, and at times even liable tomuch suspicion amongst his countrymen, but of great name, and ofunquestionable merit in his military character, was in the act ofdelivering over to authorized Turkish agents a small outpost, which hadgreatly annoyed the forces of Ali, together with such military storesas it still contained. By the treaty, Samuel was perfectly free, andunder the solemn protection of Ali; but the Turks, with the uttershamelessness to which they had been brought by daily familiarity withtreachery the most barefaced, were openly descanting to Samuel upon theunheard-of tortures which must be looked for at the hands of Ali, by asoldier who had given so much trouble to that Pacha as himself. Samuellistened coolly; he was then seated on a chest of gunpowder, and powderwas scattered about in all directions. He watched in a careless wayuntil he observed that all the Turks, exulting in their own damnableperfidies, were assembled under the roof of the building. He thencoolly took the burning snuff of a candle, and threw it into a heap ofcombustibles, still keeping his seat upon the chest of powder. It isunnecessary to add that the little fort, and all whom it contained, were blown to atoms. And with respect to Samuel in particular, nofragment of his skeleton could ever be discovered. [Footnote: Thedeposition of two Suliote sentinels at the door, and of a third personwho escaped with a dreadful scorching, sufficiently established thefacts; otherwise the whole would have been ascribed to the treachery ofAli or his son. ] After this followed as many separate tragedies asthere were separate parties of Suliotes; when all hope and all retreatwere clearly cut off, then the women led the great scene of self-immolation, by throwing their children headlong from the summit ofprecipices; which done, they and their husbands, their fathers andtheir sons, hand in hand, ran up to the brink of the declivity, andfollowed those whom they had sent before. In other situations, wherethere was a possibility of fighting with effect, they made a long andbloody resistance, until the Turkish cavalry, finding an opening fortheir operations, made all further union impossible; upon which theyall plunged into the nearest river, without distinction of age or sex, and were swallowed up by the merciful waters. Thus, in a few days, fromthe signing of that treaty, which nominally secured to them peaceablepossession of their property, and paternal treatment from theperfidious Pacha, none remained to claim his promises or to experiencehis abominable cruelties. In their native mountains of Epirus, the nameof Suliote was now blotted from the books of life, and was heard nomore in those wild sylvan haunts, where once it had filled every echowith the breath of panic to the quailing hearts of the Moslems. In themost "palmy" days of Suli, she never had counted more than twenty-fivehundred fighting men; and of these no considerable body escaped, excepting the corps who hastily fought their way to Parga. From thatcity they gradually transported themselves to Corfu, then occupied bythe Russians. Into the service of the Russian Czar, as the sole meansleft to a perishing corps of soldiers for earning daily bread, theynaturally entered; and when Corfu afterwards passed from Russian toEnglish masters, it was equally inevitable that for the same urgentpurposes they should enter the military service of England. In thatservice they received the usual honorable treatment, and such attentionas circumstances would allow to their national habits and prejudices. They were placed also, we believe, under the popular command of Sir R. Church, who, though unfortunate as a supreme leader, made himselfbeloved in a lower station by all the foreigners under his authority. These Suliotes have since then returned to Epirus and to Greece, thepeace of 1815 having, perhaps, dissolved their connection with England, and they were even persuaded to enter the service of their arch-enemy, Ali Pacha. Since his death, their diminished numbers, and the alteredcircumstances of their situation, should naturally have led to theextinction of their political importance. Yet we find them in 1832still attracting (or rather concentrating) the wrath of the TurkishSultan, made the object of a separate war, and valued (as in all formercases) on the footing of a distinct and independent nation. On thewinding up of this war, we find part of them at least an object ofindulgent solicitude to the British government, and under theirprotection transferred to Cephalonia. Yet again, others of their scantyclan meet us at different points of the war in Greece; especially atthe first decisive action with Ibrahim, when, in the rescue of CostaBotzaris, every Suliote of his blood perished on the spot; and again, in the fatal battle of Athens (May 6, 1827), Mr. Gordon assures us that"almost all the Suliotes were exterminated. " We understand him to speaknot generally of the Suliotes, as of the total clan who bear that name, but of those only who happened to be present at that dire catastrophe. Still, even with this limitation, such a long succession of heavylosses descending upon a people who never numbered above twenty-fivehundred fighting men, and who had passed through the furnace, seventimes heated, of Ali Pacha's wrath, and suffered those many and dismaltragedies which we have just recorded, cannot but have brought themlatterly to the brink of utter extinction.