THE

SPIRIT OF THE AGE:

OR

CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS. 

"To know another well were to know one's self. "

CONTENTS. 

JEREMY BENTHAM

WILLIAM GODWIN

MR. COLERIDGE

REV. MR. IRVING

THE LATE MR. HORNE TOOKE

SIR WALTER SCOTT

LORD BYRON

MR. CAMPBELL--MR. CRABBE

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH

MR. WORDSWORTH

MR. MALTHUS

MR. GIFFORD

MR. JEFFREY

MR. BROUGHAM--SIR F. BURDETT

LORD ELDON--MR. WILBERFORCE

MR. SOUTHEY

MR. T. MOORE--MR. LEIGH HUNT

ELIA--GEOFFREY CRAYON

THE

SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 

 * * * * *

JEREMY BENTHAM. 

Mr. Bentham is one of those persons who verify the old adage, that "Aprophet has no honour, except out of his own country. " His reputationlies at the circumference; and the lights of his understanding arereflected, with increasing lustre, on the other side of the globe. Hisname is little known in England, better in Europe, best of all in theplains of Chili and the mines of Mexico. He has offered constitutionsfor the New World, and legislated for future times. The people ofWestminster, where he lives, hardly know of such a person; but theSiberian savage has received cold comfort from his lunar aspect, and maysay to him with Caliban--"I know thee, and thy dog and thy bush!" Thetawny Indian may hold out the hand of fellowship to him across the GREATPACIFIC. We believe that the Empress Catherine corresponded with him;and we know that the Emperor Alexander called upon him, and presentedhim with his miniature in a gold snuff-box, which the philosopher, tohis eternal honour, returned. Mr. Hobhouse is a greater man at thehustings, Lord Rolle at Plymouth Dock; but Mr. Bentham would carry ithollow, on the score of popularity, at Paris or Pegu. The reason is, that our author's influence is purely intellectual. He has devotedhis life to the pursuit of abstract and general truths, and to thosestudies--

 "That waft a _thought_ from Indus to the Pole"--

and has never mixed himself up with personal intrigues or partypolitics. He once, indeed, stuck up a hand-bill to say that he (JeremyBentham) being of sound mind, was of opinion that Sir Samuel Romilly wasthe most proper person to represent Westminster; but this was the whimof the moment. Otherwise, his reasonings, if true at all, are trueeverywhere alike: his speculations concern humanity at large, and arenot confined to the hundred or the bills of mortality. It is in moral asin physical magnitude. The little is seen best near: the great appearsin its proper dimensions, only from a more commanding point of view, andgains strength with time, and elevation from distance!

Mr. Bentham is very much among philosophers what La Fontaine was amongpoets:--in general habits and in all but his professional pursuits, heis a mere child. He has lived for the last forty years in a housein Westminster, overlooking the Park, like an anchoret in his cell, reducing law to a system, and the mind of man to a machine. He scarcelyever goes out, and sees very little company. The favoured few, who havethe privilege of the _entrée_, are always admitted one by one. He doesnot like to have witnesses to his conversation. He talks a great deal, and listens to nothing but facts. When any one calls upon him, heinvites them to take a turn round his garden with him (Mr. Bentham isan economist of his time, and sets apart this portion of it to air andexercise)--and there you may see the lively old man, his mind stillbuoyant with thought and with the prospect of futurity, in eagerconversation with some Opposition Member, some expatriated Patriot, orTransatlantic Adventurer, urging the extinction of Close Boroughs, orplanning a code of laws for some "lone island in the watery waste, "his walk almost amounting to a run, his tongue keeping pace with it inshrill, cluttering accents, negligent of his person, his dress, and hismanner, intent only on his grand theme of UTILITY--or pausing, perhaps, for want of breath and with lack-lustre eye to point out to the strangera stone in the wall at the end of his garden (overarched by twobeautiful cotton-trees) _Inscribed to the Prince of Poets_, whichmarks the house where Milton formerly lived. To shew how little therefinements of taste or fancy enter into our author's system, heproposed at one time to cut down these beautiful trees, to convert thegarden where he had breathed the air of Truth and Heaven for near halfa century into a paltry _Chreistomathic School_, and to make Milton'shouse (the cradle of Paradise Lost) a thoroughfare, like a three-stalledstable, for the idle rabble of Westminster to pass backwards andforwards to it with their cloven hoofs. Let us not, however, be gettingon too fast--Milton himself taught school! There is something notaltogether dissimilar between Mr. Bentham's appearance, and theportraits of Milton, the same silvery tone, a few dishevelled hairs, apeevish, yet puritanical expression, an irritable temperament correctedby habit and discipline. Or in modern times, he is something betweenFranklin and Charles Fox, with the comfortable double-chin and sleekthriving look of the one, and the quivering lip, the restless eye, andanimated acuteness of the other. His eye is quick and lively; but itglances not from object to object, but from thought to thought. He isevidently a man occupied with some train of fine and inward association. He regards the people about him no more than the flies of a summer. Hemeditates the coming age. He hears and sees only what suits his purpose, or some "foregone conclusion;" and looks out for facts and passingoccurrences in order to put them into his logical machinery and grindthem into the dust and powder of some subtle theory, as the miller looksout for grist to his mill! Add to this physiognomical sketch the minorpoints of costume, the open shirt-collar, the single-breasted coat, theold-fashioned half-boots and ribbed stockings; and you will find in Mr. Bentham's general appearance a singular mixture of boyish simplicity andof the venerableness of age. In a word, our celebrated jurist presents astriking illustration of the difference between the _philosophical_ andthe _regal_ look; that is, between the merely abstracted and the merelypersonal. There is a lackadaisical _bonhommie_ about his whole aspect, none of the fierceness of pride or power; an unconscious neglect ofhis own person, instead of a stately assumption of superiority; agood-humoured, placid intelligence, instead of a lynx-eyed watchfulness, as if it wished to make others its prey, or was afraid they might turnand rend him; he is a beneficent spirit, prying into the universe, notlording it over it; a thoughtful spectator of the scenes of life, orruminator on the fate of mankind, not a painted pageant, a stupid idolset up on its pedestal of pride for men to fall down and worship withidiot fear and wonder at the thing themselves have made, and which, without that fear and wonder, would in itself be nothing!

Mr. Bentham, perhaps, over-rates the importance of his own theories. Hehas been heard to say (without any appearance of pride or affectation)that "he should like to live the remaining years of his life, a year ata time at the end of the next six or eight centuries, to see the effectwhich his writings would by that time have had upon the world. " Alas!his name will hardly live so long! Nor do we think, in point of fact, that Mr. Bentham has given any new or decided impulse to the human mind. He cannot be looked upon in the light of a discoverer in legislationor morals. He has not struck out any great leading principle orparent-truth, from which a number of others might be deduced; nor has heenriched the common and established stock of intelligence with originalobservations, like pearls thrown into wine. One truth discovered isimmortal, and entitles its author to be so: for, like a new substancein nature, it cannot be destroyed. But Mr. Bentham's _forte_ isarrangement; and the form of truth, though not its essence, varies withtime and circumstance. He has methodised, collated, and condensed allthe materials prepared to his hand on the subjects of which he treats, in a masterly and scientific manner; but we should find a difficultyin adducing from his different works (however elaborate or closelyreasoned) any new element of thought, or even a new fact orillustration. His writings are, therefore, chiefly valuable as _books ofreference_, as bringing down the account of intellectual inquiry to thepresent period, and disposing the results in a compendious, connected, and tangible shape; but books of reference are chiefly serviceable forfacilitating the acquisition of knowledge, and are constantly liableto be superseded and to grow out of fashion with its progress, as thescaffolding is thrown down as soon as the building is completed. Mr. Bentham is not the first writer (by a great many) who has assumed theprinciple of UTILITY as the foundation of just laws, and of all moraland political reasoning:--his merit is, that he has applied thisprinciple more closely and literally; that he has brought all theobjections and arguments, more distinctly labelled and ticketted, underthis one head, and made a more constant and explicit reference to it atevery step of his progress, than any other writer. Perhaps the weak sideof his conclusions also is, that he has carried this single view of hissubject too far, and not made sufficient allowance for the varieties ofhuman nature, and the caprices and irregularities of the human will. "Hehas not allowed for the _wind_. " It is not that you can be said to seehis favourite doctrine of Utility glittering everywhere through hissystem, like a vein of rich, shining ore (that is not the nature of thematerial)--but it might be plausibly objected that he had struck thewhole mass of fancy, prejudice, passion, sense, whim, with his petrific, leaden mace, that he had "bound volatile Hermes, " and reduced the theoryand practice of human life to a _caput mortuum_ of reason, and dull, plodding, technical calculation. The gentleman is himself a capitallogician; and he has been led by this circumstance to consider man as alogical animal. We fear this view of the matter will hardly hold water. If we attend to the _moral_ man, the constitution of his mind willscarcely be found to be built up of pure reason and a regard toconsequences: if we consider the _criminal_ man (with whom thelegislator has chiefly to do) it will be found to be still less so. 

Every pleasure, says Mr. Bentham, is equally a good, and is to be takeninto the account as such in a moral estimate, whether it be the pleasureof sense or of conscience, whether it arise from the exercise of virtueor the perpetration of crime. We are afraid the human mind does notreadily come into this doctrine, this _ultima ratio philosophorum_, interpreted according to the letter. Our moral sentiments are made up ofsympathies and antipathies, of sense and imagination, of understandingand prejudice. The soul, by reason of its weakness, is an aggregatingand an exclusive principle; it clings obstinately to some things, andviolently rejects others. And it must do so, in a great measure, or itwould act contrary to its own nature. It needs helps and stages in itsprogress, and "all appliances and means to boot, " which can raise it toa partial conformity to truth and good (the utmost it is capable of) andbring it into a tolerable harmony with the universe. By aiming at toomuch, by dismissing collateral aids, by extending itself to the farthestverge of the conceivable and possible, it loses its elasticity andvigour, its impulse and its direction. The moralist can no more dowithout the intermediate use of rules and principles, without the'vantage ground of habit, without the levers of the understanding, thanthe mechanist can discard the use of wheels and pulleys, and performevery thing by simple motion. If the mind of man were competent tocomprehend the whole of truth and good, and act upon it at once, andindependently of all other considerations, Mr. Bentham's plan would bea feasible one, and _the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but thetruth_ would be the best possible ground to place morality upon. Butit is not so. In ascertaining the rules of moral conduct, we must haveregard not merely to the nature of the object, but to the capacity ofthe agent, and to his fitness for apprehending or attaining it. Pleasureis that which is so in itself: good is that which approves itself assuch on reflection, or the idea of which is a source of satisfaction. All pleasure is not, therefore (morally speaking) equally a good; forall pleasure does not equally bear reflecting on. There are some tastesthat are sweet in the mouth and bitter in the belly; and there is asimilar contradiction and anomaly in the mind and heart of man. Again, what would become of the _Posthaec meminisse juvabit_ of the poet, ifa principle of fluctuation and reaction is not inherent in the veryconstitution of our nature, or if all moral truth is a mere literaltruism? We are not, then, so much to inquire what certain things areabstractedly or in themselves, as how they affect the mind, and toapprove or condemn them accordingly. The same object seen near strikesus more powerfully than at a distance: things thrown into masses givea greater blow to the imagination than when scattered and divided intotheir component parts. A number of mole-hills do not make a mountain, though a mountain is actually made up of atoms: so moral truth mustpresent itself under a certain aspect and from a certain point of view, in order to produce its full and proper effect upon the mind. The lawsof the affections are as necessary as those of optics. A calculation ofconsequences is no more equivalent to a sentiment, than a _seriatim_enumeration of square yards or feet touches the fancy like the sight ofthe Alps or Andes!

To give an instance or two of what we mean. Those who on purecosmopolite principles, or on the ground of abstract humanity affect anextraordinary regard for the Turks and Tartars, have been accused ofneglecting their duties to their friends and next-door neighbours. Well, then, what is the state of the question here? One human being is, nodoubt, as much worth in himself, independently of the circumstances oftime or place, as another; but he is not of so much value to us andour affections. Could our imagination take wing (with our speculativefaculties) to the other side of the globe or to the ends of theuniverse, could our eyes behold whatever our reason teaches us to bepossible, could our hands reach as far as our thoughts or wishes, wemight then busy ourselves to advantage with the Hottentots, or holdintimate converse with the inhabitants of the Moon; but being as we are, our feelings evaporate in so large a space--we must draw the circle ofour affections and duties somewhat closer--the heart hovers and fixesnearer home. It is true, the bands of private, or of local and naturalaffection are often, nay in general, too tightly strained, so asfrequently to do harm instead of good: but the present question iswhether we can, with safety and effect, be wholly emancipated from them?Whether we should shake them off at pleasure and without mercy, as theonly bar to the triumph of truth and justice? Or whether benevolence, constructed upon a logical scale, would not be merely _nominal_, whetherduty, raised to too lofty a pitch of refinement, might not sink intocallous indifference or hollow selfishness? Again, is it not to exacttoo high a strain from humanity, to ask us to qualify the degreeof abhorrence we feel against a murderer by taking into our coolconsideration the pleasure he may have in committing the deed, and inthe prospect of gratifying his avarice or his revenge? We are hardly soformed as to sympathise at the same moment with the assassin andhis victim. The degree of pleasure the former may feel, instead ofextenuating, aggravates his guilt, and shews the depth of his malignity. Now the mind revolts against this by mere natural antipathy, if it isitself well-disposed; or the slow process of reason would afford but afeeble resistance to violence and wrong. The will, which is necessary togive consistency and promptness to our good intentions, cannot extend somuch candour and courtesy to the antagonist principle of evil: virtue, to be sincere and practical, cannot be divested entirely of theblindness and impetuosity of passion! It has been made a plea (halfjest, half earnest) for the horrors of war, that they promote tradeand manufactures. It has been said, as a set-off for the atrocitiespractised upon the negro slaves in the West Indies, that without theirblood and sweat, so many millions of people could not have sugar tosweeten their tea. Fires and murders have been argued to be beneficial, as they serve to fill the newspapers, and for a subject to talk of--this is a sort of sophistry that it might be difficult to disprove onthe bare scheme of contingent utility; but on the ground that we havestated, it must pass for a mere irony. What the proportion between thegood and the evil will really be found in any of the supposed cases, may be a question to the understanding; but to the imagination and theheart, that is, to the natural feelings of mankind, it admits of none!

Mr. Bentham, in adjusting the provisions of a penal code, lays toolittle stress on the cooperation of the natural prejudices of mankind, and the habitual feelings of that class of persons for whom they aremore particularly designed. Legislators (we mean writers on legislation)are philosophers, and governed by their reason: criminals, for whosecontroul laws are made, are a set of desperadoes, governed only by theirpassions. What wonder that so little progress has been made towards amutual understanding between the two parties! They are quite a differentspecies, and speak a different language, and are sadly at a loss for acommon interpreter between them. Perhaps the Ordinary of Newgate bidsas fair for this office as any one. What should Mr. Bentham, sitting atease in his arm-chair, composing his mind before he begins to write by aprelude on the organ, and looking out at a beautiful prospect when heis at a loss for an idea, know of the principles of action of rogues, outlaws, and vagabonds? No more than Montaigne of the motions of hiscat! If sanguine and tender-hearted philanthropists have set on foot aninquiry into the barbarity and the defects of penal laws, the practicalimprovements have been mostly suggested by reformed cut-throats, turnkeys, and thief-takers. What even can the Honourable House, who whenthe Speaker has pronounced the well-known, wished-for sounds "That thishouse do now adjourn, " retire, after voting a royal crusade or a loan ofmillions, to lie on down, and feed on plate in spacious palaces, knowof what passes in the hearts of wretches in garrets and night-cellars, petty pilferers and marauders, who cut throats and pick pockets withtheir own hands? The thing is impossible. The laws of the country are, therefore, ineffectual and abortive, because they are made by the richfor the poor, by the wise for the ignorant, by the respectable andexalted in station for the very scum and refuse of the community. IfNewgate would resolve itself into a committee of the whole Press-yard, with Jack Ketch at its head, aided by confidential persons from thecounty prisons or the Hulks, and would make a clear breast, some _data_might be found out to proceed upon; but as it is, the _criminal mind_ ofthe country is a book sealed, no one has been able to penetrate to theinside! Mr. Bentham, in his attempts to revise and amend our criminaljurisprudence, proceeds entirely on his favourite principle of Utility. Convince highwaymen and house-breakers that it will be for theirinterest to reform, and they will reform and lead honest lives;according to Mr. Bentham. He says, "All men act from calculation, evenmadmen reason. " And, in our opinion, he might as well carry this maximto Bedlam or St. Luke's, and apply it to the inhabitants, as think tocoerce or overawe the inmates of a gaol, or those whose practicesmake them candidates for that distinction, by the mere dry, detailedconvictions of the understanding. Criminals are not to be influenced byreason; for it is of the very essence of crime to disregard consequencesboth to ourselves and others. You may as well preach philosophy to adrunken man, or to the dead, as to those who are under the instigationof any mischievous passion. A man is a drunkard, and you tell him heought to be sober; he is debauched, and you ask him to reform; heis idle, and you recommend industry to him as his wisest course; hegambles, and you remind him that he may be ruined by this foible; hehas lost his character, and you advise him to get into some reputableservice or lucrative situation; vice becomes a habit with him, and yourequest him to rouse himself and shake it off; he is starving, and youwarn him that if he breaks the law, he will be hanged. None of thisreasoning reaches the mark it aims at. The culprit, who violates andsuffers the vengeance of the laws, is not the dupe of ignorance, but theslave of passion, the victim of habit or necessity. To argue with strongpassion, with inveterate habit, with desperate circumstances, is to talkto the winds. Clownish ignorance may indeed be dispelled, andtaught better; but it is seldom that a criminal is not aware of theconsequences of his act, or has not made up his mind to the alternative. They are, in general, _too knowing by half_. You tell a person of thisstamp what is his interest; he says he does not care about his interest, or the world and he differ on that particular. But there is one point onwhich he must agree with them, namely, what _they_ think of his conduct, and that is the only hold you have of him. A man may be callous andindifferent to what happens to himself; but he is never indifferent topublic opinion, or proof against open scorn and infamy. Shame, then, not fear, is the sheet-anchor of the law. He who is not afraid of beingpointed at as a _thief_, will not mind a month's hard labour. He who isprepared to take the life of another, is already reckless of his own. But every one makes a sorry figure in the pillory; and the beinglaunched from the New Drop lowers a man in his own opinion. The lawlessand violent spirit, who is hurried by headstrong self-will to break thelaws, does not like to have the ground of pride and obstinacy struckfrom under his feet. This is what gives the _swells_ of the metropolissuch a dread of the _tread-mill_--it makes them ridiculous. It must beconfessed, that this very circumstance renders the reform of criminalsnearly hopeless. It is the apprehension of being stigmatized by publicopinion, the fear of what will be thought and said of them, that detersmen from the violation of the laws, while their character remainsunimpeached; but honour once lost, all is lost. The man can never behimself again! A citizen is like a soldier, a part of a machine, whosubmits to certain hardships, privations, and dangers, not for his ownease, pleasure, profit, or even conscience, but--_for shame_. What isit that keeps the machine together in either case? Not punishment ordiscipline, but sympathy. The soldier mounts the breach or stands inthe trenches, the peasant hedges and ditches, or the mechanic plies hisceaseless task, because the one will not be called a _coward_, the othera _rogue_: but let the one turn deserter and the other vagabond, andthere is an end of him. The grinding law of necessity, which is no otherthan a name, a breath, loses its force; he is no longer sustained bythe good opinion of others, and he drops out of his place in society, a useless clog! Mr. Bentham takes a culprit, and puts him into what hecalls a _Panopticon_, that is, a sort of circular prison, with opencells, like a glass bee-hive. He sits in the middle, and sees all theother does. He gives him work to do, and lectures him if he does not doit. He takes liquor from him, and society, and liberty; but he feeds andclothes him, and keeps him out of mischief; and when he has convincedhim, by force and reason together, that this life is for his good, heturns him out upon the world a reformed man, and as confident of thesuccess of his handy-work, as the shoemaker of that which he has justtaken off the last, or the Parisian barber in Sterne, of the buckleof his wig. "Dip it in the ocean, " said the perruquier, "and it willstand!" But we doubt the durability of our projector's patchwork. Willour convert to the great principle of Utility work when he is from underMr. Bentham's eye, because he was forced to work when under it? Will hekeep sober, because he has been kept from liquor so long? Will he notreturn to loose company, because he has had the pleasure of sittingvis-a-vis with a philosopher of late? Will he not steal, now that his handsare untied? Will he not take the road, now that it is free to him? Willhe not call his benefactor all the names he can set his tongue to, themoment his back is turned? All this is more than to be feared. The charmof criminal life, like that of savage life, consists in liberty, inhardship, in danger, and in the contempt of death, in one word, inextraordinary excitement; and he who has tasted of it, will no morereturn to regular habits of life, than a man will take to water afterdrinking brandy, or than a wild beast will give over hunting its prey. Miracles never cease, to be sure; but they are not to be had wholesale, or _to order_. Mr. Owen, who is another of these proprietors andpatentees of reform, has lately got an American savage with him, whom hecarries about in great triumph and complacency, as an antithesis to his_New View of Society_, and as winding up his reasoning to what it mainlywanted, an epigrammatic point. Does the benevolent visionary of theLanark cotton-mills really think this _natural man_ will act as a foilto his _artificial man_? Does he for a moment imagine that his _Addressto the higher and middle classes_, with all its advantages of fiction, makes any thing like so interesting a romance as _Hunter's Captivityamong the North American Indians?_ Has he any thing to shew, in all theapparatus of New Lanark and its desolate monotony, to excite the thrillof imagination like the blankets made of wreaths of snow under which thewild wood-rovers bury themselves for weeks in winter? Or the skin of aleopard, which our hardy adventurer slew, and which served him for greatcoat and bedding? Or the rattle-snake that he found by his side as abedfellow? Or his rolling himself into a ball to escape from him? Or hissuddenly placing himself against a tree to avoid being trampled to deathby the herd of wild buffaloes, that came rushing on like the sound ofthunder? Or his account of the huge spiders that prey on bluebottles andgilded flies in green pathless forests; or of the great Pacific Ocean, that the natives look upon as the gulf that parts time from eternity, and that is to waft them to the spirits of their fathers? After allthis, Mr. Hunter must find Mr. Owen and his parallellograms trite andflat, and will, we suspect, take an opportunity to escape from them!

Mr. Bentham's method of reasoning, though comprehensive and exact, labours under the defect of most systems--it is too _topical_. Itincludes every thing; but it includes every thing alike. It is ratherlike an inventory, than a valuation of different arguments. Everypossible suggestion finds a place, so that the mind is distracted asmuch as enlightened by this perplexing accuracy. The exceptions seemas important as the rule. By attending to the minute, we overlook thegreat; and in summing up an account, it will not do merely to insist onthe number of items without considering their amount. Our author'spage presents a very nicely dove-tailed mosaic pavement of legalcommon-places. We slip and slide over its even surface without beingarrested any where. Or his view of the human mind resembles a map, rather than a picture: the outline, the disposition is correct, but itwants colouring and relief. There is a technicality of manner, whichrenders his writings of more value to the professional inquirer thanto the general reader. Again, his style is unpopular, not to sayunintelligible. He writes a language of his own, that _darkensknowledge_. His works have been translated into French--they ought tobe translated into English. People wonder that Mr. Bentham has not beenprosecuted for the boldness and severity of some of his invectives. Hemight wrap up high treason in one of his inextricable periods, andit would never find its way into Westminster-Hall. He is a kind ofManuscript author--he writes a cypher-hand, which the vulgar have no keyto. The construction of his sentences is a curious framework with pegsand hooks to hang his thoughts upon, for his own use and guidance, but almost out of the reach of every body else. It is a barbarousphilosophical jargon, with all the repetitions, parentheses, formalities, uncouth nomenclature and verbiage of law-Latin; and whatmakes it worse, it is not mere verbiage, but has a great deal ofacuteness and meaning in it, which you would be glad to pick out if youcould. In short, Mr. Bentham writes as if he was allowed but a singlesentence to express his whole view of a subject in, and as if, should heomit a single circumstance or step of the argument, it would be lost tothe world for ever, like an estate by a flaw in the title-deeds. Thisis over-rating the importance of our own discoveries, and mistaking thenature and object of language altogether. Mr. Bentham has _acquired_this disability--it is not natural to him. His admirable little work _OnUsury_, published forty years ago, is clear, easy, and vigorous. But Mr. Bentham has shut himself up since then "in nook monastic, " conversingonly with followers of his own, or with "men of Ind, " and hasendeavoured to overlay his natural humour, sense, spirit, and stylewith the dust and cobwebs of an obscure solitude. The best of it is, hethinks his present mode of expressing himself perfect, and that whatevermay be objected to his law or logic, no one can find the least faultwith the purity, simplicity, and perspicuity of his style. 

Mr. Bentham, in private life, is an amiable and exemplary character. He is a little romantic, or so; and has dissipated part of a handsomefortune in practical speculations. He lends an ear to plausibleprojectors, and, if he cannot prove them to be wrong in their premisesor their conclusions, thinks himself bound _in reason_ to stake hismoney on the venture. Strict logicians are licensed visionaries. Mr. Bentham is half-brother to the late Mr. Speaker Abbott[A]--_Proh pudor_!He was educated at Eton, and still takes our novices to task abouta passage in Homer, or a metre in Virgil. He was afterwards at theUniversity, and he has described the scruples of an ingenuousyouthful mind about subscribing the articles, in a passage in his_Church-of-Englandism_, which smacks of truth and honour both, and doesone good to read it in an age, when "to be honest" (or not to laugh atthe very idea of honesty) "is to be one man picked out of ten thousand!"Mr. Bentham relieves his mind sometimes, after the fatigue of study, byplaying on a fine old organ, and has a relish for Hogarth's prints. Heturns wooden utensils in a lathe for exercise, and fancies he can turnmen in the same manner. He has no great fondness for poetry, and canhardly extract a moral out of Shakespear. His house is warmed andlighted by steam. He is one of those who prefer the artificial to thenatural in most things, and think the mind of man omnipotent. He has agreat contempt for out-of-door prospects, for green fields andtrees, and is for referring every thing to Utility. There is a littlenarrowness in this; for if all the sources of satisfaction are takenaway, what is to become of utility itself? It is, indeed, the greatfault of this able and extraordinary man, that he has concentrated hisfaculties and feelings too entirely on one subject and pursuit, and hasnot "looked enough abroad into universality. "[B]

[Footnote A: Now Lord Colchester. ]

[Footnote B: Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning. ]

 * * * * *

WILLIAM GODWIN

The Spirit of the Age was never more fully-shewn than in its treatmentof this writer--its love of paradox and change, its dastard submissionto prejudice and to the fashion of the day. Five-and-twenty years ago hewas in the very zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity; he blazedas a sun in the firmament of reputation; no one was more talked of, morelooked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justicewas the theme, his name was not far off:--now he has sunk below thehorizon, and enjoys the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality. Mr. Godwin, during his lifetime, has secured to himself the triumphs and themortifications of an extreme notoriety and of a sort of posthumous fame. 

His bark, after being tossed in the revolutionary tempest, now raised toheaven by all the fury of popular breath, now almost dashed in pieces, and buried in the quicksands of ignorance, or scorched with thelightning of momentary indignation, at length floats on the calm wavethat is to bear it down the stream of time. Mr. Godwin's person is notknown, he is not pointed out in the street, his conversation is notcourted, his opinions are not asked, he is at the head of no cabal, hebelongs to no party in the State, he has no train of admirers, noone thinks it worth his while even to traduce and vilify him, he hasscarcely friend or foe, the world make a point (as Goldsmith used tosay) of taking no more notice of him than if such an individual hadnever existed; he is to all ordinary intents and purposes dead andburied; but the author of _Political Justice_ and of _Caleb Williams_can never die, his name is an abstraction in letters, his works arestandard in the history of intellect. He is thought of now like anyeminent writer a hundred-and-fifty years ago, or just as he will bea hundred-and-fifty years hence. He knows this, and smiles in silentmockery of himself, reposing on the monument of his fame--

 "Sedet, in eternumque sedebit infelix Theseus. "

No work in our time gave such a blow to the philosophical mind of thecountry as the celebrated _Enquiry concerning Political Justice_. TomPaine was considered for the time as a Tom Fool to him; Paley an oldwoman; Edmund Burke a flashy sophist. Truth, moral truth, it wassupposed, had here taken up its abode; and these were the oracles ofthought. "Throw aside your books of chemistry, " said Wordsworth to ayoung man, a student in the Temple, "and read Godwin on Necessity. " Sadnecessity! Fatal reverse! Is truth then so variable? Is it one thing attwenty, and another at forty? Is it at a burning heat in 1793, and below_zero_ in 1814? Not so, in the name of manhood and of common sense! Letus pause here a little. --Mr. Godwin indulged in extreme opinions, andcarried with him all the most sanguine and fearless understandings ofthe time. What then? Because those opinions were overcharged, were theytherefore altogether groundless? Is the very God of our idolatry all ofa sudden to become an abomination and an anathema? Could so many youngmen of talent, of education, and of principle have been hurried away bywhat had neither truth, nor nature, not one particle of honest feelingnor the least shew of reason in it? Is the _Modern Philosophy_ (as ithas been called) at one moment a youthful bride, and the next a witheredbeldame, like the false Duessa in Spenser? Or is the vaunted edificeof Reason, like his House of Pride, gorgeous in front, and dazzling toapproach, while "its hinder parts are ruinous, decayed, and old?" Hasthe main prop, which supported the mighty fabric, been shaken and givenway under the strong grasp of some Samson; or has it not rather beenundermined by rats and vermin? At one time, it almost seemed, that "ifthis failed, "The pillar'd firmament was rottenness, And earth's base built of stubble:"

now scarce a shadow of it remains, it is crumbled to dust, nor is iteven talked of! "What then, went ye forth for to see, a reed shakenwith the wind?" Was it for this that our young gownsmen of the greatestexpectation and promise, versed in classic lore, steeped in dialectics, armed at all points for the foe, well read, well nurtured, well providedfor, left the University and the prospect of lawn sleeves, tearingasunder the shackles of the free born spirit, and the cobwebs ofschool-divinity, to throw themselves at the feet of the new Gamaliel, and learn wisdom from him? Was it for this, that students at the bar, acute, inquisitive, sceptical (here only wild enthusiasts) neglected fora while the paths of preferment and the law as too narrow, tortuous, andunseemly to bear the pure and broad light of reason? Was it for this, that students in medicine missed their way to Lecturerships and the topof their profession, deeming lightly of the health of the body, anddreaming only of the renovation of society and the march of mind? Wasit to this that Mr. Southey's _Inscriptions_ pointed? to this that Mr. Coleridge's _Religious Musings_ tended? Was it for this, that Mr. Godwinhimself sat with arms folded, and, "like Cato, gave his little senatelaws?" Or rather, like another Prospero, uttered syllables that withtheir enchanted breath were to change the world, and might almost stopthe stars in their courses? Oh! and is all forgot? Is this sun ofintellect blotted from the sky? Or has it suffered total eclipse? Or isit we who make the fancied gloom, by looking at it through the paltry, broken, stained fragments of our own interests and prejudices? Were wefools then, or are we dishonest now? Or was the impulse of the mind lesslikely to be true and sound when it arose from high thought and warmfeeling, than afterwards, when it was warped and debased by the example, the vices, and follies of the world?

The fault, then, of Mr. Godwin's philosophy, in one word, was too muchambition--"by that sin fell the angels!" He conceived too nobly of hisfellows (the most unpardonable crime against them, for there is nothingthat annoys our self-love so much as being complimented on imaginaryachievements, to which we are wholly unequal)--he raised the standardof morality above the reach of humanity, and by directing virtue to themost airy and romantic heights, made her path dangerous, solitary, andimpracticable. The author of the _Political Justice_ took abstractreason for the rule of conduct, and abstract good for its end. He placesthe human mind on an elevation, from which it commands a view of thewhole line of moral consequences; and requires it to conform its acts tothe larger and more enlightened conscience which it has thus acquired. He absolves man from the gross and narrow ties of sense, custom, authority, private and local attachment, in order that he may devotehimself to the boundless pursuit of universal benevolence. Mr. Godwingives no quarter to the amiable weaknesses of our nature, nor does hestoop to avail himself of the supplementary aids of an imperfect virtue. Gratitude, promises, friendship, family affection give way, not thatthey may be merged in the opposite vices or in want of principle; butthat the void may be filled up by the disinterested love of good, andthe dictates of inflexible justice, which is "the law of laws, andsovereign of sovereigns. " All minor considerations yield, in his system, to the stern sense of duty, as they do, in the ordinary and establishedones, to the voice of necessity. Mr. Godwin's theory and that of moreapproved reasoners differ only in this, that what are with them theexceptions, the extreme cases, he makes the every-day rule. No onedenies that on great occasions, in moments of fearful excitement, orwhen a mighty object is at stake, the lesser and merely instrumentalpoints of duty are to be sacrificed without remorse at the shrine ofpatriotism, of honour, and of conscience. But the disciple of the _NewSchool_ (no wonder it found so many impugners, even in its own bosom!)is to be always the hero of duty; the law to which he has bound himselfnever swerves nor relaxes; his feeling of what is right is to be atall times wrought up to a pitch of enthusiastic self-devotion; he mustbecome the unshrinking martyr and confessor of the public good. If itbe said that this scheme is chimerical and impracticable on ordinaryoccasions, and to the generality of mankind, well and good; but thosewho accuse the author of having trampled on the common feelings andprejudices of mankind in wantonness or insult, or without wishing tosubstitute something better (and only unattainable, because it isbetter) in their stead, accuse him wrongfully. We may not be able tolaunch the bark of our affections on the ocean-tide of humanity, wemay be forced to paddle along its shores, or shelter in its creeks andrivulets: but we have no right to reproach the bold and adventurouspilot, who dared us to tempt the uncertain abyss, with our own want ofcourage or of skill, or with the jealousies and impatience, which deterus from undertaking, or might prevent us from accomplishing the voyage!

The _Enquiry concerning Political Justice_ (it was urged by itsfavourers and defenders at the time, and may still be so, without eitherprofaneness or levity) is a metaphysical and logical commentary on someof the most beautiful and striking texts of Scripture. Mr. Godwin isa mixture of the Stoic and of the Christian philosopher. To break theforce of the vulgar objections and outcry that have been raised againstthe Modern Philosophy, as if it were a new and monstrous birth inmorals, it may be worth noticing, that volumes of sermons have beenwritten to excuse the founder of Christianity for not includingfriendship and private affection among its golden rules, but ratherexcluding them. [A] Moreover, the answer to the question, "Who is thyneighbour?" added to the divine precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbouras thyself, " is the same as in the exploded pages of our author, --"He towhom we can do most good. " In determining this point, we were not to beinfluenced by any extrinsic or collateral considerations, by our ownpredilections, or the expectations of others, by our obligations to themor any services they might be able to render us, by the climate theywere born in, by the house they lived in, by rank or religion, or party, or personal ties, but by the abstract merits, the pure and unbiassedjustice of the case. The artificial helps and checks to moral conductwere set aside as spurious and unnecessary, and we came at once to thegrand and simple question--"In what manner we could best contribute tothe greatest possible good?" This was the paramount obligation in allcases whatever, from which we had no right to free ourselves upon anyidle or formal pretext, and of which each person was to judge forhimself, under the infallible authority of his own opinion and theinviolable sanction of his self-approbation. "There was the rub thatmade _philosophy_ of so short life!" Mr. Godwin's definition of moralswas the same as the admired one of law, _reason without passion_; butwith the unlimited scope of private opinion, and in a boundless field ofspeculation (for nothing less would satisfy the pretensions of the NewSchool), there was danger that the unseasoned novice might substitutesome pragmatical conceit of his own for the rule of right reason, andmistake a heartless indifference for a superiority to more natural andgenerous feelings. Our ardent and dauntless reformer followed out themoral of the parable of the Good Samaritan into its most rigid andrepulsive consequences with a pen of steel, and let fall his "trenchantblade" on every vulnerable point of human infirmity; but there is a wantin his system of the mild and persuasive tone of the Gospel, where "allis conscience and tender heart. " Man was indeed screwed up, by mood andfigure, into a logical machine, that was to forward the public good withthe utmost punctuality and effect, and it might go very well on smoothground and under favourable circumstances; but would it work up-hillor _against the grain_? It was to be feared that the proud Temple ofReason, which at a distance and in stately supposition shone like thepalaces of the New Jerusalem, might (when placed on actual ground) bebroken up into the sordid styes of sensuality, and the petty huckster'sshops of self-interest! Every man (it was proposed--"so ran the tenourof the bond") was to be a Regulus, a Codrus, a Cato, or a Brutus--everywoman a Mother of the Gracchi. 

 "------------It was well said, And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well. "

But heroes on paper might degenerate into vagabonds in practice, Corinnas into courtezans. Thus a refined and permanent individualattachment is intended to supply the place and avoid the inconveniencesof marriage; but vows of eternal constancy, without church security, arefound to be fragile. A member of the _ideal_ and perfect commonwealth ofletters lends another a hundred pounds for immediate and pressing use;and when he applies for it again, the borrower has still more need of itthan he, and retains it for his own especial, which is tantamount to thepublic good. The Exchequer of pure reason, like that of the State, neverrefunds. The political as well as the religious fanatic appeals fromthe over-weening opinion and claims of others to the highest and mostimpartial tribunal, namely, his own breast. Two persons agree tolive together in Chambers on principles of pure equality and mutualassistance--but when it comes to the push, one of them finds that theother always insists on his fetching water from the pump in Hare-court, and cleaning his shoes for him. A modest assurance was not the leastindispensable virtue in the new perfectibility code; and it was hencediscovered to be a scheme, like other schemes where there are all prizesand no blanks, for the accommodation of the enterprizing and cunning, atthe expence of the credulous and honest. This broke up the system, andleft no good odour behind it! Reason has become a sort of bye-word, andphilosophy has "fallen first into a fasting, then into a sadness, then into a decline, and last, into the dissolution of which we allcomplain!" This is a worse error than the former: we may be said to have"lost the immortal part of ourselves, and what remains is beastly!"The point of view from which this matter may be fairly considered, istwo-fold, and may be stated thus:--In the first place, it by no meansfollows, because reason is found not to be the only infallible or saferule of conduct, that it is no rule at all; or that we are to discard italtogether with derision and ignominy. On the contrary, if not the sole, it is the principal ground of action; it is "the guide, the stay andanchor of our purest thoughts, and soul of all our moral being. " Inproportion as we strengthen and expand this principle, and bring ouraffections and subordinate, but perhaps more powerful motives of actioninto harmony with it, it will not admit of a doubt that we advance tothe goal of perfection, and answer the ends of our creation, those endswhich not only morality enjoins, but which religion sanctions. If withthe utmost stretch of reason, man cannot (as some seemed inclined tosuppose) soar up to the God, and quit the ground of human frailty, yet, stripped wholly of it, he sinks at once into the brute. If it cannotstand alone, in its naked simplicity, but requires other props tobuttress it up, or ornaments to set it off; yet without it the moralstructure would fall flat and dishonoured to the ground. Private reasonis that which raises the individual above his mere animal instincts, appetites and passions: public reason in its gradual progress separatesthe savage from the civilized state. Without the one, men would resemblewild beasts in their dens; without the other, they would be speedilyconverted into hordes of barbarians or banditti. Sir Walter Scott, inhis zeal to restore the spirit of loyalty, of passive obedience andnon-resistance as an acknowledgment for his having been created aBaronet by a Prince of the House of Brunswick, may think it a fine thingto return in imagination to the good old times, "when in Auvergnealone, there were three hundred nobles whose most ordinary actions wererobbery, rape, and murder, " when the castle of each Norman baron wasa strong hold from which the lordly proprietor issued to oppress andplunder the neighbouring districts, and when the Saxon peasantrywere treated by their gay and gallant tyrants as a herd of loathsomeswine--but for our own parts we beg to be excused; we had rather livein the same age with the author of Waverley and Blackwood's Magazine. Reason is the meter and alnager in civil intercourse, by which eachperson's upstart and contradictory pretensions are weighed and approvedor found wanting, and without which it could not subsist, any more thantraffic or the exchange of commodities could be carried on withoutweights and measures. It is the medium of knowledge, and the polisher ofmanners, by creating common interests and ideas. Or in the words of acontemporary writer, "Reason is the queen of the moral world, the soulof the universe, the lamp of human life, the pillar of society, thefoundation of law, the beacon of nations, the golden chain let down fromheaven, which links all accountable and all intelligent natures in onecommon system--and in the vain strife between fanatic innovation andfanatic prejudice, we are exhorted to dethrone this queen of the world, to blot out this light of the mind, to deface this fair column, to breakin pieces this golden chain! We are to discard and throw from us withloud taunts and bitter execrations that reason, which has been the loftytheme of the philosopher, the poet, the moralist, and the divine, whosename was not first named to be abused by the enthusiasts of the FrenchRevolution, or to be blasphemed by the madder enthusiasts, the advocatesof Divine Right, but which is coeval with, and inseparable from thenature and faculties of man--is the image of his Maker stamped upon himat his birth, the understanding breathed into him with the breath oflife, and in the participation and improvement of which alone he israised above the brute creation and his own physical nature!"--Theoverstrained and ridiculous pretensions of monks and ascetics were neverthought to justify a return to unbridled licence of manners, or thethrowing aside of all decency. The hypocrisy, cruelty, and fanaticism, often attendant on peculiar professions of sanctity, have not banishedthe name of religion from the world. Neither can "the unreasonablenessof the reason" of some modern sciolists "so unreason our reason, " as todebar us of the benefit of this principle in future, or to disfranchiseus of the highest privilege of our nature. In the second place, if it isadmitted that Reason alone is not the sole and self-sufficient ground ofmorals, it is to Mr. Godwin that we are indebted for having settled thepoint. No one denied or distrusted this principle (before his time) asthe absolute judge and interpreter in all questions of difficulty;and if this is no longer the case, it is because he has taken thisprinciple, and followed it into its remotest consequences with morekeenness of eye and steadiness of hand than any other expounder ofethics. His grand work is (at least) an _experimentum crucis_ to shewthe weak sides and imperfections of human reason as the sole law ofhuman action. By overshooting the mark, or by "flying an eagle flight, forth and right on, " he has pointed out the limit or line of separation, between what is practicable and what is barely conceivable--by imposingimpossible tasks on the naked strength of the will, he has discoveredhow far it is or is not in our power to dispense with the illusions ofsense, to resist the calls of affection, to emancipate ourselves fromthe force of habit; and thus, though he has not said it himself, hasenabled others to say to the towering aspirations after good, and to theover-bearing pride of human intellect--"Thus far shalt thou come, and nofarther!" Captain Parry would be thought to have rendered a serviceto navigation and his country, no less by proving that there is noNorth-West Passage, than if he had ascertained that there is one: so Mr. Godwin has rendered an essential service to moral science, by attempting(in vain) to pass the Arctic Circle and Frozen Regions, where theunderstanding is no longer warmed by the affections, nor fanned by thebreeze of fancy! This is the effect of all bold, original, and powerfulthinking, that it either discovers the truth, or detects where errorlies; and the only crime with which Mr. Godwin can be charged as apolitical and moral reasoner is, that he has displayed a more ardentspirit, and a more independent activity of thought than others, inestablishing the fallacy (if fallacy it be) of an old popular prejudicethat _the Just and True were one_, by "championing it to the Outrance, "and in the final result placing the Gothic structure of human virtueon an humbler, but a wider and safer foundation than it had hithertooccupied in the volumes and systems of the learned. Mr. Godwin is aninventor in the regions of romance, as well as a skilful and hardyexplorer of those of moral truth. _Caleb Williams_ and _St. Leon_ aretwo of the most splendid and impressive works of the imagination thathave appeared in our times. It is not merely that these novels are verywell for a philosopher to have produced--they are admirable and completein themselves, and would not lead you to suppose that the author, who isso entirely at home in human character and dramatic situation, had everdabbled in logic or metaphysics. The first of these, particularly, isa master-piece, both as to invention and execution. The romantic andchivalrous principle of the love of personal fame is embodied in thefinest possible manner in the character of Falkland;[B] as in CalebWilliams (who is not the first, but the second character in the piece)we see the very demon of curiosity personified. Perhaps the art withwhich these two characters are contrived to relieve and set off eachother, has never been surpassed in any work of fiction, with theexception of the immortal satire of Cervantes. The restless andinquisitive spirit of Caleb Williams, in search and in possession ofhis patron's fatal secret, haunts the latter like a second conscience, plants stings in his tortured mind, fans the flame of his jealousambition, struggling with agonized remorse; and the hapless butnoble-minded Falkland at length falls a martyr to the persecution ofthat morbid and overpowering interest, of which his mingled virtues andvices have rendered him the object. We conceive no one ever began CalebWilliams that did not read it through: no one that ever read it couldpossibly forget it, or speak of it after any length of time, but with animpression as if the events and feelings had been personal to himself. This is the case also with the story of St. Leon, which, with lessdramatic interest and intensity of purpose, is set off by a moregorgeous and flowing eloquence, and by a crown of preternatural imagery, that waves over it like a palm-tree! It is the beauty and the charm ofMr. Godwin's descriptions that the reader identifies himself with theauthor; and the secret of this is, that the author has identifiedhimself with his personages. Indeed, he has created them. They are theproper issue of his brain, lawfully begot, not foundlings, nor the"bastards of his art. " He is not an indifferent, callous spectator ofthe scenes which he himself pourtrays, but without seeming to feel them. There is no look of patch-work and plagiarism, the beggarly copiousnessof borrowed wealth; no tracery-work from worm-eaten manuscripts, fromforgotten chronicles, nor piecing out of vague traditions with fragmentsand snatches of old ballads, so that the result resembles a gaudy, staring transparency, in which you cannot distinguish the daubing of thepainter from the light that shines through the flimsy colours and givesthem brilliancy. Here all is clearly made out with strokes of thepencil, by fair, not by factitious means. Our author takes a givensubject from nature or from books, and then fills it up with the ardentworkings of his own mind, with the teeming and audible pulses of his ownheart. The effect is entire and satisfactory in proportion. The work(so to speak) and the author are one. We are not puzzled to decide upontheir respective pretensions. In reading Mr. Godwin's novels, we knowwhat share of merit the author has in them. In reading the _ScotchNovels_, we are perpetually embarrassed in asking ourselves thisquestion; and perhaps it is not altogether a false modesty that preventsthe editor from putting his name in the title-page--he is (for any thingwe know to the contrary) only a more voluminous sort of Allen-a-Dale. At least, we may claim this advantage for the English author, that thechains with which he rivets our attention are forged out of his ownthoughts, link by link, blow for blow, with glowing enthusiasm: we seethe genuine ore melted in the furnace of fervid feeling, and mouldedinto stately and _ideal_ forms; and this is so far better than peepinginto an old iron shop, or pilfering from a dealer in marine stores!There is one drawback, however, attending this mode of proceeding, whichattaches generally, indeed, to all originality of composition; namely, that it has a tendency to a certain degree of monotony. He who drawsupon his own resources, easily comes to an end of his wealth. Mr. Godwin, in all his writings, dwells upon one idea or exclusive view of asubject, aggrandises a sentiment, exaggerates a character, or pushes anargument to extremes, and makes up by the force of style and continuityof feeling for what he wants in variety of incident or ease of manner. This necessary defect is observable in his best works, and is still moreso in Fleetwood and Mandeville; the one of which, compared with his moreadmired performances, is mawkish, and the other morbid. Mr. Godwin isalso an essayist, an historian--in short, what is he not, that belongsto the character of an indefatigable and accomplished author? His _Lifeof Chaucer_ would have given celebrity to any man of letters possessedof three thousand a year, with leisure to write quartos: as the legalacuteness displayed in his _Remarks on Judge Eyre's Charge to theJury_ would have raised any briefless barrister to the height of hisprofession. This temporary effusion did more--it gave a turn to thetrials for high treason in the year 1794, and possibly saved the livesof twelve innocent individuals, marked out as political victims to theMoloch of Legitimacy, which then skulked behind a British throne, and had not yet dared to stalk forth (as it has done since) from itslurking-place, in the face of day, to brave the opinion of the world. Ifit had then glutted its maw with its intended prey (the sharpness of Mr. Godwin's pen cut the legal cords with which it was attempted to bindthem), it might have done so sooner, and with more lasting effect. Theworld do not know (and we are not sure but the intelligence may startleMr. Godwin himself), that he is the author of a volume of Sermons, andof a Life of Chatham. [C]

Mr. Fawcett (an old friend and fellow-student of our author, and whoalways spoke of his writings with admiration, tinctured with wonder)used to mention a circumstance with respect to the last-mentioned work, which may throw some light on the history and progress of Mr. Godwin'smind. He was anxious to make his biographical account as complete ashe could, and applied for this purpose to many of his acquaintance tofurnish him with anecdotes or to suggest criticisms. Amongst others Mr. Fawcett repeated to him what he thought a striking passage in a speechon _General Warrants_ delivered by Lord Chatham, at which he (Mr. Fawcett) had been present. "Every man's house" (said this emphaticthinker and speaker) "has been called his castle. And why is it calledhis castle? Is it because it is defended by a wall, because it issurrounded with a moat? No, it may be nothing more than a straw-builtshed. It may be open to all the elements: the wind may enter in, therain may enter in--but the king _cannot_ enter in!" His friend thoughtthat the point was here palpable enough: but when he came to read theprinted volume, he found it thus _transposed_: "Every man's house is hiscastle. And why is it called so? Is it because it is defended by a wall, because it is surrounded with a moat? No, it may be nothing more than astraw-built shed. It may be exposed to all the elements: the rain mayenter into it, _all the winds of Heaven may whistle round it_, but theking cannot, &c. " This was what Fawcett called a defect of _naturalimagination_. He at the same time admitted that Mr. Godwin had improvedhis native sterility in this respect; or atoned for it by incessantactivity of mind and by accumulated stores of thought and powers oflanguage. In fact, his _forte_ is not the spontaneous, but the voluntaryexercise of talent. He fixes his ambition on a high point of excellence, and spares no pains or time in attaining it. He has less of theappearance of a man of genius, than any one who has given such decidedand ample proofs of it. He is ready only on reflection: dangerous onlyat the rebound. He gathers himself up, and strains every nerve andfaculty with deliberate aim to some heroic and dazzling atchievement ofintellect: but he must make a career before he flings himself, armed, upon the enemy, or he is sure to be unhorsed. Or he resembles aneight-day clock that must be wound up long before it can strike. Therefore, his powers of conversation are but limited. He has neitheracuteness of remark, nor a flow of language, both which might beexpected from his writings, as these are no less distinguished by asustained and impassioned tone of declamation than by novelty of opinionor brilliant tracks of invention. In company, Horne Tooke used to makea mere child of him--or of any man! Mr. Godwin liked this treatment[D], and indeed it is his foible to fawn on those who use him _cavalierly_, and to be cavalier to those who express an undue or unqualifiedadmiration of him. He looks up with unfeigned respect to acknowledgedreputation (but then it must be very well ascertained before he admitsit)--and has a favourite hypothesis that Understanding and Virtue arethe same thing. Mr. Godwin possesses a high degree of philosophicalcandour, and studiously paid the homage of his pen and person to Mr. Malthus, Sir James Macintosh, and Dr. Parr, for their unsparing attackson him; but woe to any poor devil who had the hardihood to defend himagainst them! In private, the author of _Political Justice_ at onetime reminded those who knew him of the metaphysician engrafted onthe Dissenting Minister. There was a dictatorial, captious, quibblingpettiness of manner. He lost this with the first blush and awkwardnessof popularity, which surprised him in the retirement of his study;and he has since, with the wear and tear of society, from being toopragmatical, become somewhat too careless. He is, at present, as easy asan old glove. Perhaps there is a little attention to effect in this, and he wishes to appear a foil to himself. His best moments are with anintimate acquaintance or two, when he gossips in a fine vein about oldauthors, Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, or Burnet's _History ofhis own Times_; and you perceive by your host's talk, as by the tasteof seasoned wine, that he has a _cellarage_ in his understanding! Mr. Godwin also has a correct _acquired_ taste in poetry and the drama. Herelishes Donne and Ben Jonson, and recites a passage from either with anagreeable mixture of pedantry and _bonhommie_. He is not one of thosewho do not grow wiser with opportunity and reflection: he changes hisopinions, and changes them for the better. The alteration of his tastein poetry, from an exclusive admiration of the age of Queen Anne to analmost equally exclusive one of that of Elizabeth, is, we suspect, owingto Mr. Coleridge, who some twenty years ago, threw a great stone intothe standing pool of criticism, which splashed some persons with themud, but which gave a motion to the surface and a reverberation to theneighbouring echoes, which has not since subsided. In common company, Mr. Godwin either goes to sleep himself, or sets others to sleep. He isat present engaged in a History of the Commonwealth of England. --_Estoperpetua!_ In size Mr. Godwin is below the common stature, nor is hisdeportment graceful or animated. His face is, however, fine, with anexpression of placid temper and recondite thought. He is not unlike thecommon portraits of Locke. There is a very admirable likeness of him byMr. Northcote, which with a more heroic and dignified air, only doesjustice to the profound sagacity and benevolent aspirations of ourauthor's mind. Mr. Godwin has kept the best company of his time, but hehas survived most of the celebrated persons with whom he lived in habitsof intimacy. He speaks of them with enthusiasm and with discrimination;and sometimes dwells with peculiar delight on a day passed at JohnKemble's in company with Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Curran, Mrs. Wolstonecraftand Mrs. Inchbald, when the conversation took a most animated turnand the subject was of Love. Of all these our author is the only oneremaining. Frail tenure, on which human life and genius are lent us fora while to improve or to enjoy!

[Footnote A: Shaftesbury made this an objection to Christianity, whichwas answered by Foster, Leland, and other eminent divines, on theground that Christianity had a higher object in view, namely, generalphilanthropy. ]

[Footnote B: Mr. Fuseli used to object to this striking delineation awant of historical correctness, inasmuch as the animating principle ofthe true chivalrous character was the sense of honour, not the mereregard to, or saving of, appearances. This, we think, must be anhypercriticism, from all we remember of books of chivalry and heroes ofromance. ]

[Footnote C: We had forgotten the tragedies of Antonio and Ferdinand. Peace be with their _manes_!]

[Footnote D: To be sure, it was redeemed by a high respect, and by somemagnificent compliments. Once in particular, at his own table, after agood deal of _badinage_ and cross-questioning about his being the authorof the Reply to Judge Eyre's Charge, on Mr. Godwin's acknowledging thathe was, Mr. Tooke said, "Come here then, "--and when his guest went roundto his chair, he took his hand, and pressed it to his lips, saying--"Ican do no less for the hand that saved my life!"]

 * * * * *

MR. COLERIDGE. 

The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts andSciences, that we live in retrospect, and doat on past atchievements. The accumulation of knowledge has been so great, that we are lost inwonder at the height it has reached, instead of attempting to climbor add to it; while the variety of objects distracts and dazzles thelooker-on. What _niche_ remains unoccupied? What path untried? What isthe use of doing anything, unless we could do better than all those whohave gone before us? What hope is there of this? We are like those whohave been to see some noble monument of art, who are content to admirewithout thinking of rivalling it; or like guests after a feast, who praise the hospitality of the donor "and thank the bounteousPan"--perhaps carrying away some trifling fragments; or like thespectators of a mighty battle, who still hear its sound afar off, andthe clashing of armour and the neighing of the war-horse and the shoutof victory is in their ears, like the rushing of innumerable waters!

Mr. Coleridge has "a mind reflecting ages past:" his voice is likethe echo of the congregated roar of the "dark rearward and abyss" ofthought. He who has seen a mouldering tower by the side of a chrystallake, hid by the mist, but glittering in the wave below, may conceivethe dim, gleaming, uncertain intelligence of his eye: he who has markedthe evening clouds uprolled (a world of vapours), has seen the pictureof his mind, unearthly, unsubstantial, with gorgeous tints andever-varying forms--

 "That which was now a horse, even with a thought The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct As water is in water. "

Our author's mind is (as he himself might express it) _tangential_. There is no subject on which he has not touched, none on which he hasrested. With an understanding fertile, subtle, expansive, "quick, forgetive, apprehensive, " beyond all living precedent, few traces of itwill perhaps remain. He lends himself to all impressions alike; he givesup his mind and liberty of thought to none. He is a general lover of artand science, and wedded to no one in particular. He pursues knowledge asa mistress, with outstretched hands and winged speed; but as he isabout to embrace her, his Daphne turns--alas! not to a laurel! Hardly aspeculation has been left on record from the earliest time, but it isloosely folded up in Mr. Coleridge's memory, like a rich, but somewhattattered piece of tapestry; we might add (with more seeming than realextravagance), that scarce a thought can pass through the mind of man, but its sound has at some time or other passed over his head withrustling pinions. On whatever question or author you speak, he isprepared to take up the theme with advantage--from Peter Abelard downto Thomas Moore, from the subtlest metaphysics to the politics of the_Courier_. There is no man of genius, in whose praise he descants, butthe critic seems to stand above the author, and "what in him is weak, tostrengthen, what is low, to raise and support:" nor is there any work ofgenius that does not come out of his hands like an Illuminated Missal, sparkling even in its defects. If Mr. Coleridge had not been the mostimpressive talker of his age, he would probably have been the finestwriter; but he lays down his pen to make sure of an auditor, andmortgages the admiration of posterity for the stare of an idler. If hehad not been a poet, he would have been a powerful logician; if he hadnot dipped his wing in the Unitarian controversy, he might have soaredto the very summit of fancy. But in writing verse, he is tryingto subject the Muse to _transcendental_ theories: in his abstractreasoning, he misses his way by strewing it with flowers. All that hehas done of moment, he had done twenty years ago: since then, he may besaid to have lived on the sound of his own voice. Mr. Coleridge is toorich in intellectual wealth, to need to task himself to any drudgery: hehas only to draw the sliders of his imagination, and a thousand subjectsexpand before him, startling him with their brilliancy, or losingthemselves in endless obscurity--

 "And by the force of blear illusion, They draw him on to his confusion. "

What is the little he could add to the stock, compared with thecountless stores that lie about him, that he should stoop to pick up aname, or to polish an idle fancy? He walks abroad in the majesty of anuniversal understanding, eyeing the "rich strond, " or golden sky abovehim, and "goes sounding on his way, " in eloquent accents, uncompelledand free!

Persons of the greatest capacity are often those, who for this reasondo the least; for surveying themselves from the highest point of view, amidst the infinite variety of the universe, their own share in it seemstrifling, and scarce worth a thought, and they prefer the contemplationof all that is, or has been, or can be, to the making a coil about doingwhat, when done, is no better than vanity. It is hard to concentrateall our attention and efforts on one pursuit, except from ignoranceof others; and without this concentration of our faculties, no greatprogress can be made in any one thing. It is not merely that the mind isnot capable of the effort; it does not think the effort worth making. Action is one; but thought is manifold. He whose restless eye glancesthrough the wide compass of nature and art, will not consent to have"his own nothings monstered:" but he must do this, before he can givehis whole soul to them. The mind, after "letting contemplation have itsfill, " or

 "Sailing with supreme dominion Through the azure deep of air, "

sinks down on the ground, breathless, exhausted, powerless, inactive;or if it must have some vent to its feelings, seeks the most easy andobvious; is soothed by friendly flattery, lulled by the murmur ofimmediate applause, thinks as it were aloud, and babbles in its dreams!A scholar (so to speak) is a more disinterested and abstracted characterthan a mere author. The first looks at the numberless volumes of alibrary, and says, "All these are mine:" the other points to a singlevolume (perhaps it may be an immortal one) and says, "My name is writtenon the back of it. " This is a puny and groveling ambition, beneath thelofty amplitude of Mr. Coleridge's mind. No, he revolves in his waywardsoul, or utters to the passing wind, or discourses to his own shadow, things mightier and more various!--Let us draw the curtain, and unlockthe shrine. Learning rocked him in his cradle, and, while yet a child, "He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. "

At sixteen he wrote his _Ode on Chatterton_, and he still reverts tothat period with delight, not so much as it relates to himself (for thatstring of his own early promise of fame rather jars than otherwise) butas exemplifying the youth of a poet. Mr. Coleridge talks of himself, without being an egotist, for in him the individual is always merged inthe abstract and general. He distinguished himself at school and at theUniversity by his knowledge of the classics, and gained several prizesfor Greek epigrams. How many men are there (great scholars, celebratednames in literature) who having done the same thing in their youth, haveno other idea all the rest of their lives but of this achievement, ofa fellowship and dinner, and who, installed in academic honours, wouldlook down on our author as a mere strolling bard! At Christ'sHospital, where he was brought up, he was the idol of those among hisschoolfellows, who mingled with their bookish studies the music ofthought and of humanity; and he was usually attended round the cloistersby a group of these (inspiring and inspired) whose hearts, even then, burnt within them as he talked, and where the sounds yet linger to mockELIA on his way, still turning pensive to the past! One of the finestand rarest parts of Mr. Coleridge's conversation, is when he expatiateson the Greek tragedians (not that he is not well acquainted, when hepleases, with the epic poets, or the philosophers, or orators, orhistorians of antiquity)--on the subtle reasonings and melting pathosof Euripides, on the harmonious gracefulness of Sophocles, tuning hislove-laboured song, like sweetest warblings from a sacred grove; on thehigh-wrought trumpet-tongued eloquence of Aeschylus, whose Prometheus, above all, is like an Ode to Fate, and a pleading with Providence, histhoughts being let loose as his body is chained on his solitary rock, and his afflicted will (the emblem of mortality)

 "Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny. "

As the impassioned critic speaks and rises in his theme, you would thinkyou heard the voice of the Man hated by the Gods, contending withthe wild winds as they roar, and his eye glitters with the spirit ofAntiquity!

Next, he was engaged with Hartley's tribes of mind, "etherial braid, thought-woven, "--and he busied himself for a year or two withvibrations and vibratiuncles and the great law of association that bindsall things in its mystic chain, and the doctrine of Necessity (themild teacher of Charity) and the Millennium, anticipative of a life tocome--and he plunged deep into the controversy on Matter and Spirit, and, as an escape from Dr. Priestley's Materialism, where he felthimself imprisoned by the logician's spell, like Ariel in thecloven pine-tree, he became suddenly enamoured of Bishop Berkeley'sfairy-world, [A] and used in all companies to build the universe, likea brave poetical fiction, of fine words--and he was deep-read inMalebranche, and in Cudworth's Intellectual System (a huge pile oflearning, unwieldy, enormous) and in Lord Brook's hieroglyphic theories, and in Bishop Butler's Sermons, and in the Duchess of Newcastle'sfantastic folios, and in Clarke and South and Tillotson, and all thefine thinkers and masculine reasoners of that age--and Leibnitz's_Pre-established Harmony_ reared its arch above his head, like therainbow in the cloud, covenanting with the hopes of man--and then hefell plump, ten thousand fathoms down (but his wings saved him harmless)into the _hortus siccus_ of Dissent, where he pared religion down to thestandard of reason and stripped faith of mystery, and preached Christcrucified and the Unity of the Godhead, and so dwelt for a while in thespirit with John Huss and Jerome of Prague and Socinus and old JohnZisca, and ran through Neal's History of the Puritans, and Calamy'sNon-Conformists' Memorial, having like thoughts and passions withthem--but then Spinoza became his God, and he took up the vast chain ofbeing in his hand, and the round world became the centre and the soul ofall things in some shadowy sense, forlorn of meaning, and around him hebeheld the living traces and the sky-pointing proportions of the mightyPan--but poetry redeemed him from this spectral philosophy, and hebathed his heart in beauty, and gazed at the golden light of heaven, anddrank of the spirit of the universe, and wandered at eve by fairy-streamor fountain, "------When he saw nought but beauty, When he heard the voice of that Almighty One In every breeze that blew, or wave that murmured"--

and wedded with truth in Plato's shade, and in the writings of Proclusand Plotinus saw the ideas of things in the eternal mind, and unfoldedall mysteries with the Schoolmen and fathomed the depths of Duns Scotusand Thomas Aquinas, and entered the third heaven with Jacob Behmen, andwalked hand in hand with Swedenborg through the pavilions of the NewJerusalem, and sung his faith in the promise and in the word in his_Religious Musings_--and lowering himself from that dizzy height, poisedhimself on Milton's wings, and spread out his thoughts in charity withthe glad prose of Jeremy Taylor, and wept over Bowles's Sonnets, andstudied Cowper's blankverse, and betook himself to Thomson's Castle ofIndolence, and sported with the wits of Charles the Second's days andof Queen Anne, and relished Swift's style and that of the John Bull(Arbuthnot's we mean, not Mr. Croker's) and dallied with the BritishEssayists and Novelists, and knew all qualities of more modern writerswith a learned spirit, Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Junius, and Burke, and Godwin, and the Sorrows of Werter, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, andVoltaire, and Marivaux, and Crebillon, and thousands more--now "laughedwith Rabelais in his easy chair" or pointed to Hogarth, or afterwardsdwelt on Claude's classic scenes or spoke with rapture of Raphael, and compared the women at Rome to figures that had walked out of hispictures, or visited the Oratory of Pisa, and described the works ofGiotto and Ghirlandaio and Massaccio, and gave the moral of the pictureof the Triumph of Death, where the beggars and the wretched invoke hisdreadful dart, but the rich and mighty of the earth quail and shrinkbefore it; and in that land of siren sights and sounds, saw a dance ofpeasant girls, and was charmed with lutes and gondolas, --or wanderedinto Germany and lost himself in the labyrinths of the Hartz Forest andof the Kantean philosophy, and amongst the cabalistic names of Fichtèand Schelling and Lessing, and God knows who--this was long after, butall the former while, he had nerved his heart and filled his eyeswith tears, as he hailed the rising orb of liberty, since quenched indarkness and in blood, and had kindled his affections at the blaze ofthe French Revolution, and sang for joy when the towers of the Bastileand the proud places of the insolent and the oppressor fell, and wouldhave floated his bark, freighted with fondest fancies, across theAtlantic wave with Southey and others to seek for peace and freedom--

 "In Philarmonia's undivided dale!"

Alas! "Frailty, thy name is _Genius_!"--What is become of all thismighty heap of hope, of thought, of learning, and humanity? It hasended in swallowing doses of oblivion and in writing paragraphs in the_Courier_. --Such, and so little is the mind of man!

It was not to be supposed that Mr. Coleridge could keep on at the ratehe set off; he could not realize all he knew or thought, and less couldnot fix his desultory ambition; other stimulants supplied the place, andkept up the intoxicating dream, the fever and the madness of his earlyimpressions. Liberty (the philosopher's and the poet's bride) had fallena victim, meanwhile, to the murderous practices of the hag, Legitimacy. Proscribed by court-hirelings, too romantic for the herd of vulgarpoliticians, our enthusiast stood at bay, and at last turned on thepivot of a subtle casuistry to the _unclean side:_ but his discursivereason would not let him trammel himself into a poet-laureate orstamp-distributor, and he stopped, ere he had quite passed thatwell-known "bourne from whence no traveller returns"--and so has sunkinto torpid, uneasy repose, tantalized by useless resources, haunted byvain imaginings, his lips idly moving, but his heart forever still, or, as the shattered chords vibrate of themselves, making melancholy musicto the ear of memory! Such is the fate of genius in an age, when in theunequal contest with sovereign wrong, every man is ground to powder whois not either a born slave, or who does not willingly and at once offerup the yearnings of humanity and the dictates of reason as a welcomesacrifice to besotted prejudice and loathsome power. 

Of all Mr. Coleridge's productions, the _Ancient Mariner_ is the onlyone that we could with confidence put into any person's hands, on whomwe wished to impress a favourable idea of his extraordinary powers. Letwhatever other objections be made to it, it is unquestionably a work ofgenius--of wild, irregular, overwhelming imagination, and has that rich, varied movement in the verse, which gives a distant idea of the lofty orchangeful tones of Mr. Coleridge's voice. In the _Christobel_, thereis one splendid passage on divided friendship. The _Translation ofSchiller's Wallenstein_ is also a masterly production in its kind, faithful and spirited. Among his smaller pieces there are occasionalbursts of pathos and fancy, equal to what we might expect from him; butthese form the exception, and not the rule. Such, for instance, is hisaffecting Sonnet to the author of the Robbers. 

 Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die, If through the shudd'ring midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry--

 That in no after-moment aught less vast Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd. 

 Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, Wand'ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye, Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood, Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy. 

His Tragedy, entitled _Remorse_, is full of beautiful and strikingpassages, but it does not place the author in the first rank of dramaticwriters. But if Mr. Coleridge's works do not place him in that rank, they injure instead of conveying a just idea of the man, for he himselfis certainly in the first class of general intellect. 

If our author's poetry is inferior to his conversation, his prose isutterly abortive. Hardly a gleam is to be found in it of the brilliancyand richness of those stores of thought and language that he pours outincessantly, when they are lost like drops of water in the ground. Theprincipal work, in which he has attempted to embody his general views ofthings, is the FRIEND, of which, though it contains some noble passagesand fine trains of thought, prolixity and obscurity are the mostfrequent characteristics. 

No two persons can be conceived more opposite in character or geniusthan the subject of the present and of the preceding sketch. Mr. Godwin, with less natural capacity, and with fewer acquired advantages, byconcentrating his mind on some given object, and doing what he had to dowith all his might, has accomplished much, and will leave more thanone monument of a powerful intellect behind him; Mr. Coleridge, bydissipating his, and dallying with every subject by turns, has donelittle or nothing to justify to the world or to posterity, the highopinion which all who have ever heard him converse, or known himintimately, with one accord entertain of him. Mr. Godwin's facultieshave kept house, and plied their task in the work-shop of the brain, diligently and effectually: Mr. Coleridge's have gossipped away theirtime, and gadded about from house to house, as if life's business wereto melt the hours in listless talk. Mr. Godwin is intent on a subject, only as it concerns himself and his reputation; he works it out as amatter of duty, and discards from his mind whatever does not forward hismain object as impertinent and vain. Mr. Coleridge, on the other hand, delights in nothing but episodes and digressions, neglects whatever heundertakes to perform, and can act only on spontaneous impulses, withoutobject or method. "He cannot be constrained by mastery. " While he shouldbe occupied with a given pursuit, he is thinking of a thousand otherthings; a thousand tastes, a thousand objects tempt him, and distracthis mind, which keeps open house, and entertains all comers; and afterbeing fatigued and amused with morning calls from idle visitors, findsthe day consumed and its business unconcluded. Mr. Godwin, on thecontrary, is somewhat exclusive and unsocial in his habits of mind, entertains no company but what he gives his whole time and attention to, and wisely writes over the doors of his understanding, his fancy, andhis senses--"No admittance except on business. " He has none of thatfastidious refinement and false delicacy, which might lead him tobalance between the endless variety of modern attainments. He does notthrow away his life (nor a single half-hour of it) in adjusting theclaims of different accomplishments, and in choosing between them ormaking himself master of them all. He sets about his task, (whateverit may be) and goes through it with spirit and fortitude. He has thehappiness to think an author the greatest character in the world, and himself the greatest author in it. Mr. Coleridge, in writing anharmonious stanza, would stop to consider whether there was not moregrace and beauty in a _Pas de trois_, and would not proceed till he hadresolved this question by a chain of metaphysical reasoning without end. Not so Mr. Godwin. That is best to him, which he can do best. He doesnot waste himself in vain aspirations and effeminate sympathies. He isblind, deaf, insensible to all but the trump of Fame. Plays, operas, painting, music, ball-rooms, wealth, fashion, titles, lords, ladies, touch him not--all these are no more to him than to the magician in hiscell, and he writes on to the end of the chapter, through good reportand evil report. _Pingo in eternitatem_--is his motto. He neither enviesnor admires what others are, but is contented to be what he is, andstrives to do the utmost he can. Mr. Coleridge has flirted with theMuses as with a set of mistresses: Mr. Godwin has been married twice, toReason and to Fancy, and has to boast no short-lived progeny by each. So to speak, he has _valves_ belonging to his mind, to regulate thequantity of gas admitted into it, so that like the bare, unsightly, butwell-compacted steam-vessel, it cuts its liquid way, and arrives atits promised end: while Mr. Coleridge's bark, "taught with the littlenautilus to sail, " the sport of every breath, dancing to every wave, "Youth at its prow, and Pleasure at its helm, "

flutters its gaudy pennons in the air, glitters in the sun, but we waitin vain to hear of its arrival in the destined harbour. Mr. Godwin, withless variety and vividness, with less subtlety and susceptibilityboth of thought and feeling, has had firmer nerves, a more determinedpurpose, a more comprehensive grasp of his subject, and the results areas we find them. Each has met with his reward: for justice has, afterall, been done to the pretensions of each; and we must, in all cases, use means to ends!

[Footnote A: Mr. Coleridge named his eldest son (the writer of somebeautiful Sonnets) after Hartley, and the second after Berkeley. Thethird was called Derwent, after the river of that name. Nothing can bemore characteristic of his mind than this circumstance. All his ideasindeed are like a river, flowing on for ever, and still murmuring as itflows, discharging its waters and still replenished--

 "And so by many winding nooks it strays, With willing sport to the wild ocean!"]

 * * * * *

REV. MR. IRVING. 

This gentleman has gained an almost unprecedented, and not an altogetherunmerited popularity as a preacher. As he is, perhaps, though a burningand a shining light, not "one of the fixed, " we shall take thisopportunity of discussing his merits, while he is at his meridianheight; and in doing so, shall "nothing extenuate, nor set down aught inmalice. "

Few circumstances shew the prevailing and preposterous rage for noveltyin a more striking point of view, than the success of Mr. Irving'soratory. People go to hear him in crowds, and come away with a mixtureof delight and astonishment--they go again to see if the effect willcontinue, and send others to try to find out the mystery--and in thenoisy conflict between extravagant encomiums and splenetic objections, the true secret escapes observation, which is, that the whole thing is, nearly from beginning to end, a _transposition of ideas_. If the subjectof these remarks had come out as a player, with all his advantages offigure, voice, and action, we think he would have failed: if, as apreacher, he had kept within the strict bounds of pulpit-oratory, hewould scarcely have been much distinguished among his Calvinisticbrethren: as a mere author, he would have excited attention ratherby his quaintness and affectation of an obsolete style and mode ofthinking, than by any thing else. But he has contrived to jumble theseseveral characters together in an unheard-of and unwarranted manner, andthe fascination is altogether irresistible. Our Caledonian divine isequally an anomaly in religion, in literature, in personal appearance, and in public speaking. To hear a person spout Shakspeare on the stageis nothing--the charm is nearly worn out--but to hear any one spoutShakspeare (and that not in a sneaking under-tone, but at the top ofhis voice, and with the full breadth of his chest) from a Calvinisticpulpit, is new and wonderful. The _Fancy_ have lately lost something oftheir gloss in public estimation, and after the last fight, few would gofar to see a Neat or a Spring set-to;--but to see a man who is able toenter the ring with either of them, or brandish a quarter-staff withFriar Tuck, or a broad-sword with Shaw the Lifeguards' man, stand up ina strait-laced old-fashioned pulpit, and bandy dialectics with modernphilosophers or give a _cross-buttock_ to a cabinet minister, there issomething in a sight like this also, that is a cure for sore eyes. Itis as if Crib or Molyneux had turned Methodist parson, or as ifa Patagonian savage were to come forward as the patron-saint ofEvangelical religion. Again, the doctrine of eternal punishment was oneof the staple arguments with which, everlastingly drawled out, the oldschool of Presbyterian divines used to keep their audiences awake, orlull them to sleep; but to which people of taste and fashion paidlittle attention, as inelegant and barbarous, till Mr. Irving, with hiscast-iron features and sledge-hammer blows, puffing like a grim Vulcan, set to work to forge more classic thunderbolts, and kindle the expiringflames anew with the very sweepings of sceptical and infidellibraries, so as to excite a pleasing horror in the female part of hiscongregation. In short, our popular declaimer has, contrary to theScripture-caution, put new wine into old bottles, or new cloth on oldgarments. He has, with an unlimited and daring licence, mixed thesacred and the profane together, the carnal and the spiritual man, thepetulance of the bar with the dogmatism of the pulpit, the theatricaland theological, the modern and the obsolete;--what wonder that thissplendid piece of patchwork, splendid by contradiction and contrast, has delighted some and confounded others? The more serious part of hiscongregation indeed complain, though not bitterly, that their pastorhas converted their meeting-house into a play-house: but when a lady ofquality, introducing herself and her three daughters to the preacher, assures him that they have been to all the most fashionable places ofresort, the opera, the theatre, assemblies, Miss Macauley's readings, and Exeter-Change, and have been equally entertained no where else, weapprehend that no remonstrances of a committee of ruling-elders will beable to bring him to his senses again, or make him forego such sweet, but ill-assorted praise. What we mean to insist upon is, that Mr. Irvingowes his triumphant success, not to any one quality for which he hasbeen extolled, but to a combination of qualities, the more strikingin their immediate effect, in proportion as they are unlooked-for andheterogeneous, like the violent opposition of light and shade in apicture. We shall endeavour to explain this view of the subject more atlarge. 

Mr. Irving, then, is no common or mean man. He has four or fivequalities, possessed in a moderate or in a paramount degree, which, added or multiplied together, fill up the important space he occupies inthe public eye. Mr. Irving's intellect itself is of a superior order; hehas undoubtedly both talents and acquirements beyond the ordinary run ofevery-day preachers. These alone, however, we hold, would not accountfor a twentieth part of the effect he has produced: they would havelifted him perhaps out of the mire and slough of sordid obscurity, butwould never have launched him into the ocean-stream of popularity, inwhich he "lies floating many a rood;"--but to these he adds uncommonheight, a graceful figure and action, a clear and powerful voice, astriking, if not a fine face, a bold and fiery spirit, and a mostportentous obliquity of vision, which throw him to an immeasurabledistance beyond all competition, and effectually relieve whatever theremight be of common-place or bombast in his style of composition. Put thecase that Mr. Irving had been five feet high--Would he ever have beenheard of, or, as he does now, have "bestrode the world like a Colossus?"No, the thing speaks for itself. He would in vain have liftedhis Lilliputian arm to Heaven, people would have laughed at hismonkey-tricks. Again, had he been as tall as he is, but had wanted otherrecommendations, he would have been nothing. 

 "The player's province they but vainly try, Who want these powers, deportment, voice, and eye. "

Conceive a rough, ugly, shock-headed Scotchman, standing up in theCaledonian chapel, and dealing "damnation round the land" in a broadnorthern dialect, and with a harsh, screaking voice, what ear polite, what smile serene would have hailed the barbarous prodigy, or notconsigned him to utter neglect and derision? But the Rev. Edward Irving, with all his native wildness, "hath a smooth aspect framed to makewomen" saints; his very unusual size and height are carried off andmoulded into elegance by the most admirable symmetry of form and ease ofgesture; his sable locks, his clear iron-grey complexion, and firm-setfeatures, turn the raw, uncouth Scotchman into the likeness of a nobleItalian picture; and even his distortion of sight only redeems theotherwise "faultless monster" within the bounds of humanity, and, whenadmiration is exhausted and curiosity ceases, excites a new interest byleading to the idle question whether it is an advantage to the preacheror not. Farther, give him all his actual and remarkable advantages ofbody and mind, let him be as tall, as strait, as dark and clear of skin, as much at his ease, as silver-tongued, as eloquent and as argumentativeas he is, yet with all these, and without a little charlatanery to setthem off, he had been nothing. He might, keeping within the rigid lineof his duty and professed calling, have preached on for ever; hemight have divided the old-fashioned doctrines of election, grace, reprobation, predestination, into his sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth heads, and his _lastly_ have been looked for as a"consummation devoutly to be wished;" he might have defied the devil andall his works, and by the help of a loud voice and strong-set person--

 "A lusty man to ben an Abbot able;"--

have increased his own congregation, and been quoted among the godly asa powerful preacher of the word; but in addition to this, he went out ofhis way to attack Jeremy Bentham, and the town was up in arms. The thingwas new. He thus wiped the stain of musty ignorance and formal bigotryout of his style. Mr. Irving must have something superior in him, tolook over the shining close-packed heads of his congregation to have ahit at the _Great Jurisconsult_ in his study. He next, ere the report ofthe former blow had subsided, made a lunge at Mr. Brougham, and glancedan eye at Mr. Canning; _mystified_ Mr. Coleridge, and _stultified_ LordLiverpool in his place--in the Gallery. It was rare sport to see him, "like an eagle in a dovecote, flutter the Volscians in Corioli. " He hasfound out the secret of attracting by repelling. Those whom he is likelyto attack are curious to hear what he says of them: they go again, to show that they do not mind it. It is no less interesting to theby-standers, who like to witness this sort of _onslaught_--like a chargeof cavalry, the shock, and the resistance. Mr. Irving has, in fact, without leave asked or a licence granted, converted the CaledonianChapel into a Westminster Forum or Debating Society, with the sanctityof religion added to it. Our spirited polemic is not contented to defendthe citadel of orthodoxy against all impugners, and shut himself upin texts of Scripture and huge volumes of the Commentators as animpregnable fortress;--he merely makes use of the stronghold of religionas a resting-place, from which he sallies forth, armed with moderntopics and with penal fire, like Achilles of old rushing from theGrecian tents, against the adversaries of God and man. Peter Aretine issaid to have laid the Princes of Europe under contribution by penningsatires against them: so Mr. Irving keeps the public in awe by insultingall their favourite idols. He does not spare their politicians, theirrulers, their moralists, their poets, their players, their critics, their reviewers, their magazine-writers; he levels their resorts ofbusiness, their places of amusement, at a blow--their cities, churches, palaces, ranks and professions, refinements, and elegances--and leavesnothing standing but himself, a mighty landmark in a degenerate age, overlooking the wide havoc he has made! He makes war upon all arts andsciences, upon the faculties and nature of man, on his vices and hisvirtues, on all existing institutions, and all possible improvements, that nothing may be left but the Kirk of Scotland, and that he may bethe head of it. He literally sends a challenge to all London in thename of the KING of HEAVEN, to evacuate its streets, to disperse itspopulation, to lay aside its employments, to burn its wealth, torenounce its vanities and pomp; and for what?--that he may enter inas the _King of Glory_; or after enforcing his threat with thebattering-ram of logic, the grape-shot of rhetoric, and the crossfire ofhis double vision, reduce the British metropolis to a Scottish heath, with a few miserable hovels upon it, where they may worship Godaccording to _the root of the matter_, and an old man with a bluebonnet, a fair-haired girl, and a little child would form the flower ofhis flock! Such is the pretension and the boast of this new Peter theHermit, who would get rid of all we have done in the way of improvementon a state of barbarous ignorance, or still more barbarous prejudice, inorder to begin again on a _tabula rasa_ of Calvinism, and have a worldof his own making. It is not very surprising that when nearly thewhole mass and texture of civil society is indicted as a nuisance, andthreatened to be pulled down as a rotten building ready to fall on theheads of the inhabitants, that all classes of people run to hear thecrash, and to see the engines and levers at work which are to effectthis laudable purpose. What else can be the meaning of our preacher'staking upon himself to denounce the sentiments of the most seriousprofessors in great cities, as vitiated and stark-naught, of relegatingreligion to his native glens, and pretending that the hymn of praise orthe sigh of contrition cannot ascend acceptably to the throne of gracefrom the crowded street as well as from the barren rock or silentvalley? Why put this affront upon his hearers? Why belie his ownaspirations?

 "God made the country, and man made the town. "

So says the poet; does Mr. Irving say so? If he does, and finds the airof the city death to his piety, why does he not return home again? Butif he can breathe it with impunity, and still retain the fervour of hisearly enthusiasm, and the simplicity and purity of the faith that wasonce delivered to the saints, why not extend the benefit of his ownexperience to others, instead of taunting them with a vapid pastoraltheory? Or, if our popular and eloquent divine finds a change inhimself, that flattery prevents the growth of grace, that he is becomingthe God of his own idolatry by being that of others, that the glitteringof coronet-coaches rolling down Holborn-Hill to Hatton Garden, thattitled beauty, that the parliamentary complexion of his audience, thecompliments of poets, and the stare of peers discompose his wanderingthoughts a little; and yet that he cannot give up these strongtemptations tugging at his heart; why not extend more charity to others, and shew more candour in speaking of himself? There is either a gooddeal of bigoted intolerance with a deplorable want of self-knowledge inall this; or at least an equal degree of cant and quackery. 

To whichever cause we are to attribute this hyperbolical tone, we holdit certain he could not have adopted it, if he had been _a little man_. But his imposing figure and dignified manner enable him to hazardsentiments or assertions that would be fatal to others. Hiscontroversial daring is _backed_ by his bodily prowess; and by bringinghis intellectual pretensions boldly into a line with his physicalaccomplishments, he, indeed, presents a very formidable front to thesceptic or the scoffer. Take a cubit from his stature, and his wholemanner resolves itself into an impertinence. But with that addition, he_overcrows_ the town, browbeats their prejudices, and bullies them outof their senses, and is not afraid of being contradicted by any one_less than himself_. It may be said, that individuals with greatpersonal defects have made a considerable figure as public speakers; andMr. Wilberforce, among others, may be held out as an instance. Nothingcan be more insignificant as to mere outward appearance, and yet he islistened to in the House of Commons. But he does not wield it, he doesnot insult or bully it. He leads by following opinion, he trims, heshifts, he glides on the silvery sounds of his undulating, flexible, cautiously modulated voice, winding his way betwixt heaven and earth, now courting popularity, now calling servility to his aid, and with alarge estate, the "saints, " and the population of Yorkshire to swell hisinfluence, never venturing on the forlorn hope, or doing any thing morethan "hitting the house between wind and water. " Yet he is probably acleverer man than Mr. Irving. 

There is a Mr. Fox, a Dissenting Minister, as fluent a speaker, with asweeter voice and a more animated and beneficent countenance than Mr. Irving, who expresses himself with manly spirit at a public meeting, takes a hand at whist, and is the darling of his congregation; but he isno more, because he is diminutive in person. His head is not seen abovethe crowd the length of a street off. He is the Duke of Sussex inminiature, but the Duke of Sussex does not go to hear him preach, as heattends Mr. Irving, who rises up against him like a martello tower, and is nothing loth to confront the spirit of a man of genius withthe blood-royal. We allow there are, or may be, talents sufficient toproduce this equality without a single personal advantage; but we denythat this would be the effect of any that our great preacher possesses. We conceive it not improbable that the consciousness of muscular power, that the admiration of his person by strangers might first have inspiredMr. Irving with an ambition to be something, intellectually speaking, and have given him confidence to attempt the greatest things. He has notfailed for want of courage. The public, as well as the fair, are wonby a show of gallantry. Mr. Irving has shrunk from no opinion, howeverparadoxical. He has scrupled to avow no sentiment, however obnoxious. Hehas revived exploded prejudices, he has scouted prevailing fashions. He has opposed the spirit of the age, and not consulted the _esprit decorps_. He has brought back the doctrines of Calvinism in all theirinveteracy, and relaxed the inveteracy of his northern accents. He hasturned religion and the Caledonian Chapel topsy-turvy. He has held aplay-book in one hand, and a Bible in the other, and quoted Shakspeareand Melancthon in the same breath. The tree of the knowledge of good andevil is no longer, with his grafting, a dry withered stump; it shootsits branches to the skies, and hangs out its blossoms to the gale--

 "Miraturque novos fructus, et non sua poma. "

He has taken the thorns and briars of scholastic divinity, and garlandedthem with the flowers of modern literature. He has done all this, relying on the strength of a remarkably fine person and manner, andthrough that he has succeeded--otherwise he would have perishedmiserably. 

Dr. Chalmers is not by any means so good a looking man, nor soaccomplished a speaker as Mr. Irving; yet he at one time almost equalledhis oratorical celebrity, and certainly paved the way for him. He hastherefore more merit than his admired pupil, as he has done as muchwith fewer means. He has more scope of intellect and more intensity ofpurpose. Both his matter and his manner, setting aside his face andfigure, are more impressive. Take the volume of "Sermons on Astronomy, "by Dr. Chalmers, and the "Four Orations for the Oracles of God" whichMr. Irving lately published, and we apprehend there can be no comparisonas to their success. The first ran like wild-fire through the country, were the darlings of watering-places, were laid in the windows ofinns, [A] and were to be met with in all places of public resort; whilethe "Orations" get on but slowly, on Milton's stilts, and are pompouslyannounced as in a Third Edition. We believe the fairest and fondest ofhis admirers would rather see and hear Mr. Irving than read him. Thereason is, that the groundwork of his compositions is trashy andhackneyed, though set off by extravagant metaphors and an affectedphraseology; that without the turn of his head and wave of his hand, hisperiods have nothing in them; and that he himself is the only _idea_with which he has yet enriched the public mind! He must play offhis person, as Orator Henley used to dazzle his hearers with hisdiamond-ring. The small frontispiece prefixed to the "Orations" does notserve to convey an adequate idea of the magnitude of the man, nor ofthe ease and freedom of his motions in the pulpit. How different is Dr. Chalmers! He is like "a monkey-preacher" to the other. He cannot boastof personal appearance to set him off. But then he is like the verygenius or demon of theological controversy personified. He has neitherairs nor graces at command; he thinks nothing of himself; he has nothingtheatrical about him (which cannot be said of his successor andrival); but you see a man in mortal throes and agony with doubts anddifficulties, seizing stubborn knotty points with his teeth, tearingthem with his hands, and straining his eyeballs till they almost startout of their sockets, in pursuit of a train of visionary reasoning, likea Highland-seer with his second sight. The description of Balfour ofBurley in his cave, with his Bible in one hand and his sword in theother, contending with the imaginary enemy of mankind, gasping forbreath, and with the cold moisture running down his face, gives a livelyidea of Dr. Chalmers's prophetic fury in the pulpit. If we couldhave looked in to have seen Burley hard-beset "by the coinage of hisheat-oppressed brain, " who would have asked whether he was a handsomeman or not? It would be enough to see a man haunted by a spirit, underthe strong and entire dominion of a wilful hallucination. So theintegrity and vehemence of Dr. Chalmers's manner, the determined way inwhich he gives himself up to his subject, or lays about him and buffetssceptics and gainsayers, arrests attention in spite of every othercircumstance, and fixes it on that, and that alone, which excitessuch interest and such eagerness in his own breast! Besides, he is alogician, has a theory in support of whatever he chooses to advance, andweaves the tissue of his sophistry so close and intricate, that it isdifficult not to be entangled in it, or to escape from it. "There'smagic in the web. " Whatever appeals to the pride of the humanunderstanding, has a subtle charm in it. The mind is naturallypugnacious, cannot refuse a challenge of strength or skill, sturdilyenters the lists and resolves to conquer, or to yield itself vanquishedin the forms. This is the chief hold Dr. Chalmers had upon his hearers, and upon the readers of his "Astronomical Discourses. " No one wassatisfied with his arguments, no one could answer them, but every onewanted to try what he could make of them, as we try to find out ariddle. "By his so potent art, " the art of laying down problematicalpremises, and drawing from them still more doubtful, but not impossible, conclusions, "he could bedim the noonday sun, betwixt the green sea andthe azure vault set roaring war, " and almost compel the stars in theircourses to testify to his opinions. The mode in which he undertook tomake the circuit of the universe, and demand categorical information"now of the planetary and now of the fixed, " might put one in mind ofHecate's mode of ascending in a machine from the stage, "midst troopsof spirits, " in which you now admire the skill of the artist, and nexttremble for the fate of the performer, fearing that the audacity ofthe attempt will turn his head or break his neck. The style of these"Discourses" also, though not elegant or poetical, was, like thesubject, intricate and endless. It was that of a man pushing his waythrough a labyrinth of difficulties, and determined not to flinch. Theimpression on the reader was proportionate; for, whatever were themerits of the style or matter, both were new and striking; and the trainof thought that was unfolded at such length and with such strenuousness, was bold, well-sustained, and consistent with itself. 

Mr. Irving wants the continuity of thought and manner whichdistinguishes his rival--and shines by patches and in bursts. He doesnot warm or acquire increasing force or rapidity with his progress. Heis never hurried away by a deep or lofty enthusiasm, nor touches thehighest point of genius or fanaticism, but "in the very storm andwhirlwind of his passion, he acquires and begets a temperance that maygive it smoothness. " He has the self-possession and masterly executionof an experienced player or fencer, and does not seem to express hisnatural convictions, or to be engaged in a mortal struggle. This greaterease and indifference is the result of vast superiority of personalappearance, which "to be admired needs but to be seen, " and does notrequire the possessor to work himself up into a passion, or to useany violent contortions to gain attention or to keep it. These twocelebrated preachers are in almost all respects an antithesis to eachother. If Mr. Irving is an example of what can be done by the help ofexternal advantages, Dr. Chalmers is a proof of what can be done withoutthem. The one is most indebted to his mind, the other to his body. IfMr. Irving inclines one to suspect fashionable or popular religion of alittle _anthropomorphitism_, Dr. Chalmers effectually redeems it fromthat scandal. 

[Footnote A: We remember finding the volume in the orchard atBurford-bridge near Boxhill, and passing a whole and very delightfulmorning in reading it, without quitting the shade of an apple-tree. We have not been able to pay Mr. Irving's back the same compliment ofreading it at a sitting. ]

 * * * * *

THE LATE MR. HORNE TOOKE. 

Mr. Horne Tooke was one of those who may be considered as connectinglinks between a former period and the existing generation. His educationand accomplishments, nay, his political opinions, were of the last age;his mind, and the tone of his feelings were _modern_. There was a hard, dry materialism in the very texture of his understanding, varnished overby the external refinements of the old school. Mr. Tooke had greatscope of attainment, and great versatility of pursuit; but the sameshrewdness, quickness, cool self-possession, the same _literalness_ ofperception, and absence of passion and enthusiasm, characterised nearlyall he did, said, or wrote. He was without a rival (almost) in privateconversation, an expert public speaker, a keen politician, a first-rategrammarian, and the finest gentleman (to say the least) of his ownparty. He had no imagination (or he would not have scorned it!)--nodelicacy of taste, no rooted prejudices or strong attachments: hisintellect was like a bow of polished steel, from which he shotsharp-pointed poisoned arrows at his friends in private, at his enemiesin public. His mind (so to speak) had no _religion_ in it, and verylittle even of the moral qualities of genius; but he was a man of theworld, a scholar bred, and a most acute and powerful logician. He wasalso a wit, and a formidable one: yet it may be questioned whether hiswit was any thing more than an excess of his logical faculty: it did notconsist in the play of fancy, but in close and cutting combinations ofthe understanding. "The law is open to every one: _so_, " said Mr. Tooke, "_is the London Tavern_!" It is the previous deduction formed in themind, and the splenetic contempt felt for a practical sophism, that_beats about the bush for_, and at last finds the apt illustration; notthe casual, glancing coincidence of two objects, that points out anabsurdity to the understanding. So, on another occasion, when Sir AllanGardiner (who was a candidate for Westminster) had objected to Mr. Fox, that "he was always against the minister, _whether right or wrong_, " andMr. Fox, in his reply, had overlooked this slip of the tongue, Mr. Tookeimmediately seized on it, and said, "he thought it at least an equalobjection to Sir Allan, that he was always _with_ the minister, whetherright or wrong. " This retort had all the effect, and produced the samesurprise as the most brilliant display of wit or fancy: yet it was onlythe detecting a flaw in an argument, like a flaw in an indictment, by akind of legal pertinacity, or rather by a rigid and constant habit ofattending to the exact import of every word and clause in a sentence. Mr. Tooke had the mind of a lawyer; but it was applied to a vast varietyof topics and general trains of speculation. 

Mr. Horne Tooke was in private company, and among his friends, thefinished gentleman of the last age. His manners were as fascinating ashis conversation was spirited and delightful. He put one in mind of theburden of the song of "_The King's Old Courtier, and an Old Courtier ofthe King's_. " He was, however, of the opposite party. It was curious tohear our modern sciolist advancing opinions of the most radicalkind without any mixture of radical heat or violence, in a tone offashionable _nonchalance_, with elegance of gesture and attitude, andwith the most perfect good-humour. In the spirit of opposition, or inthe pride of logical superiority, he too often shocked the prejudices orwounded the self-love of those about him, while he himself displayedthe same unmoved indifference or equanimity. He said the most provokingthings with a laughing gaiety, and a polite attention, that there wasno withstanding. He threw others off their guard by thwarting theirfavourite theories, and then availed himself of the temperance ofhis own pulse to chafe them into madness. He had not one particleof deference for the opinion of others, nor of sympathy with theirfeelings; nor had he any obstinate convictions of his own to defend--

 "Lord of himself, uncumbered with a _creed_!"

He took up any topic by chance, and played with it at will, like ajuggler with his cups and balls. He generally ranged himself on thelosing side; and had rather an ill-natured delight in contradiction, andin perplexing the understandings of others, without leaving them anyclue to guide them out of the labyrinth into which he had led them. He understood, in its perfection, the great art of throwing the _onusprobandi_ on his adversary; and so could maintain almost any opinion, however absurd or fantastical, with fearless impunity. I have heard asensible and well-informed man say, that he never was in company withMr. Tooke without being delighted and surprised, or without feeling theconversation of every other person to be flat in the comparison; butthat he did not recollect having ever heard him make a remark thatstruck him as a sound and true one, or that he himself appeared to thinkso. He used to plague Fuseli by asking him after the origin of theTeutonic dialects, and Dr. Parr, by wishing to know the meaning of thecommon copulative, _Is_. Once at G----'s, he defended Pitt from a chargeof verbiage, and endeavoured to prove him superior to Fox. Some oneimitated Pitt's manner, to show that it was monotonous, and he imitatedhim also, to show that it was not. He maintained (what would he notmaintain?) that young Betty's acting was finer than John Kemble's, andrecited a passage from Douglas in the manner of each, to justify thepreference he gave to the former. The mentioning this will please theliving; it cannot hurt the dead. He argued on the same occasion and inthe same breath, that Addison's style was without modulation, andthat it was physically impossible for any one to write well, who washabitually silent in company. He sat like a king at his own table, andgave law to his guests--and to the world! No man knew better how tomanage his immediate circle, to foil or bring them out. A professedorator, beginning to address some observations to Mr. Tooke with avoluminous apology for his youth and inexperience, he said, "Speak up, young man!"--and by taking him at his word, cut short the flower oforations. Porson was the only person of whom he stood in some degree ofawe, on account of his prodigious memory and knowledge of his favouritesubject, Languages. Sheridan, it has been remarked, said more goodthings, but had not an equal flow of pleasantry. As an instance ofMr. Horne Tooke's extreme coolness and command of nerve, it has beenmentioned that once at a public dinner when he had got on the table toreturn thanks for his health being drank with a glass of wine in hishand, and when there was a great clamour and opposition for some time, after it had subsided, he pointed to the glass to shew that it was stillfull. Mr. Holcroft (the author of the _Road to Ruin_) was one of themost violent and fiery-spirited of all that motley crew of persons, whoattended the Sunday meetings at Wimbledon. One day he was so enraged bysome paradox or raillery of his host, that he indignantly rose from hischair, and said, "Mr. Tooke, you are a scoundrel!" His opponent withoutmanifesting the least emotion, replied, "Mr. Holcroft, when is it thatI am to dine with you? shall it be next Thursday?"--"If you please, Mr. Tooke!" answered the angry philosopher, and sat down again. --It wasdelightful to see him sometimes turn from these waspish or ludicrousaltercations with over-weening antagonists to some old friend andveteran politician seated at his elbow; to hear him recal the time ofWilkes and Liberty, the conversation mellowing like the wine with thesmack of age; assenting to all the old man said, bringing out hispleasant _traits_, and pampering him into childish self-importance, andsending him away thirty years younger than he came!

As a public or at least as a parliamentary speaker, Mr. Tooke did notanswer the expectations that had been conceived of him, or probablythat he had conceived of himself. It is natural for men who have felta superiority over all those whom they happen to have encountered, tofancy that this superiority will continue, and that it will extend fromindividuals to public bodies. There is no rule in the case; or rather, the probability lies the contrary way. That which constitutes theexcellence of conversation is of little use in addressing largeassemblies of people; while other qualities are required that are hardlyto be looked for in one and the same capacity. The way to move greatmasses of men is to shew that you yourself are moved. In a privatecircle, a ready repartee, a shrewd cross-question, ridicule andbanter, a caustic remark or an amusing anecdote, whatever sets offthe individual to advantage, or gratifies the curiosity or piques theself-love of the hearers, keeps attention alive, and secures the triumphof the speaker--it is a personal contest, and depends on personal andmomentary advantages. But in appealing to the public, no one triumphsbut in the triumph of some public cause, or by shewing a sympathy withthe general and predominant feelings of mankind. In a private room, asatirist, a sophist may provoke admiration by expressing his contemptfor each of his adversaries in turn, and by setting their opinion atdefiance--but when men are congregated together on a great publicquestion and for a weighty object, they must be treated with morerespect; they are touched with what affects themselves or the generalweal, not with what flatters the vanity of the speaker; they must bemoved altogether, if they are moved at all; they are impressed withgratitude for a luminous exposition of their claims or for zeal in theircause; and the lightning of generous indignation at bad men and badmeasures is followed by thunders of applause--even in the House ofCommons. But a man may sneer and cavil and puzzle and fly-blow everyquestion that comes before him--be despised and feared by others, andadmired by no one but himself. He who thinks first of himself, either inthe world or in a popular assembly, will be sure to turn attention awayfrom his claims, instead of fixing it there. He must make common causewith his hearers. To lead, he must follow the general bias. Mr. Tookedid not therefore succeed as a speaker in parliament. He stood aloof, he played antics, he exhibited his peculiar talent--while he was on hislegs, the question before the House stood still; the only point at issuerespected Mr. Tooke himself, his personal address and adroitness ofintellect. 

Were there to be no more places and pensions, because Mr. Tooke's stylewas terse and epigrammatic? Were the Opposition benches to be inflamedto an unusual pitch of "sacred vehemence, " because he gave them plainlyto understand there was not a pin to choose between Ministers andOpposition? Would the House let him remain among them, because, ifthey turned him out on account of his _black coat_, Lord Camelford hadthreatened to send his _black servant_ in his place? This was a goodjoke, but not a practical one. Would he gain the affections of thepeople out of doors, by scouting the question of reform? Would the Kingever relish the old associate of Wilkes? What interest, then, what partydid he represent? He represented nobody but himself. He was an exampleof an ingenious man, a clever talker, but he was out of his place in theHouse of Commons; where people did not come (as in his own house) toadmire or break a lance with him, but to get through the business ofthe day, and so adjourn! He wanted effect and _momentum_. Each of hissentences told very well in itself, but they did not all together makea speech. He left off where he began. His eloquence was a successionof drops, not a stream. His arguments, though subtle and new, did notaffect the main body of the question. The coldness and pettiness ofhis manner did not warm the hearts or expand the understandings of hishearers. Instead of encouraging, he checked the ardour of his friends;and teazed, instead of overpowering his antagonists. The only palpablehit he ever made, while he remained there, was the comparing his ownsituation in being rejected by the House, on account of the supposedpurity of his clerical character, to the story of the girl at theMagdalen, who was told "she must turn out and qualify. "[A] This met withlaughter and loud applause. It was a _home_ thrust, and the House (to dothem justice) are obliged to any one who, by a smart blow, relievesthem of the load of grave responsibility, which sits heavy on theirshoulders. --At the hustings, or as an election-candidate, Mr. Tooke didbetter. There was no great question to move or carry--it was an affairof political _sparring_ between himself and the other candidates. Hetook it in a very cool and leisurely manner--watched his competitorswith a wary, sarcastic eye; picked up the mistakes or absurdities thatfell from them, and retorted them on their heads; told a story to themob; and smiled and took snuff with a gentlemanly and becoming air, asif he was already seated in the House. But a Court of Law was the placewhere Mr. Tooke made the best figure in public. He might assuredly besaid to be "native and endued unto that element. " He had here to standmerely on the defensive--not to advance himself, but to block up theway--not to impress others, but to be himself impenetrable. All hewanted was _negative success_; and to this no one was better qualifiedto aspire. Cross purposes, _moot-points_, pleas, demurrers, flaws inthe indictment, double meanings, cases, inconsequentialities, these werethe play-things, the darlings of Mr. Tooke's mind; and with these hebaffled the Judge, dumb-founded the Counsel, and outwitted the Jury. Thereport of his trial before Lord Kenyon is a master-piece of acuteness, dexterity, modest assurance, and legal effect. It is much like hisexamination before the Commissioners of the Income-Tax--nothing couldbe got out of him in either case! Mr. Tooke, as a political leader, belonged to the class of _trimmers_; or at most, it was his delight tomake mischief and spoil sport. He would rather be _against_ himself than_for_ any body else. He was neither a bold nor a safe leader. He enticedothers into scrapes, and kept out of them himself. Provided he couldsay a clever or a spiteful thing, he did not care whether it served orinjured the cause. Spleen or the exercise of intellectual power was themotive of his patriotism, rather than principle. He would talk treasonwith a saving clause; and instil sedition into the public mind, throughthe medium of a third (who was to be the responsible) party. He made SirFrancis Burdett his spokesman in the House and to the country, oftenventing his chagrin or singularity of sentiment at the expense of hisfriend; but what in the first was trick or reckless vanity, was in thelast plain downright English honesty and singleness of heart. In thecase of the State Trials, in 1794, Mr. Tooke rather compromised hisfriends to screen himself. He kept repeating that "others might havegone on to Windsor, but he had stopped at Hounslow, " as if to go farthermight have been dangerous and unwarrantable. It was not the question howfar he or others had actually gone, but how far they had a right to go, according to the law. His conduct was not the limit of the law, nor didtreasonable excess begin where prudence or principle taught him to stopshort, though this was the oblique inference liable to be drawn from hisline of defence. Mr. Tooke was uneasy and apprehensive for the issue ofthe Government-prosecution while in confinement, and said, in speakingof it to a friend, with a morbid feeling and an emphasis quite unusualwith him--"They want our blood--blood--blood!" It was somewhatridiculous to implicate Mr. Tooke in a charge of High Treason (andindeed the whole charge was built on the mistaken purport ofan intercepted letter relating to an engagement for a privatedinnerparty)--his politics were not at all revolutionary. In thisrespect he was a mere pettifogger, full of chicane, and captiousobjections, and unmeaning discontent; but he had none of the grandwhirling movements of the French Revolution, nor of the tumultuous glowof rebellion in his head or in his heart. His politics were cast ina different mould, or confined to the party distinctions and court-intrigues and pittances of popular right, that made a noise in the timeof Junius and Wilkes--and even if his understanding had gone along withmore modern and unqualified principles, his cautious temper would haveprevented his risking them in practice. Horne Tooke (though not of thesame side in politics) had much of the tone of mind and more of thespirit of moral feeling of the celebrated philosopher of Malmesbury. Thenarrow scale and fine-drawn distinctions of his political creed madehis conversation on such subjects infinitely amusing, particularlywhen contrasted with that of persons who dealt in the sounding_common-places_ and sweeping clauses of abstract politics. He knew allthe cabals and jealousies and heart-burnings in the beginning of thelate reign, the changes of administration and the springs of secretinfluence, the characters of the leading men, Wilkes, Barrè, Dunning, Chatham, Burke, the Marquis of Rockingham, North, Shelburne, Fox, Pitt, and all the vacillating events of the American war:--these formed acurious back-ground to the more prominent figures that occupied thepresent time, and Mr. Tooke worked out the minute details and touched inthe evanescent _traits_ with the pencil of a master. His conversationresembled a political _camera obscura_--as quaint as it was magical. Tosome pompous pretenders he might seem to narrate _fabellas aniles_ (oldwives' fables)--but not to those who study human nature, and wish toknow the materials of which it is composed. Mr. Tooke's faculties mightappear to have ripened and acquired a finer flavour with age. In aformer period of his life he was hardly the man he was latterly; or elsehe had greater abilities to contend against. He no where makes so poor afigure as in his controversy with Junius. He has evidently the best ofthe argument, yet he makes nothing out of it. He tells a long storyabout himself, without wit or point in it; and whines and whimpers likea school-boy under the rod of his master. Junius, after bringing a hastycharge against him, has not a single fact to adduce in support of it;but keeps his ground and fairly beats his adversary out of the field bythe mere force of style. One would think that "Parson Horne" knew whoJunius was, and was afraid of him. "Under him his genius is" quite"rebuked. " With the best cause to defend, he comes off more shabbilyfrom the contest than any other person in the LETTERS, except SirWilliam Draper, who is the very hero of defeat. 

The great thing which Mr. Horne Tooke has done, and which he has leftbehind him to posterity, is his work on Grammar, oddly enough entitledTHE DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. Many people have taken it up as a descriptionof a game--others supposing it to be a novel. It is, in truth, one ofthe few philosophical works on Grammar that were ever written. Theessence of it (and, indeed, almost all that is really valuable in it) iscontained in his _Letter to Dunning_, published about the year 1775. Mr. Tooke's work is truly elementary. Dr. Lowth described Mr. Harris's_Hermes_ as "the finest specimen of analysis since the days ofAristotle"--a work in which there is no analysis at all, for analysisconsists in reducing things to their principles, and not in endlessdetails and subdivisions. Mr. Harris multiplies distinctions, andconfounds his readers. Mr. Tooke clears away the rubbish of school-boytechnicalities, and strikes at the root of his subject. In accomplishinghis arduous task, he was, perhaps, aided not more by the strength andresources of his mind than by its limits and defects. There is a web ofold associations wound round language, that is a kind of veil over itsnatural features; and custom puts on the mask of ignorance. But thisveil, this mask the author of _The Diversions of Purley_ threw aside andpenetrated to the naked truth of things, by the literal, matter-of-fact, unimaginative nature of his understanding, and because he was notsubject to prejudices or illusions of any kind. Words may be said to"bear a charmed life, that must not yield to one of woman born"--withwomanish weaknesses and confused apprehensions. But this charm wasbroken in the case of Mr. Tooke, whose mind was the reverse ofeffeminate--hard, unbending, concrete, physical, half-savage--and whosaw language stripped of the clothing of habit or sentiment, or thedisguises of doting pedantry, naked in its cradle, and in its primitivestate. Our author tells us that he found his discovery on Grammar amonga number of papers on other subjects, which he had thrown aside andforgotten. Is this an idle boast? Or had he made other discoveriesof equal importance, which he did not think it worth his while tocommunicate to the world, but chose to die the churl of knowledge? Thewhole of his reasoning turns upon shewing that the Conjunction _That_is the pronoun _That_, which is itself the participle of a verb, andin like manner that all the other mystical and hitherto unintelligibleparts of speech are derived from the only two intelligible ones, theVerb and Noun. "I affirm _that_ gold is yellow, " that is, "I affirm_that_ fact, or that proposition, viz. Gold is yellow. " The secret ofthe Conjunction on which so many fine heads had split, on which so manylearned definitions were thrown away, as if it was its peculiar provinceand inborn virtue to announce oracles and formal propositions, andnothing else, like a Doctor of Laws, is here at once accounted for, inasmuch as it is clearly nothing but another part of speech, thepronoun, _that_, with a third part of speech, the noun, _thing_, understood. This is getting at a solution of words into their componentparts, not glossing over one difficulty by bringing another to parallelit, nor like saying with Mr. Harris, when it is asked, "what aConjunction is?" that there are conjunctions copulative, conjunctionsdisjunctive, and as many other frivolous varieties of the species as anyone chooses to hunt out "with laborious foolery. " Our author hitupon his parent-discovery in the course of a law-suit, while he wasexamining, with jealous watchfulness, the meaning of words to preventbeing entrapped by them; or rather, this circumstance might itself betraced to the habit of satisfying his own mind as to the precise sensein which he himself made use of words. Mr. Tooke, though he had noobjection to puzzle others, was mightily averse to being puzzled or_mystified_ himself. All was, to his determined mind, either completelight or complete darkness. There was no hazy, doubtful _chiaro-scuro_in his understanding. He wanted something "palpable to feeling as tosight. " "What, " he would say to himself, "do I mean when I use theconjunction _that?_ Is it an anomaly, a class by itself, a word sealedagainst all inquisitive attempts? Is it enough to call it a _copula_, a bridge, a link, a word connecting sentences? That is undoubtedly itsuse, but what is its origin?" Mr. Tooke thought he had answered thisquestion satisfactorily, and loosened the Gordian knot of grammarians, "familiar as his garter, " when he said, "It is the common pronoun, adjective, or participle, _that_, with the noun, _thing or proposition_, implied, and the particular example following it. " So he thought, andso every reader has thought since, with the exception of teachers andwriters upon grammar. Mr. Windham, indeed, who was a sophist, but not alogician, charged him with having found "a mare's-nest;" but it is notto be doubted that Mr. Tooke's etymologies will stand the test, andlast longer than Mr. Windham's ingenious derivation of the practice ofbull-baiting from the principles of humanity!

Having thus laid the corner-stone, he proceeded to apply the same methodof reasoning to other undecyphered and impracticable terms. Thus theword, _And_, he explained clearly enough to be the verb _add_, or acorruption of the old Saxon, _anandad_. "Two _and_ two make four, " thatis, "two _add_ two make four. " Mr. Tooke, in fact, treated words asthe chemists do substances; he separated those which are compounded ofothers from those which are not decompoundable. He did not explain theobscure by the more obscure, but the difficult by the plain, the complexby the simple. This alone is proceeding upon the true principles ofscience: the rest is pedantry and _petit-maitreship. _ Our philosophicalwriter distinguished all words into _names of things_, and directionsadded for joining them together, or originally into _nouns_ and _verbs_. It is a pity that he has left this matter short, by omitting to definethe Verb. After enumerating sixteen different definitions (all of whichhe dismisses with scorn and contumely) at the end of two quarto volumes, he refers the reader for the true solution to a third volume, whichhe did not live to finish. This extraordinary man was in the habitof tantalizing his guests on a Sunday afternoon with sundry abstrusespeculations, and putting them off to the following week for asatisfaction of their doubts; but why should he treat posterity in thesame scurvy manner, or leave the world without quitting scores with it?I question whether Mr. Tooke was himself in possession of his pretended_nostrum_, and whether, after trying hard at a definition of the verb asa distinct part of speech, as a terrier-dog mumbles a hedge-hog, he didnot find it too much for him, and leave it to its fate. It is also apity that Mr. Tooke spun out his great work with prolix and dogmaticaldissertations on irrelevant matters; and after denying the oldmetaphysical theories of language, should attempt to found ametaphysical theory of his own on the nature and mechanism of language. The nature of words, he contended (it was the basis of his whole system)had no connection with the nature of things or the objects of thought;yet he afterwards strove to limit the nature of things and of the humanmind by the technical structure of language. Thus he endeavours to shewthat there are no abstract ideas, by enumerating two thousand instancesof words, expressing abstract ideas, that are the past participles ofcertain verbs. It is difficult to know what he means by this. On theother hand, he maintains that "a complex idea is as great an absurdityas a complex star, " and that words only are complex. He also makes out atriumphant list of metaphysical and moral non-entities, proved to beso on the pure principle that the names of these non-entities areparticiples, not nouns, or names of things. That is strange in so closea reasoner and in one who maintained that all language was a masqueradeof words, and that the class to which they grammatically belonged hadnothing to do with the class of ideas they represented. 

It is now above twenty years since the two quarto volumes of the_Diversions of Purley_ were published, and fifty since the same theorywas promulgated in the celebrated _Letter to Dunning_. Yet it is acurious example of the _Spirit of the Age_ that Mr. Lindley Murray'sGrammar (a work out of which Mr. C---- helps himself to English, and Mr. M---- to style[B]) has proceeded to the thirtieth edition in completedefiance of all the facts and arguments there laid down. He defines anoun to be the name of a thing. Is quackery a thing, _i. E. _ a substance?He defines a verb to be a word signifying _to be, to do, or to suffer_. Are being, action, suffering verbs? He defines an adjective to be thename of a quality. Are not _wooden, golden, substantial_ adjectives? Hemaintains that there are six cases in English nouns [C], that is, sixvarious terminations without any change of termination at all, and thatEnglish verbs have all the moods, tenses, and persons that the Latinones have. This is an extraordinary stretch of blindness and obstinacy. He very formally translates the Latin Grammar into English (as so manyhad done before him) and fancies he has written an English Grammar; anddivines applaud, and schoolmasters usher him into the polite world, andEnglish scholars carry on the jest, while Horne Tooke's genuineanatomy of our native tongue is laid on the shelf. Can it be that ourpoliticians smell a rat in the Member for Old Sarum? That our clergydo not relish Parson Horne? That the world at large are alarmed atacuteness and originality greater than their own? What has all thisto do with the formation of the English language or with the firstconditions and necessary foundation of speech itself? Is there nothingbeyond the reach of prejudice and party-spirit? It seems in this, as inso many other instances, as if there was a patent for absurdity in thenatural bias of the human mind, and that folly should be _stereotyped_!

[Footnote A: "They receive him like a virgin at the Magdalen--_Go thouand do likewise_. "--JUNIUS. ]

[Footnote B: This work is not without merit in the details and examplesof English construction. But its fault even in that part is that heconfounds the genius of the English language, making it periphrastic andliteral, instead of elliptical and idiomatic. According to Mr. Murray, hardly any of our best writers ever wrote a word of English. ]

[Footnote C: At least, with only one change in the genitive case, ]

 * * * * *

SIR WALTER SCOTT

Sir Walter Scott is undoubtedly the most popular writer of the age--the"lord of the ascendant" for the time being. He is just half what thehuman intellect is capable of being: if you take the universe, anddivide it into two parts, he knows all that it _has been_; all thatit _is to be_ is nothing to him. His is a mind brooding overantiquity--scorning "the present ignorant time. " He is "laudatortemporis acti"--a "_prophesier_ of things past. " The old world is to hima crowded map; the new one a dull, hateful blank. He dotes on all well-authenticated superstitions; he shudders at the shadow of innovation. His retentiveness of memory, his accumulated weight of interestedprejudice or romantic association have overlaid his other faculties. Thecells of his memory are vast, various, full even to bursting with lifeand motion; his speculative understanding is empty, flaccid, poor, anddead. His mind receives and treasures up every thing brought to it bytradition or custom--it does not project itself beyond this into theworld unknown, but mechanically shrinks back as from the edge of aprejudice. The land of pure reason is to his apprehension like _VanDieman's Land_;--barren, miserable, distant, a place of exile, thedreary abode of savages, convicts, and adventurers. Sir Walter wouldmake a bad hand of a description of the _Millennium_, unless he couldlay the scene in Scotland five hundred years ago, and then he wouldwant facts and worm-eaten parchments to support his drooping style. Our historical novelist firmly thinks that nothing _is_ but what _hasbeen_--that the moral world stands still, as the material one wassupposed to do of old--and that we can never get beyond the point wherewe actually are without utter destruction, though every thing changesand will change from what it was three hundred years ago to what it isnow, --from what it is now to all that the bigoted admirer of the goodold times most dreads and hates!

It is long since we read, and long since we thought of our author'spoetry. It would probably have gone out of date with the immediateoccasion, even if he himself had not contrived to banish it from ourrecollection. It is not to be denied that it had great merit, both ofan obvious and intrinsic kind. It abounded in vivid descriptions, inspirited action, in smooth and flowing versification. But it wanted_character_. It was poetry "of no mark or likelihood. " It slid out ofthe mind as soon as read, like a river; and would have been forgotten, but that the public curiosity was fed with ever-new supplies from thesame teeming liquid source. It is not every man that can write sixquarto volumes in verse, that are caught up with avidity, even byfastidious judges. But what a difference between _their_ popularity andthat of the Scotch Novels! It is true, the public read and admired the_Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion_, and so on, and each individual wascontented to read and admire because the public did so: but withregard to the prose-works of the same (supposed) author, it is quite_another-guess_ sort of thing. Here every one stands forward to applaudon his own ground, would be thought to go before the public opinion, is eager to extol his favourite characters louder, to understand thembetter than every body else, and has his own scale of comparativeexcellence for each work, supported by nothing but his own enthusiasticand fearless convictions. It must be amusing to the _Author of Waverley_to hear his readers and admirers (and are not these the same thing?[A])quarrelling which of his novels is the best, opposing character tocharacter, quoting passage against passage, striving to surpass eachother in the extravagance of their encomiums, and yet unable to settlethe precedence, or to do the author's writings justice--so various, so equal, so transcendant are their merits! His volumes of poetry werereceived as fashionable and well-dressed acquaintances: we are readyto tear the others in pieces as old friends. There was somethingmeretricious in Sir Walter's ballad-rhymes; and like those who keepopera _figurantes_, we were willing to have our admiration shared, andour taste confirmed by the town: but the Novels are like the betrothedof our hearts, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and we arejealous that any one should be as much delighted or as thoroughlyacquainted with their beauties as ourselves. For which of his poeticalheroines would the reader break a lance so soon as for Jeanie Deans?What _Lady of the Lake_ can compare with the beautiful Rebecca? Webelieve the late Mr. John Scott went to his death-bed (though a painfuland premature one) with some degree of satisfaction, inasmuch as he hadpenned the most elaborate panegyric on the _Scotch Novels_ that had asyet appeared!--The _Epics_ are not poems, so much as metrical romances. There is a glittering veil of verse thrown over the features of natureand of old romance. The deep incisions into character are "skinned andfilmed over"--the details are lost or shaped into flimsy and insipiddecorum; and the truth of feeling and of circumstance is translated intoa tinkling sound, a tinsel _common-place_. It must be owned, there is apower in true poetry that lifts the mind from the ground of reality toa higher sphere, that penetrates the inert, scattered, incoherentmaterials presented to it, and by a force and inspiration of its own, melts and moulds them into sublimity and beauty. But Sir Walter (wecontend, under correction) has not this creative impulse, this plasticpower, this capacity of reacting on his first impressions. He is alearned, a literal, a _matter-of-fact_ expounder of truth or fable:[B]he does not soar above and look down upon his subject, imparting his ownlofty views and feelings to his descriptions of nature--he reliesupon it, is raised by it, is one with it, or he is nothing. A poet isessentially a _maker_; that is, he must atone for what he loses inindividuality and local resemblance by the energies and resources of hisown mind. The writer of whom we speak is deficient in these last. He haseither not the faculty or not the will to impregnate his subject by aneffort of pure invention. The execution also is much upon a par withthe more ephemeral effusions of the press. It is light, agreeable, effeminate, diffuse. Sir Walter's Muse is a _Modern Antique_. Thesmooth, glossy texture of his verse contrasts happily with the quaint, uncouth, rugged materials of which it is composed; and takes away anyappearance of heaviness or harshness from the body of local traditionsand obsolete costume. We see grim knights and iron armour; but then theyare woven in silk with a careless, delicate hand, and have the softnessof flowers. The poet's figures might be compared to old [C] tapestriescopied on the finest velvet:--they are not like Raphael's _Cartoons_, but they are very like Mr. Westall's drawings, which accompany, and areintended to illustrate them. This facility and grace of execution is themore remarkable, as a story goes that not long before the appearance ofthe _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ Sir Walter (then Mr. ) Scott, having, inthe company of a friend, to cross the Frith of Forth in a ferry-boat, they proposed to beguile the time by writing a number of verses on agiven subject, and that at the end of an hour's hard study, they foundthey had produced only six lines between them. "It is plain, " said theunconscious author to his fellow-labourer, "that you and I need neverthink of getting our living by writing poetry!" In a year or so afterthis, he set to work, and poured out quarto upon quarto, as if they hadbeen drops of water. As to the rest, and compared with true and greatpoets, our Scottish Minstrel is but "a metre ballad-monger. " We wouldrather have written one song of Burns, or a single passage in LordByron's _Heaven and Earth_, or one of Wordsworth's "fancies andgood-nights, " than all his epics. What is he to Spenser, over whoseimmortal, ever-amiable verse beauty hovers and trembles, and who hasshed the purple light of Fancy, from his ambrosial wings, over allnature? What is there of the might of Milton, whose head is canopied inthe blue serene, and who takes us to sit with him there? What is there(in his ambling rhymes) of the deep pathos of Chaucer? Or of theo'er-informing power of Shakespear, whose eye, watching alike theminutest traces of characters and the strongest movements of passion, "glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, " and with thelambent flame of genius, playing round each object, lights up theuniverse in a robe of its own radiance? Sir Walter has no voluntarypower of combination: all his associations (as we said before) are thoseof habit or of tradition. He is a mere narrative and descriptive poet, garrulous of the old time. The definition of his poetry is a pleasingsuperficiality. 

Not so of his NOVELS AND ROMANCES. There we turn over a newleaf--another and the same--the same in matter, but in form, in powerhow different! The author of Waverley has got rid of the tagging ofrhymes, the eking out of syllables, the supplying of epithets, thecolours of style, the grouping of his characters, and the regular marchof events, and comes to the point at once, and strikes at the heartof his subject, without dismay and without disguise. His poetry was alady's waiting-maid, dressed out in cast-off finery: his prose is abeautiful, rustic nymph, that, like Dorothea in Don Quixote, when she issurprised with dishevelled tresses bathing her naked feet in the brook, looks round her, abashed at the admiration her charms have excited! Thegrand secret of the author's success in these latter productions is thathe has completely got rid of the trammels of authorship; and torn off atone rent (as Lord Peter got rid of so many yards of lace in the _Tale ofa Tub_) all the ornaments of fine writing and worn-out sentimentality. All is fresh, as from the hand of nature: by going a century or two backand laying the scene in a remote and uncultivated district, all becomesnew and startling in the present advanced period. --Highland manners, characters, scenery, superstitions, Northern dialect and costume, thewars, the religion, and politics of the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies, give a charming and wholesome relief to the fastidiousrefinement and "over-laboured lassitude" of modern readers, like theeffect of plunging a nervous valetudinarian into a cold-bath. The_Scotch Novels_, for this reason, are not so much admired in Scotland asin England. The contrast, the transition is less striking. From the topof the Calton-Hill, the inhabitants of "Auld Reekie" can descry, orfancy they descry the peaks of Ben Lomond and the waving outline of RobRoy's country: we who live at the southern extremity of the island canonly catch a glimpse of the billowy scene in the descriptions of theAuthor of Waverley. The mountain air is most bracing to our languidnerves, and it is brought us in ship-loads from the neighbourhoodof Abbot's-Ford. There is another circumstance to be taken into theaccount. In Edinburgh there is a little opposition and something ofthe spirit of cabal between the partisans of works proceeding from Mr. Constable's and Mr. Blackwood's shops. Mr. Constable gives the highestprices; but being the Whig bookseller, it is grudged that he shoulddo so. An attempt is therefore made to transfer a certain share ofpopularity to the second-rate Scotch novels, "the embryo fry, the littleairy of _ricketty_ children, " issuing through Mr. Blackwood's shop-door. This operates a diversion, which does not affect us here. The Author ofWaverley wears the palm of legendary lore alone. Sir Walter may, indeed, surfeit us: his imitators make us sick! It may be asked, it has beenasked, "Have we no materials for romance in England? Must we look toScotland for a supply of whatever is original and striking in thiskind?" And we answer--"Yes!" Every foot of soil is with us worked up:nearly every movement of the social machine is calculable. We have noroom left for violent catastrophes; for grotesque quaintnesses; forwizard spells. The last skirts of ignorance and barbarism are seenhovering (in Sir Walter's pages) over the Border. We have, it is true, gipsies in this country as well as at the Cairn of Derncleugh: but theylive under clipped hedges, and repose in camp-beds, and do not perchon crags, like eagles, or take shelter, like sea-mews, in basalticsubterranean caverns. We have heaths with rude heaps of stones uponthem: but no existing superstition converts them into the Geese ofMicklestane-Moor, or sees a Black Dwarf groping among them. We havesects in religion: but the only thing sublime or ridiculous in that wayis Mr. Irving, the Caledonian preacher, who "comes like a satyr staringfrom the woods, and yet speaks like an orator!" We had a Parson Adamsnot quite a hundred years ago--a Sir Roger de Coverley rather more thana hundred! Even Sir Walter is ordinarily obliged to pitch his angle(strong as the hook is) a hundred miles to the North of the "ModernAthens" or a century back. His last work, [A] indeed, is mystical, is romantic in nothing but the title-page. Instead of "aholy-water sprinkle dipped in dew, " he has given us a fashionablewatering-place--and we see what he has made of it. He must not come downfrom his fastnesses in traditional barbarism and native rusticity: thelevel, the littleness, the frippery of modern civilization will undo himas it has undone us!

Sir Walter has found out (oh, rare discovery) that facts are better thanfiction; that there is no romance like the romance of real life; andthat if we can but arrive at what men feel, do, and say in striking andsingular situations, the result will be "more lively, audible, and fullof vent, " than the fine-spun cobwebs of the brain. With reverence be itspoken, he is like the man who having to imitate the squeaking of a pigupon the stage, brought the animal under his coat with him. Our authorhas conjured up the actual people he has to deal with, or as much as hecould get of them, in "their habits as they lived. " He has ransacked oldchronicles, and poured the contents upon his page; he has squeezed outmusty records; he has consulted wayfaring pilgrims, bed-rid sibyls; hehas invoked the spirits of the air; he has conversed with the living andthe dead, and let them tell their story their own way; and by borrowingof others, has enriched his own genius with everlasting variety, truth, and freedom. He has taken his materials from the original, authenticsources, in large concrete masses, and not tampered with or too muchfrittered them away. He is only the amanuensis of truth and history. Itis impossible to say how fine his writings in consequence are, unless wecould describe how fine nature is. All that portion of the history ofhis country that he has touched upon (wide as the scope is) the manners, the personages, the events, the scenery, lives over again in hisvolumes. Nothing is wanting--the illusion is complete. There is ahurtling in the air, a trampling of feet upon the ground, as theseperfect representations of human character or fanciful belief comethronging back upon our imaginations. We will merely recall a few ofthe subjects of his pencil to the reader's recollection; for nothing wecould add, by way of note or commendation, could make the impressionmore vivid. 

There is (first and foremost, because the earliest of our acquaintance)the Baron of Bradwardine, stately, kind-hearted, whimsical, pedantic;and Flora MacIvor (whom even _we_ forgive for her Jacobitism), thefierce Vich Ian Vohr, and Evan Dhu, constant in death, and DavieGellatly roasting his eggs or turning his rhymes with restlessvolubility, and the two stag-hounds that met Waverley, as fine as everTitian painted, or Paul Veronese:--then there is old Balfour of Burley, brandishing his sword and his Bible with fire-eyed fury, trying afall with the insolent, gigantic Bothwell at the 'Change-house, andvanquishing him at the noble battle of Loudonhill; there is Bothwellhimself, drawn to the life, proud, cruel, selfish, profligate, but withthe love-letters of the gentle Alice (written thirty years before), andhis verses to her memory, found in his pocket after his death: in thesame volume of _Old Mortality_ is that lone figure, like a figure inScripture, of the woman sitting on the stone at the turning to themountain, to warn Burley that there is a lion in his path; andthe fawning Claverhouse, beautiful as a panther, smooth-looking, blood-spotted; and the fanatics, Macbriar and Mucklewrath, crazed withzeal and sufferings; and the inflexible Morton, and the faithful Edith, who refused to "give her hand to another while her heart was with herlover in the deep and dead sea. " And in _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_ wehave Effie Deans (that sweet, faded flower) and Jeanie, her more thansister, and old David Deans, the patriarch of St. Leonard's Crags, andButler, and Dumbiedikes, eloquent in his silence, and Mr. BartolineSaddle-tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous swinging in thewind, and Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her ghastlymother. --Again, there is Meg Merrilies, standing on her rock, stretchedon her bier with "her head to the east, " and Dirk Hatterick (equal toShakespear's Master Barnardine), and Glossin, the soul of an attorney, and Dandy Dinmont, with his terrier-pack and his pony Dumple, and thefiery Colonel Mannering, and the modish old counsellor Pleydell, andDominie Sampson, [D] and Rob Roy (like the eagle in his eyry), andBaillie Nicol Jarvie, and the inimitable Major Galbraith, and RashleighOsbaldistone, and Die Vernon, the best of secret-keepers; and in the_Antiquary_, the ingenious and abstruse Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, and theold beadsman Edie Ochiltree, and that preternatural figure of old EdithElspeith, a living shadow, in whom the lamp of life had been longextinguished, had it not been fed by remorse and "thick-coming"recollections; and that striking picture of the effects of feudaltyranny and fiendish pride, the unhappy Earl of Glenallan; and the BlackDwarf, and his friend Habbie of the Heughfoot (the cheerful hunter), andhis cousin Grace Armstrong, fresh and laughing like the morning; and the_Children of the Mint_, and the baying of the blood-hound that trackstheir steps at a distance (the hollow echoes are in our ears now), andAmy and her hapless love, and the villain Varney, and the deep voice ofGeorge of Douglas--and the immoveable Balafre, and Master Oliver theBarber in Quentin Durward--and the quaint humour of the Fortunes ofNigel, and the comic spirit of Peveril of the Peak--and the fine oldEnglish romance of Ivanhoe. What a list of names! What a host ofassociations! What a thing is human life! What a power is that ofgenius! What a world of thought and feeling is thus rescued fromoblivion! How many hours of heartfelt satisfaction has our author givento the gay and thoughtless! How many sad hearts has he soothed in painand solitude! It is no wonder that the public repay with lengthenedapplause and gratitude the pleasure they receive. He writes as fast asthey can read, and he does not write himself down. He is always in thepublic eye, and we do not tire of him. His worst is better than anyother person's best. His _backgrounds_ (and his later works are littleelse but back-grounds capitally made out) are more attractive than theprincipal figures and most complicated actions of other writers. Hisworks (taken together) are almost like a new edition of human nature. This is indeed to be an author!

The political bearing of the _Scotch Novels_ has been a considerablerecommendation to them. They are a relief to the mind, rarefied as ithas been with modern philosophy, and heated with ultra-radicalism. At atime also, when we bid fair to revive the principles of the Stuarts, it is interesting to bring us acquainted with their persons andmisfortunes. The candour of Sir Walter's historic pen levels ourbristling prejudices on this score, and sees fair play betweenRoundheads and Cavaliers, between Protestant and Papist. He is a writerreconciling all the diversities of human nature to the reader. He doesnot enter into the distinctions of hostile sects or parties, but treatsof the strength or the infirmity of the human mind, of the virtues orvices of the human breast, as they are to be found blended in the wholerace of mankind. Nothing can shew more handsomely or be more gallantlyexecuted. There was a talk at one time that our author was about to takeGuy Faux for the subject of one of his novels, in order to put a moreliberal and humane construction on the Gunpowder Plot than our "NoPopery" prejudices have hitherto permitted. Sir Walter is a professed_clarifier_ of the age from the vulgar and still lurking old-Englishantipathy to Popery and Slavery. Through some odd process of _servile_logic, it should seem, that in restoring the claims of the Stuarts bythe courtesy of romance, the House of Brunswick are more firmly seatedin point of fact, and the Bourbons, by collateral reasoning, becomelegitimate! In any other point of view, we cannot possibly conceivehow Sir Walter imagines "he has done something to revive the decliningspirit of loyalty" by these novels. His loyalty is founded on _would-be_treason: he props the actual throne by the shadow of rebellion. Doeshe really think of making us enamoured of the "good old times" by thefaithful and harrowing portraits he has drawn of them? Would he carry usback to the early stages of barbarism, of clanship, of the feudal systemas "a consummation devoutly to be wished?" Is he infatuated enough, or does he so dote and drivel over his own slothful and self-willedprejudices, as to believe that he will make a single convert to thebeauty of Legitimacy, that is, of lawless power and savage bigotry, whenhe himself is obliged to apologise for the horrors he describes, andeven render his descriptions credible to the modern reader by referringto the authentic history of these delectable times?[E] He is indeedso besotted as to the moral of his own story, that he has even theblindness to go out of his way to have a fling at _flints_ and _dungs_(the contemptible ingredients, as he would have us believe, of a modernrabble) at the very time when he is describing a mob of the twelfthcentury--a mob (one should think) after the writer's own heart, withoutone particle of modern philosophy or revolutionary politics in theircomposition, who were to a man, to a hair, just what priests, and kings, and nobles _let_ them be, and who were collected to witness (a spectacleproper to the times) the burning of the lovely Rebecca at a stake fora sorceress, because she was a Jewess, beautiful and innocent, and theconsequent victim of insane bigotry and unbridled profligacy. And it isat this moment (when the heart is kindled and bursting with indignationat the revolting abuses of self-constituted power) that Sir Walter_stops the press_ to have a sneer at the people, and to put a spoke (ashe thinks) in the wheel of upstart innovation! This is what he "callsbacking his friends"--it is thus he administers charms and philtres toour love of Legitimacy, makes us conceive a horror of all reform, civil, political, or religious, and would fain put down the _Spirit of theAge_. The author of Waverley might just as well get up and make a speechat a dinner at Edinburgh, abusing Mr. Mac-Adam for his improvements inthe roads, on the ground that they were nearly _impassable_ in manyplaces "sixty years since;" or object to Mr. Peel's _Police-Bill_, byinsisting that Hounslow-Heath was formerly a scene of greater interestand terror to highwaymen and travellers, and cut a greater figure inthe Newgate-Calendar than it does at present. --Oh! Wickliff, Luther, Hampden, Sidney, Somers, mistaken Whigs, and thoughtless Reformers inreligion and politics, and all ye, whether poets or philosophers, heroesor sages, inventors of arts or sciences, patriots, benefactors of thehuman race, enlighteners and civilisers of the world, who have (so far)reduced opinion to reason, and power to law, who are the cause that weno longer burn witches and heretics at slow fires, that the thumb-screwsare no longer applied by ghastly, smiling judges, to extort confessionof imputed crimes from sufferers for conscience sake; that men are nolonger strung up like acorns on trees without judge or jury, or huntedlike wild beasts through thickets and glens, who have abated the crueltyof priests, the pride of nobles, the divinity of kings in former times;to whom we owe it, that we no longer wear round our necks the collar ofGurth the swineherd, and of Wamba the jester; that the castles of greatlords are no longer the dens of banditti, from whence they issue withfire and sword, to lay waste the land; that we no longer expire inloathsome dungeons without knowing the cause, or have our right handsstruck off for raising them in self-defence against wanton insult; thatwe can sleep without fear of being burnt in our beds, or travel withoutmaking our wills; that no Amy Robsarts are thrown down trap-doors byRichard Varneys with impunity; that no Red Reiver of Westburn-Flat setsfire to peaceful cottages; that no Claverhouse signs cold-bloodeddeath-warrants in sport; that we have no Tristan the Hermit, or Petit-Andrè, crawling near us, like spiders, and making our flesh creep, andour hearts sicken within us at every moment of our lives--ye who haveproduced this change in the face of nature and society, return to earthonce more, and beg pardon of Sir Walter and his patrons, who sigh at notbeing able to undo all that you have done! Leaving this question, thereare two other remarks which we wished to make on the Novels. The onewas, to express our admiration at the good-nature of the mottos, inwhich the author has taken occasion to remember and quote almost everyliving author (whether illustrious or obscure) but himself--an indirectargument in favour of the general opinion as to the source from whichthey spring--and the other was, to hint our astonishment at theinnumerable and incessant in-stances of bad and slovenly English inthem, more, we believe, than in any other works now printed. We shouldthink the writer could not possibly read the manuscript after he hasonce written it, or overlook the press. 

If there were a writer, who "born for the universe"--

"-----------Narrow'd his mind, And to party gave up what was meant formankind--"

who, from the height of his genius looking abroad into nature, andscanning the recesses of the human heart, "winked and shut hisapprehension up" to every thought or purpose that tended to the futuregood of mankind--who, raised by affluence, the reward of successfulindustry, and by the voice of fame above the want of any but the mosthonourable patronage, stooped to the unworthy arts of adulation, andabetted the views of the great with the pettifogging feelings of themeanest dependant on office--who, having secured the admiration of thepublic (with the probable reversion of immortality), shewed no respectfor himself, for that genius that had raised him to distinction, forthat nature which he trampled under foot--who, amiable, frank, friendly, manly in private life, was seized with the dotage of age and the furyof a woman, the instant politics were concerned--who reserved all hiscandour and comprehensiveness of view for history, and vented hislittleness, pique, resentment, bigotry, and intolerance on hiscontemporaries--who took the wrong side, and defended it by unfairmeans--who, the moment his own interest or the prejudices of othersinterfered, seemed to forget all that was due to the pride of intellect, to the sense of manhood--who, praised, admired by men of all partiesalike, repaid the public liberality by striking a secret and envenomedblow at the reputation of every one who was not the ready tool ofpower--who strewed the slime of rankling malice and mercenary scornover the bud and promise of genius, because it was not fostered in thehot-bed of corruption, or warped by the trammels of servility--whosupported the worst abuses of authority in the worst spirit--who joineda gang of desperadoes to spread calumny, contempt, infamy, wherever theywere merited by honesty or talent on a different side--who officiouslyundertook to decide public questions by private insinuations, to propthe throne by nicknames, and the altar by lies--who being (by commonconsent) the finest, the most humane and accomplished writer of his age, associated himself with and encouraged the lowest panders of a venalpress; deluging, nauseating the public mind with the offal and garbageof Billingsgate abuse and vulgar _slang_; shewing no remorse, norelenting or compassion towards the victims of this nefarious andorganized system of party-proscription, carried on under the mask ofliterary criticism and fair discussion, insulting the misfortunes ofsome, and trampling on the early grave of others--

 "Who would not grieve if such a man there be? Who would not weep if Atticus were he?"

But we believe there is no other age or country of the world (but ours), in which such genius could have been so degraded!

[Footnote A: No! For we met with a young lady who kept a circulatinglibrary and a milliner's-shop, in a watering-place in the country, who, when we inquired for the _Scotch Novels_, spoke indifferently aboutthem, said they were "so dry she could hardly get through them, " andrecommended us to read _Agnes_. We never thought of it before; but wewould venture to lay a wager that there are many other young ladies inthe same situation, and who think "Old Mortality" "dry. "]

[Footnote B: Just as Cobbett is a _matter-of-fact reasoner_. ]

[Footnote C: St. Ronan's Well. ]

[Footnote D: Perhaps the finest scene in all these novels, is that wherethe Dominie meets his pupil, Miss Lucy, the morning after her brother'sarrival. ]

[Footnote E: "And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer somebetter proof than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate themelancholy representation of manners which has been just laid beforethe reader. It is grievous to think that those valiant Barons, to whosestand against the crown the liberties of England were indebted for theirexistence, should themselves have been such dreadful oppressors, andcapable of excesses, contrary not only to the laws of England, but tothose of nature and humanity. But alas! we have only to extract from theindustrious Henry one of those numerous passages which he has collectedfrom contemporary historians, to prove that fiction itself can hardlyreach the dark reality of the horrors of the period. 

"The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of thecruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great barons andlords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a strong proof of theexcesses of which they were capable when their passions were inflamed. 'They grievously oppressed the poor people by building castles; and whenthey were built, they filled them with wicked men or rather devils, whoseized both men and women who they imagined had any money, threw theminto prison, and put them to more cruel tortures than the martyrs everendured. They suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by the feet, or the head, or the thumbs, kindling fires below them. They squeezed theheads of some with knotted cords till they pierced their brains, whilethey threw others into dungeons swarming with serpents, snakes, andtoads. ' But it would be cruel to put the reader to the pain of perusingthe remainder of the description. "--_Henry's Hist_. Edit. 1805, vol. Vii. P. 346. ]

 * * * * *

LORD BYRON. 

Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott are among writers now living[A] the two, who would carry away a majority of suffrages as the greatest geniuses ofthe age. The former would, perhaps, obtain the preference with the finegentlemen and ladies (squeamishness apart)--the latter with the criticsand the vulgar. We shall treat of them in the same connection, partlyon account of their distinguished pre-eminence, and partly because theyafford a complete contrast to each other. In their poetry, in theirprose, in their politics, and in their tempers no two men can be moreunlike. If Sir Walter Scott may be thought by some to have been

 "Born universal heir to all humanity, "

it is plain Lord Byron can set up no such pretension. He is, in astriking degree, the creature of his own will. He holds no communionwith his kind; but stands alone, without mate or fellow--

 "As if a man were author of himself, And owned no other kin. "

He is like a solitary peak, all access to which is cut off not more byelevation than distance. He is seated on a lofty eminence, "cloud-capt, "or reflecting the last rays of setting suns; and in his poetical moods, reminds us of the fabled Titans, retired to a ridgy steep, playing ontheir Pan's-pipes, and taking up ordinary men and things in their handswith haughty indifference. He raises his subject to himself, or trampleson it: he neither stoops to, nor loses himself in it. He exists not bysympathy, but by antipathy. He scorns all things, even himself. Naturemust come to him to sit for her picture--he does not go to her. She mustconsult his time, his convenience, and his humour; and wear a _sombre_or a fantastic garb, or his Lordship turns his back upon her. There isno ease, no unaffected simplicity of manner, no "golden mean. " All isstrained, or petulant in the extreme. His thoughts are sphered andcrystalline; his style "prouder than when blue Iris bends;" his spiritfiery, impatient, wayward, indefatigable. Instead of taking hisimpressions from without, in entire and almost unimpaired masses, hemoulds them according to his own temperament, and heats the materialsof his imagination in the furnace of his passions. --Lord Byron's verseglows like a flame, consuming every thing in its way; Sir Walter Scott'sglides like a river, clear, gentle, harmless. The poetry of the firstscorches, that of the last scarcely warms. The light of the one proceedsfrom an internal source, ensanguined, sullen, fixed; the other reflectsthe hues of Heaven, or the face of nature, glancing vivid and various. The productions of the Northern Bard have the rust and the freshnessof antiquity about them; those of the Noble Poet cease to startlefrom their extreme ambition of novelty, both in style and matter. SirWalter's rhymes are "silly sooth"--

 "And dally with the innocence of thought, Like the old age"--

his Lordship's Muse spurns _the olden time_, and affects all thesupercilious airs of a modern fine lady and an upstart. The object ofthe one writer is to restore us to truth and nature: the other chieflythinks how he shall display his own power, or vent his spleen, orastonish the reader either by starting new subjects and trains ofspeculation, or by expressing old ones in a more striking and emphaticmanner than they have been expressed before. He cares little what it ishe says, so that he can say it differently from others. This may accountfor the charges of plagiarism which have been repeatedly brought againstthe Noble Poet--if he can borrow an image or sentiment from another, andheighten it by an epithet or an allusion of greater force and beautythan is to be found in the original passage, he thinks he shews hissuperiority of execution in this in a more marked manner than ifthe first suggestion had been his own. It is not the value of theobservation itself he is solicitous about; but he wishes to shine bycontrast--even nature only serves as a foil to set off his style. Hetherefore takes the thoughts of others (whether contemporaries or not)out of their mouths, and is content to make them his own, to set hisstamp upon them, by imparting to them a more meretricious gloss, ahigher relief, a greater loftiness of tone, and a characteristicinveteracy of purpose. Even in those collateral ornaments of modernstyle, slovenliness, abruptness, and eccentricity (as well as interseness and significance), Lord Byron, when he pleases, defiescompetition and surpasses all his contemporaries. Whatever he does, hemust do in a more decided and daring manner than any one else--he loungeswith extravagance, and yawns so as to alarm the reader! Self-will, passion, the love of singularity, a disdain of himself and of others(with a conscious sense that this is among the ways and means ofprocuring admiration) are the proper categories of his mind: he is alordly writer, is above his own reputation, and condescends to the Museswith a scornful grace!

Lord Byron, who in his politics is a _liberal_, in his genius is haughtyand aristocratic: Walter Scott, who is an aristocrat in principle, ispopular in his writings, and is (as it were) equally _servile_ to natureand to opinion. The genius of Sir Walter is essentially imitative, or"denotes a foregone conclusion:" that of Lord Byron is self-dependent;or at least requires no aid, is governed by no law, but the impulses ofits own will. We confess, however much we may admire independence offeeling and erectness of spirit in general or practical questions, yetin works of genius we prefer him who bows to the authority of nature, who appeals to actual objects, to mouldering superstitions, to history, observation, and tradition, before him who only consults the pragmaticaland restless workings of his own breast, and gives them out as oraclesto the world. We like a writer (whether poet or prose-writer) who takesin (or is willing to take in) the range of half the universe in feeling, character, description, much better than we do one who obstinately andinvariably shuts himself up in the Bastile of his own ruling passions. In short, we had rather be Sir Walter Scott (meaning thereby the Authorof Waverley) than Lord Byron, a hundred times over. And for the reasonjust given, namely, that he casts his descriptions in the mould ofnature, ever-varying, never tiresome, always interesting and alwaysinstructive, instead of casting them constantly in the mould of hisown individual impressions. He gives us man as he is, or as he was, inalmost every variety of situation, action, and feeling. Lord Byronmakes man after his own image, woman after his own heart; the one isa capricious tyrant, the other a yielding slave; he gives us themisanthrope and the voluptuary by turns; and with these two characters, burning or melting in their own fires, he makes out everlasting centosof himself. He hangs the cloud, the film of his existence over alloutward things--sits in the centre of his thoughts, and enjoys darknight, bright day, the glitter and the gloom "in cell monastic"--we seethe mournful pall, the crucifix, the death's heads, the faded chaplet offlowers, the gleaming tapers, the agonized brow of genius, the wastedform of beauty--but we are still imprisoned in a dungeon, a curtainintercepts our view, we do not breathe freely the air of nature or ofour own thoughts--the other admired author draws aside the curtain, andthe veil of egotism is rent, and he shews us the crowd of living men andwomen, the endless groups, the landscape back-ground, the cloud andthe rainbow, and enriches our imaginations and relieves one passionby another, and expands and lightens reflection, and takes away thattightness at the breast which arises from thinking or wishing to thinkthat there is nothing in the world out of a man's self!--In this pointof view, the Author of Waverley is one of the greatest teachers ofmorality that ever lived, by emancipating the mind from petty, narrow, and bigotted prejudices: Lord Byron is the greatest pamperer of thoseprejudices, by seeming to think there is nothing else worth encouragingbut the seeds or the full luxuriant growth of dogmatism andself-conceit. In reading the _Scotch Novels_, we never think aboutthe author, except from a feeling of curiosity respecting our unknownbenefactor: in reading Lord Byron's works, he himself is never absentfrom our minds. The colouring of Lord Byron's style, however rich anddipped in Tyrian dyes, is nevertheless opaque, is in itself an objectof delight and wonder: Sir Walter Scott's is perfectly transparent. Instudying the one, you seem to gaze at the figures cut in stained glass, which exclude the view beyond, and where the pure light of Heaven isonly a means of setting off the gorgeousness of art: in reading theother, you look through a noble window at the clear and varied landscapewithout. Or to sum up the distinction in one word, Sir Walter Scott isthe most _dramatic_ writer now living; and Lord Byron is the least so. It would be difficult to imagine that the Author of Waverley is in thesmallest degree a pedant; as it would be hard to persuade ourselves thatthe author of Childe Harold and Don Juan is not a coxcomb, though aprovoking and sublime one. In this decided preference given to SirWalter Scott over Lord Byron, we distinctly include the prose-works ofthe former; for we do not think his poetry alone by any means entitleshim to that precedence. Sir Walter in his poetry, though pleasing andnatural, is a comparative trifler: it is in his anonymous productionsthat he has shewn himself for what he is!--

_Intensity_ is the great and prominent distinction of Lord Byron'swritings. He seldom gets beyond force of style, nor has he produced anyregular work or masterly whole. He does not prepare any plan beforehand, nor revise and retouch what he has written with polished accuracy. Hisonly object seems to be to stimulate himself and his readers for themoment--to keep both alive, to drive away _ennui_, to substitute afeverish and irritable state of excitement for listless indolence oreven calm enjoyment. For this purpose he pitches on any subject atrandom without much thought or delicacy--he is only impatient tobegin--and takes care to adorn and enrich it as he proceeds with"thoughts that breathe and words that burn. " He composes (as he himselfhas said) whether he is in the bath, in his study, or on horseback--hewrites as habitually as others talk or think--and whether we have theinspiration of the Muse or not, we always find the spirit of the manof genius breathing from his verse. He grapples with his subject, andmoves, penetrates, and animates it by the electric force of his ownfeelings. He is often monotonous, extravagant, offensive; but he isnever dull, or tedious, but when he writes prose. Lord Byron does notexhibit a new view of nature, or raise insignificant objects intoimportance by the romantic associations with which he surrounds them;but generally (at least) takes common-place thoughts and events, andendeavours to express them in stronger and statelier language thanothers. His poetry stands like a Martello tower by the side of hissubject. He does not, like Mr. Wordsworth, lift poetry from the ground, or create a sentiment out of nothing. He does not describe a daisy or aperiwinkle, but the cedar or the cypress: not "poor men's cottages, butprinces' palaces. " His Childe Harold contains a lofty and impassionedreview of the great events of history, of the mighty objects left aswrecks of time, but he dwells chiefly on what is familiar to the mind ofevery school-boy; has brought out few new traits of feeling or thought;and has done no more than justice to the reader's preconceptions by thesustained force and brilliancy of his style and imagery. Lord Byron'searlier productions, _Lara_, the _Corsair_, &c. Were wild and gloomyromances, put into rapid and shining verse. They discover the madnessof poetry, together with the inspiration: sullen, moody, capricious, fierce, inexorable, gloating on beauty, thirsting for revenge, hurryingfrom the extremes of pleasure to pain, but with nothing permanent, nothing healthy or natural. The gaudy decorations and the morbidsentiments remind one of flowers strewed over the face of death! Inhis _Childe Harold_ (as has been just observed) he assumes a lofty andphilosophic tone, and "reasons high of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate. " He takes the highest points in the history of the world, and comments on them from a more commanding eminence: he shews us thecrumbling monuments of time, he invokes the great names, themighty spirit of antiquity. The universe is changed into a statelymausoleum:--in solemn measures he chaunts a hymn to fame. Lord Byron hasstrength and elevation enough to fill up the moulds of our classical andtime-hallowed recollections, and to rekindle the earliest aspirations ofthe mind after greatness and true glory with a pen of fire. The names ofTasso, of Ariosto, of Dante, of Cincinnatus, of Caesar, of Scipio, losenothing of their pomp or their lustre in his hands, and when he beginsand continues a strain of panegyric on such subjects, we indeed sitdown with him to a banquet of rich praise, brooding over imperishableglories, "Till Contemplation has her fill. "

Lord Byron seems to cast himself indignantly from "this bank and shoalof time, " or the frail tottering bark that bears up modern reputation, into the huge sea of ancient renown, and to revel there with untired, outspread plume. Even this in him is spleen--his contempt of hiscontemporaries makes him turn back to the lustrous past, or projecthimself forward to the dim future!--Lord Byron's tragedies, Faliero, [B]Sardanapalus, &c. Are not equal to his other works. They want theessence of the drama. They abound in speeches and descriptions, such ashe himself might make either to himself or others, lolling on his couchof a morning, but do not carry the reader out of the poet's mind to thescenes and events recorded. They have neither action, character, nor interest, but are a sort of _gossamer_ tragedies, spun out, andglittering, and spreading a flimsy veil over the face of nature. Yethe spins them on. Of all that he has done in this way the _Heaven andEarth_ (the same subject as Mr. Moore's _Loves of the Angels_) is thebest. We prefer it even to _Manfred_. _Manfred_ is merely himself, with a fancy-drapery on: but in the dramatic fragment published in the_Liberal_, the space between Heaven and Earth, the stage on whichhis characters have to pass to and fro, seems to fill his Lordship'simagination; and the Deluge, which he has so finely described, may besaid to have drowned all his own idle humours. 

We must say we think little of our author's turn for satire. His"English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" is dogmatical and insolent, butwithout refinement or point. He calls people names, and tries totransfix a character with an epithet, which does not stick, becauseit has no other foundation than his own petulance and spite; or heendeavours to degrade by alluding to some circumstance of externalsituation. He says of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, that "it is hisaversion. " That may be: but whose fault is it? This is the satire ofa lord, who is accustomed to have all his whims or dislikes taken forgospel, and who cannot be at the pains to do more than signify hiscontempt or displeasure. If a great man meets with a rebuff which hedoes not like, he turns on his heel, and this passes for a repartee. The Noble Author says of a celebrated barrister and critic, that he was"born in a garret sixteen stories high. " The insinuation is not true; orif it were, it is low. The allusion degrades the person who makes, nothim to whom it is applied. This is also the satire of a person of birthand quality, who measures all merit by external rank, that is, byhis own standard. So his Lordship, in a "Letter to the Editor of MyGrandmother's Review, " addresses him fifty times as "_my dear Robarts_;"nor is there any other wit in the article. This is surely a mereassumption of superiority from his Lordship's rank, and is the sort of_quizzing_ he might use to a person who came to hire himself as a valetto him at _Long's_--the waiters might laugh, the public will not. Inlike manner, in the controversy about Pope, he claps Mr. Bowles on theback with a coarse facetious familiarity, as if he were his chaplainwhom he had invited to dine with him, or was about to present to abenefice. The reverend divine might submit to the obligation, but he hasno occasion to subscribe to the jest. If it is a jest that Mr. Bowlesshould be a parson, and Lord Byron a peer, the world knew this before;there was no need to write a pamphlet to prove it. 

The _Don Juan_ indeed has great power; but its power is owing to theforce of the serious writing, and to the oddity of the contrast betweenthat and the flashy passages with which it is interlarded. From thesublime to the ridiculous there is but one step. You laugh and aresurprised that any one should turn round and _travestie_ himself: thedrollery is in the utter discontinuity of ideas and feelings. He makesvirtue serve as a foil to vice; _dandyism_ is (for want of any other) avariety of genius. A classical intoxication is followed by the splashingof soda-water, by frothy effusions of ordinary bile. After the lightningand the hurricane, we are introduced to the interior of the cabin andthe contents of wash-hand basins. The solemn hero of tragedy plays_Scrub_ in the farce. This is "very tolerable and not to be endured. "The Noble Lord is almost the only writer who has prostituted his talentsin this way. He hallows in order to desecrate; takes a pleasure indefacing the images of beauty his hands have wrought; and raises ourhopes and our belief in goodness to Heaven only to dash them to theearth again, and break them in pieces the more effectually from the veryheight they have fallen. Our enthusiasm for genius or virtue is thusturned into a jest by the very person who has kindled it, and who thusfatally quenches the sparks of both. It is not that Lord Byron issometimes serious and sometimes trifling, sometimes profligate, andsometimes moral--but when he is most serious and most moral, he is onlypreparing to mortify the unsuspecting reader by putting a pitiful _hoax_upon him. This is a most unaccountable anomaly. It is as if the eaglewere to build its eyry in a common sewer, or the owl were seen soaringto the mid-day sun. Such a sight might make one laugh, but one would notwish or expect it to occur more than once![C]

In fact, Lord Byron is the spoiled child of fame as well as fortune. He has taken a surfeit of popularity, and is not contented to delight, unless he can shock the public. He would force them to admire in spiteof decency and common sense--he would have them read what they wouldread in no one but himself, or he would not give a rush for theirapplause. He is to be "a chartered libertine, " from whom insults arefavours, whose contempt is to be a new incentive to admiration. HisLordship is hard to please: he is equally averse to notice or neglect, enraged at censure and scorning praise. He tries the patience of thetown to the very utmost, and when they shew signs of weariness ordisgust, threatens to _discard_ them. He says he will write on, whetherhe is read or not. He would never write another page, if it were notto court popular applause, or to affect a superiority over it. In thisrespect also, Lord Byron presents a striking contrast to Sir WalterScott. The latter takes what part of the public favour falls to hisshare, without grumbling (to be sure he has no reason to complain) theformer is always quarrelling with the world about his _modicum_ ofapplause, the _spolia opima_ of vanity, and ungraciously throwing theofferings of incense heaped on his shrine back in the faces of hisadmirers. Again, there is no taint in the writings of the Author ofWaverley, all is fair and natural and _above-board:_ he never outragesthe public mind. He introduces no anomalous character: broaches nostaggering opinion. If he goes back to old prejudices and superstitionsas a relief to the modern reader, while Lord Byron floats on swellingparadoxes--

 "Like proud seas under him;"

if the one defers too much to the spirit of antiquity, the otherpanders to the spirit of the age, goes to the very edge of extreme andlicentious speculation, and breaks his neck over it. Grossness andlevity are the playthings of his pen. It is a ludicrous circumstancethat he should have dedicated his _Cain_ to the worthy Baronet! Did thelatter ever acknowledge the obligation? We are not nice, not very nice;but we do not particularly approve those subjects that shine chieflyfrom their rottenness: nor do we wish to see the Muses drest out inthe flounces of a false or questionable philosophy, like _Portia_ and_Nerissa_ in the garb of Doctors of Law. We like metaphysics as well asLord Byron; but not to see them making flowery speeches, nor dancing ameasure in the fetters of verse. We have as good as hinted, that hisLordship's poetry consists mostly of a tissue of superb common-places;even his paradoxes are _common-place_. They are familiar in the schools:they are only new and striking in his dramas and stanzas, by being outof place. In a word, we think that poetry moves best within the circleof nature and received opinion: speculative theory and subtle casuistryare forbidden ground to it. But Lord Byron often wanders into thisground wantonly, wilfully, and unwarrantably. The only apology we canconceive for the spirit of some of Lord Byron's writings, is the spiritof some of those opposed to him. They would provoke a man to write anything. "Farthest from them is best. " The extravagance and license of theone seems a proper antidote to the bigotry and narrowness of the other. The first _Vision of Judgment_ was a set-off to the second, though

 "None but itself could be its parallel. "

Perhaps the chief cause of most of Lord Byron's errors is, that he isthat anomaly in letters and in society, a Noble Poet. It is a doubleprivilege, almost too much for humanity. He has all the pride of birthand genius. The strength of his imagination leads him to indulge infantastic opinions; the elevation of his rank sets censure at defiance. He becomes a pampered egotist. He has a seat in the House of Lords, aniche in the Temple of Fame. Every-day mortals, opinions, things are notgood enough for him to touch or think of. A mere nobleman is, in hisestimation, but "the tenth transmitter of a foolish face:" a mere man ofgenius is no better than a worm. His Muse is also a lady of quality. The people are not polite enough for him: the Court not sufficientlyintellectual. He hates the one and despises the other. By hating anddespising others, he does not learn to be satisfied with himself. Afastidious man soon grows querulous and splenetic. If there is nobodybut ourselves to come up to our idea of fancied perfection, we easilyget tired of our idol. When a man is tired of what he is, by a naturalperversity he sets up for what he is not. If he is a poet, he pretendsto be a metaphysician: if he is a patrician in rank and feeling, hewould fain be one of the people. His ruling motive is not the love ofthe people, but of distinction not of truth, but of singularity. Hepatronizes men of letters out of vanity, and deserts them from caprice, or from the advice of friends. He embarks in an obnoxious publication toprovoke censure, and leaves it to shift for itself for fear of scandal. We do not like Sir Walter's gratuitous servility: we like Lord Byron'spreposterous _liberalism_ little better. He may affect the principles ofequality, but he resumes his privilege of peerage, upon occasion. HisLordship has made great offers of service to the Greeks--money andhorses. He is at present in Cephalonia, waiting the event!

 * * * * *

We had written thus far when news came of the death of Lord Byron, andput an end at once to a strain of somewhat peevish invective, which wasintended to meet his eye, not to insult his memory. Had we known that wewere writing his epitaph, we must have done it with a different feeling. As it is, we think it better and more like himself, to let what we hadwritten stand, than to take up our leaden shafts, and try to melt theminto "tears of sensibility, " or mould them into dull praise, and anaffected shew of candour. We were not silent during the author'slife-time, either for his reproof or encouragement (such us wecould give, and _he_ did not disdain to accept) nor can we now turnundertakers' men to fix the glittering plate upon his coffin, or fallinto the procession of popular woe. --Death cancels every thing buttruth; and strips a man of every thing but genius and virtue. It is asort of natural canonization. It makes the meanest of us sacred--itinstalls the poet in his immortality, and lifts him to the skies. Deathis the great assayer of the sterling ore of talent. At his touch thedrossy particles fall off, the irritable, the personal, the gross, andmingle with the dust--the finer and more ethereal part mounts with thewinged spirit to watch over our latest memory and protect our bones frominsult. We consign the least worthy qualities to oblivion, and cherishthe nobler and imperishable nature with double pride and fondness. Nothing could shew the real superiority of genius in a more strikingpoint of view than the idle contests and the public indifference aboutthe place of Lord Byron's interment, whether in Westminster-Abbey orhis own family-vault. A king must have a coronation--a nobleman afuneral-procession. --The man is nothing without the pageant. The poet'scemetery is the human mind, in which he sows the seeds of never endingthought--his monument is to be found in his works:

 "Nothing can cover his high fame but Heaven; No pyramids set off his memory, But the eternal substance of his greatness. "

Lord Byron is dead: he also died a martyr to his zeal in the cause offreedom, for the last, best hopes of man. Let that be his excuse and hisepitaph!

[Footnote A: This Essay was written just before Lord Byron's death. ]

[Footnote B:

 "Don Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero My Leipsic, and my Mont St. Jean seems Cain, " _Don Juan_, Canto. XI. ]

[Footnote C: This censure applies to the first Cantos of DON JUAN muchmore than to the last. It has been called a TRISTRAM SHANDY in rhyme: itis rather a poem written about itself. ]

 * * * * *

MR. CAMPBELL AND MR. CRABBE. 

"Mr. Campbell may be said to hold a place (among modern poets) betweenLord Byron and Mr. Rogers. With much of the glossy splendour, thepointed vigour, and romantic interest of the one, he possesses thefastidious refinement, the classic elegance of the other. Mr. Rogers, asa writer, is too effeminate, Lord Byron too extravagant: Mr. Campbell isneither. The author of the _Pleasures of Memory_ polishes his lines tillthey sparkle with the most exquisite finish; he attenuates them into theutmost degree of trembling softness: but we may complain, in spite ofthe delicacy and brilliancy of the execution, of a want of strengthand solidity. The author of the _Pleasures of Hope_, with a richer anddeeper vein of thought and imagination, works it out into figures ofequal grace and dazzling beauty, avoiding on the one hand the tinsel offlimsy affectation, and on the other the vices of a rude and barbarousnegligence. His Pegasus is not a rough, skittish colt, running wildamong the mountains, covered with bur-docks and thistles, nor a tame, sleek pad, unable to get out of the same ambling pace, but a beautiful_manege_-horse, full of life and spirit in itself, and subject to thecomplete controul of the rider. Mr. Campbell gives scope to his feelingsand his fancy, and embodies them in a noble and naturally interestingsubject; and he at the same time conceives himself called upon (in thesedays of critical nicety) to pay the exactest attention to the expressionof each thought, and to modulate each line into the most faultlessharmony. The character of his mind is a lofty and self-scrutinisingambition, that strives to reconcile the integrity of general design withthe perfect elaboration of each component part, that aims at strikingeffect, but is jealous of the means by which this is to be produced. Our poet is not averse to popularity (nay, he is tremblingly alive toit)--but self-respect is the primary law, the indispensable conditionon which it must be obtained. We should dread to point out (even if wecould) a false concord, a mixed metaphor, an imperfect rhyme in any ofMr. Campbell's productions; for we think that all his fame would hardlycompensate to him for the discovery. He seeks for perfection, andnothing evidently short of it can satisfy his mind. He is a _highfinisher_ in poetry, whose every work must bear inspection, whoseslightest touch is precious--not a coarse dauber who is contented toimpose on public wonder and credulity by some huge, ill-executed design, or who endeavours to wear out patience and opposition together by a loadof lumbering, feeble, awkward, improgressive lines--on the contrary, Mr. Campbell labours to lend every grace of execution to his subject, whilehe borrows his ardour and inspiration from it, and to deserve thelaurels he has earned, by true genius and by true pains. There is anapparent consciousness of this in most of his writings. He has attainedto great excellence by aiming at the greatest, by a cautious and yetdaring selection of topics, and by studiously (and with a religioushorror) avoiding all those faults which arise from grossness, vulgarity, haste, and disregard of public opinion. He seizes on the highest pointof eminence, and strives to keep it to himself--he "snatches a gracebeyond the reach of art, " and will not let it go--he steeps a singlethought or image so deep in the Tyrian dyes of a gorgeous imagination, that it throws its lustre over a whole page--every where vivid _ideal_forms hover (in intense conception) over the poet's verse, whichascends, like the aloe, to the clouds, with pure flowers at its top. Orto take an humbler comparison (the pride of genius must sometimes stoopto the lowliness of criticism) Mr. Campbell's poetry often reminds us ofthe purple gilliflower, both for its colour and its scent, its glowingwarmth, its rich, languid, sullen hue, "Yet sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath!"

There are those who complain of the little that Mr. Campbell has donein poetry, and who seem to insinuate that he is deterred by his ownreputation from making any further or higher attempts. But after havingproduced two poems that have gone to the heart of a nation, and aregifts to a world, he may surely linger out the rest of his life in adream of immortality. There are moments in our lives so exquisite thatall that remains of them afterwards seems useless and barren; and thereare lines and stanzas in our author's early writings in which he maybe thought to have exhausted all the sweetness and all the essence ofpoetry, so that nothing farther was left to his efforts or his ambition. Happy is it for those few and fortunate worshippers of the Muse (nota subject of grudging or envy to others) who already enjoy in theirlife-time a foretaste of their future fame, who see their namesaccompanying them, like a cloud of glory, from youth to age, "And by the vision splendid, Are on their way attended"--

and who know that they have built a shrine for the thoughts andfeelings, that were most dear to them, in the minds and memoriesof other men, till the language which they lisped in childhood isforgotten, or the human heart shall beat no more!

The _Pleasures of Hope_ alone would not have called forth these remarksfrom us; but there are passages in the _Gertrude of Wyoming_ of so rareand ripe a beauty, that they challenge, as they exceed all praise. Such, for instance, is the following peerless description of Gertrude'schildhood:--

 "A loved bequest--and I may half impart To those that feel the strong paternal tie, How like a new existence in his heart That living flow'r uprose beneath his eye, Dear as she was, from cherub infancy, From hours when she would round his garden play, To time when as the ripening years went by, Her lovely mind could culture well repay, And more engaging grew from pleasing day to day. 

 "I may not paint those thousand infant charms (Unconscious fascination, undesign'd!) The orison repeated in his arms, For God to bless her sire and all mankind; The book, the bosom on his knee reclined, Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con (The play-mate ere the teacher of her mind) All uncompanion'd else her years had gone, Till now in Gertrude's eyes their ninth blue summer shone. 

 "And summer was the tide, and sweet the hour, When sire and daughter saw, with fleet descent, An Indian from his bark approach their bower, Of buskin'd limb and swarthy lineament; The red wild feathers on his brow were blent, And bracelets bound the arm that help'd to light A boy, who seem'd, as he beside him went, Of Christian vesture and complexion bright, Led by his dusty guide, like morning brought by night. "

In the foregoing stanzas we particularly admire the line--

 "Till now in Gertrude's eyes their ninth blue summer shone. "

It appears to us like the ecstatic union of natural beauty and poeticfancy, and in its playful sublimity resembles the azure canopy mirroredin the smiling waters, bright, liquid, serene, heavenly! A great outcry, we know, has prevailed for some time past against poetic diction andaffected conceits, and, to a certain degree, we go along with it; butthis must not prevent us from feeling the thrill of pleasure when we seebeauty linked to beauty, like kindred flame to flame, or from applaudingthe voluptuous fancy that raises and adorns the fairy fabric of thought, that nature has begun! Pleasure is "scattered in stray-gifts o'er theearth"--beauty streaks the "famous poet's page" in occasional lines ofinconceivable brightness; and wherever this is the case, no spleneticcensures or "jealous leer malign, " no idle theories or cold indifferenceshould hinder us from greeting it with rapture. --There are other partsof this poem equally delightful, in which there is a light startling asthe red-bird's wing; a perfume like that of the magnolia; a musiclike the murmuring of pathless woods or of the everlasting ocean. Weconceive, however, that Mr. Campbell excels chiefly in sentiment andimagery. The story moves slow, and is mechanically conducted, and ratherresembles a Scotch canal carried over lengthened aqueducts and with anumber of _locks_ in it, than one of those rivers that sweep in theirmajestic course, broad and full, over Transatlantic plains and losethemselves in rolling gulfs, or thunder down lofty precipices. But inthe centre, the inmost recesses of our poet's heart, the pearly dew ofsensibility is distilled and collects, like the diamond in the mine, andthe structure of his fame rests on the crystal columns of a polishedimagination. We prefer the _Gertrude_ to the _Pleasures of Hope_, because with perhaps less brilliancy, there is more of tenderness andnatural imagery in the former. In the _Pleasures of Hope_ Mr. Campbellhad not completely emancipated himself from the trammels of the moreartificial style of poetry--from epigram, and antithesis, and hyperbole. The best line in it, in which earthly joys are said to be--

 "Like angels' visits, few and far between"--

is a borrowed one. [A] But in the Gertrude of Wyoming "we perceive asoftness coming over the heart of the author, and the scales and crustof formality that fence in his couplets and give them a somewhatglittering and rigid appearance, fall off, " and he has succeeded inengrafting the wild and more expansive interest of the romantic schoolof poetry on classic elegance and precision. After the poem we havejust named, Mr. Campbell's SONGS are the happiest efforts of hisMuse:--breathing freshness, blushing like the morn, they seem, likeclustering roses, to weave a chaplet for love and liberty; or theirbleeding words gush out in mournful and hurried succession, like "ruddydrops that visit the sad heart" of thoughtful Humanity. The _Battle ofHohenlinden_ is of all modern compositions the most lyrical in spiritand in sound. To justify this encomium, we need only recall the lines tothe reader's memory. 

 "On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 

 But Linden saw another sight, When the drum beat at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery. 

 By torch and trumpet fast array'd, Each horseman drew his battle blade, And furious every charger neigh'd, To join the dreadful revelry. 

 Then shook the hills with thunder riv'n, Then rush'd the steed to battle driv'n, And louder than the bolts of heav'n Far flash'd the red artillery. 

 But redder yet that light shall glow On Linden's hills of stained snow, And bloodier yet the torrent flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 

 'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling[B] dun, Where furious Frank and fiery Hun Shout in their sulph'rous canopy. 

 The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave! Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave! And charge with all thy chivalry!

 Few, few shall part, where many meet! The snow shall be their winding-sheet, And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. "

Mr. Campbell's prose-criticisms on contemporary and other poets (whichhave appeared in the New Monthly Magazine) are in a style at oncechaste, temperate, guarded, and just. 

Mr. Crabbe presents an entire contrast to

Mr. Campbell:--the one is the most ambitious and aspiring of livingpoets, the other the most humble and prosaic. If the poetry of the oneis like the arch of the rainbow, spanning and adorning the earth, thatof the other is like a dull, leaden cloud hanging over it. Mr. Crabbe'sstyle might be cited as an answer to Audrey's question--"Is poetrya true thing?" There are here no ornaments, no flights of fancy, noillusions of sentiment, no tinsel of words. His song is one sad reality, one unraised, unvaried note of unavailing woe. Literal fidelity serveshim in the place of invention; he assumes importance by a number ofpetty details; he rivets attention by being tedious. He not only dealsin incessant matters of fact, but in matters of fact of the mostfamiliar, the least animating, and the most unpleasant kind; but herelies for the effect of novelty on the microscopic minuteness withwhich he dissects the most trivial objects--and for the interest heexcites, on the unshrinking determination with which he handles the mostpainful. His poetry has an official and professional air. He is calledin to cases of difficult births, of fractured limbs, or breaches of thepeace; and makes out a parochial list of accidents and offences. Hetakes the most trite, the most gross and obvious and revolting part ofnature, for the subject of his elaborate descriptions; but it is Naturestill, and Nature is a great and mighty Goddess! It is well for theReverend Author that it is so. Individuality is, in his theory, the onlydefinition of poetry. Whatever _is_, he hitches into rhyme. Whoevermakes an exact image of any thing on the earth, however deformed orinsignificant, according to him, must succeed--and he himself hassucceeded. Mr. Crabbe is one of the most popular and admired of ourliving authors. That he is so, can be accounted for on no otherprinciple than the strong ties that bind us to the world about us, andour involuntary yearnings after whatever in any manner powerfully anddirectly reminds us of it. His Muse is not one of _the Daughters ofMemory_, but the old toothless, mumbling dame herself, doling out thegossip and scandal of the neighbourhood, recounting _totidem verbis etliteris_, what happens in every place of the kingdom every hour in theyear, and fastening always on the worst as the most palatable morsels. But she is a circumstantial old lady, communicative, scrupulous, leavingnothing to the imagination, harping on the smallest grievances, avillage-oracle and critic, most veritable, most identical, bringing usacquainted with persons and things just as they chanced to exist, andgiving us a local interest in all she knows and tells. Mr. Crabbe'sHelicon is choked up with weeds and corruption; it reflects no lightfrom heaven, it emits no cheerful sound: no flowers of love, of hope, or joy spring up near it, or they bloom only to wither in a moment. Ourpoet's verse does not put a spirit of youth in every thing, but a spiritof fear, despondency, and decay: it is not an electric spark to kindleor expand, but acts like the torpedo's touch to deaden or contract. Itlends no dazzling tints to fancy, it aids no soothing feelings in theheart, it gladdens no prospect, it stirs no wish; in its view thecurrent of life runs slow, dull, cold, dispirited, half under ground, muddy, and clogged with all creeping things. The world is one vastinfirmary; the hill of Parnassus is a penitentiary, of which our authoris the overseer: to read him is a penance, yet we read on! Mr. Crabbe, it must be confessed, is a repulsive writer. He contrives to "turndiseases to commodities, " and makes a virtue of necessity. He puts usout of conceit with this world, which perhaps a severe divine should do;yet does not, as a charitable divine ought, point to another. His morbidfeelings droop and cling to the earth, grovel where they should soar;and throw a dead weight on every aspiration of the soul after the goodor beautiful. By degrees we submit, and are reconciled to our fate, likepatients to the physician, or prisoners in the condemned cell. We canonly explain this by saying, as we said before, that Mr. Crabbe givesus one part of nature, the mean, the little, the disgusting, thedistressing; that he does this thoroughly and like a master, and weforgive all the rest. 

Mr. Crabbe's first poems were published so long ago as the year 1782, and received the approbation of Dr. Johnson only a little before hedied. This was a testimony from an enemy; for Dr. Johnson was not anadmirer of the simple in style or minute in description. Still he was anacute, strong-minded man, and could see truth when it was presented tohim, even through the mist of his prejudices and his foibles. There wassomething in Mr. Crabbe's intricate points that did not, after all, soill accord with the Doctor's purblind vision; and he knew quiteenough of the petty ills of life to judge of the merit of our poet'sdescriptions, though he himself chose to slur them over in high-soundingdogmas or general invectives. Mr. Crabbe's earliest poem of the_Village_ was recommended to the notice of Dr. Johnson by Sir JoshuaReynolds; and we cannot help thinking that a taste for that sort ofpoetry, which leans for support on the truth and fidelity of itsimitations of nature, began to display itself much about that time, and, in a good measure, in consequence of the direction of the public tasteto the subject of painting. Book-learning, the accumulation of wordycommon-places, the gaudy pretensions of poetical fiction, had enfeebledand perverted our eye for nature. The study of the fine arts, which cameinto fashion about forty years ago, and was then first considered as apolite accomplishment, would tend imperceptibly to restore it. Paintingis essentially an imitative art; it cannot subsist for a moment on emptygeneralities: the critic, therefore, who had been used to this sort ofsubstantial entertainment, would be disposed to read poetry with theeye of a connoisseur, would be little captivated with smooth, polished, unmeaning periods, and would turn with double eagerness and relish tothe force and precision of individual details, transferred, as it were, to the page from the canvas. Thus an admirer of Teniers or Hobbimamight think little of the pastoral sketches of Pope or Goldsmith; evenThompson describes not so much the naked object as what he sees in hismind's eye, surrounded and glowing with the mild, bland, genial vapoursof his brain:--but the adept in Dutch interiors, hovels, and pig-styesmust find in Mr. Crabbe a man after his own heart. He is the very thingitself; he paints in words, instead of colours: there is no otherdifference. As Mr. Crabbe is not a painter, only because he does not usea brush and colours, so he is for the most part a poet, only becausehe writes in lines of ten syllables. All the rest might be found in anewspaper, an old magazine, or a county-register. Our author is himselfa little jealous of the prudish fidelity of his homely Muse, and triesto justify himself by precedents. He brings as a parallel instance ofmerely literal description, Pope's lines on the gay Duke of Buckingham, beginning "In the worst inn's worst room see Villiers lies!" But surelynothing can be more dissimilar. Pope describes what is striking, Crabbewould have described merely what was there. The objects in Pope standout to the fancy from the mixture of the mean with the gaudy, from thecontrast of the scene and the character. There is an appeal to theimagination; you see what is passing in a poetical point of view. InCrabbe there is no foil, no contrast, no impulse given to the mind. Itis all on a level and of a piece. In fact, there is so little connectionbetween the subject-matter of Mr. Crabbe's lines and the ornament ofrhyme which is tacked to them, that many of his verses read like seriousburlesque, and the parodies which have been made upon them are hardly soquaint as the originals. 

Mr. Crabbe's great fault is certainly that he is a sickly, a querulous, a uniformly dissatisfied poet. He sings the country; and he sings it ina pitiful tone. He chooses this subject only to take the charm out ofit, and to dispel the illusion, the glory, and the dream, which hadhovered over it in golden verse from Theocritus to Cowper. He sets outwith professing to overturn the theory which had hallowed a shepherd'slife, and made the names of grove and valley music to our ears, in orderto give us truth in its stead; but why not lay aside the fool's cap andbells at once? Why not insist on the unwelcome reality in plain prose?If our author is a poet, why trouble himself with statistics? If he is astatistic writer, why set his ill news to harsh and grating verse? Thephilosopher in painting the dark side of human nature may have reasonon his side, and a moral lesson or remedy in view. The tragic poet, whoshews the sad vicissitudes of things and the disappointments of thepassions, at least strengthens our yearnings after imaginary good, andlends wings to our desires, by which we, "at one bound, high overleapall bound" of actual suffering. But Mr. Crabbe does neither. He givesus discoloured paintings of life; helpless, repining, unprofitable, unedifying distress. He is not a philosopher, but a sophist, amisanthrope in verse; a _namby-pamby_ Mandeville, a Malthus turnedmetrical romancer. He professes historical fidelity; but his vein is notdramatic; nor does he give us the _pros_ and _cons_ of that versatilegipsey, Nature. He does not indulge his fancy, or sympathise with us, ortell us how the poor feel; but how he should feel in their situation, which we do not want to know. He does not weave the web of their livesof a mingled yarn, good and ill together, but clothes them all in thesame dingy linsey-woolsey, or tinges them with a green and yellowmelancholy. He blocks out all possibility of good, cancels the hope, oreven the wish for it as a weakness; check-mates Tityrus and Virgil atthe game of pastoral cross-purposes, disables all his adversary's whitepieces, and leaves none but black ones on the board. The situation of acountry clergyman is not necessarily favourable to the cultivation ofthe Muse. He is set down, perhaps, as he thinks, in a small curacy forlife, and he takes his revenge by imprisoning the reader's imaginationin luckless verse. Shut out from social converse, from learned collegesand halls, where he passed his youth, he has no cordial fellow-feelingwith the unlettered manners of the _Village_ or the _Borough_; and hedescribes his neighbours as more uncomfortable and discontented thanhimself. All this while he dedicates successive volumes to risinggenerations of noble patrons; and while he desolates a line of coastwith sterile, blighting lines, the only leaf of his books where honour, beauty, worth, or pleasure bloom, is that inscribed to the Rutlandfamily! We might adduce instances of what we have said from every pageof his works: let one suffice--

 "Thus by himself compelled to live each day, To wait for certain hours the tide's delay; At the same times the same dull views to see, The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree; The water only when the tides were high, When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry; The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks, And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks; Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float, As the tide rolls by the impeded boat. When tides were neap, and in the sultry day, Through the tall bounding mud-banks made their way, Which on each side rose swelling, and below The dark warm flood ran silently and slow; There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide, There hang his head, and view the lazy tide In its hot slimy channel slowly glide; Where the small eels, that left the deeper way For the warm shore, within the shallows play; Where gaping muscles, left upon the mud, Slope their slow passage to the fall'n flood: Here dull and hopeless he'd lie down and trace How side-long crabs had crawled their crooked race; Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry Of fishing gull or clanging golden-eye; What time the sea-birds to the marsh would come, And the loud bittern, from the bull-rush home, Gave from the salt ditch-side the bellowing boom: He nursed the feelings these dull scenes produce And loved to stop beside the opening sluice; Where the small stream, confined in narrow bound, Ran with a dull, unvaried, saddening sound; Where all, presented to the eye or ear, Oppressed the soul with misery, grief, and fear. "

This is an exact _fac-simile_ of some of the most unlovely parts of thecreation. Indeed the whole of Mr. Crabbe's _Borough_, from which theabove passage is taken, is done so to the life, that it seems almostlike some sea-monster, crawled out of the neighbouring slime, andharbouring a breed of strange vermin, with a strong local scent oftar and bulge-water. Mr. Crabbe's _Tales_ are more readable than his_Poems_; but in proportion as the interest increases, they become moreoppressive. They turn, one and all, upon the same sort of teazing, helpless, mechanical, unimaginative distress;--and though it is noteasy to lay them down, you never wish to take them up again. Still inthis way, they are highly finished, striking, and original portraits, worked out with an eye to nature, and an intimate knowledge of thesmall and intricate folds of the human heart. Some of the best arethe _Confidant_, the story of _Silly Shore_, the _Young Poet_, the_Painter_. The episode of _Phoebe Dawson_ in the _Village_, is one ofthe most tender and pensive; and the character of the methodist parsonwho persecutes the sailor's widow with his godly, selfish love, is oneof the most profound. In a word, if Mr. Crabbe's writings do not addgreatly to the store of entertaining and delightful fiction, yet theywill remain "as a thorn in the side of poetry, " perhaps for a century tocome!

[Footnote A:

 "Like angels' visits, short and far between. "--. _Blair's Grave_. ]

[Footnote B: Is not this word, which occurs in the last line but one, (as well as before) an instance of that repetition, which we so oftenmeet with in the most correct and elegant writers?]

 * * * * *

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 

The subject of the present article is one of the ablest and mostaccomplished men of the age, both as a writer, a speaker, and aconverser. He is, in fact, master of almost every known topic, whetherof a passing or of a more recondite nature. He has lived much insociety, and is deeply conversant with books. He is a man of theworld and a scholar; but the scholar gives the tone to all his otheracquirements and pursuits. Sir James is by education and habit, and wewere going to add, by the original turn of his mind, a college-man; andperhaps he would have passed his time most happily and respectably, hadhe devoted himself entirely to that kind of life. The strength of hisfaculties would have been best developed, his ambition would have metits proudest reward, in the accumulation and elaborate display of graveand useful knowledge. As it is, it may be said, that in company he talkswell, but too much; that in writing he overlays the original subject andspirit of the composition, by an appeal to authorities and by too formala method; that in public speaking the logician takes place of theorator, and that he fails to give effect to a particular point or tourge an immediate advantage home upon his adversary from the enlargedscope of his mind, and the wide career he takes in the field ofargument. 

To consider him in the last point of view, first. As a politicalpartisan, he is rather the lecturer than the advocate. He is able toinstruct and delight an impartial and disinterested audience by theextent of his information, by his acquaintance with general principles, by the clearness and aptitude of his illustrations, by vigour andcopiousness of style; but where he has a prejudiced or unfair antagonistto contend with, he is just as likely to put weapons into his enemy'shands as to wrest them from him, and his object seems to be rather todeserve than to obtain success. The characteristics of his mind areretentiveness and comprehension, with facility of production: but he isnot equally remarkable for originality of view, or warmth of feeling, orliveliness of fancy. His eloquence is a little rhetorical; his reasoningchiefly logical: he can bring down the account of knowledge on a vastvariety of subjects to the present moment, he can embellish any cause heundertakes by the most approved and graceful ornaments, he can supportit by a host of facts and examples, but he cannot advance it a stepforward by placing it on a new and triumphant 'vantage-ground, norcan he overwhelm and break down the artificial fences and bulwarksof sophistry by the irresistible tide of manly enthusiasm. Sir JamesMackintosh is an accomplished debater, rather than a powerful orator: heis distinguished more as a man of wonderful and variable talent thanas a man of commanding intellect. His mode of treating a question iscritical, and not parliamentary. It has been formed in the closet andthe schools, and is hardly fitted for scenes of active life, or thecollisions of party-spirit. Sir James reasons on the square; while thearguments of his opponents are loaded with iron or gold. He makes, indeed, a respectable ally, but not a very formidable opponent. He is aslikely, however, to prevail on a neutral, as he is almost certain to bebaffled on a hotly contested ground. On any question of generalpolicy or legislative improvement, the Member for Nairn is heard withadvantage, and his speeches are attended with effect: and he would haveequal weight and influence at other times, if it were the object of theHouse to hear reason, as it is his aim to speak it. But on subjects ofpeace or war, of political rights or foreign interference, where thewaves of party run high, and the liberty of nations or the fate ofmankind hangs trembling in the scales, though he probably displays equaltalent, and does full and heaped justice to the question (abstractedlyspeaking, or if it were to be tried before an impartial assembly), yetwe confess we have seldom heard him, on such occasions, without pain forthe event. He did not slur his own character and pretensions, but hecompromised the argument. He spoke _the truth, the whole truth, andnothing but the truth_; but the House of Commons (we dare aver it) isnot the place where the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but thetruth can be spoken with safety or with advantage. The judgment of theHouse is not a balance to weigh scruples and reasons to the turn of afraction: another element, besides the love of truth, enters into thecomposition of their decisions, the reaction of which must be calculatedupon and guarded against. If our philosophical statesman had to open thecase before a class of tyros, or a circle of grey-beards, who wished toform or to strengthen their judgments upon fair and rational grounds, nothing could be more satisfactory, more luminous, more able or moredecisive than the view taken of it by Sir James Mackintosh. But theHouse of Commons, as a collective body, have not the docility of youth, the calm wisdom of age; and often only want an excuse to do wrong, orto adhere to what they have already determined upon; and Sir James, in detailing the inexhaustible stores of his memory and reading, inunfolding the wide range of his theory and practice, in laying downthe rules and the exceptions, in insisting upon the advantages and theobjections with equal explicitness, would be sure to let something dropthat a dextrous and watchful adversary would easily pick up and turnagainst him, if this were found necessary; or if with so many _pros_ and_cons_, doubts and difficulties, dilemmas and alternatives thrown intoit, the scale, with its natural bias to interest and power, did notalready fly up and kick the beam. There wanted unity of purpose, impetuosity of feeling to break through the phalanx of hostile andinveterate prejudice arrayed against him. He gave a handle to hisenemies; threw stumbling-blocks in the way of his friends. He raised somany objections for the sake of answering them, proposed so many doubtsfor the sake of solving them, and made so many concessions where nonewere demanded, that his reasoning had the effect of neutralizing itself;it became a mere exercise of the understanding without zest or spiritleft in it; and the provident engineer who was to shatter in piecesthe strong-holds of corruption and oppression, by a well-directed andunsparing discharge of artillery, seemed to have brought not only hisown cannon-balls, but his own wool-packs along with him to ward offthe threatened mischief. This was a good deal the effect of his maidenspeech on the transfer of Genoa, to which Lord Castlereagh did not deignan answer, and which another Honourable Member called "a _finical_speech. " It was a most able, candid, closely argued, and philosophicalexposure of that unprincipled transaction; but for this very reason itwas a solecism in the place where it was delivered. Sir James has, sincethis period, and with the help of practice, lowered himself to the toneof the House; and has also applied himself to questions more congenialto his habits of mind, and where the success would be more likely to beproportioned to his zeal and his exertions. 

There was a greater degree of power, or of dashing and splendid effect(we wish we could add, an equally humane and liberal spirit) in the_Lectures on the Law of Nature and Nations_, formerly delivered by SirJames (then Mr. ) Mackintosh, in Lincoln's-Inn Hall. He shewed greaterconfidence; was more at home there. The effect was more electrical andinstantaneous, and this elicited a prouder display of intellectualriches, and a more animated and imposing mode of delivery. He grewwanton with success. Dazzling others by the brilliancy of hisacquirements, dazzled himself by the admiration they excited, he lostfear as well as prudence; dared every thing, carried every thing beforehim. The Modern Philosophy, counterscarp, outworks, citadel, and all, fell without a blow, by "the whiff and wind of his fell _doctrine_, " asif it had been a pack of cards. The volcano of the French Revolutionwas seen expiring in its own flames, like a bon-fire made of straw: theprinciples of Reform were scattered in all directions, like chaff beforethe keen northern blast. He laid about him like one inspired; nothingcould withstand his envenomed tooth. Like some savage beast got intothe garden of the fabled Hesperides, he made clear work of it, root andbranch, with white, foaming tusks--

 "Laid waste the borders, and o'erthrew the bowers. "

The havoc was amazing, the desolation was complete. As to our visionarysceptics and Utopian philosophers, they stood no chance with ourlecturer--he did not "carve them as a dish fit for the Gods, but hewedthem as a carcase fit for hounds. " Poor Godwin, who had come, in the_bonhommie_ and candour of his nature, to hear what new light had brokenin upon his old friend, was obliged to quit the field, and slunk awayafter an exulting taunt thrown out at "such fanciful chimeras as agolden mountain or a perfect man. " Mr. Mackintosh had something of theair, much of the dexterity and self-possession, of a political andphilosophical juggler; and an eager and admiring audience gaped andgreedily swallowed the gilded bait of sophistry, prepared for theircredulity and wonder. Those of us who attended day after day, and wereaccustomed to have all our previous notions confounded and struck out ofour hands by some metaphysical legerdemain, were at last at some loss toknow _whether two and two made four_, till we had heard the lecturer'sopinion on that head. He might have some mental reservation on thesubject, some pointed ridicule to pour upon the common supposition, some learned authority to quote against it. To anticipate the line ofargument he might pursue, was evidently presumptuous and premature. Onething only appeared certain, that whatever opinion he chose to take up, he was able to make good either by the foils or the cudgels, by grossbanter or nice distinctions, by a well-timed mixture of paradox andcommon-place, by an appeal to vulgar prejudices or startling scepticism. It seemed to be equally his object, or the tendency of his Discourses, to unsettle every principle of reason or of common sense, and to leavehis audience at the mercy of the _dictum_ of a lawyer, the nod of aminister, or the shout of a mob. To effect this purpose, he drew largelyon the learning of antiquity, on modern literature, on history, poetry, and the belles-lettres, on the Schoolmen and on writers of novels, French, English, and Italian. In mixing up the sparkling julep, thatby its potent operation was to scour away the dregs and feculence andpeccant humours of the body politic, he seemed to stand with his backto the drawers in a metaphysical dispensary, and to take out of themwhatever ingredients suited his purpose. In this way he had an antidotefor every error, an answer to every folly. The writings of Burke, Hume, Berkeley, Paley, Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Grotius, Puffendorf, Cicero, Aristotle, Tacitus, Livy, Sully, Machiavel, Guicciardini, Thuanus, layopen beside him, and he could instantly lay his hand upon the passage, and quote them chapter and verse to the clearing up of all difficulties, and the silencing of all oppugners. Mr. Mackintosh's Lectures were afterall but a kind of philosophical centos. They were profound, brilliant, new to his hearers; but the profundity, the brilliancy, the novelty werenot his own. He was like Dr. Pangloss (not Voltaire's, but Coleman's)who speaks only in quotations; and the pith, the marrow of Sir James'sreasoning and rhetoric at that memorable period might be put withininverted commas. It, however, served its purpose and the loud echo diedaway. We remember an excellent man and a sound critic[A] going to hearone of these elaborate effusions; and on his want of enthusiasm beingaccounted for from its not being one of the orator's brilliant days, hereplied, "he did not think a man of genius could speak for two hourswithout saying something by which he would have been electrified. "We are only sorry, at this distance of time, for one thing in theseLectures--the tone and spirit in which they seemed to have been composedand to be delivered. If all that body of opinions and principles ofwhich the orator read his recantation was unfounded, and there was anend of all those views and hopes that pointed to future improvement, itwas not a matter of triumph or exultation to the lecturer or any bodyelse, to the young or the old, the wise or the foolish; on the contrary, it was a subject of regret, of slow, reluctant, painful admission--

 "Of lamentation loud heard through the rueful air. "

The immediate occasion of this sudden and violent change in Sir James'sviews and opinions was attributed to a personal interview which hehad had a little before his death with Mr. Burke, at his house atBeaconsfield. In the latter end of the year 1796, appeared the _RegicidePeace_, from the pen of the great apostate from liberty and betrayer ofhis species into the hands of those who claimed it as their propertyby divine right--a work imposing, solid in many respects, abounding infacts and admirable reasoning, and in which all flashy ornaments werelaid aside for a testamentary gravity, (the eloquence of despairresembling the throes and heaving and muttered threats of an earthquake, rather than the loud thunder-bolt)--and soon after came out a criticismon it in _The Monthly Review_, doing justice to the author and thestyle, and combating the inferences with force and at much length; butwith candour and with respect, amounting to deference. It was new to Mr. Burke not to be called names by persons of the opposite party; it wasan additional triumph to him to be spoken well of, to be loaded withwell-earned praise by the author of the _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_. It was atestimony from an old, a powerful, and an admired antagonist. [B] He sentan invitation to the writer to come and see him; and in the course ofthree days' animated discussion of such subjects, Mr. Mackintosh becamea convert not merely to the graces and gravity of Mr. Burke's style, butto the liberality of his views, and the solidity of his opinions. --TheLincoln's-Inn Lectures were the fruit of this interview: such is theinfluence exercised by men of genius and imaginative power over thosewho have nothing to oppose to their unforeseen flashes of thought andinvention, but the dry, cold, formal deductions of the understanding. Our politician had time, during a few years of absence from his nativecountry, and while the din of war and the cries of party-spirit "werelost over a wide and unhearing ocean, " to recover from his surprise andfrom a temporary alienation of mind; and to return in spirit, and in themild and mellowed maturity of age, to the principles and attachments ofhis early life. 

The appointment of Sir James Mackintosh to a Judgeship in India was one, which, however flattering to his vanity or favourable to his interests, was entirely foreign to his feelings and habits. It was an honourableexile. He was out of his element among black slaves and sepoys, andNabobs and cadets, and writers to India. He had no one to exchange ideaswith. The "unbought grace of life, " the charm of literary conversationwas gone. It was the habit of his mind, his ruling passion to enter intothe shock and conflict of opinions on philosophical, political, andcritical questions--not to dictate to raw tyros or domineer over personsin subordinate situations--but to obtain the guerdon and the laurels ofsuperior sense and information by meeting with men of equal standing, tohave a fair field pitched, to argue, to distinguish, to reply, tohunt down the game of intellect with eagerness and skill, to push anadvantage, to cover a retreat, to give and take a fall--

 "And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach. "

It is no wonder that this sort of friendly intellectual gladiatorship isSir James's greatest pleasure, for it is his peculiar _forte_. He hasnot many equals, and scarcely any superior in it. He is too indolent foran author; too unimpassioned for an orator: but in society he is justvain enough to be pleased with immediate attention, good-humouredenough to listen with patience to others, with great coolness andself-possession, fluent, communicative, and with a manner equally freefrom violence and insipidity. Few subjects can be started, on which heis not qualified to appear to advantage as the gentleman and scholar. Ifthere is some tinge of pedantry, it is carried off by great affabilityof address and variety of amusing and interesting topics. There isscarce an author that he has not read; a period of history that he isnot conversant with; a celebrated name of which he has not a number ofanecdotes to relate; an intricate question that he is not preparedto enter upon in a popular or scientific manner. If an opinion in anabstruse metaphysical author is referred to, he is probably able torepeat the passage by heart, can tell the side of the page on which itis to be met with, can trace it back through various descents to Locke, Hobbes, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, to a place in some obscure folio ofthe School-men or a note in one of the commentators on Aristotle orPlato, and thus give you in a few moments' space, and without any effortor previous notice, a chronological table of the progress of the humanmind in that particular branch of inquiry. There is something, we think, perfectly admirable and delightful in an exhibition of this kind, andwhich is equally creditable to the speaker and gratifying to the hearer. But this kind of talent was of no use in India: the intellectual wares, of which the Chief Judge delighted to make a display, were in no requestthere. He languished after the friends and the society he had leftbehind; and wrote over incessantly for books from England. One that wassent him at this time was an _Essay on the Principles of Human Action_;and the way in which he spoke of that dry, tough, metaphysical_choke-pear_, shewed the dearth of intellectual intercourse in which helived, and the craving in his mind after those studies which had oncebeen his pride, and to which he still turned for consolation in hisremote solitude. --Perhaps to another, the novelty of the scene, thedifferences of mind and manners might have atoned for a want of socialand literary _agrèmens_: but Sir James is one of those who see naturethrough the spectacles of books. He might like to read an account ofIndia; but India itself with its burning, shining face would be a mereblank, an endless waste to him. To persons of this class of mind thingsmust be translated into words, visible images into abstract propositionsto meet their refined apprehensions, and they have no more to say to amatter-of-fact staring them in the face without a label in its mouth, than they would to a hippopotamus!--We may add, before we quit thispoint, that we cannot conceive of any two persons more different incolloquial talents, in which they both excel, than Sir James Mackintoshand Mr. Coleridge. They have nearly an equal range of reading and oftopics of conversation: but in the mind of the one we see nothing but_fixtures_, in the other every thing is fluid. The ideas of the oneare as formal and tangible, as those of the other are shadowy andevanescent. Sir James Mackintosh walks over the ground, Mr. Coleridge isalways flying off from it. The first knows all that has been said upona subject; the last has something to say that was never said before. Ifthe one deals too much in learned _common-places_, the other teems withidle fancies. The one has a good deal of the _caput mortuum_ of genius, the other is all volatile salt. The conversation of Sir James Mackintoshhas the effect of reading a well-written book, that of his friendis like hearing a bewildered dream. The one is an Encyclopedia ofknowledge, the other is a succession of _Sybilline Leaves_!

As an author, Sir James Mackintosh may claim the foremost rank amongthose who pride themselves on artificial ornaments and acquiredlearning, or who write what may be termed a _composite_ style. His_Vindciae Gallicae_ is a work of great labour, great ingenuity, greatbrilliancy, and great vigour. It is a little too antithetical in thestructure of its periods, too dogmatical in the announcement of itsopinions. Sir James has, we believe, rejected something of the_false brilliant_ of the one, as he has retracted some of the abruptextravagance of the other. We apprehend, however, that our author is notone of those who draw from their own resources and accumulated feelings, or who improve with age. He belongs to a class (common in Scotlandand elsewhere) who get up school-exercises on any given subject ina masterly manner at twenty, and who at forty are either where theywere--or retrograde, if they are men of sense and modesty. The reasonis, their vanity is weaned, after the first hey-day and animal spiritsof youth are flown, from making an affected display of knowledge, which, however useful, is not their own, and may be much more simply stated;they are tired of repeating the same arguments over and over again, after having exhausted and rung the changes on their whole stock for anumber of times. Sir James Mackintosh is understood to be a writer inthe Edinburgh Review; and the articles attributed to him there are fullof matter of great pith and moment. But they want the trim, pointedexpression, the ambitious ornaments, the ostentatious display and rapidvolubility of his early productions. We have heard it objected to hislater compositions, that his style is good as far as single words andphrases are concerned, but that his sentences are clumsy and disjointed, and that these make up still more awkward and sprawling paragraphs. Thisis a nice criticism, and we cannot speak to its truth: but if the factbe so, we think we can account for it from the texture and obviousprocess of the author's mind. All his ideas may be said to be givenpreconceptions. They do not arise, as it were, out of the subject, orout of one another at the moment, and therefore do not flow naturallyand gracefully from one another. They have been laid down beforehand ina sort of formal division or frame-work of the understanding; and theconnexion between the premises and the conclusion, between one branchof a subject and another, is made out in a bungling and unsatisfactorymanner. There is no principle of fusion in the work: he strikes afterthe iron is cold, and there is a want of malleability in the style. SirJames is at present said to be engaged in writing a _History of England_after the downfall of the house of Stuart. May it be worthy of thetalents of the author, and of the principles of the period it isintended to illustrate!

[Footnote A: The late Rev. Joseph Fawcett, of Walthamstow. ]

[Footnote B: At the time when the _Vindiciae Gallicae_ first made itsappearance, as a reply to the _Reflections on the French Revolution_, itwas cried up by the partisans of the new school, as a work superior inthe charms of composition to its redoubted rival: in acuteness, depth, and soundness of reasoning, of course there was supposed to be nocomparison. ]

 * * * * *

MR. WORDSWORTH. 

Mr. Wordsworth's genius is a pure emanation of the Spirit of the Age. Had he lived in any other period of the world, he would never have beenheard of. As it is, he has some difficulty to contend with the hebetudeof his intellect, and the meanness of his subject. With him "lowlinessis young ambition's ladder:" but he finds it a toil to climb in this waythe steep of Fame. His homely Muse can hardly raise her wing from theground, nor spread her hidden glories to the sun. He has "no figures norno fantasies, which busy _passion_ draws in the brains of men:" neitherthe gorgeous machinery of mythologic lore, nor the splendid colours ofpoetic diction. His style is vernacular: he delivers household truths. He sees nothing loftier than human hopes; nothing deeper than the humanheart. This he probes, this he tampers with, this he poises, with allits incalculable weight of thought and feeling, in his hands; and at thesame time calms the throbbing pulses of his own heart, by keeping hiseye ever fixed on the face of nature. If he can make the life-blood flowfrom the wounded breast, this is the living colouring with which hepaints his verse: if he can assuage the pain or close up the wound withthe balm of solitary musing, or the healing power of plants and herbsand "skyey influences, " this is the sole triumph of his art. He takesthe simplest elements of nature and of the human mind, the mere abstractconditions inseparable from our being, and tries to compound a newsystem of poetry from them; and has perhaps succeeded as well as any onecould. "_Nihil humani a me alienum puto_"--is the motto of his works. Hethinks nothing low or indifferent of which this can be affirmed: everything that professes to be more than this, that is not an absoluteessence of truth and feeling, he holds to be vitiated, false, andspurious. In a word, his poetry is founded on setting up an opposition(and pushing it to the utmost length) between the natural and theartificial: between the spirit of humanity, and the spirit of fashionand of the world!

It is one of the innovations of the time. It partakes of, and is carriedalong with, the revolutionary movement of our age: the political changesof the day were the model on which he formed and conducted his poeticalexperiments. His Muse (it cannot be denied, and without this we cannotexplain its character at all) is a levelling one. It proceeds on aprinciple of equality, and strives to reduce all things to the samestandard. It is distinguished by a proud humility. It relies upon itsown resources, and disdains external shew and relief. It takes thecommonest events and objects, as a test to prove that nature is alwaysinteresting from its inherent truth and beauty, without any of theornaments of dress or pomp of circumstances to set it off. Hence theunaccountable mixture of seeming simplicity and real abstruseness in the_Lyrical Ballads_. Fools have laughed at, wise men scarcely understandthem. He takes a subject or a story merely as pegs or loops to hangthought and feeling on; the incidents are trifling, in proportion tohis contempt for imposing appearances; the reflections are profound, according to the gravity and the aspiring pretensions of his mind. Hispopular, inartificial style gets rid (at a blow) of all the trappingsof verse, of all the high places of poetry: "the cloud-capt towers, thesolemn temples, the gorgeous palaces, " are swept to the ground, and"like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind. "All the traditions of learning, all the superstitions of age, areobliterated and effaced. We begin _de novo_, on a _tabula rasa_ ofpoetry. The purple pall, the nodding plume of tragedy are exploded asmere pantomime and trick, to return to the simplicity of truth andnature. Kings, queens, priests, nobles, the altar and the throne, thedistinctions of rank, birth, wealth, power, "the judge's robe, themarshall's truncheon, the ceremony that to great ones 'longs, " are notto be found here. The author tramples on the pride of art with greaterpride. The Ode and Epode, the Strophe and the Antistrophe, he laughs toscorn. The harp of Homer, the trump of Pindar and of Alcaeus are still. The decencies of costume, the decorations of vanity are stripped offwithout mercy as barbarous, idle, and Gothic. The jewels in the crispedhair, the diadem on the polished brow are thought meretricious, theatrical, vulgar; and nothing contents his fastidious taste beyonda simple garland of flowers. Neither does he avail himself of theadvantages which nature or accident holds out to him. He chooses to havehis subject a foil to his invention, to owe nothing but to himself. Hegathers manna in the wilderness, he strikes the barren rock for thegushing moisture. He elevates the mean by the strength of his ownaspirations; he clothes the naked with beauty and grandeur from thestore of his own recollections. No cypress-grove loads his verse withperfumes: but his imagination lends a sense of joy

 "To the bare trees and mountains bare, And grass in the green field. "

No storm, no shipwreck startles us by its horrors: but the rainbow liftsits head in the cloud, and the breeze sighs through the withered fern. No sad vicissitude of fate, no overwhelming catastrophe in naturedeforms his page: but the dew-drop glitters on the bending flower, thetear collects in the glistening eye. 

 "Beneath the hills, along the flowery vales, The generations are prepared; the pangs, The internal pangs are ready; the dread strife Of poor humanity's afflicted will, Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny. "

As the lark ascends from its low bed on fluttering wing, and salutes themorning skies; so Mr. Wordsworth's unpretending Muse, in russet guise, scales the summits of reflection, while it makes the round earth itsfootstool, and its home!

Possibly a good deal of this may be regarded as the effect ofdisappointed views and an inverted ambition. Prevented by native prideand indolence from climbing the ascent of learning or greatness, taughtby political opinions to say to the vain pomp and glory of the world, "Ihate ye, " seeing the path of classical and artificial poetry blocked upby the cumbrous ornaments of style and turgid _common-places_, sothat nothing more could be achieved in that direction but by the mostridiculous bombast or the tamest servility; he has turned back partlyfrom the bias of his mind, partly perhaps from a judicious policy--hasstruck into the sequestered vale of humble life, sought out the Museamong sheep-cotes and hamlets and the peasant's mountain-haunts, hasdiscarded all the tinsel pageantry of verse, and endeavoured (not invain) to aggrandise the trivial and add the charm of novelty to thefamiliar. No one has shewn the same imagination in raising trifles intoimportance: no one has displayed the same pathos in treating of thesimplest feelings of the heart. Reserved, yet haughty, having no unrulyor violent passions, (or those passions having been early suppressed, )Mr. Wordsworth has passed his life in solitary musing, or in dailyconverse with the face of nature. He exemplifies in an eminent degreethe power of _association_; for his poetry has no other source orcharacter. He has dwelt among pastoral scenes, till each object hasbecome connected with a thousand feelings, a link in the chain ofthought, a fibre of his own heart. Every one is by habit and familiaritystrongly attached to the place of his birth, or to objects that recalthe most pleasing and eventful circumstances of his life. But to theauthor of the _Lyrical Ballads_, nature is a kind of home; and he may besaid to take a personal interest in the universe. There is no image soinsignificant that it has not in some mood or other found the way intohis heart: no sound that does not awaken the memory of other years. --

 "To him the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. "

The daisy looks up to him with sparkling eye as an old acquaintance:the cuckoo haunts him with sounds of early youth not to be expressed: alinnet's nest startles him with boyish delight: an old withered thorn isweighed down with a heap of recollections: a grey cloak, seen on somewild moor, torn by the wind, or drenched in the rain, afterwards becomesan object of imagination to him: even the lichens on the rock have alife and being in his thoughts. He has described all these objects in away and with an intensity of feeling that no one else had done beforehim, and has given a new view or aspect of nature. He is in this sensethe most original poet now living, and the one whose writings could theleast be spared: for they have no substitute elsewhere. The vulgar donot read them, the learned, who see all things through books, do notunderstand them, the great despise, the fashionable may ridicule them:but the author has created himself an interest in the heart of theretired and lonely student of nature, which can never die. Personsof this class will still continue to feel what he has felt: he hasexpressed what they might in vain wish to express, except withglistening eye and faultering tongue! There is a lofty philosophic tone, a thoughtful humanity, infused into his pastoral vein. Remote from thepassions and events of the great world, he has communicated interest anddignity to the primal movements of the heart of man, and ingrafted hisown conscious reflections on the casual thoughts of hinds and shepherds. Nursed amidst the grandeur of mountain scenery, he has stooped to havea nearer view of the daisy under his feet, or plucked a branch ofwhite-thorn from the spray: but in describing it, his mind seems imbuedwith the majesty and solemnity of the objects around him--the tall rocklifts its head in the erectness of his spirit; the cataract roars in thesound of his verse; and in its dim and mysterious meaning, the mistsseem to gather in the hollows of Helvellyn, and the forked Skiddawhovers in the distance. There is little mention of mountainous sceneryin Mr. Wordsworth's poetry; but by internal evidence one might be almostsure that it was written in a mountainous country, from its bareness, its simplicity, its loftiness and its depth!

His later philosophic productions have a somewhat different character. They are a departure from, a dereliction of his first principles. Theyare classical and courtly. They are polished in style, without beinggaudy; dignified in subject, without affectation. They seem to havebeen composed not in a cottage at Grasmere, but among the half-inspiredgroves and stately recollections of Cole-Orton. We might allude inparticular, for examples of what we mean, to the lines on a Picture byClaude Lorraine, and to the exquisite poem, entitled _Laodamia_. Thelast of these breathes the pure spirit of the finest fragments ofantiquity--the sweetness, the gravity, the strength, the beauty and thelangour of death--

 "Calm contemplation and majestic pains. "

Its glossy brilliancy arises from the perfection of the finishing, likethat of careful sculpture, not from gaudy colouring--the texture of thethoughts has the smoothness and solidity of marble. It is a poem thatmight be read aloud in Elysium, and the spirits of departed heroes andsages would gather round to listen to it! Mr. Wordsworth's philosophicpoetry, with a less glowing aspect and less tumult in the veins thanLord Byron's on similar occasions, bends a calmer and keener eyeon mortality; the impression, if less vivid, is more pleasing andpermanent; and we confess it (perhaps it is a want of taste and properfeeling) that there are lines and poems of our author's, that we thinkof ten times for once that we recur to any of Lord Byron's. Or if thereare any of the latter's writings, that we can dwell upon in the sameway, that is, as lasting and heart-felt sentiments, it is when layingaside his usual pomp and pretension, he descends with Mr. Wordsworth tothe common ground of a disinterested humanity. It may be consideredas characteristic of our poet's writings, that they either make noimpression on the mind at all, seem mere _nonsense-verses_, or that theyleave a mark behind them that never wears out. They either

 "Fall blunted from the indurated breast"--

without any perceptible result, or they absorb it like a passion. Toone class of readers he appears sublime, to another (and we fear thelargest) ridiculous. He has probably realised Milton's wish, --"and fitaudience found, though few:" but we suspect he is not reconciled to thealternative. There are delightful passages in the EXCURSION, both ofnatural description and of inspired reflection (passages of the latterkind that in the sound of the thoughts and of the swelling languageresemble heavenly symphonies, mournful _requiems_ over the grave ofhuman hopes); but we must add, in justice and in sincerity, that wethink it impossible that this work should ever become popular, even inthe same degree as the _Lyrical Ballads_. It affects a system withouthaving any intelligible clue to one; and instead of unfolding aprinciple in various and striking lights, repeats the same conclusionstill they become flat and insipid. Mr. Wordsworth's mind is obtuse, except as it is the organ and the receptacle of accumulated feelings:it is not analytic, but synthetic; it is reflecting, rather thantheoretical. The EXCURSION, we believe, fell stillborn from the press. There was something abortive, and clumsy, and ill-judged in the attempt. It was long and laboured. The personages, for the most part, were low, the fare rustic: the plan raised expectations which were not fulfilled, and the effect was like being ushered into a stately hall and invitedto sit down to a splendid banquet in the company of clowns, and withnothing but successive courses of apple-dumplings served up. It was noteven _toujours perdrix_!

Mr. Wordsworth, in his person, is above the middle size, with markedfeatures, and an air somewhat stately and Quixotic. He reminds one ofsome of Holbein's heads, grave, saturnine, with a slight indication ofsly humour, kept under by the manners of the age or by the pretensionsof the person. He has a peculiar sweetness in his smile, and great depthand manliness and a rugged harmony, in the tones of his voice. Hismanner of reading his own poetry is particularly imposing; and in hisfavourite passages his eye beams with preternatural lustre, and themeaning labours slowly up from his swelling breast. No one who has seenhim at these moments could go away with an impression that he was a "manof no mark or likelihood. " Perhaps the comment of his face and voice isnecessary to convey a full idea of his poetry. His language may not beintelligible, but his manner is not to be mistaken. It is clear thathe is either mad or inspired. In company, even in a _tête-à-tête_, Mr. Wordsworth is often silent, indolent, and reserved. If he is becomeverbose and oracular of late years, he was not so in his better days. He threw out a bold or an indifferent remark without either effort orpretension, and relapsed into musing again. He shone most (because heseemed most roused and animated) in reciting his own poetry, or intalking about it. He sometimes gave striking views of his feelings andtrains of association in composing certain passages; or if one didnot always understand his distinctions, still there was no want ofinterest--there was a latent meaning worth inquiring into, like a veinof ore that one Cannot exactly hit upon at the moment, but of whichthere are sure indications. His standard of poetry is high and severe, almost to exclusiveness. He admits of nothing below, scarcely of anything above himself. It is fine to hear him talk of the way in whichcertain subjects should have been treated by eminent poets, according tohis notions of the art. Thus he finds fault with Dryden's description ofBacchus in the _Alexander's Feast_, as if he were a mere good-lookingyouth, or boon companion--

 "Flushed with a purple grace, He shews his honest face"--

instead of representing the God returning from the conquest of India, crowned with vine-leaves, and drawn by panthers, and followed by troopsof satyrs, of wild men and animals that he had tamed. You would thank, in hearing him speak on this subject, that you saw Titian's picture ofthe meeting of _Bacchus and Ariadne_--so classic were his conceptions, so glowing his style. Milton is his great idol, and he sometimes daresto compare himself with him. His Sonnets, indeed, have something of thesame high-raised tone and prophetic spirit. Chaucer is another primefavourite of his, and he has been at the pains to modernise some of theCanterbury Tales. Those persons who look upon Mr. Wordsworth as a merelypuerile writer, must be rather at a loss to account for his strongpredilection for such geniuses as Dante and Michael Angelo. We do notthink our author has any very cordial sympathy with Shakespear. Howshould he? Shakespear was the least of an egotist of any body in theworld. He does not much relish the variety and scope of dramaticcomposition. "He hates those interlocutions between Lucius and Caius. "Yet Mr. Wordsworth himself wrote a tragedy when he was young; and wehave heard the following energetic lines quoted from it, as put into themouth of a person smit with remorse for some rash crime:

 ----"Action is momentary, The motion of a muscle this way or that; Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite!"

Perhaps for want of light and shade, and the unshackled spirit of thedrama, this performance was never brought forward. Our critic has agreat dislike to Gray, and a fondness for Thomson and Collins. It ismortifying to hear him speak of Pope and Dryden, whom, because they havebeen supposed to have all the possible excellences of poetry, he willallow to have none. Nothing, however, can be fairer, or more amusing, than the way in which he sometimes exposes the unmeaning verbiage ofmodern poetry. Thus, in the beginning of Dr. Johnson's _Vanity of HumanWishes_--

 "Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind from China to Peru"--

he says there is a total want of imagination accompanying the words, the same idea is repeated three times under the disguise of a differentphraseology: it comes to this--"let _observation_, with extensive_observation, observe_ mankind;" or take away the first line, and thesecond, "Survey mankind from China to Peru, "

literally conveys the whole. Mr. Wordsworth is, we must say, a perfectDrawcansir as to prose writers. He complains of the dry reasoners andmatter-of-fact people for their want of _passion_; and he is jealous ofthe rhetorical declaimers and rhapsodists as trenching on the provinceof poetry. He condemns all French writers (as well of poetry as prose)in the lump. His list in this way is indeed small. He approves ofWalton's Angler, Paley, and some other writers of an inoffensive modestyof pretension. He also likes books of voyages and travels, and RobinsonCrusoe. In art, he greatly esteems Bewick's wood-cuts, and Waterloo'ssylvan etchings. But he sometimes takes a higher tone, and gives hismind fair play. We have known him enlarge with a noble intelligence andenthusiasm on Nicolas Poussin's fine landscape-compositions, pointingout the unity of design that pervades them, the superintending mind, the imaginative principle that brings all to bear on the same end;and declaring he would not give a rush for any landscape that did notexpress the time of day, the climate, the period of the world it wasmeant to illustrate, or had not this character of _wholeness_ in it. Hiseye also does justice to Rembrandt's fine and masterly effects. In theway in which that artist works something out of nothing, and transformsthe stump of a tree, a common figure into an _ideal_ object, by thegorgeous light and shade thrown upon it, he perceives an analogy to hisown mode of investing the minute details of nature with an atmosphereof sentiment; and in pronouncing Rembrandt to be a man of genius, feelsthat he strengthens his own claim to the title. It has been said ofMr. Wordsworth, that "he hates conchology, that he hates the Venus ofMedicis. " But these, we hope, are mere epigrams and _jeux-d'esprit_, asfar from truth as they are free from malice; a sort of running satire orcritical clenches--

 "Where one for sense and one for rhyme Is quite sufficient at one time. "

We think, however, that if Mr. Wordsworth had been a more liberal andcandid critic, he would have been a more sterling writer. If a greaternumber of sources of pleasure had been open to him, he would havecommunicated pleasure to the world more frequently. Had he been lessfastidious in pronouncing sentence on the works of others, his own wouldhave been received more favourably, and treated more leniently. The current of his feelings is deep, but narrow; the range of hisunderstanding is lofty and aspiring rather than discursive. The force, the originality, the absolute truth and identity with which he feelssome things, makes him indifferent to so many others. The simplicity andenthusiasm of his feelings, with respect to nature, renders him bigottedand intolerant in his judgments of men and things. But it happens tohim, as to others, that his strength lies in his weakness; and perhapswe have no right to complain. We might get rid of the cynic and theegotist, and find in his stead a common-place man. We should "take thegood the Gods provide us:" a fine and original vein of poetry is notone of their most contemptible gifts, and the rest is scarcely worththinking of, except as it may be a mortification to those who expectperfection from human nature; or who have been idle enough at someperiod of their lives, to deify men of genius as possessing claims aboveit. But this is a chord that jars, and we shall not dwell upon it. 

Lord Byron we have called, according to the old proverb, "the spoiledchild of fortune:" Mr. Wordsworth might plead, in mitigation of somepeculiarities, that he is "the spoiled child of disappointment. " We areconvinced, if he had been early a popular poet, he would have borne hishonours meekly, and would have been a person of great _bonhommie_ andfrankness of disposition. But the sense of injustice and of undeservedridicule sours the temper and narrows the views. To have produced worksof genius, and to find them neglected or treated with scorn, is one ofthe heaviest trials of human patience. We exaggerate our own merits whenthey are denied by others, and are apt to grudge and cavil at everyparticle of praise bestowed on those to whom we feel a conscioussuperiority. In mere self-defence we turn against the world, when itturns against us; brood over the undeserved slights we receive; and thusthe genial current of the soul is stopped, or vents itself in effusionsof petulance and self-conceit. Mr. Wordsworth has thought too much ofcontemporary critics and criticism; and less than he ought of the awardof posterity, and of the opinion, we do not say of private friends, butof those who were made so by their admiration of his genius. He did notcourt popularity by a conformity to established models, and he oughtnot to have been surprised that his originality was not understood as amatter of course. He has _gnawed too much on the bridle_; and has oftenthrown out crusts to the critics, in mere defiance or as a point ofhonour when he was challenged, which otherwise his own good sense wouldhave withheld. We suspect that Mr. Wordsworth's feelings are a littlemorbid in this respect, or that he resents censure more than he isgratified by praise. Otherwise, the tide has turned much in his favourof late years--he has a large body of determined partisans--and is atpresent sufficiently in request with the public to save or relieve himfrom the last necessity to which a man of genius can be reduced--thatof becoming the God of his own idolatry!

 * * * * *

MR. MALTHUS. 

Mr. Malthus may be considered as one of those rare and fortunate writerswho have attained a _scientific_ reputation in questions of moral andpolitical philosophy. His name undoubtedly stands very high in thepresent age, and will in all probability go down to posterity with moreor less of renown or obloquy. It was said by a person well qualifiedto judge both from strength and candour of mind, that "it would takea thousand years at least to answer his work on Population. " He hascertainly thrown a new light on that question, and changed the aspect ofpolitical economy in a decided and material point of view--whether hehas not also endeavoured to spread a gloom over the hopes and moresanguine speculations of man, and to cast a slur upon the face ofnature, is another question. There is this to be said for Mr. Malthus, that in speaking of him, one knows what one is talking about. He issomething beyond a mere name--one has not to _beat the bush_ about histalents, his attainments, his vast reputation, and leave off withoutknowing what it all amounts to--he is not one of those great men, whoset themselves off and strut and fret an hour upon the stage, during aday-dream of popularity, with the ornaments and jewels borrowed from thecommon stock, to which nothing but their vanity and presumption givesthem the least individual claim--he has dug into the mine of truth, andbrought up ore mixed with dross! In weighing his merits we come at onceto the question of what he has done or failed to do. It is a specificclaim that he sets up. When we speak of Mr. Malthus, we mean the _Essayon Population_; and when we mention the Essay on Population, we meana distinct leading proposition, that stands out intelligibly from alltrashy pretence, and is a ground on which to fix the levers that maymove the world, backwards or forwards. He has not left opinion wherehe found it; he has advanced or given it a wrong bias, or thrown astumbling-block in its way. In a word, his name is not stuck, like somany others, in the firmament of reputation, nobody knows why, inscribedin great letters, and with a transparency of TALENTS, GENIUS, LEARNINGblazing round it--it is tantamount to an idea, it is identified witha principle, it means that _the population cannot go on perpetuallyincreasing without pressing on the limits of the means of subsistence, and that a check of some kind or other must, sooner or later, be opposedto it_. This is the essence of the doctrine which Mr. Malthus has beenthe first to bring into general notice, and as we think, to establishbeyond the fear of contradiction. Admitting then as we do the prominenceand the value of his claims to public attention, it yet remains aquestion, how far those claims are (as to the talent displayed in them)strictly original; how far (as to the logical accuracy with which he hastreated the subject) he has introduced foreign and doubtful matterinto it; and how far (as to the spirit in which he has conducted hisinquiries, and applied a general principle to particular objects) he hasonly drawn fair and inevitable conclusions from it, or endeavoured totamper with and wrest it to sinister and servile purposes. A writer whoshrinks from following up a well-founded principle into its untowardconsequences from timidity or false delicacy, is not worthy of thename of a philosopher: a writer who assumes the garb of candour and aninflexible love of truth to garble and pervert it, to crouch to powerand pander to prejudice, deserves a worse title than that of a sophist!

Mr. Malthus's first octavo volume on this subject (published in the year1798) was intended as an answer to Mr. Godwin's _Enquiry concerningPolitical Justice_. It was well got up for the purpose, and had animmediate effect. It was what in the language of the ring is called _afacer_. It made Mr. Godwin and the other advocates of Modern Philosophylook about them. It may be almost doubted whether Mr. Malthus was in thefirst instance serious in many things that he threw out, or whether hedid not hazard the whole as an amusing and extreme paradox, which mightpuzzle the reader as it had done himself in an idle moment, but to whichno practical consequence whatever could attach. This state of mind wouldprobably continue till the irritation of enemies and the encouragementof friends convinced him that what he had at first exhibited as an idlefancy was in fact a very valuable discovery, or "like the toad ugly andvenomous, had yet a precious jewel in its head. " Such a suppositionwould at least account for some things in the original Essay, whichscarcely any writer would venture upon, except as professed exercises ofingenuity, and which have been since in part retracted. But a wrongbias was thus given, and the author's theory was thus rendered warped, disjointed, and sophistical from the very outset. 

Nothing could in fact be more illogical (not to say absurd) than thewhole of Mr. Malthus's reasoning applied as an answer (_par excellence_)to Mr. Godwin's book, or to the theories of other Utopian philosophers. Mr. Godwin was not singular, but was kept in countenance by manyauthorities, both ancient and modern, in supposing a state of societypossible in which the passions and wills of individuals would beconformed to the general good, in which the knowledge of the best meansof promoting human welfare and the desire of contributing to itwould banish vice and misery from the world, and in which, thestumbling-blocks of ignorance, of selfishness, and the indulgence ofgross appetite being removed, all things would move on by the mereimpulse of wisdom and virtue, to still higher and higher degrees ofperfection and happiness. Compared with the lamentable and grossdeficiencies of existing institutions, such a view of futurity as barelypossible could not fail to allure the gaze and tempt the aspiringthoughts of the philanthropist and the philosopher: the hopes and theimaginations of speculative men could not but rush forward into thisideal world as into a _vacuum_ of good; and from "the mighty stream oftendency" (as Mr. Wordsworth in the cant of the day calls it, ) there wasdanger that the proud monuments of time-hallowed institutions, that thestrong-holds of power and corruption, that "the Corinthian capitals ofpolished society, " with the base and pediments, might be overthrownand swept away as by a hurricane. There were not wanting persons whoseignorance, whose fears, whose pride, or whose prejudices contemplatedsuch an alternative with horror; and who would naturally feel no smallobligation to the man who should relieve their apprehensions from thestunning roar of this mighty change of opinion that thundered at adistance, and should be able, by some logical apparatus or unexpectedturn of the argument, to prevent the vessel of the state from beinghurried forward with the progress of improvement, and dashed in piecesdown the tremendous precipice of human perfectibility. Then comes Mr. Malthus forward with the geometrical and arithmetical ratios in hishands, and holds them out to his affrighted contemporaries as the onlymeans of salvation. "For" (so argued the author of the Essay) "let theprinciples of Mr. Godwin's Enquiry and of other similar works be carriedliterally and completely into effect; let every corruption and abuse ofpower be entirely got rid of; let virtue, knowledge, and civilizationbe advanced to the greatest height that these visionary reformers wouldsuppose; let the passions and appetites be subjected to the utmostcontrol of reason and influence of public opinion: grant them, ina word, all that they ask, and the more completely their views arerealized, the sooner will they be overthrown again, and the moreinevitable and fatal will be the catastrophe. For the principle ofpopulation will still prevail, and from the comfort, ease, and plentythat will abound, will receive an increasing force and _impetus_; thenumber of mouths to be fed will have no limit, but the food that is tosupply them cannot keep pace with the demand for it; we must come to astop somewhere, even though each square yard, by extreme improvements incultivation, could maintain its man: in this state of things therewill be no remedy, the wholesome checks of vice and misery (which havehitherto kept this principle within bounds) will have been done away;the voice of reason will be unheard; the passions only will bearsway; famine, distress, havoc, and dismay will spread around; hatred, violence, war, and bloodshed will be the infallible consequence, andfrom the pinnacle of happiness, peace, refinement, and social advantage, we shall be hurled once more into a profounder abyss of misery, want, and barbarism than ever, by the sole operation of the principle ofpopulation!"--Such is a brief abstract of the argument of the Essay. Can any thing be less conclusive, a more complete fallacy and _petitioprincipii_? Mr. Malthus concedes, he assumes a state of perfectibility, such as his opponents imagined, in which the general good is to obtainthe entire mastery of individual interests, and reason of grossappetites and passions; and then he argues that such a perfect structureof society will fall by its own weight, or rather be undermined by theprinciple of population, because in the highest possible state of thesubjugation of the passions to reason, they will be absolutely lawlessand unchecked, and because as men become enlightened, quick sightedand public-spirited, they will shew themselves utterly blind to theconsequences of their actions, utterly indifferent to their ownwell-being and that of all succeeding generations, whose fate is placedin their hands. This we conceive to be the boldest paralogism that everwas offered to the world, or palmed upon willing credulity. Againstwhatever other scheme of reform this objection might be valid, theone it was brought expressly to overturn was impregnable against it, invulnerable to its slightest graze. Say that the Utopian reasoners arevisionaries, unfounded; that the state of virtue and knowledge theysuppose, in which reason shall have become all-in-all, can never takeplace, that it is inconsistent with the nature of man and with allexperience, well and good--but to say that society will have attainedthis high and "palmy state, " that reason will have become the master-key to all our motives, and that when arrived at its greatest power itwill cease to act at all, but will fall down dead, inert, and senselessbefore the principle of population, is an opinion which one wouldthink few people would choose to advance or assent to, without stronginducements for maintaining or believing it. 

The fact, however, is, that Mr. Malthus found this argument entire (theprinciple and the application of it) in an obscure and almost forgottenwork published about the middle of the last century, entitled _VariousProspects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence_, by a Scotch gentlemanof the name of Wallace. The chapter in this work on the Principleof Population, considered as a bar to all ultimate views of humanimprovement, was probably written to amuse an idle hour, or read as apaper to exercise the wits of some literary society in the Northerncapital, and no farther responsibility or importance annexed to it. Mr. Malthus, by adopting and setting his name to it, has given it sufficientcurrency and effect. It sometimes happens that one writer is the firstto discover a certain principle or lay down a given observation, andthat another makes an application of, or draws a remote or an immediateinference from it, totally unforeseen by the first, and from which, inall probability, he might have widely dissented. But this is not soin the present instance. Mr. Malthus has borrowed (perhaps withoutconsciousness, at any rate without acknowledgment) both the preliminarystatement, that the increase in the supply of food "from a limitedearth and a limited fertility" must have an end, while the tendency toincrease in the principle of population has none, without some externaland forcible restraint on it, and the subsequent use made of thisstatement as an insuperable bar to all schemes of Utopian or progressiveimprovement--both these he has borrowed (whole) from Wallace, with alltheir imperfections on their heads, and has added more and greaterones to them out of his own store. In order to produce something of astartling and dramatic effect, he has strained a point or two. In orderto quell and frighten away the bugbear of Modern Philosophy, he wasobliged to make a sort of monster of the principle of population, whichwas brought into the field against it, and which was to swallow it upquick. No half-measures, no middle course of reasoning would do. With aview to meet the highest possible power of reason in the new order ofthings, Mr. Malthus saw the necessity of giving the greatest possiblephysical weight to the antagonist principle, and he accordingly laysit down that its operation is mechanical and irresistible. He premisesthese two propositions as the basis of all his reasoning, 1. _That foodis necessary to man_; 2. _That the desire to propagate the species is anequally indispensable law of our existence_:--thus making it appearthat these two wants or impulses are equal and coordinate principlesof action. If this double statement had been true, the whole scope andstructure of his reasoning (as hostile to human hopes and sanguinespeculations) would have been irrefragable; but as it is not true, thewhole (in that view) falls to the ground. According to Mr. Malthus'soctavo edition, the sexual passion is as necessary to be gratified asthe appetite of hunger, and a man can no more exist without propagatinghis species than he can live without eating. Were it so, neither ofthese passions would admit of any excuses, any delay, any restraint fromreason or foresight; and the only checks to the principle of populationmust be vice and misery. The argument would be triumphant and complete. But there is no analogy, no parity in the two cases, such as our authorhere assumes. No man can live for any length of time without food; manypersons live all their lives without gratifying the other sense. The longer the craving after food is unsatisfied, the more violent, imperious, and uncontroulable the desire becomes; whereas the longer thegratification of the sexual passion is resisted, the greater force doeshabit and resolution acquire over it; and, generally speaking, it isa well-known fact, attested by all observation and history, that thislatter passion is subject more or less to controul from personalfeelings and character, from public opinions and the institutions ofsociety, so as to lead either to a lawful and regulated indulgence, orto partial or total abstinence, according to the dictates of _moralrestraint_, which latter check to the inordinate excesses and unheard-ofconsequences of the principle of population, our author, having nolonger an extreme case to make out, admits and is willing to patronizein addition to the two former and exclusive ones of _vice and misery_, in the second and remaining editions of his work. Mr. Malthus has shewnsome awkwardness or even reluctance in softening down the harshness ofhis first peremptory decision. He sometimes grants his grand exceptioncordially, proceeds to argue stoutly, and to try conclusions upon it;at other times he seems disposed to cavil about or retract it:--"theinfluence of moral restraint is very inconsiderable, or none at all. " Itis indeed difficult (more particularly for so formal and nice a reasoneras Mr. Malthus) to piece such contradictions plausibly or gracefullytogether. We wonder how _he_ manages it--how _any one_ should attemptit! The whole question, the _gist_ of the argument of his early volumeturned upon this, "Whether vice and misery were the _only_ actual orpossible checks to the principle of population?" He then said they were, and farewell to building castles in the air: he now says that _moralrestraint_ is to be coupled with these, and that its influence dependsgreatly on the state of laws and manners--and Utopia stands whereit did, a great way off indeed, but not turned _topsy-turvy_ by ourmagician's wand! Should we ever arrive there, that is, attain to a stateof _perfect moral restraint_, we shall not be driven headlong back intoEpicurus's stye for want of the only possible checks to population, _vice and misery_; and in proportion as we advance that way, that is, asthe influence of moral restraint is extended, the necessity for vice andmisery will be diminished, instead of being increased according to thefirst alarm given by the Essay. Again, the advance of civilization andof population in consequence with the same degree of moral restraint (asthere exists in England at this present time, for instance) is a good, and not an evil--but this does not appear from the Essay. The Essayshews that population is not (as had been sometimes taken for granted)an abstract and unqualified good; but it led many persons to supposethat it was an abstract and unqualified evil, to be checked only by viceand misery, and producing, according to its encouragement a greaterquantity of vice and misery; and this error the author has not beenat sufficient pains to do away. Another thing, in which Mr. Malthusattempted to _clench_ Wallace's argument, was in giving to thedisproportionate power of increase in the principle of populationand the supply of food a mathematical form, or reducing it to thearithmetical and geometrical ratios, in which we believe Mr. Malthus isnow generally admitted, even by his friends and admirers, to have beenwrong. There is evidently no inherent difference in the principle ofincrease in food or population; since a grain of corn, for example, willpropagate and multiply itself much faster even than the human species. A bushel of wheat will sow a field; that field will furnish seed fortwenty others. So that the limit to the means of subsistence is only thewant of room to raise it in, or, as Wallace expresses it, "a limitedfertility and a limited earth. " Up to the point where the earth or anygiven country is fully occupied or cultivated, the means of subsistencenaturally increase in a geometrical ratio, and will more than keep pacewith the natural and unrestrained progress of population; and beyondthat point, they do not go on increasing even in Mr. Malthus'sarithmetical ratio, but are stationary or nearly so. So far, then, isthis proportion from being universally and mathematically true, thatin no part of the world or state of society does it hold good. But ourtheorist, by laying down this double ratio as a law of nature, gainsthis advantage, that at all times it seems as if, whether in new orold-peopled countries, in fertile or barren soils, the population waspressing hard on the means of subsistence; and again, it seems as if theevil increased with the progress of improvement and civilization; for ifyou cast your eye at the scale which is supposed to be calculated upontrue and infallible _data_, you find that when the population is at8, the means of subsistence are at 4; so that here there is only a_deficit_ of one half; but when it is at 32, they have only got to 6, sothat here there is a difference of 26 in 32, and so on in proportion;the farther we proceed, the more enormous is the mass of vice andmisery we must undergo, as a consequence of the natural excess of thepopulation over the means of subsistence and as a salutary check to itsfarther desolating progress. The mathematical Table, placed at the frontof the Essay, therefore leads to a secret suspicion or a bare-facedassumption, that we ought in mere kindness and compassion to give everysort of indirect and under-hand encouragement (to say the least) to theprovidential checks of vice and misery; as the sooner we arrest thisformidable and paramount evil in its course, the less opportunity weleave it of doing incalculable mischief. Accordingly, whenever there isthe least talk of colonizing new countries, of extending the population, or adding to social comforts and improvements, Mr. Malthus conjures uphis double ratios, and insists on the alarming results of advancingthem a single step forward in the series. By the same rule, it wouldbe better to return at once to a state of barbarism; and to take thebenefit of acorns and scuttle-fish, as a security against the luxuriesand wants of civilized life. But it is not our ingenious author's wishto hint at or recommend any alterations in existing institutions; and heis therefore silent on that unpalatable part of the subject and naturalinference from his principles. 

Mr. Malthus's "gospel is preached to the poor. " He lectures them oneconomy, on morality, the regulation of their passions (which, he says, at other times, are amenable to no restraint) and on the ungracioustopic, that "the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, have doomedthem and their families to starve for want of a right to the smallestportion of food beyond what their labour will supply, or some charitablehand may hold out in compassion. " This is illiberal, and it is notphilosophical. The laws of nature or of God, to which the authorappeals, are no other than a limited fertility and a limited earth. Within those bounds, the rest is regulated by the laws of man. Thedivision of the produce of the soil, the price of labour, the reliefafforded to the poor, are matters of human arrangement: while anycharitable hand can extend relief, it is a proof that the means ofsubsistence are not exhausted in themselves, that "the tables are notfull!" Mr. Malthus says that the laws of nature, which are the laws ofGod, have rendered that relief physically impossible; and yet he wouldabrogate the poor-laws by an act of the legislature, in order to takeaway that _impossible_ relief, which the laws of God deny, and which thelaws of man _actually_ afford. We cannot think that this view of hissubject, which is prominent and dwelt on at great length and with muchpertinacity, is dictated either by rigid logic or melting charity! Alabouring man is not allowed to knock down a hare or a partridge thatspoils his garden: a country-squire keeps a pack of hounds: a lady ofquality rides out with a footman behind her, on two sleek, well-fedhorses. We have not a word to say against all this as exemplifying thespirit of the English Constitution, as a part of the law of the land, oras an artful distribution of light and shade in the social picture; butif any one insists at the same time that "the laws of nature, which arethe laws of God, have doomed the poor and their families to starve, "because the principle of population has encroached upon and swallowed upthe means of subsistence, so that not a mouthful of food is left _by thegrinding law of necessity_ for the poor, we beg leave to deny both factand inference--and we put it to Mr. Malthus whether we are not, instrictness, justified in doing so?

We have, perhaps, said enough to explain our feeling on the subject ofMr. Malthus's merits and defects. We think he had the opportunity andthe means in his hands of producing a great work on the principle ofpopulation; but we believe he has let it slip from his having an eye toother things besides that broad and unexplored question. He wished notmerely to advance to the discovery of certain great and valuable truths, but at the same time to overthrow certain unfashionable paradoxes byexaggerated statements--to curry favour with existing prejudices andinterests by garbled representations. He has, in a word, as it appearsto us on a candid retrospect and without any feelings of controversialasperity rankling in our minds, sunk the philosopher and the friend ofhis species (a character to which he might have aspired) in the sophistand party-writer. The period at which Mr. Malthus came forward teemedwith answers to Modern Philosophy, with antidotes to liberty andhumanity, with abusive Histories of the Greek and Roman republics, withfulsome panegyrics on the Roman Emperors (at the very time when we werereviling Buonaparte for his strides to universal empire) with the slimeand offal of desperate servility--and we cannot but consider theEssay as one of the poisonous ingredients thrown into the cauldron ofLegitimacy "to make it thick and slab. " Our author has, indeed, sofar done service to the cause of truth, that he has counteractedmany capital errors formerly prevailing as to the universal andindiscriminate encouragement of population under all circumstances; buthe has countenanced opposite errors, which if adopted in theory andpractice would be even more mischievous, and has left it to futurephilosophers to follow up the principle, that some check must beprovided for the unrestrained progress of population, into a set ofwiser and more humane consequences. Mr. Godwin has lately attempted ananswer to the Essay (thus giving Mr. Malthus a _Roland for his Oliver_)but we think he has judged ill in endeavouring to invalidate theprinciple, instead of confining himself to point out the misapplicationof it. There is one argument introduced in this Reply, which will, perhaps, amuse the reader as a sort of metaphysical puzzle. 

"It has sometimes occurred to me whether Mr. Malthus did not catch thefirst hint of his geometrical ratio from a curious passage of JudgeBlackstone, on consanguinity, which is as follows:--

"The doctrine of lineal consanguinity is sufficiently plain and obvious;but it is at the first view astonishing to consider the number of linealancestors which every man has within no very great number of degrees:and so many different bloods is a man said to contain in his veins, ashe hath lineal ancestors. Of these he hath two in the first ascendingdegree, his own parents; he hath four in the second, the parents of hisfather and the parents of his mother; he hath eight in the third, theparents of his two grandfathers and two grandmothers; and by the samerule of progression, he hath an hundred and twenty-eight in the seventh;a thousand and twenty-four in the tenth; and at the twentieth degree, orthe distance of twenty generations, every man hath above a million ofancestors, as common arithmetic will demonstrate. 

"This will seem surprising to those who are unacquainted with theincreasing power of progressive numbers; but is palpably evident fromthe following table of a geometrical progression, in which the firstterm is 2, and the denominator also 2; or, to speak more intelligibly, it is evident, for that each of us has two ancestors in the firstdegree; the number of which is doubled at every remove, because each ofour ancestors had also two ancestors of his own. 

 _Lineal Degrees. _ _Number of Ancestors_. 

 1 . . . . . . 2 2 . . . . . . 4 3 . . . . . . 8 4 . . . . . . 16 5 . . . . . . 32 6 . . . . . . 64 7 . . . . . . 128 8 . . . . . . 256 9 . . . . . . 512 10 . . . . . . 1024 11 . . . . . . 2048 12 . . . . . . 4096 13 . . . . . . 8192 14 . . . . . . 16, 384 15 . . . . . . 32, 768 16 . . . . . . 65, 536 17 . . . . . . 131, 072 18 . . . . . . 262, 144 19 . . . . . . 524, 288 20 . . . . . . 1, 048, 576

"This argument, however, " (proceeds Mr. Godwin) "from Judge Blackstoneof a geometrical progression would much more naturally apply toMontesquieu's hypothesis of the depopulation of the world, and provethat the human species is hastening fast to extinction, than to thepurpose for which Mr. Malthus has employed it. An ingenious sophismmight be raised upon it, to shew that the race of mankind willultimately terminate in unity. Mr. Malthus, indeed, should havereflected, that it is much more certain that every man has had ancestorsthan that he will have posterity, and that it is still more doubtful, whether he will have posterity to twenty or to an indefinite number ofgenerations. "--ENQUIRY CONCERNING POPULATION, p. 100. 

Mr. Malthus's style is correct and elegant; his tone of controversy mildand gentlemanly; and the care with which he has brought his facts anddocuments together, deserves the highest praise. He has lately quittedhis favourite subject of population, and broke a lance with Mr. Ricardoon the question of rent and value. The partisans of Mr. Ricardo, who arealso the admirers of Mr. Malthus, say that the usual sagacity of thelatter has here failed him, and that he has shewn himself to be a veryillogical writer. To have said this of him formerly on another ground, was accounted a heresy and a piece of presumption not easily to beforgiven. Indeed Mr. Malthus has always been a sort of "darling in thepublic eye, " whom it was unsafe to meddle with. He has contrived tomake himself as many friends by his attacks on the schemes of _HumanPerfectibility_ and on the _Poor-Laws_, as Mandeville formerly procuredenemies by his attacks on _Human Perfections_ and on _Charity-Schools_;and among other instances that we might mention, _Plug_ Pulteney, thecelebrated miser, of whom Mr. Burke said on his having a largeestate left him, "that now it was to be hoped he would _set up apocket-handkerchief_, " was so enamoured with the saving schemes andhumane economy of the Essay, that he desired a friend to find out theauthor and offer him a church living! This liberal intention was (bydesign or accident) unhappily frustrated. 

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MR. GIFFORD. 

Mr. Gifford was originally bred to some handicraft: he afterwardscontrived to learn Latin, and was for some time an usher in a school, till he became a tutor in a nobleman's family. The low-bred, self-taughtman, the pedant, and the dependant on the great contribute to form theEditor of the _Quarterly Review_. He is admirably qualified for thissituation, which he has held for some years, by a happy combination ofdefects, natural and acquired; and in the event of his death, it will bedifficult to provide him a suitable successor. 

Mr. Gifford has no pretensions to be thought a man of genius, of taste, or even of general knowledge. He merely understands the mechanical andinstrumental part of learning. He is a critic of the last age, whenthe different editions of an author, or the dates of his severalperformances were all that occupied the inquiries of a profound scholar, and the spirit of the writer or the beauties of his style were left toshift for themselves, or exercise the fancy of the light and superficialreader. In studying an old author, he has no notion of any thing beyondadjusting a point, proposing a different reading, or correcting, by thecollation of various copies, an error of the press. In appreciating amodern one, if it is an enemy, the first thing he thinks of is to chargehim with bad grammar--he scans his sentences instead of weighing hissense; or if it is a friend, the highest compliment he conceives itpossible to pay him is, that his thoughts and expressions are mouldedon some hackneyed model. His standard of _ideal_ perfection is what hehimself now is, a person of _mediocre_ literary attainments: his utmostcontempt is shewn by reducing any one to what he himself once was, aperson without the ordinary advantages of education and learning. It isaccordingly assumed, with much complacency in his critical pages, thatTory writers are classical and courtly as a matter of course; as it isa standing jest and evident truism, that Whigs and Reformers must bepersons of low birth and breeding--imputations from one of which hehimself has narrowly escaped, and both of which he holds in suitableabhorrence. He stands over a contemporary performance with all theself-conceit and self-importance of a country schoolmaster, tries it bytechnical rules, affects not to understand the meaning, examines thehand-writing, the spelling, shrugs up his shoulders and chuckles over aslip of the pen, and keeps a sharp look-out for a false concord and--aflogging. There is nothing liberal, nothing humane in his style ofjudging: it is altogether petty, captious, and literal. The Editor'spolitical subserviency adds the last finishing to his ridiculouspedantry and vanity. He has all his life been a follower in the trainof wealth and power--strives to back his pretensions on Parnassus by aplace at court, and to gild his reputation as a man of letters by thesmile of greatness. He thinks his works are stamped with additionalvalue by having his name in the _Red-Book_. He looks up to thedistinctions of rank and station as he does to those of learning, withthe gross and overweening adulation of his early origin. All his notionsare low, upstart, servile. He thinks it the highest honour to a poet tobe patronised by a peer or by some dowager of quality. He is prouderof a court-livery than of a laurel-wreath; and is only sure of havingestablished his claims to respectability by having sacrificed those ofindependence. He is a retainer to the Muses; a door-keeper to learning;a lacquey in the state. He believes that modern literature should wearthe fetters of classical antiquity; that truth is to be weighed in thescales of opinion and prejudice; that power is equivalent to right; thatgenius is dependent on rules; that taste and refinement of languageconsist in _word-catching_. Many persons suppose that Mr. Gifford knowsbetter than he pretends; and that he is shrewd, artful, and designing. But perhaps it may be nearer the mark to suppose that his dulness isguarantee for his sincerity; or that before he is the tool of theprofligacy of others, he is the dupe of his own jaundiced feelings, andnarrow, hoodwinked perceptions. 

 "Destroy his fib or sophistry: in vain-- The creature's at his dirty work again!"

But this is less from choice or perversity, than because he cannot helpit and can do nothing else. He damns a beautiful expression less outof spite than because he really does not understand it: any novelty ofthought or sentiment gives him a shock from which he cannot recoverfor some time, and he naturally takes his revenge for the alarm anduneasiness occasioned him, without referring to venal or party motives. He garbles an author's meaning, not so much wilfully, as because it is apain to him to enlarge his microscopic view to take in the context, whena particular sentence or passage has struck him as quaint and out of theway: he fly-blows an author's style, and picks out detached words andphrases for cynical reprobation, simply because he feels himself athome, or takes a pride and pleasure in this sort of petty warfare. He istetchy and impatient of contradiction; sore with wounded pride; angryat obvious faults, more angry at unforeseen beauties. He has the_chalk-stones_ in his understanding, and from being used to longconfinement, cannot bear the slightest jostling or irregularity ofmotion. He may call out with the fellow in the _Tempest_--"I am notStephano, but a cramp!" He would go back to the standard of opinions, style, the faded ornaments, and insipid formalities that came intofashion about forty years ago. Flashes of thought, flights of fancy, idiomatic expressions, he sets down among the signs of the times--theextraordinary occurrences of the age we live in. They are marks of arestless and revolutionary spirit: they disturb his composure of mind, and threaten (by implication) the safety of the state. His slow, snail-paced, bed-rid habits of reasoning cannot keep up with thewhirling, eccentric motion, the rapid, perhaps extravagant combinationsof modern literature. He has long been stationary himself, and isdetermined that others shall remain so. The hazarding a paradox is likeletting off a pistol close to his ear: he is alarmed and offended. Theusing an elliptical mode of expression (such as he did not use to findin Guides to the English Tongue) jars him like coming suddenly to astep in a flight of stairs that you were not aware of. He _pishes_ and_pshaws_ at all this, exercises a sort of interjectional criticism onwhat excites his spleen, his envy, or his wonder, and hurls his meagreanathemas _ex cathedrâ_ at all those writers who are indifferent aliketo his precepts and his example!

Mr. Gifford, in short, is possessed of that sort of learning which islikely to result from an over-anxious desire to supply the want of thefirst rudiments of education; that sort of wit, which is the offspringof ill-humour or bodily pain; that sort of sense, which arises from aspirit of contradiction and a disposition to cavil at and disputethe opinions of others; and that sort of reputation, which is theconsequence of bowing to established authority and ministerialinfluence. He dedicates to some great man, and receives his complimentsin return. He appeals to some great name, and the Under-graduates of thetwo Universities look up to him as an oracle of wisdom. He throws theweight of his verbal criticism and puny discoveries in _black-letter_reading into the gap, that is supposed to be making in the Constitutionby Whigs and Radicals, whom he qualifies without mercy as dunces andmiscreants; and so entitles himself to the protection of Church andState. The character of his mind is an utter want of independence andmagnanimity in all that he attempts. He cannot go alone, he must havecrutches, a go-cart and trammels, or he is timid, fretful, and helplessas a child. He cannot conceive of any thing different from what he findsit, and hates those who pretend to a greater reach of intellector boldness of spirit than himself. He inclines, by a natural anddeliberate bias, to the traditional in laws and government; tothe orthodox in religion; to the safe in opinion; to the trite inimagination; to the technical in style; to whatever implies a surrenderof individual judgment into the hands of authority, and a subjection ofindividual feeling to mechanic rules. If he finds any one flying in theface of these, or straggling from the beaten path, he thinks he has themat a notable disadvantage, and falls foul of them without loss of time, partly to soothe his own sense of mortified self-consequence, and as anedifying spectacle to his legitimate friends. He takes none but unfairadvantages. He _twits_ his adversaries (that is, those who are notin the leading-strings of his school or party) with some personal oraccidental defect. If a writer has been punished for a political libel, he is sure to hear of it in a literary criticism. If a lady goes oncrutches and is out of favour at court, she is reminded of it in Mr. Gilford's manly satire. He sneers at people of low birth or who havenot had a college-education, partly to hide his own want of certainadvantages, partly as well-timed flattery to those who possess them. Hehas a right to laugh at poor, unfriended, untitled genius from wearingthe livery of rank and letters, as footmen behind a coronet-coach laughat the rabble. He keeps good company, and forgets himself. He stands atthe door of Mr. Murray's shop, and will not let any body pass but thewell-dressed mob, or some followers of the court. To edge into the_Quarterly_ Temple of Fame the candidate must have a diploma from theUniversities, a passport from the Treasury. Otherwise, it is a breach ofetiquette to let him pass, an insult to the better sort who aspire tothe love of letters--and may chance to drop in to the _Feast of thePoets_. Or, if he cannot manage it thus, or get rid of the claim on thebare ground of poverty or want of school-learning, he _trumps_ up anexcuse for the occasion, such as that "a man was confined in Newgate ashort time before"--it is not a _lie_ on the part of the critic, it isonly an amiable subserviency to the will of his betters, like that ofa menial who is ordered to deny his master, a sense of propriety, aknowledge of the world, a poetical and moral license. Such fellows(such is his cue from his employers) should at any rate be kept out ofprivileged places: persons who have been convicted of prose-libels oughtnot to be suffered to write poetry--if the fact was not exactly as itwas stated, it was something of the kind, or it _ought_ to have beenso, the assertion was a pious fraud, --the public, the court, the princehimself might read the work, but for this mark of opprobrium set uponit--it was not to be endured that an insolent plebeian should aspire toelegance, taste, fancy--it was throwing down the barriers which oughtto separate the higher and the lower classes, the loyal and thedisloyal--the paraphrase of the story of Dante was therefore to performquarantine, it was to seem not yet recovered from the gaol infection, there was to be a taint upon it, as there was none in it--and all thiswas performed by a single slip of Mr. Gifford's pen! We would willinglybelieve (if we could) that in this case there was as much weakness andprejudice as there was malice and cunning. --Again, we do not think itpossible that under any circumstances the writer of the _Verses to Anna_could enter into the spirit or delicacy of Mr. Keats's poetry. The fateof the latter somewhat resembled that of

 --"a bud bit by an envious worm, Ere it could spread its sweet leaves to the air, Or dedicate its beauty to the sun. "

Mr. Keats's ostensible crime was that he had been praised in the_Examiner Newspaper_: a greater and more unpardonable offence probablywas, that he was a true poet, with all the errors and beauties ofyouthful genius to answer for. Mr. Gifford was as insensible to the oneas he was inexorable to the other. Let the reader judge from the twosubjoined specimens how far the one writer could ever, without apresumption equalled only by a want of self-knowledge, set himself injudgment on the other. 

 "Out went the taper as she hurried in; Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died: She closed the door, she panted, all akin To spirits of the air and visions wide: No utter'd syllable, or woe betide! But to her heart, her heart was voluble, Paining with eloquence her balmy side; As though a tongueless nightingale should swell Her heart in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell. 

 "A casement high and triple-arch'd there was, All garlanded with carven imag'ries Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, And diamonded with panes of quaint device, Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings; And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, And twilight saints and dim emblazonings, A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings. 

 "Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for Heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a Saint: She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. 

 "Anon his heart revives: her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees: Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees, In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed, But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled. 

 "Soon trembling in her soft and chilly nest, In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay, Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day: Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain; Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims pray; Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again. " EVE OF ST. AGNES. 

With the rich beauties and the dim obscurities of lines like these, letus contrast the Verses addressed _To a Tuft of early Violets_ by thefastidious author of the Baviad and Mæviad. --

 "Sweet flowers! that from your humble beds Thus prematurely dare to rise, And trust your unprotected heads To cold Aquarius' watery skies. 

 "Retire, retire! _These_ tepid airs Are not the genial brood of May; _That_ sun with light malignant glares, And flatters only to betray. 

 "Stern Winter's reign is not yet past-- Lo! while your buds prepare to blow, On icy pinions comes the blast, And nips your root, and lays you low. 

 "Alas, for such ungentle doom! But I will shield you; and supply A kindlier soil on which to bloom, A nobler bed on which to die. 

 "Come then--'ere yet the morning ray Has drunk the dew that gems your crest, And drawn your balmiest sweets away; O come and grace my Anna's breast. 

 "Ye droop, fond flowers! But did ye know What worth, what goodness there reside, Your cups with liveliest tints would glow; And spread their leaves with conscious pride. 

 "For there has liberal Nature joined Her riches to the stores of Art, And added to the vigorous mind The soft, the sympathising heart. 

 "Come, then--'ere yet the morning ray Has drunk the dew that gems your crest, And drawn your balmiest sweets away; O come and grace my Anna's breast. 

 "O! I should think--_that fragrant bed_ _Might I but hope with you to share_--[A] Years of anxiety repaid By one short hour of transport there. 

 "More blest than me, thus shall ye live Your little day; and when ye die, Sweet flowers! the grateful Muse shall give A verse; the sorrowing maid, a sigh. 

 "While I alas! no distant date, Mix with the dust from whence I came, Without a friend to weep my fate, Without a stone to tell my name. "

We subjoin one more specimen of these "wild strains"[B] said to be"_Written two years after the preceding_. " ECCE ITERUM CRISPINUS. 

 "I wish I was where Anna lies; For I am sick of lingering here, And every hour Affection cries, Go, and partake her humble bier. 

 "I wish I could! for when she died I lost my all; and life has prov'd Since that sad hour a dreary void, A waste unlovely and unlov'd. 

 "But who, when I am turn'd to clay, Shall duly to her grave repair, And pluck the ragged moss away, And weeds that have "no business there?"

 "And who, with pious hand, shall bring The flowers she cherish'd, snow-drops cold, And violets that unheeded spring, To scatter o'er her hallow'd mould?

 "And who, while Memory loves to dwell Upon her name for ever dear, Shall feel his heart with passion swell, And pour the bitter, bitter tear?

 "I did it; and would fate allow, Should visit still, should still deplore-- But health and strength have left me now, But I, alas! can weep no more. 

 "Take then, sweet maid! this simple strain, The last I offer at thy shrine; Thy grave must then undeck'd remain, And all thy memory fade with mine. 

 "And can thy soft persuasive look, That voice that might with music vie, Thy air that every gazer took, Thy matchless eloquence of eye, "Thy spirits, frolicsome as good, Thy courage, by no ills dismay'd, Thy patience, by no wrongs subdued, Thy gay good-humour--can they "fade?"

 "Perhaps--but sorrow dims my eye: Cold turf, which I no more must view, Dear name, which I no more must sigh, A long, a last, a sad adieu!"

It may be said in extenuation of the low, mechanic vein of theseimpoverished lines, that they were written at an early age--they werethe inspired production of a youthful lover! Mr. Gifford was thirty whenhe wrote them, Mr. Keats died when he was scarce twenty! Farther it maybe said, that Mr. Gifford hazarded his first poetical attempts under allthe disadvantages of a neglected education: but the same circumstance, together with a few unpruned redundancies of fancy and quaintnesses ofexpression, was made the plea on which Mr. Keats was hooted out of theworld, and his fine talents and wounded sensibilities consigned to anearly grave. In short, the treatment of this heedless candidate forpoetical fame might serve as a warning, and was intended to serve as awarning to all unfledged tyros, how they venture upon any such doubtfulexperiments, except under the auspices of some lord of the bedchamber orGovernment Aristarchus, and how they imprudently associate themselveswith men of mere popular talent or independence of feeling!--It is thesame in prose works. The Editor scorns to enter the lists of argumentwith any proscribed writer of the opposite party. He does not refute, but denounces him. He makes no concessions to an adversary, lest theyshould in some way be turned against him. He only feels himself safe inthe fancied insignificance of others: he only feels himself superiorto those whom he stigmatizes as the lowest of mankind. All persons arewithout common-sense and honesty who do not believe implicitly (withhim) in the immaculateness of Ministers and the divine origin of Kings. Thus he informed the world that the author of TABLE-TALK was a personwho could not write a sentence of common English and could hardly spellhis own name, because he was not a friend to the restoration of theBourbons, and had the assurance to write _Characters of ShakespearsPlays_ in a style of criticism somewhat different from Mr. Gifford's. Hecharged this writer with imposing on the public by a flowery style; andwhen the latter ventured to refer to a work of his, called _An Essay onthe Principles of Human Action_, which has not a single ornament in it, as a specimen of his original studies and the proper bias of his mind, the learned critic, with a shrug of great self-satisfaction, said, "Itwas amusing to see this person, sitting like one of Brouwer's Dutchboors over his gin and tobacco-pipes, and fancying himself a Leibnitz!"The question was, whether the subject of Mr. Gifford's censure had everwritten such a work or not; for if he had, he had amused himself withsomething besides gin and tobacco-pipes. But our Editor, by virtueof the situation he holds, is superior to facts or arguments: he isaccountable neither to the public nor to authors for what he says ofthem, but owes it to his employers to prejudice the work and vilify thewriter, if the latter is not avowedly ready to range himself on thestronger side. --The _Quarterly Review_, besides the political _tirades_and denunciations of suspected writers, intended for the guidance of theheads of families, is filled up with accounts of books of Voyagesand Travels for the amusement of the younger branches. The poeticaldepartment is almost a sinecure, consisting of mere summary decisionsand a list of quotations. Mr. Croker is understood to contribute theSt. Helena articles and the liberality, Mr. Canning the practical goodsense, Mr. D'Israeli the good-nature, Mr. Jacob the modesty, Mr. Southeythe consistency, and the Editor himself the chivalrous spirit and theattacks on Lady Morgan. It is a double crime, and excites a doubleportion of spleen in the Editor, when female writers are not advocatesof passive obedience and non-resistance. This Journal, then, is adepository for every species of political sophistry and personalcalumny. There is no abuse or corruption that does not there find ajesuitical palliation or a bare-faced vindication. There we meet theslime of hypocrisy, the varnish of courts, the cant of pedantry, thecobwebs of the law, the iron hand of power. Its object is as mischievousas the means by which it is pursued are odious. The intention is topoison the sources of public opinion and of individual fame--to pervertliterature, from being the natural ally of freedom and humanity, into anengine of priestcraft and despotism, and to undermine the spirit of theEnglish Constitution and the independence of the English character. The Editor and his friends systematically explode every principle ofliberty, laugh patriotism and public spirit to scorn, resent everypretence to integrity as a piece of singularity or insolence, and strikeat the root of all free inquiry or discussion, by running down everywriter as a vile scribbler and a bad member of society, who is nota hireling and a slave. No means are stuck at in accomplishing thislaudable end. Strong in patronage, they trample on truth, justice, anddecency. They claim the privilege of court-favourites. They keep aslittle faith with the public, as with their opponents. No statement inthe _Quarterly Review_ is to be trusted: there is no fact that is notmisrepresented in it, no quotation that is not garbled, no characterthat is not slandered, if it can answer the purposes of a party to doso. The weight of power, of wealth, of rank is thrown into the scale, gives its impulse to the machine; and the whole is under the guidance ofMr. Gifford's instinctive genius--of the inborn hatred of servility forindependence, of dulness for talent, of cunning and impudence for truthand honesty. It costs him no effort to execute his disreputable task--inbeing the tool of a crooked policy, he but labours in his naturalvocation. He patches up a rotten system as he would supply the chasms ina worm-eaten manuscript, from a grovelling incapacity to do any thingbetter; thinks that if a single iota in the claims of prerogative andpower were lost, the whole fabric of society would fall upon hishead and crush him; and calculates that his best chance for literaryreputation is by _black-balling_ one half of the competitors asJacobins and levellers, and securing the suffrages of the other half inhis favour as a loyal subject and trusty partisan!

Mr. Gifford, as a satirist, is violent and abrupt. He takes obvious orphysical defects, and dwells upon them with much labour and harshness ofinvective, but with very little wit or spirit. He expresses a great dealof anger and contempt, but you cannot tell very well why--except that heseems to be sore and out of humour. His satire is mere peevishness andspleen, or something worse--personal antipathy and rancour. We are inquite as much pain for the writer, as for the object of his resentment. His address to Peter Pindar is laughable from its outrageousness. Hedenounces him as a wretch hateful to God and man, for some of the mostharmless and amusing trifles that ever were written--and the very good-humour and pleasantry of which, we suspect, constituted their offence inthe eyes of this Drawcansir. --His attacks on Mrs. Robinson were unmanly, and even those on Mr. Merry and the Della-Cruscan School were muchmore ferocious than the occasion warranted. A little affectation andquaintness of style did not merit such severity of castigation. [C] As atranslator, Mr. Gifford's version of the Roman satirist is the baldest, and, in parts, the most offensive of all others. We do not know whyhe attempted it, unless he had got it in his head that he should thusfollow in the steps of Dryden, as he had already done in those of Popein the Baviad and Maeviad. As an editor of old authors, Mr. Gifford isentitled to considerable praise for the pains he has taken in revisingthe text, and for some improvements he has introduced into it. He hadbetter have spared the notes, in which, though he has detected theblunders of previous commentators, he has exposed his own ill-temper andnarrowness of feeling more. As a critic, he has thrown no light on thecharacter and spirit of his authors. He has shewn no striking power ofanalysis nor of original illustration, though he has chosen to exercisehis pen on writers most congenial to his own turn of mind, from theirdry and caustic vein; Massinger, and Ben Jonson. What he will make ofMarlowe, it is difficult to guess. He has none of "the fiery quality"of the poet. Mr. Gifford does not take for his motto on theseoccasions--_Spiritus precipitandus est!_--His most successful efforts inthis way are barely respectable. In general, his observations are petty, ill-concocted, and discover as little _tact_, as they do a habit ofconnected reasoning. Thus, for instance, in attempting to add the nameof Massinger to the list of Catholic poets, our minute critic insistson the profusion of crucifixes, glories, angelic visions, garlands ofroses, and clouds of incense scattered through the _Virgin-Martyr, _ asevidence of the theological sentiments meant to be inculcated by theplay, when the least reflection might have taught him, that they provednothing but the author's poetical conception of the character and_costume_ of his subject. A writer might, with the same sinister, short-sighted shrewdness, be accused of Heathenism for talking of Floraand Ceres in a poem on the Seasons! What are produced as the exclusivebadges and occult proofs of Catholic bigotry, are nothing but theadventitious ornaments and external symbols, the gross and sensiblelanguage, in a word, the _poetry_ of Christianity in general. Whatindeed shews the frivolousness of the whole inference is that Deckar, who is asserted by our critic to have contributed some of the mostpassionate and fantastic of these devotional scenes, is not evensuspected of a leaning to Popery. In like manner, he excuses Massingerfor the grossness of one of his plots (that of the _Unnatural Combat_)by saying that it was supposed to take place before the Christian era;by this shallow common-place persuading himself, or fancying he couldpersuade others, that the crime in question (which yet on the very faceof the story is made the ground of a tragic catastrophe) was first made_statutory_ by the Christian religion. 

The foregoing is a harsh criticism, and may be thought illiberal. But asMr. Gifford assumes a right to say what he pleases of others--they maybe allowed to speak the truth of him!

[Footnote A: What an awkward bed-fellow for a tuft of violets!]

[Footnote B:

 "How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful pair Walk'd forth, the fragrant hour of eve to share, On thy romantic banks, have my _wild strains_ (Not yet forgot amidst my native plains) While thou hast sweetly gurgled down the vale. Filled up the pause of love's delightful tale! While, ever as she read, the conscious maid, By faultering voice and downcast looks betray'd, Would blushing on her lover's neck recline, And with her finger--point the tenderest line!"

 _Mæviad_, pp. 194, 202. 

Yet the author assures us just before, that in these "wild strains" "allwas plain. "

 "Even then (admire, John Bell! my simple ways) No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays, No oaths, no execrations; _all was plain_; Yet trust me, while thy ever jingling train Chime their sonorous woes with frigid art, And shock the reason and revolt the heart; My hopes and fears, in nature's language drest, Awakened love in many a gentle breast. "

 _Ibid. _ v. 185-92. 

If any one else had composed these "wild strains, " in which "all isplain, " Mr. Gifford would have accused them of three things, "1. Downright nonsense. 2. Downright frigidity. 3. Downright doggrel;" andproceeded to anatomise them very cordially in his way. As it is, he isthrilled with a very pleasing horror at his former scenes of tenderness, and "gasps at the recollection" _of watery Aquarius_! _he! jam satisest!_ "Why rack a grub--a butterfly upon a wheel?"]

[Footnote C: Mr. Merry was even with our author in personality of abuse. See his Lines on the Story of the Ape that was given in charge to theex-tutor. ]

 * * * * *

MR. JEFFREY

The _Quarterly Review_ arose out of the _Edinburgh_, not as a corollary, but in contradiction to it. An article had appeared in the latter on DonPedro Cevallos, which stung the Tories to the quick by the free way inwhich it spoke of men and things, and something must be done to checkthese _escapades_ of the _Edinburgh_. It was not to be endured that thetruth should _out_ in this manner, even occasionally and half in jest. Astartling shock was thus given to established prejudices, the mask wastaken off from grave hypocrisy, and the most serious consequences wereto be apprehended. The persons who wrote in this Review seemed "to havetheir hands full of truths", and now and then, in a fit of spleen orgaiety, let some of them fly; and while this practice continued, it wasimpossible to say that the Monarchy or the Hierarchy was safe. Some ofthe arrows glanced, others might stick, and in the end prove fatal. Itwas not the principles of the _Edinburgh Review_, but the spirit thatwas looked at with jealousy and alarm. The principles were by no meansdecidedly hostile to existing institutions: but the spirit was that offair and free discussion; a field was open to argument and wit; everyquestion was tried upon its own ostensible merits, and there was no foulplay. The tone was that of a studied impartiality (which many called_trimming_) or of a sceptical indifference. This tone of impartialityand indifference, however, did not at all suit those who profited orexisted by abuses, who breathed the very air of corruption. They knowwell enough that "those who are not _for_ them are _against_ them. "They wanted a publication impervious alike to truth and candour; that, hood-winked itself, should lead public opinion blindfold; that shouldstick at nothing to serve the turn of a party; that should be theexclusive organ of prejudice, the sordid tool of power; that should gothe whole length of want of principle in palliating every dishonestmeasure, of want of decency in defaming every honest man; that shouldprejudge every question, traduce every opponent; that should give noquarter to fair inquiry or liberal sentiment; that should be "uglyall over with hypocrisy", and present one foul blotch of servility, intolerance, falsehood, spite, and ill-manners. The _Quarterly Review_was accordingly set up. 

 "Sithence no fairy lights, no quickning ray, Nor stir of pulse, nor object to entice Abroad the spirits; but the cloister'd heart Sits squat at home, like Pagod in a niche Obscure!"

This event was accordingly hailed (and the omen has been fulfilled!) asa great relief to all those of his Majesty's subjects who are firmlyconvinced that the only way to have things remain exactly as they are isto put a stop to all inquiries whether they are right or wrong, and thatif you cannot answer a man's arguments, you may at least try to takeaway his character. 

We do not implicitly bow to the political opinions, nor to the criticaldecisions of the _Edinburgh Review_; but we must do justice to thetalent with which they are supported, and to the tone of manlyexplicitness in which they are delivered. [A] They are eminentlycharacteristic of the Spirit of the Age; as it is the express object ofthe _Quarterly Review_ to discountenance and extinguish that spirit, both in theory and practice. The _Edinburgh Review_ stands uponthe ground of opinion; it asserts the supremacy of intellect: thepre-eminence it claims is from an acknowledged superiority of talent andinformation and literary attainment, and it does not build one tittleof its influence on ignorance, or prejudice, or authority, or personalmalevolence. It takes up a question, and argues it _pro_ and _con_ withgreat knowledge and boldness and skill; it points out an absurdity, andruns it down, fairly, and according to the evidence adduced. In theformer case, its conclusions may be wrong, there may be a bias in themind of the writer, but he states the arguments and circumstances onboth sides, from which a judgment is to be formed--it is not his cue, he has neither the effrontery nor the meanness to falsify facts or tosuppress objections. In the latter case, or where a vein of sarcasm orirony is resorted to, the ridicule is not barbed by some allusion (falseor true) to private history; the object of it has brought the inflictionon himself by some literary folly or political delinquency which isreferred to as the understood and justifiable provocation, insteadof being held up to scorn as a knave for not being a tool, or as ablockhead for thinking for himself. In the _Edinburgh Review_ thetalents of those on the opposite side are always extolled _plenoore_--in the _Quarterly Review_ they are denied altogether, and thejustice that is in this way withheld from them is compensated by aproportionable supply of personal abuse. A man of genius who is a lord, and who publishes with Mr. Murray, may now and then stand as good achance as a lord who is not a man of genius and who publishes withMessrs. Longman: but that is the utmost extent of the impartiality ofthe _Quarterly_. From its account you would take Lord Byron and Mr. Stuart Rose for two very pretty poets; but Mr. Moore's Magdalen Muse issent to Bridewell without mercy, to beat hemp in silk-stockings. Inthe _Quarterly_ nothing is regarded but the political creed or externalcircumstances of a writer: in the _Edinburgh_ nothing is ever advertedto but his literary merits. Or if there is a bias of any kind, it arisesfrom an affectation of magnanimity and candour in giving heaped measureto those on the aristocratic side in politics, and in being criticallysevere on others. Thus Sir Walter Scott is lauded to the skies for hisromantic powers, without any allusion to his political demerits (as ifthis would be compromising the dignity of genius and of criticism by theintroduction of party-spirit)--while Lord Byron is called to a gravemoral reckoning. There is, however, little of the cant of morality inthe _Edinburgh Review_--and it is quite free from that of religion. Itkeeps to its province, which is that of criticism--or to the discussionof debateable topics, and acquits itself in both with force and spirit. This is the natural consequence of the composition of the two Reviews. The one appeals with confidence to its own intellectual resources, tothe variety of its topics, to its very character and existence as aliterary journal, which depend on its setting up no pretensions butthose which it can make good by the talent and ingenuity it can bring tobear upon them--it therefore meets every question, whether of a lighteror a graver cast, on its own grounds; the other _blinks_ every question, for it has no confidence but in _the powers that be_--shuts itself up inthe impregnable fastnesses of authority, or makes some paltry, cowardlyattack (under cover of anonymous criticism) on individuals, or dispensesits award of merit entirely according to the rank or party of thewriter. The faults of the _Edinburgh Review_ arise out of the veryconsciousness of critical and logical power. In political questions itrelies too little on the broad basis of liberty and humanity, enters toomuch into mere dry formalities, deals too often in _moot-points_, anddescends too readily to a sort of special-pleading in defence of _home_truths and natural feelings: in matters of taste and criticism, its toneis sometimes apt to be supercilious and _cavalier_ from its habitualfaculty of analysing defects and beauties according to given principles, from its quickness in deciding, from its facility in illustrating itsviews. In this latter department it has been guilty of some capitaloversights. The chief was in its treatment of the _Lyrical Ballads_ attheir first appearance--not in its ridicule of their puerilities, but inits denial of their beauties, because they were included in no school, because they were reducible to no previous standard or theory ofpoetical excellence. For this, however, considerable reparation has beenmade by the prompt and liberal spirit that has been shewn in bringingforward other examples of poetical genius. Its capital sin, in adoctrinal point of view, has been (we shrewdly suspect) in the uniformand unqualified encouragement it has bestowed on Mr. Malthus's system. We do not mean that the _Edinburgh Review_ was to join in the general_hue and cry_ that was raised against this writer; but while it assertedthe soundness of many of his arguments, and yielded its assent to thetruths he has divulged, it need not have screened his errors. On thissubject alone we think the _Quarterly_ has the advantage of it. But asthe _Quarterly Review_ is a mere mass and tissue of prejudices onall subjects, it is the foible of the _Edinburgh Review_ to affect asomewhat fastidious air of superiority over prejudices of all kinds, anda determination not to indulge in any of the amiable weaknesses of ournature, except as it can give a reason for the faith that is in it. Luckily, it is seldom reduced to this alternative: "reasons" are with it"as plenty as blackberries!"

Mr. Jeffrey is the Editor of the _Edinburgh Review, _ and is understoodto have contributed nearly a fourth part of the articles from itscommencement. No man is better qualified for this situation; nor indeedso much so. He is certainly a person in advance of the age, and yetperfectly fitted both from knowledge and habits of mind to put a curbupon its rash and headlong spirit. He is thoroughly acquainted with theprogress and pretensions of modern literature and philosophy; and tothis he adds the natural acuteness and discrimination of the logicianwith the habitual caution and coolness of his profession. If the_Edinburgh Review_ may be considered as the organ of or at all pledgedto a party, that party is at least a respectable one, and is placed inthe middle between two extremes. The Editor is bound to lend a patienthearing to the most paradoxical opinions and extravagant theories whichhave resulted in our times from the "infinite agitation of wit", buthe is disposed to qualify them by a number of practical objections, of speculative doubts, of checks and drawbacks, arising out of actualcircumstances and prevailing opinions, or the frailties of human nature. He has a great range of knowledge, an incessant activity of mind; butthe suspension of his judgment, the well-balanced moderation of hissentiments, is the consequence of the very discursiveness of his reason. What may be considered as _a commonplace_ conclusion is often the resultof a comprehensive view of all the circumstances of a case. Paradox, violence, nay even originality of conception is not seldom owing to ourdwelling long and pertinaciously on some one part of a subject, insteadof attending to the whole. Mr. Jeffrey is neither a bigot nor anenthusiast. He is not the dupe of the prejudices of others, nor of hisown. He is not wedded to any dogma, he is not long the sport of anywhim; before he can settle in any fond or fantastic opinion, anotherstarts up to match it, like beads on sparkling wine. A too restlessdisplay of talent, a too undisguised statement of all that can be saidfor and against a question, is perhaps the great fault that is to beattributed to him. Where there is so much power and prejudice to contendwith in the opposite scale, it may be thought that the balance of truthcan hardly be held with a slack or an even hand; and that the infusionof a little more visionary speculation, of a little more popularindignation into the great Whig Review would be an advantage both toitself and to the cause of freedom. Much of this effect is chargeableless on an Epicurean levity of feeling or on party-trammels, than onreal sanguineness of disposition, and a certain fineness of professionaltact. Our sprightly Scotchman is not of a desponding and gloomy turn ofmind. He argues well for the future hopes of mankind from the smallestbeginnings, watches the slow, gradual, reluctant growth of liberalviews, and smiling sees the aloe of Reform blossom at the end of ahundred years; while the habitual subtlety of his mind makes himperceive decided advantages where vulgar ignorance or passion sees onlydoubts and difficulty; and a flaw in an adversary's argument stands himinstead of the shout of a mob, the votes of a majority, or the fate ofa pitched battle. The Editor is satisfied with his own conclusions, anddoes not make himself uneasy about the fate of mankind. The issue, hethinks, will verify his moderate and well-founded expectations. --Webelieve also that late events have given a more decided turn to Mr. Jeffrey's mind, and that he feels that as in the struggle betweenliberty and slavery, the views of the one party have been laid bare withtheir success, so the exertions on the other side should become morestrenuous, and a more positive stand be made against the avowed andappalling encroachments of priestcraft and arbitrary power. 

The characteristics of Mr. Jeffrey's general style as a writercorrespond, we think, with what we have here stated as thecharacteristics of his mind. He is a master of the foils; he makes anexulting display of the dazzling fence of wit and argument. His strengthconsists in great range of knowledge, an equal familiarity with theprinciples and the details of a subject, and in a glancing brilliancyand rapidity of style. Indeed, we doubt whether the brilliancy of hismanner does not resolve itself into the rapidity, the variety andaptness of his illustrations. His pen is never at a loss, never standsstill; and would dazzle for this reason alone, like an eye that is everin motion. Mr. Jeffrey is far from a flowery or affected writer; he hasfew tropes or figures, still less any odd startling thoughts or quaintinnovations in expression:--but he has a constant supply of ingenioussolutions and pertinent examples; he never proses, never grows dull, never wears an argument to tatters; and by the number, the livelinessand facility of his transitions, keeps up that appearance of vivacity, of novel and sparkling effect, for which others are too often indebtedto singularity of combination or tinsel ornaments. 

It may be discovered, by a nice observer, that Mr. Jeffrey's style ofcomposition is that of a person accustomed to public speaking. There isno pause, no meagreness, no inanimateness, but a flow, a redundance andvolubility like that of a stream or of a rolling-stone. The language ismore copious than select, and sometimes two or three words perform theoffice of one. This copiousness and facility is perhaps an advantagein _extempore_ speaking, where no stop or break is allowed in thediscourse, and where any word or any number of words almost is betterthan coming to a dead stand; but in written compositions it gives anair of either too much carelessness or too much labour. Mr. Jeffrey'sexcellence, as a public speaker, has betrayed him into this peculiarity. He makes fewer _blots_ in addressing an audience than any one weremember to have heard. There is not a hair's-breadth space between anytwo of his words, nor is there a single expression either ill-chosen orout of its place. He speaks without stopping to take breath, with ease, with point, with elegance, and without "spinning the thread of hisverbosity finer than the staple of his argument. " He may be said toweave words into any shapes he pleases for use or ornament, as theglass-blower moulds the vitreous fluid with his breath; and hissentences shine like glass from their polished smoothness, and areequally transparent. His style of eloquence, indeed, is remarkable forneatness, for correctness, and epigrammatic point; and he has appliedthis as a standard to his written compositions, where the very samedegree of correctness and precision produces, from the contrast betweenwriting and speaking, an agreeable diffuseness, freedom, and animation. Whenever the Scotch advocate has appeared at the bar of the EnglishHouse of Lords, he has been admired by those who were in the habit ofattending to speeches there, as having the greatest fluency of languageand the greatest subtlety of distinction of any one of the profession. The law-reporters were as little able to follow him from the extremerapidity of his utterance as from the tenuity and evanescent nature ofhis reasoning. 

Mr. Jeffrey's conversation is equally lively, various, and instructive. There is no subject on which he is not _au fait_: no company in which heis not ready to scatter his pearls for sport. Whether it be politics, orpoetry, or science, or anecdote, or wit, or raillery, he takes up hiscue without effort, without preparation, and appears equally incapableof tiring himself or his hearers. His only difficulty seems to be notto speak, but to be silent. There is a constitutional buoyancy andelasticity of mind about him that cannot subside into repose, much lesssink into dulness. There may be more original talkers, persons whooccasionally surprise or interest you more; few, if any, with a moreuninterrupted flow of cheerfulness and animal spirits, with a greaterfund of information, and with fewer specimens of the _bathos_ in theirconversation. He is never absurd, nor has he any favourite pointswhich he is always bringing forward. It cannot be denied that there issomething bordering on petulance of manner, but it is of that leastoffensive kind which may be accounted for from merit and from success, and implies no exclusive pretensions nor the least particle of ill-willto others. On the contrary, Mr. Jeffrey is profuse of his encomiums andadmiration of others, but still with a certain reservation of a rightto differ or to blame. He cannot rest on one side of a question: he isobliged by a mercurial habit and disposition to vary his point of view. If he is ever tedious, it is from an excess of liveliness: he oppressesfrom a sense of airy lightness. He is always setting out on a freshscent: there are always _relays_ of topics; the harness is put to, andhe rattles away as delightfully and as briskly as ever. New causes arecalled; he holds a brief in his hand for every possible question. This is a fault. Mr. Jeffrey is not obtrusive, is not impatient ofopposition, is not unwilling to be interrupted; but what is said byanother, seems to make no impression on him; he is bound to dispute, toanswer it, as if he was in Court, or as if it were in a paltry DebatingSociety, where young beginners were trying their hands. This is not tomaintain a character, or for want of good-nature--it is a thoughtlesshabit. He cannot help cross-examining a witness, or stating theadverse view of the question. He listens not to judge, but to reply. In consequence of this, you can as little tell the impression yourobservations make on him as what weight to assign to his. Mr. Jeffreyshines in mixed company; he is not good in a _tete-a-tete_. You can onlyshew your wisdom or your wit in general society: but in private yourfollies or your weaknesses are not the least interesting topics; and ourcritic has neither any of his own to confess, nor does he take delightin hearing those of others. Indeed in Scotland generally, the display ofpersonal character, the indulging your whims and humours in the presenceof a friend, is not much encouraged--every one there is looked upon inthe light of a machine or a collection of topics. They turn you roundlike a cylinder to see what use they can make of you, and drag you intoa dispute with as little ceremony as they would drag out an article froman Encyclopedia. They criticise every thing, analyse every thing, argueupon every thing, dogmatise upon every thing; and the bundle of yourhabits, feelings, humours, follies and pursuits is regarded by them nomore than a bundle of old clothes. They stop you in a sentiment by aquestion or a stare, and cut you short in a narrative by the time ofnight. The accomplished and ingenious person of whom we speak, has beena little infected by the tone of his countrymen--he is too didactic, too pugnacious, too full of electrical shocks, too much like a voltaicbattery, and reposes too little on his own excellent good sense, hisown love of ease, his cordial frankness of disposition and unaffectedcandour. He ought to have belonged to us!

The severest of critics (as he has been sometimes termed) is thebest-natured of men. Whatever there may be of wavering or indecision inMr. Jeffrey's reasoning, or of harshness in his critical decisions, inhis disposition there is nothing but simplicity and kindness. He is aperson that no one knows without esteeming, and who both in his publicconnections and private friendships, shews the same manly uprightnessand unbiassed independence of spirit. At a distance, in his writings, oreven in his manner, there may be something to excite a little uneasinessand apprehension: in his conduct there is nothing to except against. He is a person of strict integrity himself, without pretence oraffectation; and knows how to respect this quality in others, withoutprudery or intolerance. He can censure a friend or a stranger, and servehim effectually at the same time. He expresses his disapprobation, butnot as an excuse for closing up the avenues of his liberality. He is aScotchman without one particle of hypocrisy, of cant, of servility, orselfishness in his composition. He has not been spoiled by fortune--hasnot been tempted by power--is firm without violence, friendly withoutweakness--a critic and even-tempered, a casuist and an honest man--andamidst the toils of his profession and the distractions of the world, retains the gaiety, the unpretending carelessness and simplicity ofyouth. Mr. Jeffrey in his person is slight, with a countenance of muchexpression, and a voice of great flexibility and acuteness of tone. 

[Footnote A: The style of philosophical criticism, which has been theboast of the Edinburgh Review, was first introduced into the MonthlyReview about the year 1796, in a series of articles by Mr. WilliamTaylor, of Norwich. ]

 * * * * *

MR. BROUGHAM--SIR F. BURDETT. 

There is a class of eloquence which has been described and particularlyinsisted on, under the style and title of _Irish Eloquence_: there isanother class which it is not absolutely unfair to oppose to this, andthat is the Scotch. The first of these is entirely the offspring of_impulse_: the last of _mechanism_. The one is as full of fancy as it isbare of facts: the other excludes all fancy, and is weighed down withfacts. The one is all fire, the other all ice: the one nothing butenthusiasm, extravagance, eccentricity; the other nothing but logicaldeductions, and the most approved postulates. The one without scruple, nay, with reckless zeal, throws the reins loose on the neck of theimagination: the other pulls up with a curbbridle, and starts at everycasual object it meets in the way as a bug-bear. The genius of Irishoratory stands forth in the naked majesty of untutored nature, its eyeglancing wildly round on all objects, its tongue darting forked fire:the genius of Scottish eloquence is armed in all the panoply of theschools; its drawling, ambiguous dialect seconds its circumspectdialectics; from behind the vizor that guards its mouth and shadowsits pent-up brows, it sees no visions but its own set purpose, its own_data_, and its own dogmas. It "has no figures, nor no fantasies, " but"those which busy care draws in the brains of men, " or which set off itsown superior acquirements and wisdom. It scorns to "tread the primrosepath of dalliance"--it shrinks back from it as from a precipice, andkeeps in the iron rail-way of the understanding. Irish oratory, on thecontrary, is a sort of aeronaut: it is always going up in a balloon, andbreaking its neck, or coming down in the parachute. It is filledfull with gaseous matter, with whim and fancy, with alliteration andantithesis, with heated passion and bloated metaphors, that burst theslender, silken covering of sense; and the airy pageant, that glitteredin empty space and rose in all the bliss of ignorance, flutters andsinks down to its native bogs! If the Irish orator riots in a studiedneglect of his subject and a natural confusion of ideas, playing withwords, ranging them into all sorts of fantastic combinations, because inthe unlettered void or chaos of his mind there is no obstacle to theircoalescing into any shapes they please, it must be confessed that theeloquence of the Scotch is encumbered with an excess of knowledge, thatit cannot get on for a crowd of difficulties, that it staggers undera load of topics, that it is so environed in the forms of logic andrhetoric as to be equally precluded from originality or absurdity, frombeauty or deformity:--the plea of humanity is lost by going through theprocess of law, the firm and manly tone of principle is exchanged forthe wavering and pitiful cant of policy, the living bursts of passionare reduced to a defunct _common-place_, and all true imaginationis buried under the dust and rubbish of learned models and imposingauthorities. If the one is a bodiless phantom, the other is a lifelessskeleton: if the one in its feverish and hectic extravagance resembles asick man's dream, the other is akin to the sleep of death--cold, stiff, unfeeling, monumental! Upon the whole, we despair less of the first thanof the last, for the principle of life and motion is, after all, theprimary condition of all genius. The luxuriant wildness of the one maybe disciplined, and its excesses sobered down into reason; but the dryand rigid formality of the other can never burst the shell or husk oforatory. It is true that the one is disfigured by the puerilities andaffectation of a Phillips; but then it is redeemed by the manly senseand fervour of a Plunket, the impassioned appeals and flashes of wit ofa Curran, and by the golden tide of wisdom, eloquence, and fancy, thatflowed from the lips of a Burke. In the other, we do not sink so low inthe negative series; but we get no higher in the ascending scale thana Mackintosh or a Brougham. [A] It may be suggested that the late LordErskine enjoyed a higher reputation as an orator than either of these:but he owed it to a dashing and graceful manner, to presence of mind, and to great animation in delivering his sentiments. Stripped of theseoutward and personal advantages, the matter of his speeches, like thatof his writings, is nothing, or perfectly inert and dead. Mr. Broughamis from the North of England, but he was educated in Edinburgh, andrepresents that school of politics and political economy in the House. He differs from Sir James Mackintosh in this, that he deals less inabstract principles, and more in individual details. He makes less useof general topics, and more of immediate facts. Sir James is betteracquainted with the balance of an argument in old authors; Mr. Broughamwith the balance of power in Europe. If the first is better versed inthe progress of history, no man excels the last in a knowledge of thecourse of exchange. He is apprised of the exact state of our exports andimports, and scarce a ship clears out its cargo at Liverpool orHull, but he has notice of the bill of lading. Our colonial policy, prison-discipline, the state of the Hulks, agricultural distress, commerce and manufactures, the Bullion question, the Catholic question, the Bourbons or the Inquisition, "domestic treason, foreign levy, "nothing can come amiss to him--he is at home in the crooked mazes ofrotten boroughs, is not baffled by Scotch law, and can follow themeaning of one of Mr. Canning's speeches. With so many resources, withsuch variety and solidity of information, Mr. Brougham is rather apowerful and alarming, than an effectual debater. In so many details(which he himself goes through with unwearied and unshrinkingresolution) the spirit of the question is lost to others who have notthe same voluntary power of attention or the same interest in hearingthat he has in speaking; the original impulse that urged him forward isforgotten in so wide a field, in so interminable a career. If he can, others _cannot_ carry all he knows in their heads at the same time; arope of circumstantial evidence does not hold well together, nor dragthe unwilling mind along with it (the willing mind hurries on before it, and grows impatient and absent)--he moves in an unmanageable processionof facts and proofs, instead of coming to the point at once--and hispremises (so anxious is he to proceed on sure and ample grounds) overlayand block up his conclusion, so that you cannot arrive at it, or nottill the first fury and shock of the onset is over. The ball, fromthe too great width of the _calibre_ from which it is sent, and fromstriking against such a number of hard, projecting points, is almostspent before it reaches its destination. He keeps a ledger or adebtor-and-creditor account between the Government and the Country, posts so much actual crime, corruption, and injustice against so muchcontingent advantage or sluggish prejudice, and at the bottom of thepage brings in the balance of indignation and contempt, where it is due. But people are not to be _calculated into_ contempt or indignation onabstract grounds; for however they may submit to this process wheretheir own interests are concerned, in what regards the public good webelieve they must see and feel instinctively, or not at all. There is(it is to be lamented) a good deal of froth as well as strength in thepopular spirit, which will not admit of being _decanted_ or served outin formal driblets; nor will spleen (the soul of Opposition) bear to becorked up in square patent bottles, and kept for future use! In a word, Mr. Brougham's is ticketed and labelled eloquence, registered and innumeros (like the successive parts of a Scotch Encyclopedia)--itis clever, knowing, imposing, masterly, an extraordinary display ofclearness of head, of quickness and energy of thought, of applicationand industry; but it is not the eloquence of the imagination or theheart, and will never save a nation or an individual from perdition. 

Mr. Brougham has one considerable advantage in debate: he is overcomeby no false modesty, no deference to others. But then, by a naturalconsequence or parity of reasoning, he has little sympathy with otherpeople, and is liable to be mistaken in the effect his arguments willhave upon them. He relies too much, among other things, on the patienceof his hearers, and on his ability to turn every thing to his ownadvantage. He accordingly goes to the full length of _his tether_ (invulgar phrase) and often overshoots the mark. _C'est dommage_. He has noreserve of discretion, no retentiveness of mind or check upon himself. He needs, with so much wit, "As much again to govern it. "

He cannot keep a good thing or a shrewd piece of information in hispossession, though the letting it out should mar a cause. It is notthat he thinks too much of himself, too little of his cause: but he isabsorbed in the pursuit of truth as an abstract inquiry, he is led awayby the headstrong and over-mastering activity of his own mind. He isborne along, almost involuntarily, and not impossibly against his betterjudgment, by the throng and restlessness of his ideas as by a crowdof people in motion. His perceptions are literal, tenacious, _epileptic_--his understanding voracious of facts, and equallycommunicative of them--and he proceeds to

 "--------Pour out all as plain As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne"--

without either the virulence of the one or the _bonhommie_ of the other. The repeated, smart, unforeseen discharges of the truth jar thosethat are next him. He does not dislike this state of irritation andcollision, indulges his curiosity or his triumph, till by calling formore facts or hazarding some extreme inference, he urges a question tothe verge of a precipice, his adversaries urge it _over_, and he himselfshrinks back from the consequence--

 "Scared at the sound himself has made!"

Mr. Brougham has great fearlessness, but not equal firmness; and aftergoing too far on the _forlorn hope_, turns short round without duewarning to others or respect for himself. He is adventurous, but easilypanic-struck; and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to the necessityof self-preservation. He is too improvident for a leader, too petulantfor a partisan; and does not sufficiently consult those with whom he issupposed to act in concert. He sometimes leaves them in the lurch, and is sometimes left in the lurch by them. He wants the principle ofco-operation. He frequently, in a fit of thoughtless levity, gives anunexpected turn to the political machine, which alarms older and moreexperienced heads: if he was not himself the first to get out of harm'sway and escape from the danger, it would be well!--We hold, indeed, asa general rule, that no man born or bred in Scotland can be a greatorator, unless he is a mere quack; or a great statesman unless he turnsplain knave. The national gravity is against the first: the nationalcaution is against the last. To a Scotchman if a thing _is, it is_;there is an end of the question with his opinion about it. He ispositive and abrupt, and is not in the habit of conciliating thefeelings or soothing the follies of others. His only way therefore toproduce a popular effect is to sail with the stream of prejudice, andto vent common dogmas, "the total grist, unsifted, husks and all, " fromsome evangelical pulpit. This may answer, and it has answered. On theother hand, if a Scotchman, born or bred, comes to think at all of thefeelings of others, it is not as they regard them, but as theiropinion reacts on his own interest and safety. He is therefore eitherpragmatical and offensive, or if he tries to please, he becomes cowardlyand fawning. His public spirit wants pliancy; his selfish compliancesgo all lengths. He is as impracticable as a popular partisan, as heis mischievous as a tool of Government. We do not wish to pressthis argument farther, and must leave it involved in some degree ofobscurity, rather than bring the armed intellect of a whole nation onour heads. 

Mr. Brougham speaks in a loud and unmitigated tone of voice, sometimesalmost approaching to a scream. He is fluent, rapid, vehement, full ofhis subject, with evidently a great deal to say, and very regardlessof the manner of saying it. As a lawyer, he has not hitherto beenremarkably successful. He is not profound in cases and reports, nor doeshe take much interest in the peculiar features of a particular cause, orshew much adroitness in the management of it. He carries too much weightof metal for ordinary and petty occasions: he must have a pretty largequestion to discuss, and must make _thorough-stitch_ work of it. He, however, had an encounter with Mr. Phillips the other day, and shook allhis tender blossoms, so that they fell to the ground, and withered in anhour; but they soon bloomed again! Mr. Brougham writes almost, if notquite, as well as he speaks. In the midst of an Election contest hecomes out to address the populace, and goes back to his study to finishan article for the Edinburgh Review; sometimes indeed wedging three orfour articles (in the shape of _refaccimentos_ of his own pamphletsor speeches in parliament) into a single number. Such indeed is theactivity of his mind that it appears to require neither repose, nor anyother stimulus than a delight in its own exercise. He can turn hishand to any thing, but he cannot be idle. There are few intellectualaccomplishments which he does not possess, and possess in a veryhigh degree. He speaks French (and, we believe, several other modernlanguages) fluently: is a capital mathematician, and obtained anintroduction to the celebrated Carnot in this latter character, when theconversation turned on squaring the circle, and not on the propriety ofconfining France within the natural boundary of the Rhine. Mr. Broughamis, in fact, a striking instance of the versatility and strength of thehuman mind, and also in one sense of the length of human life, if wemake a good use of our time. There is room enough to crowd almost everyart and science into it. If we pass "no day without a line, " visit noplace without the company of a book, we may with ease fill libraries orempty them of their contents. Those who complain of the shortness oflife, let it slide by them without wishing to seize and make the most ofits golden minutes. The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy weare, the more leisure we have. If any one possesses any advantage in aconsiderable degree, he may make himself master of nearly as many moreas he pleases, by employing his spare time and cultivating the wastefaculties of his mind. While one person is determining on the choice ofa profession or study, another shall have made a fortune or gained amerited reputation. While one person is dreaming over the meaning of aword, another will have learnt several languages. It is not incapacity, but indolence, indecision, want of imagination, and a proneness to asort of mental tautology, to repeat the same images and tread the samecircle, that leaves us so poor, so dull, and inert as we are, so nakedof acquirement, so barren of resources! While we are walking backwardsand forwards between Charing-Cross and Temple-Bar, and sitting in thesame coffee-house every day, we might make the grand tour of Europe, andvisit the Vatican and the Louvre. Mr. Brougham, among other means ofstrengthening and enlarging his views, has visited, we believe, most ofthe courts, and turned his attention to most of the Constitutions of thecontinent. He is, no doubt, a very accomplished, active-minded, andadmirable person. 

Sir Francis Burdett, in many respects, affords a contrast to theforegoing character. He is a plain, unaffected, unsophisticated Englishgentleman. He is a person of great reading too and considerableinformation, but he makes very little display of these, unless it be toquote Shakespear, which he does often with extreme aptness and felicity. Sir Francis is one of the most pleasing speakers in the House, and is aprodigious favourite of the English people. So he ought to be: for he isone of the few remaining examples of the old English understanding andold English character. All that he pretends to is common sense andcommon honesty; and a greater compliment cannot be paid to these thanthe attention with which he is listened to in the House of Commons. Wecannot conceive a higher proof of courage than the saying things whichhe has been known to say there; and we have seen him blush and appearashamed of the truths he has been obliged to utter, like a bashfulnovice. He could not have uttered what he often did there, if, besideshis general respectability, he had not been a very honest, a verygood-tempered, and a very good-looking man. But there was evidently nowish to shine, nor any desire to offend: it was painful to him to hurtthe feelings of those who heard him, but it was a higher duty in him notto suppress his sincere and earnest convictions. It is wonderful howmuch virtue and plain-dealing a man may be guilty of with impunity, ifhe has no vanity, or ill-nature, or duplicity to provoke the contempt orresentment of others, and to make them impatient of the superiority hesets up over them. We do not recollect that Sir Francis ever endeavouredto atone for any occasional indiscretions or intemperance by givingthe Duke of York credit for the battle of Waterloo, or congratulatingMinisters on the confinement of Buonaparte at St. Helena. There is nohonest cause which he dares not avow: no oppressed individual that heis not forward to succour. He has the firmness of manhood with theunimpaired enthusiasm of youthful feeling about him. His principles aremellowed and improved, without having become less sound with time: forat one period he sometimes appeared to come charged to the House withthe petulance and caustic sententiousness he had imbibed at WimbledonCommon. He is never violent or in extremes, except when the people orthe parliament happen to be out of their senses; and then he seems toregret the necessity of plainly telling them he thinks so, instead ofpluming himself upon it or exulting over impending calamities. Thereis only one error he seems to labour under (which, we believe, he alsoborrowed from Mr. Horne Tooke or Major Cartwright), the wanting to goback to the early times of our Constitution and history in search of theprinciples of law and liberty. He might as well

 "Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream. "

Liberty, in our opinion, is but a modern invention (the growth of booksand printing)--and whether new or old, is not the less desirable. A manmay be a patriot, without being an antiquary. This is the only pointon which Sir Francis is at all inclined to a tincture of pedantry. Ingeneral, his love of liberty is pure, as it is warm and steady: hishumanity is unconstrained and free. His heart does not ask leave of hishead to feel; nor does prudence always keep a guard upon his tongue orhis pen. No man writes a better letter to his Constituents than themember for Westminster; and his compositions of that kind ought to begood, for they have occasionally cost him dear. He is the idol of thepeople of Westminster: few persons have a greater number of friendsand well-wishers; and he has still greater reason to be proud of hisenemies, for his integrity and independence have made them so. SirFrancis Burdett has often been left in a Minority in the House ofCommons, with only one or two on his side. We suspect, unfortunately forhis country, that History will be found to enter its protest on the sameside of the question!

[Footnote A: Mr. Brougham is not a Scotchman literally, but byadoption. ]

 * * * * *

LORD ELDON AND MR. WILBERFORCE. 

Lord Eldon is an exceedingly good-natured man; but this does not preventhim, like other good-natured people, from consulting his own ease orinterest. The character of _good-nature_, as it is called, has been agood deal mistaken; and the present Chancellor is not a bad illustrationof the grounds of the prevailing error. When we happen to see anindividual whose countenance is "all tranquillity and smiles;" whois full of good-humour and pleasantry; whose manners are gentle andconciliating; who is uniformly temperate in his expressions, andpunctual and just in his every-day dealings; we are apt to conclude fromso fair an outside, that

 "All is conscience and tender heart"

within also, and that such a one would not hurt a fly. And neither wouldhe without a motive. But mere good-nature (or what passes in the worldfor such) is often no better than indolent selfishness. A persondistinguished and praised for this quality will not needlessly offendothers, because they may retaliate; and besides, it ruffles his owntemper. He likes to enjoy a perfect calm, and to live in an interchangeof kind offices. He suffers few things to irritate or annoy him. He hasa fine oiliness in his disposition, which smooths the waves of passionas they rise. He does not enter into the quarrels or enmities of others;bears their calamities with patience; he listens to the din and clang ofwar, the earthquake and the hurricane of the political and moral worldwith the temper and spirit of a philosopher; no act of injustice putshim beside himself, the follies and absurdities of mankind never givehim a moment's uneasiness, he has none of the ordinary causes offretfulness or chagrin that torment others from the undue interest theytake in the conduct of their neighbours or in the public good. None ofthese idle or frivolous sources of discontent, that make such havocwith the peace of human life, ever discompose his features or alter theserenity of his pulse. If a nation is robbed of its rights, "If wretches hang that Ministers may dine, "--

the laughing jest still collects in his eye, the cordial squeeze of thehand is still the same. But tread on the toe of one of these amiable andimperturbable mortals, or let a lump of soot fall down the chimney andspoil their dinners, and see how they will bear it. All their patienceis confined to the accidents that befal others: all their good-humouris to be resolved into giving themselves no concern about any thing buttheir own ease and self-indulgence. Their charity begins and ends athome. Their being free from the common infirmities of temper is owing totheir indifference to the common feelings of humanity; and if you touchthe sore place, they betray more resentment, and break out (like spoiledchildren) into greater fractiousness than others, partly from a greaterdegree of selfishness, and partly because they are taken by surprise, and mad to think they have not guarded every point against annoyance orattack, by a habit of callous insensibility and pampered indolence. 

An instance of what we mean occurred but the other day. An allusion wasmade in the House of Commons to something in the proceedings in theCourt of Chancery, and the Lord Chancellor comes to his place in theCourt, with the statement in his hand, fire in his eyes, and a directcharge of falsehood in his mouth, without knowing any thing certainof the matter, without making any inquiry into it, without using anyprecaution or putting the least restraint upon himself, and all on nobetter authority than a common newspaper report. The thing was (not thatwe are imputing any strong blame in this case, we merely bring it as anillustration) it touched himself, his office, the inviolability of hisjurisdiction, the unexceptionableness of his proceedings, and the wetblanket of the Chancellor's temper instantly took fire like tinder! Allthe fine balancing was at an end; all the doubts, all the delicacy, allthe candour real or affected, all the chances that there might be amistake in the report, all the decencies to be observed towards a Memberof the House, are overlooked by the blindness of passion, and the waryJudge pounces upon the paragraph without mercy, without a moment'sdelay, or the smallest attention to forms! This was indeed seriousbusiness, there was to be no trifling here; every instant was an agetill the Chancellor had discharged his sense of indignation on the headof the indiscreet interloper on his authority. Had it been anotherperson's case, another person's dignity that had been compromised, another person's conduct that had been called in question, who doubtsbut that the matter might have stood over till the next term, that theNoble Lord would have taken the Newspaper home in his pocket, that hewould have compared it carefully with other newspapers, that he wouldhave written in the most mild and gentlemanly terms to the HonourableMember to inquire into the truth of the statement, that he would havewatched a convenient opportunity good-humouredly to ask other HonourableMembers what all this was about, that the greatest caution and fairnesswould have been observed, and that to this hour the lawyers' clerks andthe junior counsel would have been in the greatest admiration of theChancellor's nicety of discrimination, and the utter inefficacy of theheats, importunities, haste, and passions of others to influence hisjudgment? This would have been true; yet his readiness to decide and tocondemn where he himself is concerned, shews that passion is not dead inhim, nor subject to the controul of reason; but that self-love is themain-spring that moves it, though on all beyond that limit he looks withthe most perfect calmness and philosophic indifference. 

 "Resistless passion sways us to the mood Of what it likes or loaths. "

All people are passionate in what concerns themselves, or in what theytake an interest in. The range of this last is different in differentpersons; but the want of passion is but another name for the want ofsympathy and imagination. 

The Lord Chancellor's impartiality and conscientious exactness isproverbial; and is, we believe, as inflexible as it is delicate inall cases that occur in the stated routine of legal practice. Theimpatience, the irritation, the hopes, the fears, the confident tone ofthe applicants move him not a jot from his intended course, he looks attheir claims with the "lack lustre eye" of prefessional indifference. Power and influence apart, his next strongest passion is to indulge inthe exercise of professional learning and skill, to amuse himself withthe dry details and intricate windings of the law of equity. He delightsto balance a straw, to see a feather turn the scale, or make it evenagain; and divides and subdivides a scruple to the smallest fraction. Heunravels the web of argument and pieces it together again; folds it upand lays it aside, that he may examine it more at his leisure. He hugsindecision to his breast, and takes home a modest doubt or a nice pointto solace himself with it in protracted, luxurious dalliance. Delayseems, in his mind, to be of the very essence of justice. He no morehurries through a question than if no one was waiting for the result, and he was merely a _dilettanti_, fanciful judge, who played at my LordChancellor, and busied himself with quibbles and punctilios as an idlehobby and harmless illusion. The phlegm of the Chancellor's dispositiongives one almost a surfeit of impartiality and candour: we are sickof the eternal poise of childish dilatoriness; and would wish law andjustice to be decided at once by a cast of the dice (as they were inRabelais) rather than be kept in frivolous and tormenting suspense. Butthere is a limit even to this extreme refinement and scrupulousnessof the Chancellor. The understanding acts only in the absence of thepassions. At the approach of the loadstone, the needle trembles, andpoints to it. The air of a political question has a wonderful tendencyto brace and quicken the learned Lord's faculties. The breath of a courtspeedily oversets a thousand objections, and scatters the cobwebs of hisbrain. The secret wish of power is a thumping _make-weight, _ where allis so nicely-balanced beforehand. In the case of a celebrated beauty andheiress, and the brother of a Noble Lord, the Chancellor hesitated long, and went through the forms, as usual: but who ever doubted, where allthis indecision would end? No man in his senses, for a single instant!We shall not press this point, which is rather a ticklish one. Somepersons thought that from entertaining a fellow-feeling on the subject, the Chancellor would have been ready to favour the Poet-Laureat'sapplication to the Court of Chancery for an injunction against WatTyler. His Lordship's sentiments on such points are not so variable, hehas too much at stake. He recollected the year 1794, though Mr. Southeyhad forgotten it!--

The personal always prevails over the intellectual, where the latter isnot backed by strong feeling and principle. Where remote and speculativeobjects do not excite a predominant interest and passion, gross andimmediate ones are sure to carry the day, even in ingenuous andwell-disposed minds. The will yields necessarily to some motive orother; and where the public good or distant consequences excite nosympathy in the breast, either from short-sightedness or an easiness oftemperament that shrinks from any violent effort or painful emotion, self-interest, indolence, the opinion of others, a desire to please, thesense of personal obligation, come in and fill up the void of publicspirit, patriotism, and humanity. The best men in the world in their ownnatural dispositions or in private life (for this reason) often becomethe most dangerous public characters, from their pliancy to the unrulypassions of others, and from their having no set-off in strong moral_stamina_ to the temptations that are held out to them, if, as isfrequently the case, they are men of versatile talent or patientindustry. --Lord Eldon has one of the best-natured faces in the world;it is pleasant to meet him in the street, plodding along with anumbrella under his arm, without one trace of pride, of spleen, ordiscontent in his whole demeanour, void of offence, with almost rusticsimplicity and honesty of appearance--a man that makes friends at firstsight, and could hardly make enemies, if he would; and whose only faultis that he cannot say _Nay_ to power, or subject himself to an unkindword or look from a King or a Minister. He is a thorough-bred Tory. Others boggle or are at fault in their career, or give back at a pinch, they split into different factions, have various objects to distractthem, their private friendships or antipathies stand in their way; buthe has never flinched, never gone back, never missed his way, he is an_out-and-outer_ in this respect, his allegiance has been without flaw, like "one entire and perfect chrysolite, " his implicit understanding isa kind of taffeta-lining to the Crown, his servility has assumed an airof the most determined independence, and he has

 "Read his history in a Prince's eyes!"--

There has been no stretch of power attempted in his time that he has notseconded: no existing abuse, so odious or so absurd, that he has notsanctioned it. He has gone the whole length of the most unpopulardesigns of Ministers. When the heavy artillery of interest, power, andprejudice is brought into the field, the paper pellets of the brain gofor nothing: his labyrinth of nice, lady-like doubts explodes like amine of gun-powder. The Chancellor may weigh and palter--the courtieris decided, the politician is firm, and rivetted to his place in theCabinet! On all the great questions that have divided party opinion oragitated the public mind, the Chancellor has been found uniformly andwithout a single exception on the side of prerogative and power, and against every proposal for the advancement of freedom. He was astrenuous supporter of the wars and coalitions against the principles ofliberty abroad; he has been equally zealous in urging or defending everyact and infringement of the Constitution, for abridging it at home: heat the same time opposes every amelioration of the penal laws, on thealleged ground of his abhorrence of even the shadow of innovation: hehas studiously set his face against Catholic emancipation; he labouredhard in his vocation to prevent the abolition of the Slave Trade; he wasAttorney General in the trials for High Treason in 1794; and the otherday in giving his opinion on the Queen's Trial, shed tears and protestedhis innocence before God! This was natural and to be expected; buton all occasions he is to be found at his post, true to the call ofprejudice, of power, to the will of others and to his own interest. In the whole of his public career, and with all the goodness of hisdisposition, he has not shewn "so small a drop of pity as a wren's eye. "He seems to be on his guard against every thing liberal and humane ashis weak side. Others relax in their obsequiousness either from satietyor disgust, or a hankering after popularity, or a wish to be thoughtabove narrow prejudices. The Chancellor alone is fixed and immoveable. Is it want of understanding or of principle? No--it is want ofimagination, a phlegmatic habit, an excess of false complaisance andgood-nature . .. Common humanity and justice are little better than vagueterms to him: he acts upon his immediate feelings and least irksomeimpulses. The King's hand is velvet to the touch--the Woolsack is aseat of honour and profit! That is all he knows about the matter. As toabstract metaphysical calculations, the ox that stands staring at thecorner of the street troubles his head as much about them as he does:yet this last is a very good sort of animal with no harm or malice inhim, unless he is goaded on to mischief, and then it is necessary tokeep out of his way, or warn others against him!

Mr. Wilberforce is a less perfect character in his way. He acts frommixed motives. He would willingly serve two masters, God and Mammon. Heis a person of many excellent and admirable qualifications, but he hasmade a mistake in wishing to reconcile those that are incompatible. He has a most winning eloquence, specious, persuasive, familiar, silver-tongued, is amiable, charitable, conscientious, pious, loyal, humane, tractable to power, accessible to popularity, honouring theking, and no less charmed with the homage of his fellow-citizens. "Whatlacks he then?" Nothing but an economy of good parts. By aiming attoo much, he has spoiled all, and neutralised what might have been anestimable character, distinguished by signal services to mankind. Aman must take his choice not only between virtue and vice, but betweendifferent virtues. Otherwise, he will not gain his own approbation, orsecure the respect of others. The graces and accomplishments of privatelife mar the man of business and the statesman. There is a severity, asternness, a self-denial, and a painful sense of duty required inthe one, which ill befits the softness and sweetness which shouldcharacterise the other. Loyalty, patriotism, friendship, humanity, areall virtues; but may they not sometimes clash? By being unwilling toforego the praise due to any, we may forfeit the reputation of all; andinstead of uniting the suffrages of the whole world in our favour, wemay end in becoming a sort of bye-word for affectation, cant, hollowprofessions, trimming, fickleness, and effeminate imbecility. It is bestto choose and act up to some one leading character, as it is best tohave some settled profession or regular pursuit in life. 

We can readily believe that Mr. Wilberforce's first object and principleof action is to do what he thinks right: his next (and that we fear isof almost equal weight with the first) is to do what will be thought soby other people. He is always at a game of _hawk and buzzard_ betweenthese two: his "conscience will not budge, " unless the world goes withit. He does not seem greatly to dread the denunciation in Scripture, but rather to court it--"Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well ofyou!" We suspect he is not quite easy in his mind, because West-Indiaplanters and Guinea traders do not join in his praise. His ears are notstrongly enough tuned to drink in the execrations of the spoiler and theoppressor as the sweetest music. It is not enough that one half of thehuman species (the images of God carved in ebony, as old Fuller callsthem) shout his name as a champion and a saviour through vast burningzones, and moisten their parched lips with the gush of gratitude fordeliverance from chains--he must have a Prime-Minister drink his healthat a Cabinet-dinner for aiding to rivet on those of his country andof Europe! He goes hand and heart along with Government in all theirnotions of legitimacy and political aggrandizement, in the hope thatthey will leave him a sort of _no-man's ground_ of humanity in the GreatDesert, where his reputation for benevolence and public spirit mayspring up and flourish, till its head touches the clouds, and itstretches out its branches to the farthest part of the earth. He hasno mercy on those who claim a property in negro-slaves as so muchlive-stock on their estates; the country rings with the applause ofhis wit, his eloquence, and his indignant appeals to common sense andhumanity on this subject--but not a word has he to say, not a whisperdoes he breathe against the claim set up by the Despots of the Earthover their Continental subjects, but does every thing in his power toconfirm and sanction it! He must give no offence. Mr. Wilberforce'shumanity will go all lengths that it can with safety and discretion: butit is not to be supposed that it should lose him his seat for Yorkshire, the smile of Majesty, or the countenance of the loyal and pious. He isanxious to do all the good he can without hurting himself or his fairfame. His conscience and his character compound matters very amicably. He rather patronises honesty than is a martyr to it. His patriotism, hisphilanthropy are not so ill-bred, as to quarrel with his loyalty or tobanish him from the first circles. He preaches vital Christianity tountutored savages; and tolerates its worst abuses in civilized states. He thus shews his respect for religion without offending the clergy, orcircumscribing the sphere of his usefulness. There is in all this anappearance of a good deal of cant and tricking. His patriotism maybe accused of being servile; his humanity ostentatious; his loyaltyconditional; his religion a mixture of fashion and fanaticism. "Out uponsuch half-faced fellowship!" Mr. Wilberforce has the pride of beingfamiliar with the great; the vanity of being popular; the conceit of anapproving conscience. He is coy in his approaches to power; his publicspirit is, in a manner, _under the rose_. He thus reaps the creditof independence, without the obloquy; and secures the advantages ofservility, without incurring any obligations. He has two strings to hisbow:--he by no means neglects his worldly interests, while he expectsa bright reversion in the skies. Mr. Wilberforce is far from beinga hypocrite; but he is, we think, as fine a specimen of _moralequivocation_ as can well be conceived. A hypocrite is one who is thevery reverse of, or who despises the character he pretends to be: Mr. Wilberforce would be all that he pretends to be, and he is it in fact, as far as words, plausible theories, good inclinations, and easyservices go, but not in heart and soul, or so as to give up theappearance of any one of his pretensions to preserve the reality of anyother. He carefully chooses his ground to fight the battles ofloyalty, religion, and humanity, and it is such as is always safe andadvantageous to himself! This is perhaps hardly fair, and it is ofdangerous or doubtful tendency. Lord Eldon, for instance, is known to bea thorough-paced ministerialist: his opinion is only that of his party. But Mr. Wilberforce is not a party-man. He is the more looked up toon this account, but not with sufficient reason. By tampering withdifferent temptations and personal projects, he has all the air of themost perfect independence, and gains a character for impartiality andcandour, when he is only striking a balance in his mind between the_éclat_ of differing from a Minister on some 'vantage ground, and therisk or odium that may attend it. He carries all the weight of hisartificial popularity over to the Government on vital points andhard-run questions; while they, in return, lend him a little of thegilding of court-favour to set off his disinterested philanthropy andtramontane enthusiasm. As a leader or a follower, he makes an odd jumbleof interests. By virtue of religious sympathy, he has brought the Saintsover to the side of the abolition of Negro slavery. This his adversariesthink hard and stealing a march upon them. What have the SAINTS to dowith freedom or reform of any kind?--Mr. Wilberforce's style ofspeaking is not quite _parliamentary_, it is halfway between that and_evangelical_. He is altogether a _double-entendre:_ the very tone ofhis voice is a _double-entendre. _ It winds, and undulates, and glidesup and down on texts of Scripture, and scraps from Paley, and tritesophistry, and pathetic appeals to his hearers in a faltering, inprogressive, sidelong way, like those birds of weak wing, that areborne from their strait-forward course

 "By every little breath that under heaven is blown. "

Something of this fluctuating, time-serving principle was visible evenin the great question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. He was, atone time, half inclined to surrender it into Mr. Pitt's dilatory hands, and seemed to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the gaudycolouring of popularity sunk into the _sable_ ground from which it rose!It was, however, persisted in and carried to a triumphant conclusion. Mr. Wilberforce said too little on this occasion of one, compared withwhom he was but the frontispiece to that great chapter in the history ofthe world--the mask, the varnishing, and painting--the man that effectedit by Herculean labours of body, and equally gigantic labours of mindwas Clarkson, the true Apostle of human Redemption on that occasion, andwho, it is remarkable, resembles in his person and lineaments more thanone of the Apostles in the _Cartoons_ of Raphael. He deserves to beadded to the Twelve![A]

[Footnote A: After all, the best as well as most amusing comment on thecharacter just described was that made by Sheridan, who being picked upin no very creditable plight by the watch, and asked rather roughly whohe was, made answer--"I am Mr. Wilberforce!" The guardians of the nightconducted him home with all the honours due to Grace and Nature. ]

 * * * * *

MR. SOUTHEY. 

Mr. Southey, as we formerly remember to have seen him, had a hecticflush upon his cheek, a roving fire in his eye, a falcon glance, a lookat once aspiring and dejected--it was the look that had been impressedupon his face by the events that marked the outset of his life, it wasthe dawn of Liberty that still tinged his cheek, a smile betwixt hopeand sadness that still played upon his quivering lip. Mr. Southey's mindis essentially sanguine, even to over-weeningness. It is prophetic ofgood; it cordially embraces it; it casts a longing, lingering look afterit, even when it is gone for ever. He cannot bear to give up the thoughtof happiness, his confidence in his fellow-man, when all else despair. It is the very element, "where he must live or have no life at all. "While he supposed it possible that a better form of society could beintroduced than any that had hitherto existed, while the light of theFrench Revolution beamed into his soul (and long after, it was seenreflected on his brow, like the light of setting suns on the peak ofsome high mountain, or lonely range of clouds, floating in purer ether!)while he had this hope, this faith in man left, he cherished it withchild-like simplicity, he clung to it with the fondness of a lover, hewas an enthusiast, a fanatic, a leveller; he stuck at nothing thathe thought would banish all pain and misery from the world--in hisimpatience of the smallest error or injustice, he would have sacrificedhimself and the existing generation (a holocaust) to his devotion to theright cause. But when he once believed after many staggering doubts andpainful struggles, that this was no longer possible, when his chimerasand golden dreams of human perfectibility vanished from him, he turnedsuddenly round, and maintained that "whatever _is_, is right. " Mr. Southey has not fortitude of mind, has not patience to think that evilis inseparable from the nature of things. His irritable sense rejectsthe alternative altogether, as a weak stomach rejects the food thatis distasteful to it. He hopes on against hope, he believes in allunbelief. He must either repose on actual or on imaginary good. Hemissed his way in _Utopia_, he has found it at Old Sarum--

 "His generous _ardour_ no cold medium knows:"

his eagerness admits of no doubt or delay. He is ever in extremes, andever in the wrong!

The reason is, that not truth, but self-opinion is the ruling principleof Mr. Southey's mind. The charm of novelty, the applause of themultitude, the sanction of power, the venerableness of antiquity, pique, resentment, the spirit of contradiction have a good deal to do with hispreferences. His inquiries are partial and hasty: his conclusions rawand unconcocted, and with a considerable infusion of whim and humour anda monkish spleen. His opinions are like certain wines, warm and generouswhen new; but they will not keep, and soon turn flat or sour, for wantof a stronger spirit of the understanding to give a body to them. Hewooed Liberty as a youthful lover, but it was perhaps more as a mistressthan a bride; and he has since wedded with an elderly and not veryreputable lady, called Legitimacy. _A wilful man_, according to theScotch proverb, _must have his way_. If it were the cause to which hewas sincerely attached, he would adhere to it through good report andevil report; but it is himself to whom he does homage, and would haveothers do so; and he therefore changes sides, rather than submit toapparent defeat or temporary mortification. Abstract principle hasno rule but the understood distinction between right and wrong; theindulgence of vanity, of caprice, or prejudice is regulated by theconvenience or bias of the moment. The temperament of our politician'smind is poetical, not philosophical. He is more the creature of impulse, than he is of reflection. He invents the unreal, he embellishes thefalse with the glosses of fancy, but pays little attention to "the wordsof truth and soberness. " His impressions are accidental, immediate, personal, instead of being permanent and universal. Of all mortals he issurely the most impatient of contradiction, even when he has completelyturned the tables on himself. Is not this very inconsistency the reason?Is he not tenacious of his opinions, in proportion as they are brittleand hastily formed? Is he not jealous of the grounds of his belief, because he fears they will not bear inspection, or is conscious hehas shifted them? Does he not confine others to the strict line oforthodoxy, because he has himself taken every liberty? Is he not afraidto look to the right or the left, lest he should see the ghosts of hisformer extravagances staring him in the face? Does he not refuse totolerate the smallest shade of difference in others, because he feelsthat he wants the utmost latitude of construction for differing sowidely from himself? Is he not captious, dogmatical, petulant indelivering his sentiments, according as he has been inconsistent, rash, and fanciful in adopting them? He maintains that there can be nopossible ground for differing from him, because he looks only at hisown side of the question! He sets up his own favourite notions as thestandard of reason and honesty, because he has changed from one extremeto another! He treats his opponents with contempt, because he is himselfafraid of meeting with disrespect! He says that "a Reformer is a worsecharacter than a house-breaker, " in order to stifle the recollectionthat he himself once was one!

We must say that "we relish Mr. Southey more in the Reformer" than inhis lately acquired, but by no means natural or becoming character ofpoet-laureat and courtier. He may rest assured that a garland of wildflowers suits him better than the laureat-wreath: that his pastoral odesand popular inscriptions were far more adapted to his genius thanhis presentation-poems. He is nothing akin to birth-day suits anddrawing-room fopperies. "He is nothing, if not fantastical. " In hisfigure, in his movements, in his sentiments, he is sharp and angular, quaint and eccentric. Mr. Southey is not of the court, courtly. Everything of him and about him is from the people. He is not classical, heis not legitimate. He is not a man cast in the mould of other men'sopinions: he is not shaped on any model: he bows to no authority: heyields only to his own wayward peculiarities. He is wild, irregular, singular, extreme. He is no formalist, not he! All is crude and chaotic, self-opinionated, vain. He wants proportion, keeping, system, standardrules. He is not _teres et rotundus_. Mr. Southey walks with his chinerect through the streets of London, and with an umbrella sticking outunder his arm, in the finest weather. He has not sacrificed to theGraces, nor studied decorum. With him every thing is projecting, starting from its place, an episode, a digression, a poetic license. Hedoes not move in any given orbit, but like a falling star, shoots fromhis sphere. He is pragmatical, restless, unfixed, full of experiments, beginning every thing a-new, wiser than his betters, judging forhimself, dictating to others. He is decidedly _revolutionary_. He mayhave given up the reform of the State: but depend upon it, he has someother _hobby_ of the same kind. Does he not dedicate to his presentMajesty that extraordinary poem on the death of his father, called _TheVision of Judgment_, as a specimen of what might be done in Englishhexameters? In a court-poem all should be trite and on an approvedmodel. He might as well have presented himself at the levee in a fancyor masquerade dress. Mr. Southey was not _to try conclusions_ withMajesty--still less on such an occasion. The extreme freedoms withdeparted greatness, the party-petulance carried to the Throne ofGrace, the unchecked indulgence of private humour, the assumption ofinfallibility and even of the voice of Heaven in this poem, are pointedinstances of what we have said. They shew the singular state ofover-excitement of Mr. Southey's mind, and the force of old habits ofindependent and unbridled thinking, which cannot be kept down evenin addressing his Sovereign! Look at Mr. Southey's larger poems, his_Kehama_, his _Thalaba_, his _Madoc_, his _Roderic_. Who will deny thespirit, the scope, the splendid imagery, the hurried and startlinginterest that pervades them? Who will say that they are not sustained onfictions wilder than his own Glendoveer, that they are not the daringcreations of a mind curbed by no law, tamed by no fear, that they arenot rather like the trances than the waking dreams of genius, thatthey are not the very paradoxes of poetry? All this is very well, veryintelligible, and very harmless, if we regard the rank excrescences ofMr. Southey's poetry, like the red and blue flowers in corn, as theunweeded growth of a luxuriant and wandering fancy; or if we allowthe yeasty workings of an ardent spirit to ferment and boil over--thevariety, the boldness, the lively stimulus given to the mind may thenatone for the violation of rules and the offences to bed-rid authority;but not if our poetic libertine sets up for a law-giver and judge, or anapprehender of vagrants in the regions either of taste or opinion. Ourmotley gentleman deserves the strait-waistcoat, if he is for settingothers in the stocks of servility, or condemning them to the pilloryfor a new mode of rhyme or reason. Or if a composer of sacred Dramas onclassic models, or a translator of an old Latin author (that will hardlybear translation) or a vamper-up of vapid cantos and Odes set to music, were to turn pander to prescription and palliater of every dull, incorrigible abuse, it would not be much to be wondered at or evenregretted. But in Mr. Southey it was a lamentable falling-off. It isindeed to be deplored, it is a stain on genius, a blow to humanity, thatthe author of _Joan of Arc_--that work in which the love of Liberty isexhaled like the breath of spring, mild, balmy, heaven-born, that isfull of tears and virgin-sighs, and yearnings of affection after truthand good, gushing warm and crimsoned from the heart--should ever afterturn to folly, or become the advocate of a rotten cause. After giving uphis heart to that subject, he ought not (whatever others might do) everto have set his foot within the threshold of a court. He might be surethat he would not gain forgiveness or favour by it, nor obtain a singlecordial smile from greatness. All that Mr. Southey is or that he doesbest, is independent, spontaneous, free as the vital air he draws--whenhe affects the courtier or the sophist, he is obliged to put aconstraint upon himself, to hold in his breath, he loses his genius, and offers a violence to his nature. His characteristic faults are theexcess of a lively, unguarded temperament:--oh! let them not degenerateinto cold-blooded, heartless vices! If we speak or have ever spoken ofMr. Southey with severity, it is with "the malice of old friends, " forwe count ourselves among his sincerest and heartiest well-wishers. Butwhile he himself is anomalous, incalculable, eccentric, from youth toage (the _Wat Tyler_ and the _Vision of Judgment_ are the Alphaand Omega of his disjointed career) full of sallies of humour, ofebullitions of spleen, making _jets-d'eaux, _ cascades, fountains, andwater-works of his idle opinions, he would shut up the wits of others inleaden cisterns, to stagnate and corrupt, or bury them under ground--

 "Far from the sun and summer gale!"

He would suppress the freedom of wit and humour, of which he has set theexample, and claim a privilege for playing antics. He would introduce anuniformity of intellectual weights and measures, of irregular metres andsettled opinions, and enforce it with a high hand. This has been judgedhard by some, and has brought down a severity of recrimination, perhapsdisproportioned to the injury done. "Because he is virtuous, " (it hasbeen asked, ) "are there to be no more cakes and ale?" Because he isloyal, are we to take all our notions from the _Quarterly Review_?Because he is orthodox, are we to do nothing but read the _Book of theChurch_? We declare we think his former poetical scepticism was not onlymore amiable, but had more of the spirit of religion in it, implied amore heartfelt trust in nature and providence than his present bigotry. We are at the same time free to declare that we think his articles inthe _Quarterly Review, _ notwithstanding their virulence and the talentthey display, have a tendency to qualify its most pernicious effects. They have redeeming traits in them. "A little leaven leaveneth the wholelump:" and the spirit of humanity (thanks to Mr. Southey) is not quiteexpelled from the _Quarterly Review_. At the corner of his pen, "therehangs a vapourous drop profound" of independence and liberality, whichfalls upon its pages, and oozes out through the pores of the publicmind. There is a fortunate difference between writers whose hearts arenaturally callous to truth, and whose understandings are hermeticallysealed against all impressions but those of self-interest, and a manlike Mr. Southey. _Once a philanthropist and always a philanthropist_. No man can entirely baulk his nature: it breaks out in spite of him. In all those questions, where the spirit of contradiction does notinterfere, on which he is not sore from old bruises, or sick from theextravagance of youthful intoxication, as from a last night's debauch, our "laureate" is still bold, free, candid, open to conviction, areformist without knowing it. He does not advocate the slave-trade, hedoes not arm Mr. Malthus's revolting ratios with his authority, he doesnot strain hard to deluge Ireland with blood. On such points, wherehumanity has not become obnoxious, where liberty has not passed into aby-word, Mr. Southey is still liberal and humane. The elasticity of hisspirit is unbroken: the bow recoils to its old position. He still standsconvicted of his early passion for inquiry and improvement. He was notregularly articled as a Government-tool!--Perhaps the most pleasing andstriking of all Mr. Southey's poems are not his triumphant taunts hurledagainst oppression, are not his glowing effusions to Liberty, butthose in which, with a mild melancholy, he seems conscious of his owninfirmities of temper, and to feel a wish to correct by thought andtime the precocity and sharpness of his disposition. May the quaint butaffecting aspiration expressed in one of these be fulfilled, that ashe mellows into maturer age, all such asperities may wear off, and hehimself become

 "Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree!"

Mr. Southey's prose-style can scarcely be too much praised. It is plain, clear, pointed, familiar, perfectly modern in its texture, but witha grave and sparkling admixture of _archaisms_ in its ornaments andoccasional phraseology. He is the best and most natural prose-writer ofany poet of the day; we mean that he is far better than Lord Byron, Mr. Wordsworth, or Mr. Coleridge, for instance. The manner is perhapssuperior to the matter, that is, in his Essays and Reviews. There israther a want of originality and even of _impetus_: but there is no wantof playful or biting satire, of ingenuity, of casuistry, of

learning and of information. He is "full of wise saws and modern" (aswell as ancient) "instances. " Mr. Southey may not always convince hisopponents; but he seldom fails to stagger, never to gall them. In aword, we may describe his style by saying that it has not the body orthickness of port wine, but is like clear sherry with kernels ofold authors thrown into it!--He also excels as an historian andprose-translator. His histories abound in information, and exhibitproofs of the most indefatigable patience and industry. By no uncommonprocess of the mind, Mr. Southey seems willing to steady the extremelevity of his opinions and feelings by an appeal to facts. Histranslations of the Spanish and French romances are also executed _conamore_, and with the literal fidelity and care of a mere linguist. Thatof the _Cid_, in particular, is a masterpiece. Not a word could bealtered for the better, in the old scriptural style which it adopts inconformity to the original. It is no less interesting in itself, or as arecord of high and chivalrous feelings and manners, than it is worthy ofperusal as a literary curiosity. 

Mr. Southey's conversation has a little resemblance to a common-placebook; his habitual deportment to a piece of clock-work. He is notremarkable either as a reasoner or an observer: but he is quick, unaffected, replete with anecdote, various and retentive in his reading, and exceedingly happy in his play upon words, as most scholars are whogive their minds this sportive turn. We have chiefly seen Mr. Southeyin company where few people appear to advantage, we mean in that of Mr. Coleridge. He has not certainly the same range of speculation, northe same flow of sounding words, but he makes up by the details ofknowledge, and by a scrupulous correctness of statement for what hewants in originality of thought, or impetuous declamation. The tones ofMr. Coleridge's voice are eloquence: those of Mr. Southey are meagre, shrill, and dry. Mr. Coleridge's _forte_ is conversation, and he isconscious of this: Mr. Southey evidently considers writing as hisstrong-hold, and if gravelled in an argument, or at a loss for anexplanation, refers to something he has written on the subject, orbrings out his port-folio, doubled down in dog-ears, in confirmation ofsome fact. He is scholastic and professional in his ideas. He sets morevalue on what he writes than on what he says: he is perhaps prouder ofhis library than of his own productions--themselves a library! He ismore simple in his manners than his friend Mr. Coleridge; but at thesame time less cordial or conciliating. He is less vain, or has lesshope of pleasing, and therefore lays himself less out to please. Thereis an air of condescension in his civility. With a tall, loose figure, apeaked austerity of countenance, and no inclination to _embonpoint_, you would say he has something puritanical, something ascetic in hisappearance. He answers to Mandeville's description of Addison, "a parsonin a tye-wig. " He is not a boon companion, nor does he indulge in thepleasures of the table, nor in any other vice; nor are we aware that Mr. Southey is chargeable with any human frailty but--_want of charity_!Having fewer errors to plead guilty to, he is less lenient to those ofothers. He was born an age too late. Had he lived a century or two ago, he would have been a happy as well as blameless character. But thedistraction of the time has unsettled him, and the multiplicity of hispretensions have jostled with each other. No man in our day (at least noman of genius) has led so uniformly and entirely the life of a scholarfrom boyhood to the present hour, devoting himself to learning withthe enthusiasm of an early love, with the severity and constancy of areligious vow--and well would it have been for him if he had confinedhimself to this, and not undertaken to pull down or to patch up theState! However irregular in his opinions, Mr. Southey is constant, unremitting, mechanical in his studies, and the performance of hisduties. There is nothing Pindaric or Shandean here. In all the relationsand charities of private life, he is correct, exemplary, generous, just. We never heard a single impropriety laid to his charge; and if he hasmany enemies, few men can boast more numerous or stauncher friends. --Thevariety and piquancy of his writings form a striking contrast to themode in which they are produced. He rises early, and writes or readstill breakfast-time. He writes or reads after breakfast till dinner, after dinner till tea, and from tea till bed-time--

 "And follows so the ever-running year With profitable labour to his grave--"

on Derwent's banks, beneath the foot of Skiddaw. Study serves him forbusiness, exercise, recreation. He passes from verse to prose, fromhistory to poetry, from reading to writing, by a stop-watch. He writes afair hand, without blots, sitting upright in his chair, leaves off whenhe comes to the bottom of the page, and changes the subject for another, as opposite as the Antipodes. His mind is after all rather the recipientand transmitter of knowledge, than the originator of it. He has hardlygrasp of thought enough to arrive at any great leading truth. Hispassions do not amount to more than irritability. With some gall in hispen, and coldness in his manner, he has a great deal of kindness in hisheart. Rash in his opinions, he is steady in his attachments--and is aman, in many particulars admirable, in all respectable--his politicalinconsistency alone excepted!

 * * * * *

MR. T. MOORE. --MR. LEIGH HUNT. 

 "Or winglet of the fairy humming-bird, Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round. "

 CAMPBELL. 

The lines placed at the head of this sketch, from a contemporary writer, appear to us very descriptive of Mr. Moore's poetry. His verse is likea shower of beauty; a dance of images; a stream of music; or like thespray of the water-fall, tinged by the morning-beam with rosy light. The characteristic distinction of our author's style is this continuousand incessant flow of voluptuous thoughts and shining allusions. Heought to write with a crystal pen on silver paper. His subject is setoff by a dazzling veil of poetic diction, like a wreath of flowersgemmed with innumerous dewdrops, that weep, tremble, and glitter inliquid softness and pearly light, while the song of birds ravishesthe ear, and languid odours breathe around, and Aurora opens Heaven'ssmiling portals, Peris and nymphs peep through the golden glades, and anAngel's wing glances over the glossy scene. 

 "No dainty flower or herb that grows on ground, No arboret with painted blossoms drest, And smelling sweet, but there it might be found To bud out fair, and its sweet smells throw all around. 

 No tree, whose branches did not bravely spring; No branch, whereon a fine bird did not sit; No bird, but did her shrill notes sweetly sing; No song, but did contain a lovely dit: Trees, branches, birds, and songs were framed fit For to allure frail minds to careless ease. ". .. . 

Mr. Campbell's imagination is fastidious and select; and hence, thoughwe meet with more exquisite beauties in his writings, we meet withthem more rarely: there is comparatively a dearth of ornament. But Mr. Moore's strictest economy is "wasteful and superfluous excess:" he isalways liberal, and never at a loss; for sooner than not stimulate anddelight the reader, he is willing to be tawdry, or superficial, orcommon-place. His Muse must be fine at any rate, though she shouldpaint, and wear cast-off decorations. Rather than have any lack ofexcitement, he repeats himself; and "Eden, and Eblis, and cherub-smiles"fill up the pauses of the sentiment with a sickly monotony. --It has beentoo much our author's object to pander to the artificial taste of theage; and his productions, however brilliant and agreeable, are inconsequence somewhat meretricious and effeminate. It was thoughtformerly enough to have an occasionally fine passage in the progress ofa story or a poem, and an occasionally striking image or expression ina fine passage or description. But this style, it seems, was to beexploded as rude, Gothic, meagre, and dry. Now all must be raised tothe same tantalising and preposterous level. There must be no pause, nointerval, no repose, no gradation. Simplicity and truth yield up thepalm to affectation and grimace. The craving of the public mind afternovelty and effect is a false and uneasy appetite that must be pamperedwith fine words at every step--we must be tickled with sound, startledwith shew, and relieved by the importunate, uninterrupted display offancy and verbal tinsel as much as possible from the fatigue of thoughtor shock of feeling. A poem is to resemble an exhibition of fireworks, with a continual explosion of quaint figures and devices, flash afterflash, that surprise for the moment, and leave no trace of light orwarmth behind them. Or modern poetry in its retrograde progress comes atlast to be constructed on the principles of the modern OPERA, where anattempt is made to gratify every sense at every instant, and where theunderstanding alone is insulted and the heart mocked. It is in thisview only that we can discover that Mr. Moore's poetry is vitiated orimmoral, --it seduces the taste and enervates the imagination. It createsa false standard of reference, and inverts or decompounds the naturalorder of association, in which objects strike the thoughts and feelings. His is the poetry of the bath, of the toilette, of the saloon, of thefashionable world; not the poetry of nature, of the heart, or of humanlife. He stunts and enfeebles equally the growth of the imagination andthe affections, by not taking the seed of poetry and sowing it in theground of truth, and letting it expand in the dew and rain, and shoot upto heaven, "And spread its sweet leaves to the air, Or dedicate its beauty to the sun, "--

instead of which he anticipates and defeats his own object, by pluckingflowers and blossoms from the stem, and setting them in the ground ofidleness and folly--or in the cap of his own vanity, where they soonwither and disappear, "dying or ere they sicken!" This is but a sortof child's play, a short-sighted ambition. In Milton we meet with manyprosaic lines, either because the subject does not require raising orbecause they are necessary to connect the story, or serve as a relief toother passages--there is not such a thing to be found in all Mr. Moore'swritings. His volumes present us with "a perpetual feast of nectar'dsweets"--but we cannot add, --"where no crude surfeit reigns. " He indeedcloys with sweetness; he obscures with splendour; he fatigues withgaiety. We are stifled on beds of roses--we literally lie "on the rackof restless ecstacy. " His flowery fancy "looks so fair and smells sosweet, that the sense aches at it. " His verse droops and languishesunder a load of beauty, like a bough laden with fruit. His gorgeousstyle is like "another morn risen on mid-noon. " There is no passagethat is not made up of blushing lines, no line that is not enriched witha sparkling metaphor, no image that is left unadorned with a doubleepithet--all his verbs, nouns, adjectives, are equally glossy, smooth, and beautiful. Every stanza is transparent with light, perfumed withodours, floating in liquid harmony, melting in luxurious, evanescentdelights. His Muse is never contented with an offering from one sensealone, but brings another rifled charm to match it, and revels ina fairy round of pleasure. The interest is not dramatic, butmelo-dramatic--it is a mixture of painting, poetry, and music, of thenatural and preternatural, of obvious sentiment and romantic costume. Arose is a _Gul_, a nightingale a _Bulbul_. We might fancy ourselves inan eastern harem, amidst Ottomans, and otto of roses, and veils andspangles, and marble pillars, and cool fountains, and Arab maids andGenii, and magicians, and Peris, and cherubs, and what not? Mr. Moorehas a little mistaken the art of poetry for the _cosmetic art_. He doesnot compose an historic group, or work out a single figure; but throwsa variety of elementary sensations, of vivid impressions together, andcalls it a description. He makes out an inventory of beauty--the smileon the lips, the dimple on the cheeks, _item_, golden locks, _item_, apair of blue wings, _item_, a silver sound, with breathing fragrance andradiant light, and thinks it a character or a story. He gets together anumber of fine things and fine names, and thinks that, flung on heaps, they make up a fine poem. This dissipated, fulsome, painted, patch-workstyle may succeed in the levity and languor of the _boudoir_, or mighthave been adapted to the Pavilions of royalty, but it is not the styleof Parnassus, nor a passport to Immortality. It is not the taste of theancients, "'tis not classical lore"--nor the fashion of Tibullus, orTheocritus, or Anacreon, or Virgil, or Ariosto, or Pope, or Byron, orany great writer among the living or the dead, but it is the style ofour English Anacreon, and it is (or was) the fashion of the day! Let oneexample (and that an admired one) taken from _Lalla Rookh_, suffice toexplain the mystery and soften the harshness of the foregoing criticism. 

 "Now upon Syria's land of roses Softly the light of eve reposes, And like a glory, the broad sun Hangs over sainted Lebanon: Whose head in wintry grandeur towers, And whitens with eternal sleet, While summer, in a vale of flowers, Is sleeping rosy at his feet. To one who look'd from upper air, O'er all th' enchanted regions there, How beauteous must have been the glow, The life, the sparkling from below! Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks Of golden melons on their banks, More golden where the sun-light falls, -- Gay lizards, glittering on the walls Of ruin'd shrines, busy and bright As they were all alive with light;-- And yet more splendid, numerous flocks Of pigeons, settling on the rocks, With their rich, restless wings, that gleam Variously in the crimson beam Of the warm west, as if inlaid With brilliants from the mine, or made Of tearless rainbows, such as span The unclouded skies of Peristan! And then, the mingling sounds that come Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum Of the wild bees of Palestine, Banquetting through the flowery vales-- And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine, And woods, so full of nightingales. "--

The following lines are the very perfection of Della Cruscan sentiment, and affected orientalism of style. The Peri exclaims on finding that oldtalisman and hackneyed poetical machine, "a penitent tear"--

 "Joy, joy forever! my task is done-- The gates are pass'd, and Heaven is won! Oh! am I not happy? I am, I am-- To thee, sweet Eden! how dark and sad Are the diamond turrets of Shadukiam, And the fragrant bowers of Amberabad. "

There is in all this a play of fancy, a glitter of words, a shallownessof thought, and a want of truth and solidity that is wonderful, andthat nothing but the heedless, rapid glide of the verse could rendertolerable:----it seems that the poet, as well as the lover, "May bestride the Gossamer, That wantons in the idle, summer air, And yet not fall, so light is vanity!"

Mr. Moore ought not to contend with serious difficulties or with entiresubjects. He can write verses, not a poem. There is no principle ofmassing or of continuity in his productions--neither height nor breadthnor depth of capacity. There is no truth of representation, no stronginternal feeling--but a continual flutter and display of affected airsand graces, like a finished coquette, who hides the want of symmetry byextravagance of dress, and the want of passion by flippant forwardnessand unmeaning sentimentality. All is flimsy, all is florid to excess. His imagination may dally with insect beauties, with Rosicrucian spells;may describe a butterfly's wing, a flower-pot, a fan: but it should notattempt to span the great outlines of nature, or keep pace with thesounding march of events, or grapple with the strong fibres of the humanheart. The great becomes turgid in his hands, the pathetic insipid. IfMr. Moore were to describe the heights of Chimboraco, instead of theloneliness, the vastness and the shadowy might, he would only thinkof adorning it with roseate tints, like a strawberry-ice, and wouldtransform a magician's fortress in the Himmalaya (stripped of itsmysterious gloom and frowning horrors) into a jeweller's toy, to be setupon a lady's toilette. In proof of this, see above "the diamond turretsof Shadukiam, " &c. The description of Mokanna in the fight, thoughit has spirit and grandeur of effect, has still a great alloy of themock-heroic in it. The route of blood and death, which is otherwise wellmarked, is infested with a swarm of "fire-fly" fancies. 

 "In vain Mokanna, 'midst the general flight, Stands, like the red moon, in some stormy night. Among the fugitive clouds, that hurrying by, Leave only her unshaken in the sky. "

This simile is fine, and would have been perfect, but that the moon isnot red, and that she seems to hurry by the clouds, not they by her. Thedescription of the warrior's youthful adversary, ----"Whose coming seems A light, a glory, such as breaks in dreams. "--

is fantastic and enervated--a field of battle has nothing to do withdreams:--and again, the two lines immediately after, "And every sword, true as o'er billows dim The needle tracks the load-star, following him"--

are a mere piece of enigmatical ingenuity and scientific_mimminee-pimminee. _

We cannot except the _Irish Melodies_ from the same censure. If thesenational airs do indeed express the soul of impassioned feeling in hiscountrymen, the case of Ireland is hopeless. If these prettinesses passfor patriotism, if a country can heave from its heart's core only thesevapid, varnished sentiments, lip-deep, and let its tears of bloodevaporate in an empty conceit, let it be governed as it has been. Thereare here no tones to waken Liberty, to console Humanity. Mr. Mooreconverts the wild harp of Erin into a musical snuff-box[A]!--We _do_except from this censure the author's political squibs, and the "Two-penny Post-bag. " These are essences, are "nests of spicery", bitter andsweet, honey and gall together. No one can so well describe the setspeech of a dull formalist[B], or the flowing locks of a Dowager, "In the manner of Ackermann's dresses for May. "

His light, agreeable, polished style pierces through the body of thecourt--hits off the faded graces of "an Adonis of fifty", weighs thevanity of fashion in tremulous scales, mimics the grimace of affectationand folly, shews up the littleness of the great, and spears a phalanx ofstatesmen with its glittering point as with a diamond broach. 

 "In choosing songs the Regent named 'Had I a heart for falsehood fram'd:' While gentle Hertford begg'd and pray'd For 'Young I am, and sore afraid. '"

Nothing in Pope or Prior ever surpassed the delicate insinuationand adroit satire of these lines, and hundreds more of our author'scomposition. We wish he would not take pains to make us think of themwith less pleasure than formerly. --The "Fudge Family" is in the samespirit, but with a little falling-off. There is too great a mixture ofundisguised Jacobinism and fashionable _slang_. The "divine Fanny Bias"and "the mountains _à la Russe_" figure in somewhat quaintly withBuonaparte and the Bourbons. The poet also launches the lightning ofpolitical indignation; but it rather plays round and illumines his ownpen than reaches the devoted heads at which it is aimed!

Mr. Moore is in private life an amiable and estimable man. Theembellished and voluptuous style of his poetry, his unpretending origin, and his _mignon_ figure soon introduced him to the notice of thegreat, and his gaiety, his wit, his good-humour, and many agreeableaccomplishments fixed him there, the darling of his friends and the idolof fashion. If he is no longer familiar with Royalty as with his garter, the fault is not his--his adherence to his principles caused theseparation--his love of his country was the cloud that intercepted thesunshine of court-favour. This is so far well. Mr. Moore vindicates hisown dignity; but the sense of intrinsic worth, of wide-spread fame, andof the intimacy of the great makes him perhaps a little too fastidiousand _exigeant_ as to the pretensions of others. He has been so longaccustomed to the society of Whig Lords, and so enchanted by the smileof beauty and fashion, that he really fancies himself one of the _set_, to which he is admitted on sufferance, and tries very unnecessarily tokeep others out of it. He talks familiarly of works that are or arenot read "in _our_ circle;" and seated smiling and at his ease in acoronet-coach, enlivening the owner by his brisk sallies and Atticconceits, is shocked, as he passes, to see a Peer of the realm shakehands with a poet. There is a little indulgence of spleen and envy, alittle servility and pandering to aristocratic pride in this proceeding. Is Mr. Moore bound to advise a Noble Poet to get as fast as possible outof a certain publication, lest he should not be able to give anaccount at Holland or at Lansdown House, how his friend Lord B----hadassociated himself with his friend L. H----? Is he afraid that the"Spirit of Monarchy" will eclipse the "Fables for the Holy Alliance" invirulence and plain speaking? Or are the members of the "Fudge Family"to secure a monopoly for the abuse of the Bourbons and the doctrine ofDivine Right? Because he is genteel and sarcastic, may not others beparadoxical and argumentative? Or must no one bark at a Minister orGeneral, unless they have been first dandled, like a little Frenchpug-dog, in the lap of a lady of quality? Does Mr. Moore insist on thedouble claim of birth and genius as a title to respectability in alladvocates of the popular side--but himself? Or is he anxious to keep thepretensions of his patrician and plebeian friends quite separate, soas to be himself the only point of union, a sort of _double meaning_, between the two? It is idle to think of setting bounds to the weaknessand illusions of self-love as long as it is confined to a man's ownbreast; but it ought not to be made a plea for holding back the powerfulhand that is stretched out to save another struggling with the tideof popular prejudice, who has suffered shipwreck of health, fame andfortune in a common cause, and who has deserved the aid and the goodwishes of all who are (on principle) embarked in the same cause by equalzeal and honesty, if not by equal talents to support and to adorn it!

We shall conclude the present article with a short notice of anindividual who, in the cast of his mind and in political principle, bears no very remote resemblance to the patriot and wit just spokenof, and on whose merits we should descant at greater length, but thatpersonal intimacy might be supposed to render us partial. It is wellwhen personal intimacy produces this effect; and when the light, thatdazzled us at a distance, does not on a closer inspection turn out anopaque substance. This is a charge that none of his friends will bringagainst Mr. Leigh Hunt. He improves upon acquaintance. The authortranslates admirably into the man. Indeed the very faults of his styleare virtues in the individual. His natural gaiety and sprightliness ofmanner, his high animal spirits, and the _vinous_ quality of his mind, produce an immediate fascination and intoxication in those who come incontact with him, and carry off in society whatever in his writings mayto some seem flat and impertinent. From great sanguineness of temper, from great quickness and unsuspecting simplicity, he runs on to thepublic as he does at his own fire-side, and talks about himself, forgetting that he is not always among friends. His look, his tone arerequired to point many things that he says: his frank, cordial mannerreconciles you instantly to a little over-bearing, over-weening self-complacency. "To be admired, he needs but to be seen:" but perhaps heought to be seen to be fully appreciated. No one ever sought his societywho did not come away with a more favourable opinion of him: no one wasever disappointed, except those who had entertained idle prejudicesagainst him. He sometimes trifles with his readers, or tires ofa subject (from not being urged on by the stimulus of immediatesympathy)--but in conversation he is all life and animation, combiningthe vivacity of the school-boy with the resources of the wit and thetaste of the scholar. The personal character, the spontaneous impulses, do not appear to excuse the author, unless you are acquainted with hissituation and habits--like some proud beauty who gives herself whatwe think strange airs and graces under a mask, but who is instantlyforgiven when she shews her face. We have said that Lord Byron is asublime coxcomb: why should we not say that Mr. Hunt is a delightfulone? There is certainly an exuberance of satisfaction in his mannerwhich is more than the strict logical premises warrant, and which dulland phlegmatic constitutions know nothing of, and cannot understand tillthey see it. He is the only poet or literary man we ever knew who putsus in mind of Sir John Suckling or Killigrew or Carew; or who unitedrare intellectual acquirements with outward grace and natural gentility. Mr. Hunt ought to have been a gentleman born, and to have patronised menof letters. He might then have played, and sung, and laughed, and talkedhis life away; have written manly prose, elegant verse; and his _Storyof Rimini_ would have been praised by Mr. Blackwood. As it is, there isno man now living who at the same time writes prose and verse so well, with the exception of Mr. Southey (an exception, we fear, that will belittle palatable to either of these gentlemen). His prose writings, however, display more consistency of principle than the laureate's: hisverses more taste. We will venture to oppose his Third Canto of the_Story of Rimini_ for classic elegance and natural feeling to any equalnumber of lines from Mr. Southey's Epics or from Mr. Moore's LallaRookh. In a more gay and conversational style of writing, we think his_Epistle to Lord Byron_ on his going abroad, is a masterpiece;--and the_Feast of the Poets_ has run through several editions. A light, familiargrace, and mild unpretending pathos are the characteristics of his moresportive or serious writings, whether in poetry or prose. A smileplays round the features of the one; a tear is ready to start from thethoughtful gaze of the other. He perhaps takes too little pains, andindulges in too much wayward caprice in both. A wit and a poet, Mr. Huntis also distinguished by fineness of tact and sterling sense: he hasonly been a visionary in humanity, the fool of virtue. What then is thedrawback to so many shining qualities, that has made them useless, oreven hurtful to their owner? His crime is, to have been Editor of the_Examiner_ ten years ago, when some allusion was made in it to the ageof the present king, and that, though his Majesty has grown older, ourluckless politician is no wiser than he was then!

[Footnote A: Compare his songs with Burns's. ]

[Footnote B:

 "There was a little man, and he had a little soul, And he said, Little soul, let us try, " &c. --

Parody on

 "There was a little man, and he had a little gun. "--

One should think this exquisite ridicule of a pedantic effusion mighthave silenced for ever the automaton that delivered it: but theofficial personage in question at the close of the Session addressed anextra-official congratulation to the Prince Regent on a bill that had_not_ passed--as if to repeat and insist upon our errors were to justifythem. ]

 * * * * *

ELIA, AND GEOFFREY CRAYON. 

So Mr. Charles Lamb and Mr. Washington Irvine choose to designatethemselves; and as their lucubrations under one or other of these _nomsde guerre_ have gained considerable notice from the public, we shallhere attempt to discriminate their several styles and manner, and topoint out the beauties and defects of each in treating of somewhatsimilar subjects. 

Mr. Irvine is, we take it, the more popular writer of the two, or a moregeneral favourite: Mr. Lamb has more devoted, and perhaps more judiciouspartisans. Mr. Irvine is by birth an American, and has, as it were, _skimmed the cream_, and taken off patterns with great skill andcleverness, from our best known and happiest writers, so that theirthoughts and almost their reputation are indirectly transferred to hispage, and smile upon us from another hemisphere, like "the pale reflexof Cynthia's brow:" he succeeds to our admiration and our sympathy by asort of prescriptive title and traditional privilege. Mr. Lamb, on thecontrary, being "native to the manner here, " though he too has borrowedfrom previous sources, instead of availing himself of the most popularand admired, has groped out his way, and made his most successfulresearches among the more obscure and intricate, though certainly notthe least pithy or pleasant of our writers. Mr. Washington Irvine hasculled and transplanted the flowers of modern literature, for theamusement of the general reader: Mr. Lamb has raked among the dust andcobwebs of a more remote period, has exhibited specimens of curiousrelics, and pored over moth-eaten, decayed manuscripts, for the benefitof the more inquisitive and discerning part of the public. Antiquityafter a time has the grace of novelty, as old fashions revived aremistaken for new ones; and a certain quaintness and singularity of styleis an agreeable relief to the smooth and insipid monotony of moderncomposition. Mr. Lamb has succeeded not by conforming to the _Spirit ofthe Age_, but in opposition to it. He does not march boldly along withthe crowd, but steals off the pavement to pick his way in the contrarydirection. He prefers _bye-ways_ to _highways_. When the full tide ofhuman life pours along to some festive shew, to some pageant of a day, Elia would stand on one side to look over an old book-stall, or strolldown some deserted pathway in search of a pensive inscription over atottering door-way, or some quaint device in architecture, illustrativeof embryo art and ancient manners. Mr. Lamb has the very soul of anantiquarian, as this implies a reflecting humanity; the film of the pasthovers for ever before him. He is shy, sensitive, the reverse of everything coarse, vulgar, obtrusive, and _common-place_. He would fain"shuffle off this mortal coil", and his spirit clothes itself in thegarb of elder time, homelier, but more durable. He is borne along withno pompous paradoxes, shines in no glittering tinsel of a fashionablephraseology; is neither fop nor sophist. He has none of the turbulenceor froth of new-fangled opinions. His style runs pure and clear, though it may often take an underground course, or be conveyed throughold-fashioned conduit-pipes. Mr. Lamb does not court popularity, norstrut in gaudy plumes, but shrinks from every kind of ostentatious andobvious pretension into the retirement of his own mind. 

 "The self-applauding bird, the peacock see:-- Mark what a sumptuous pharisee is he! Meridian sun-beams tempt him to unfold His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold: He treads as if, some solemn music near, His measured step were governed by his ear: And seems to say--Ye meaner fowl, give place, I am all splendour, dignity, and grace! Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes, Though he too has a glory in his plumes. He, christian-like, retreats with modest mien To the close copse or far sequestered green, And shines without desiring to be seen. "

These lines well describe the modest and delicate beauties of Mr. Lamb'swritings, contrasted with the lofty and vain-glorious pretensions ofsome of his contemporaries. This gentleman is not one of those who payall their homage to the prevailing idol: he thinks that

 "New-born gauds are made and moulded of things past. "

nor does he

 "Give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. "

His convictions "do not in broad rumour lie, " nor are they "set off tothe world in the glistering foil" of fashion; but "live and breathealoft in those pure eyes, and perfect judgment of all-seeing _time_. "Mr. Lamb rather affects and is tenacious of the obscure and remote: ofthat which rests on its own intrinsic and silent merit; which scorns allalliance, or even the suspicion of owing any thing to noisy clamour, tothe glare of circumstances. There is a fine tone of _chiaro-scuro_, amoral perspective in his writings. He delights to dwell on that which isfresh to the eye of memory; he yearns after and covets what soothes thefrailty of human nature. That touches him most nearly which is withdrawnto a certain distance, which verges on the borders of oblivion:--thatpiques and provokes his fancy most, which is hid from a superficialglance. That which, though gone by, is still remembered, is in his viewmore genuine, and has given more "vital signs that it will live, " than athing of yesterday, that may be forgotten to-morrow. Death has in thissense the spirit of life in it; and the shadowy has to our authorsomething substantial in it. Ideas savour most of reality in his mind;or rather his imagination loiters on the edge of each, and a page of hiswritings recals to our fancy the _stranger_ on the grate, fluttering inits dusky tensity, with its idle superstition and hospitable welcome!

Mr. Lamb has a distaste to new faces, to new books, to new buildings, tonew customs. He is shy of all imposing appearances, of all assumptionsof self-importance, of all adventitious ornaments, of all mechanicaladvantages, even to a nervous excess. It is not merely that he doesnot rely upon, or ordinarily avail himself of them; he holds them inabhorrence, he utterly abjures and discards them, and places a greatgulph between him and them. He disdains all the vulgar artifices ofauthorship, all the cant of criticism, and helps to notoriety. He has nogrand swelling theories to attract the visionary and the enthusiast, nopassing topics to allure the thoughtless and the vain. He evades thepresent, he mocks the future. His affections revert to, and settle onthe past, but then, even this must have something personal and local init to interest him deeply and thoroughly; he pitches his tent in thesuburbs of existing manners; brings down the account of character to thefew straggling remains of the last generation; seldom ventures beyondthe bills of mortality, and occupies that nice point between egotismand disinterested humanity. No one makes the tour of our southernmetropolis, or describes the manners of the last age, so well as Mr. Lamb--with so fine, and yet so formal an air--with such vivid obscurity, with such arch piquancy, such picturesque quaintness, such smilingpathos. How admirably he has sketched the former inmates of the South-Sea House; what "fine fretwork he makes of their double and singleentries!" With what a firm, yet subtle pencil he has embodied _Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist_! How notably he embalms a battered _beau_;how delightfully an amour, that was cold forty years ago, revives inhis pages! With what well-disguised humour he introduces us to hisrelations, and how freely he serves up his friends! Certainly, some ofhis portraits are _fixtures_, and will do to hang up as lasting andlively emblems of human infirmity. Then there is no one who has so surean ear for "the chimes at midnight", not even excepting Mr. JusticeShallow; nor could Master Silence himself take his "cheese and pippins"with a more significant and satisfactory air. With what a gusto Mr. Lambdescribes the inns and courts of law, the Temple and Gray's-Inn, as ifhe had been a student there for the last two hundred years, and had beenas well acquainted with the person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is withhis portrait or writings! It is hard to say whether St. John's Gate isconnected with more intense and authentic associations in his mind, asa part of old London Wall, or as the frontispiece (time out of mind) ofthe Gentleman's Magazine. He haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit;the avenues to the play-houses are thick with panting recollections, and Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in hisdescription of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination forMr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave acertain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands. Thestreets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with wonder, with lifeand interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eyeof childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into abright and endless romance!

Mr. Lamb's taste in books is also fine, and it is peculiar. It is notthe worse for a little _idiosyncrasy_. He does not go deep into theScotch novels, but he is at home in Smollett and Fielding. He is littleread in Junius or Gibbon, but no man can give a better account ofBurton's Anatomy of Melancholy, or Sir Thomas Brown's Urn-Burial, or Fuller's Worthies, or John Bunyan's Holy War. No one is moreunimpressible to a specious declamation; no one relishes a reconditebeauty more. His admiration of Shakespear and Milton does not makehim despise Pope; and he can read Parnell with patience, and Gaywith delight. His taste in French and German literature is somewhatdefective: nor has he made much progress in the science of PoliticalEconomy or other abstruse studies, though he has read vast folios ofcontroversial divinity, merely for the sake of the intricacy of style, and to save himself the pain of thinking. Mr. Lamb is a good judge ofprints and pictures. His admiration of Hogarth does credit to both, particularly when it is considered that Leonardo da Vinci is his nextgreatest favourite, and that his love of the _actual_ does notproceed from a want of taste for the _ideal_. His worst fault is anover-eagerness of enthusiasm, which occasionally makes him take asurfeit of his highest favourites. --Mr. Lamb excels in familiarconversation almost as much as in writing, when his modesty does notoverpower his self-possession. He is as little of a proser as possible;but he _blurts_ out the finest wit and sense in the world. He keepsa good deal in the back-ground at first, till some excellent conceitpushes him forward, and then he abounds in whim and pleasantry. Thereis a primitive simplicity and self-denial about his manners; and aQuakerism in his personal appearance, which is, however, relieved bya fine Titian head, full of dumb eloquence! Mr. Lamb is a generalfavourite with those who know him. His character is equally singular andamiable. He is endeared to his friends not less by his foibles than hisvirtues; he insures their esteem by the one, and does not wound theirself-love by the other. He gains ground in the opinion of others, by making no advances in his own. We easily admire genius where thediffidence of the possessor makes our acknowledgment of merit seem likea sort of patronage, or act of condescension, as we willingly extend ourgood offices where they are not exacted as obligations, or repaid withsullen indifference. --The style of the Essays of Elia is liable to thecharge of a certain _mannerism_. His sentences are cast in the mould ofold authors; his expressions are borrowed from them; but his feelingsand observations are genuine and original, taken from actual life, orfrom his own breast; and he may be said (if any one can) "to havecoined his heart for _jests_, " and to have split his brain for finedistinctions! Mr. Lamb, from the peculiarity of his exterior and addressas an author, would probably never have made his way by detached andindependent efforts; but, fortunately for himself and others, he hastaken advantage of the Periodical Press, where he has been stuck intonotice, and the texture of his compositions is assuredly fine enough tobear the broadest glare of popularity that has hitherto shone upon them. Mr. Lamb's literary efforts have procured him civic honours (a thingunheard of in our times), and he has been invited, in his character ofELIA, to dine at a select party with the Lord Mayor. We should preferthis distinction to that of being poet-laureat. We would recommendto Mr. Waithman's perusal (if Mr. Lamb has not anticipated us) the_Rosamond Gray_ and the _John Woodvil_ of the same author, as anagreeable relief to the noise of a city feast, and the heat of cityelections. A friend, a short time ago, quoted some lines[A] from thelast-mentioned of these works, which meeting Mr. Godwin's eye, he wasso struck with the beauty of the passage, and with a consciousness ofhaving seen it before, that he was uneasy till he could recollect where, and after hunting in vain for it in Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and other not unlikely places, sent to Mr. Lamb to know if he could helphim to the author!

Mr. Washington Irvine's acquaintance with English literature beginsalmost where Mr. Lamb's ends, --with the Spectator, Tom Brown's works, and the wits of Queen Anne. He is not bottomed in our elder writers, nordo we think he has tasked his own faculties much, at least on Englishground. Of the merit of his _Knicker-bocker, _ and New York stories, we cannot pretend to judge. But in his _Sketch-book_ and_Bracebridge-Hall_ he gives us very good American copies of our BritishEssayists and Novelists, which may be very well on the other side of thewater, and as proofs of the capabilities of the national genius, butwhich might be dispensed with here, where we have to boast of theoriginals. Not only Mr. Irvine's language is with great taste andfelicity modelled on that of Addison, Sterne, Goldsmith, or Mackenzie;but the thoughts and sentiments are taken at the rebound, and as theyare brought forward at the present period, want both freshness andprobability. Mr. Irvine's writings are literary _anachronisms_. He comesto England for the first time; and being on the spot, fancies himself inthe midst of those characters and manners which he had read of in theSpectator and other approved authors, and which were the only idea hehad hitherto formed of the parent country. Instead of looking roundto see what _we are_, he sets to work to describe us as _we were_--atsecond hand. He has Parson Adams, or Sir Roger de Coverley in his"_mind's eye_"; and he makes a village curate, or a country 'squire inYorkshire or Hampshire sit to these admired models for their portraitsin the beginning of the nineteenth century. Whatever the ingeniousauthor has been most delighted with in the representations of books, hetransfers to his port-folio, and swears that he has found it actuallyexisting in the course of his observation and travels through GreatBritain. Instead of tracing the changes that have taken place in societysince Addison or Fielding wrote, he transcribes their account in adifferent hand-writing, and thus keeps us stationary, at least in ourmost attractive and praise-worthy qualities of simplicity, honesty, hospitality, modesty, and good-nature. This is a very flattering modeof turning fiction into history, or history into fiction; and we shouldscarcely know ourselves again in the softened and altered likeness, but that it bears the date of 1820, and issues from the press inAlbemarle-street. This is one way of complimenting our national andTory prejudices; and coupled with literal or exaggerated portraits of_Yankee_ peculiarities, could hardly fail to please. The first Essay inthe _Sketch-book_, that on National Antipathies, is the best; but afterthat, the sterling ore of wit or feeling is gradually spun thinner andthinner, till it fades to the shadow of a shade. Mr. Irvine is himself, we believe, a most agreeable and deserving man, and has been led intothe natural and pardonable error we speak of, by the tempting bait ofEuropean popularity, in which he thought there was no more likely methodof succeeding than by imitating the style of our standard authors, andgiving us credit for the virtues of our forefathers. 

[Footnote A: The description of sports in the forest:

 "To see the sun to bed and to arise, Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes, " &c. ]

 * * * * *

We should not feel that we had discharged our obligations to truth orfriendship, if we were to let this volume go without introducing into itthe name of the author of _Virginius_. This is the more proper, inasmuchas he is a character by himself, and the only poet now living that is amere poet. If we were asked what sort of a man Mr. Knowles is, we couldonly say, "he is the writer of Virginius. " His most intimate friends seenothing in him, by which they could trace the work to the author. Theseeds of dramatic genius are contained and fostered in the warmth of theblood that flows in his veins; his heart dictates to his head. The mostunconscious, the most unpretending, the most artless of mortals, heinstinctively obeys the impulses of natural feeling, and produces aperfect work of art. He has hardly read a poem or a play or seen anything of the world, but he hears the anxious beatings of his own heart, and makes others feel them by the force of sympathy. Ignorant alikeof rules, regardless of models, he follows the steps of truth andsimplicity; and strength, proportion, and delicacy are the infallibleresults. By thinking of nothing but his subject, he rivets the attentionof the audience to it. All his dialogue tends to action, all hissituations form classic groups. There is no doubt that Virginius is thebest acting tragedy that has been produced on the modern stage. Mr. Knowles himself was a player at one time, and this circumstance hasprobably enabled him to judge of the picturesque and dramatic effect ofhis lines, as we think it might have assisted Shakespear. There isno impertinent display, no flaunting poetry; the writer immediatelyconceives how a thought would tell if he had to speak it himself. Mr. Knowles is the first tragic writer of the age; in other respects he isa common man; and divides his time and his affections between hisplots and his fishing-tackle, between the Muses' spring, and thosemountain-streams which sparkle like his own eye, that gush out like hisown voice at the sight of an old friend. We have known him almost from achild, and we must say he appears to us the same boy-poet that he everwas. He has been cradled in song, and rocked in it as in a dream, forgetful of himself and of the world!

THE END.