Lord Macaulay .........................................................................................................................................1

Volume I. CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. ......................................1

PREFACE. ...............................................................................................................................................1

FRAGMENTS OF A ROMAN TALE....................................................................................................4

ON THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE. ................................................................................13

SCENES FROM "ATHENIAN REVELS."..........................................................................................17

CRITICISMS ON THE PRINCIPAL ITALIAN WRITERS. No. I. DANTE.....................................34

CRITICISMS ON THE PRINCIPAL ITALIAN WRITERS. No. II. PETRARCH. ............................43

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS AND ST GEORGE IN THE WATER. 0

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 4

ON THE ATHENIAN ORATORS. .......................................................................................................64

A PROPHETIC ACCOUNT OF A GRAND NATIONAL EPIC POEM, TO BE ENTITLED "THE WELLINGTONIAD," AND TO BE PUBLISHED A.D. 2824. 1

ON MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE. ..........................................................................................76

Some account of the Great Lawsuit between the Parishes of St Dennis and St George in the Water.

A Conversation between Mr Abraham Cowley and Mr John Milton, touching the Great Civil War.

A Prophetic Account of a Grand National Epic Poem, to be entitled "The Wellingtoniad," and to be Published

Lord Macaulay always looked forward to a publication of his miscellaneous works, either by himself or by

those who should represent him after his death. And latterly he expressly reserved, whenever the

The collection which is now published comprehends some of the earliest and some of the latest works which

he composed. He was born on 25th October, 1800; commenced residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in

October, 1818; was elected Craven University Scholar in 1821; graduated as B.A. in 1822; was elected fellow

of the college in October, 1824; was called to the bar in February, 1826, when he joined the Northern Circuit;

and was elected member for Calne in 1830. After this last event, he did not long continue to practise at the

bar. He went to India in 1834, whence he returned in June, 1838. He was elected member for Edinburgh, in

1839, and lost this seat in July, 1847; and this (though he was afterwards again elected for that city in July,

1852, without being a candidate) may be considered as the last instance of his taking an active part in the

contests of public life. These few dates are mentioned for the purpose of enabling the reader to assign the

articles, now and previously published, to the principal periods into which the author's life may be divided.

The admirers of his later works will probably be interested by watching the gradual formation of his style,

and will notice in his earlier productions, vigorous and clear as their language always was, the occurrence of

faults against which he afterwards most anxiously guarded himself. A much greater interest will undoubtedly

The articles published in Knight's Quarterly Magazine were composed during the author's residence at

college, as B.A. It may be remarked that the first two of these exhibit the earnestness with which he already

endeavoured to represent to himself and to others the scenes and persons of past times as in actual existence.

Of the Dialogue between Milton and Cowley he spoke, many years after its publication, as that one of his

works which he remembered with most satisfaction. The article on Mitford's Greece he did not himself value

so highly as others thought it deserved. This article, at any rate, contains the first distinct enunciation of his

views, as to the office of an historian, views afterwards more fully set forth in his Essay, upon History, in the

Edinburgh Review. From the protest, in the last mentioned essay, against the conventional notions respecting

the majesty of history might perhaps have been anticipated something like the third chapter of the History of

England. It may be amusing to notice that in the article on Mitford, appears the first sketch of the New

Zealander, afterwards filled up in a passage in the review of Mrs Austin's translation of Ranke, a passage

which at one time was the subject of allusion, two or three times a week, in speeches and leading articles. In

this, too, appear, perhaps for the first time, the author's views on the representative system. These he retained

to the very last; they are brought forward repeatedly in the articles published in this collection and elsewhere,

and in his speeches in parliament; and they coincide with the opinions expressed in the letter to an American

Some explanation appears to be necessary as to the publication of the three articles "Mill on Government,"

"Westminster Reviewer's Defence of Mill" and "Utilitarian Theory of Government."

In 1828 Mr James Mill, the author of the History of British India, reprinted some essays which he had

contributed to the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica; and among these was an Essay on

Government. The method of inquiry and reasoning adopted in this essay appeared to Macaulay to be

essentially wrong. He entertained a very strong conviction that the only sound foundation for a theory of

Government must be laid in careful and copious historical induction; and he believed that Mr Mill's work

rested upon a vicious reasoning a priori. Upon this point he felt the more earnestly, owing to his own passion

for historical research, and to his devout admiration of Bacon, whose works he was at that time studying with

intense attention. There can, however, be little doubt that he was also provoked by the pretensions of some

members of a sect which then commonly went by the name of Benthamites, or Utilitarians. This sect included

many of his contemporaries, who had quitted Cambridge at about the same time with him. It had succeeded,

in some measure, to the sect of the Byronians, whom he has described in the review of Moore's Life of Lord

Byron, who discarded their neckcloths, and fixed little models of skulls on the sandglasses by which they

regulated the boiling of their eggs for breakfast. The members of these sects, and of many others that have

succeeded, have probably long ago learned to smile at the temporary humours. But Macaulay, himself a

sincere admirer of Bentham, was irritated by what he considered the unwarranted tone assumed by several of

the class of Utilitarians. "We apprehend," he said, "that many of them are persons who, having read little or

nothing, are delighted to be rescued from the sense of their own inferiority by some teacher who assures them

that the studies which they have neglected are of no value, puts five or six phrases into their mouths, lends

them an odd number of the Westminster Review, and in a month transforms them into philosophers;" and he

spoke of them as "smatterers, whose attainments just suffice to elevate them from the insignificance of

dunces to the dignity of bores, and to spread dismay among their pious aunts and grand mothers." The sect, of

course, like other sects, comprehended some pretenders, and these the most arrogant and intolerant among its

members. He, however, went so far as to apply the following language to the majority:"As to the greater

part of the sect, it is, we apprehend, of little consequence what they study or under whom. It would be more

amusing, to be sure, and more reputable, if they would take up the old republican cant and declaim about

Brutus and Timoleon, the duty of killing tyrants and the blessedness of dying for liberty. But, on the whole,

they might have chosen worse. They may as well be Utilitarians as jockeys or dandies. And, though quibbling

about selfinterest and motives, and objects of desire, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, is

but a poor employment for a grown man, it certainly hurts the health less than hard drinking and the fortune

less than high play; it is not much more laughable than phrenology, and is immeasurably more humane than

Macaulay inserted in the Edinburgh Review of March, 1829, an article upon Mr Mill's Essay. He attacked the

method with much vehemence; and, to the end of his life, he never saw any ground for believing that in this

he had gone too far. But before long he felt that he had not spoken of the author of the Essay with the respect

due to so eminent a man. In 1833, he described Mr mill, during the debate on the India Bill of that year, as a

"gentleman extremely well acquainted with the affairs of our Eastern Empire, a most valuable servant of the

Company, and the author of a history of India, which, though certainly not free from faults, is, I think, on the

whole, the greatest historical work which has appeared in our language since that of Gibbon."

Almost immediately upon the appearance of the article in the Edinburgh Review, an answer was published in

the Westminster Review. It was untruly attributed, in the newspapers of the day, to Mr Bentham himself.

Macaulay's answer to this appeared in the Edinburgh Review, June, 1829. He wrote the answer under the

belief that he was answering Mr Bentham, and was undeceived in time only to add the postscript. The author

of the article in the Westminster Review had not perceived that the question raised was not as to the truth or

falsehood of the result at which Mr Mill had arrived, but as to the soundness or unsoundness of the method

which he pursued; a misunderstanding at which Macaulay, while he supposed the article to be the work of Mr

Bentham, expressed much surprise. The controversy soon became principally a dispute as to the theory which

was commonly known by the name of The Greatest Happiness Principle. Another article in the Westminster

Review followed; and a surrejoinder by Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review of October, 1829. Macaulay was

irritated at what he conceived to be either extreme dullness or gross unfairness on the part of his unknown

The ethical question thus raised was afterwards discussed by Sir James Mackintosh, in the Dissertation

contributed by him to the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, page 284313 (Whewell's

Edition). Sir James Mackintosh notices the part taken in the controversy by Macaulay, in the following

words: "A writer of consummate ability, who has failed in little but the respect due to the abilities and

character of his opponents, has given too much countenance to the abuse and confusion of language

'We know,' says he, 'no universal proposition respecting human nature which is true but onethat men

always act from self interest.'" "It is manifest from the sequel, that the writer is not the dupe of the

confusion; but many of his readers may be so. If, indeed, the word "selfinterest" could with propriety be

used for the gratification of every prevalent desire, he has clearly shown that this change in the signification

of terms would be of no advantage to the doctrine which he controverts. It would make as many sorts of

selfinterest as there are appetites, and it is irreconcilably at variance with the system of association proposed

by Mr Mill." "The admirable writer whose language has occasioned this illustration, who at an early age has

mastered every species of composition, will doubtless hold fast to simplicity, which survives all the fashions

of deviation from it, and which a man of genius so fertile has few temptations to for sake."

When Macaulay selected for publication certain articles of the Edinburgh Review, he resolved not to publish

any of the three essays in question; for which he assigned the following reason:

"The author has been strongly urged to insert three papers on the Utilitarian Philosophy, which, when they

first appeared, attracted some notice, but which are not in the American editions. He has however determined

to omit these papers, not because he is disposed to retract a single doctrine which they contain, but because he

is unwilling to offer what might be regarded as an affront to the memory of one from whose opinions he still

widely dissents, but to whose talents and virtues he admits that he formerly did not do justice. Serious as are

the faults of the Essay on Government, a critic, while noticing those faults, should have abstained from using

contemptuous language respecting the historian of British India. It ought to be known that Mr Mill had the

generosity, not only to forgive, but to forget the unbecoming acrimony with which he had been assailed, and

was, when his valuable life closed, on terms of cordial friendship with his assailant."

Under these circumstances, considerable doubt has been felt as to the propriety of republishing the three

Essays in the present collection. But it has been determined, not without much hesitation, that they should

appear. It is felt that no disrespect is shown to the memory of Mr Mill, when the publication is accompanied

by so full an apology for the tone adopted towards him; and Mr Mill himself would have been the last to wish

for the suppression of opinions on the ground that they were in express antagonism to his own. The grave has

now closed upon the assailant as well as the assailed. On the other hand, it cannot but be desirable that

opinions which the author retained to the last, on important questions in politics and morals, should be before

Some of the poems now collected have already appeared in print; others are supplied by the recollection of

friends. The first two are published on account of their having been composed in the author's childhood. In

the poems, as well as in the prose works, will be occasionally found thoughts and expressions which have

No alteration whatever has been made from the form in which the author left the several articles, with the

exception of some changes in punctuation, and the correction of one or two obvious misprints.

It was an hour after noon. Ligarius was returning from the Campus Martius. He strolled through one of the

streets which led to the Forum, settling his gown, and calculating the odds on the gladiators who were to

fence at the approaching Saturnalia. While thus occupied, he overtook Flaminius, who, with a heavy step and

a melancholy face, was sauntering in the same direction. The lighthearted young man plucked him by the

"No matter. Catiline has the best cooks and the finest wine in Rome. There are charming women at his

parties. But the twelve line board and the dicebox pay for all. The Gods confound me if I did not lose two

millions of sesterces last night. My villa at Tibur, and all the statues that my father the praetor brought from

Ephesus, must go to the auctioneer. That is a high price, you will acknowledge, even for Phoenicopters,

"And that is not the worst. I saw several of the leading senators this morning. Strange things are whispered in

"The Gods confound the political circles. I have hated the name of politician ever since Sylla's proscription,

when I was within a moment of having my throat cut by a politician, who took me for another politician.

While there is a cask of Falernian in Campania, or a girl in the Suburra, I shall be too well employed to think

"You will do well," said Flaminius gravely, "to bestow some little consideration upon it at present.

Otherwise, I fear, you will soon renew your acquaintance with politicians, in a manner quite as unpleasant as

"I will tell you. There are rumours of conspiracy. The order of things established by Lucius Sylla has excited

the disgust of the people, and of a large party of the nobles. Some violent convulsion is expected."

"What is that to me? I suppose that they will hardly proscribe the vintners and gladiators, or pass a law

"You do not understand. Catiline is supposed to be the author of the revolutionary schemes. You must have

"Mine! good Gods! I call Heaven to witness that I never so much as mentioned Senate, Consul, or Comitia, in

"Nobody suspects you of any participation in the inmost counsels of the party. But our great men surmise that

you are among those whom he has bribed so high with beauty, or entangled so deeply in distress, that they are

no longer their own masters. I shall never set foot within his threshold again. I have been solemnly warned by

The friends had now turned into the Forum, which was thronged with the gay and elegant youth of Rome. "I

can tell you more," continued Flaminius; "somebody was remarking to the Consul yesterday how loosely a

certain acquaintance of ours tied his girdle. 'Let him look to himself;' said Cicero, 'or the state may find a

Flaminius pointed to a man who was pacing up and down the Forum at a little distance from them. He was in

the prime of manhood. His personal advantages were extremely striking, and were displayed with an

extravagant but not ungraceful foppery. His gown waved in loose folds; his long dark curls were dressed with

exquisite art, and shone and steamed with odours; his step and gesture exhibited an elegant and commanding

figure in every posture of polite languor. But his countenance formed a singular contrast to the general

appearance of his person. The high and imperial brow, the keen aquiline features, the compressed mouth; the

penetrating eye, indicated the highest degree of ability and decision. He seemed absorbed in intense

meditation. With eyes fixed on the ground, and lips working in thought, he sauntered round the area,

apparently unconscious how many of the young gallants of Rome were envying the taste of his dress, and the

"Good Heaven!" said Ligarius, "Caius Caesar is as unlikely to be in a plot as I am."

"You know nothing of Caesar. Though he rarely addresses the Senate, he is considered as the finest speaker

there, after the Consul. His influence with the multitude is immense. He will serve his rivals in public life as

he served me last night at Catiline's. We were playing at the twelve lines. (Duodecim scripta, a game of

mixed chance and skill, which seems to have been very fashionable in the higher circles of Rome. The

famous lawyer Mucius was renowned for his skill in it.("Cic. Orat." i. 50.)Immense stakes. He laughed

all the time, chatted with Valeria over his shoulder, kissed her hand between every two moves, and scarcely

looked at the board. I thought that I had him. All at once I found my counters driven into the corner. Not a

piece to move, by Hercules. It cost me two millions of sesterces. All the Gods and Goddesses confound him

"As to Valeria," said Ligarius, "I forgot to ask whether you have heard the news."

"I was told at the baths today that Caesar escorted the lady home. Unfortunately old Quintus Lutatius had

come back from his villa in Campania, in a whim of jealousy. He was not expected for three days. There was

a fine tumult. The old fool called for his sword and his slaves, cursed his wife, and swore that he would cut

"He laughed, quoted Anacreon, trussed his gown round his left arm, closed with Quintus, flung him down,

twisted his sword out of his hand, burst through the attendants, ran a freedman through the shoulder, and

Caesar lifted his head at the salutation. His air of deep abstraction vanished; and he extended a hand to each

"He, I understand, is as well as can be expected of a man with a faithless spouse and a broken head. His

freedman is most seriously hurt. Poor fellow! he shall have half of whatever I win tonight. Flaminius, you

"You are very kind. I do not intend to be at Catiline's till I wish to part with my townhouse. My villa is gone

"Not at Catiline's, base spirit! You are not of his mind, my gallant Ligarius. Dice, Chian, and the loveliest

Greek singing girl that was ever seen. Think of that, Ligarius. By Venus, she almost made me adore her, by

telling me that I talked Greek with the most Attic accent that she had heard in Italy."

"I doubt she will not say the same of me," replied Ligarius. "I am just as able to decipher an obelisk as to read

"An old fool,a Greek pedant,a Stoic. He told me that pain was no evil, and flogged me as if he thought

so. At last one day, in the middle of a lecture, I set fire to his enormous filthy beard, singed his face, and sent

him roaring out of the house. There ended my studies. From that time to this I have had as little to do with

Greece as the wine that your poor old friend Lutatius calls his delicious Samian."

"Well done, Ligarius. I hate a Stoic. I wish Marcus Cato had a beard that you might singe it for him. The fool

talked his two hours in the Senate yesterday, without changing a muscle of his face. He looked as savage and

as motionless as the mask in which Roscius acted Alecto. I detest everything connected with him."

"No matter what they say. Common fame lies like a Greek rhetorician. You might know so much, Ligarius,

without reading the philosophers. But come, I will introduce you to little dark eyed Zoe."

"More shame for you. It is high time that you should begin. You will never have such a charming instructress.

Of what was your father thinking when he sent for an old Stoic with a long beard to teach you? There is no

languagemistress like a handsome woman. When I was at Athens, I learnt more Greek from a pretty

flowergirl in the Peiraeus than from all the Portico and the Academy. She was no Stoic, Heaven knows. But

come along to Zoe. I will be your interpreter. Woo her in honest Latin, and I will turn it into elegant Greek

between the throws of dice. I can make love and mind my game at once, as Flaminius can tell you.

"Well, then, to be plain, Caesar, Flaminius has been talking to me about plots, and suspicions, and politicians.

I never plagued myself with such things since Sylla's and Marius's days; and then I never could see much

difference between the parties. All that I am sure of is, that those who meddle with such affairs are generally

stabbed or strangled. And, though I like Greek wine and handsome women, I do not wish to risk my neck for

"Danger!" repeated Caesar, with a short, fierce, disdainful laugh: "what danger do you apprehend?"

"That you should best know," said Flaminius; "you are far more intimate with Catiline than I. But I advise

Caesar drew up his figure from its ordinary state of graceful relaxation into an attitude of commanding

dignity, and replied in a voice of which the deep and impassioned melody formed a strange contrast to the

humorous and affected tone of his ordinary conversation. "Let them suspect. They suspect because they know

what they have deserved. What have they done for Rome?What for mankind? Ask the citizensask the

provinces. Have they had any other object than to perpetuate their own exclusive power, and to keep us under

the yoke of an oligarchical tyranny, which unites in itself the worst evils of every other system, and combines

"Good Gods! Caesar. It is not safe for you to speak, or for us to listen to, such things, at such a crisis."

"Judge for yourselves what you will hear. I will judge for myself what I will speak. I was not twenty years

old when I defied Lucius Sylla, surrounded by the spears of legionaries and the daggers of assassins. Do you

suppose that I stand in awe of his paltry successors, who have inherited a power which they never could have

acquired; who would imitate his proscriptions, though they have never equalled his conquests?"

"Pompey is almost as little to be trifled with as Sylla. I heard a consular senator say that, in consequence of

the present alarming state of affairs, he would probably be recalled from the command assigned to him by the

"Let him come,the pupil of Sylla's butcheries,the gleaner of Lucullus's trophies,the thieftaker of the

"Something about himself, no doubt. Pity that such talents should be coupled with such cowardice and

coxcombry. He is the finest speaker living,infinitely superior to what Hortensius was, in his best days; a

charming companion, except when he tells over for the twentieth time all the jokes that he made at Verres's

"Your language, Caius, convinces me that the reports which have been circulated are not without foundation.

I will venture to prophesy that within a few months the republic will pass through a whole Odyssey of strange

"I believe so; an Odyssey, of which Pompey will be the Polyphemus, and Cicero the Siren. I would have the

state imitate Ulysses: show no mercy to the former; but contrive, if it can be done, to listen to the enchanting

"Time will show. I would hope that there may arise a man, whose genius to conquer, to conciliate, and to

govern, may unite in one cause an oppressed and divided people;may do all that Sylla should have done,

and exhibit the magnificent spectacle of a great nation directed by a great mind."

"Perhaps where you would least expect to find him. Perhaps he may be one whose powers have hitherto been

concealed in domestic or literary retirement. Perhaps he may be one, who, while waiting for some adequate

excitement, for some worthy opportunity, squanders on trifles a genius before which may yet be humbled the

sword of Pompey and the gown of Cicero. Perhaps he may now be disputing with a sophist; perhaps prattling

with a mistress; perhaps" and, as he spoke, he turned away, and resumed his lounge, "strolling in the Forum."

It was almost midnight. The party had separated. Catiline and Cethegus were still conferring in the

supperroom, which was, as usual, the highest apartment of the house. It formed a cupola, from which

windows opened on the flat roof that surrounded it. To this terrace Zoe had retired. With eyes dimmed with

fond and melancholy tears, she leaned over the balustrade, to catch the last glimpse of the departing form of

Caesar, as it grew more and more indistinct in the moonlight. Had he any thought of her? Any love for her?

He, the favourite of the highborn beauties of Rome, the most splendid, the most graceful, the most eloquent

of its nobles? It could not be. His voice had, indeed, been touchingly soft whenever he addressed her. There

had been a fascinating tenderness even in the vivacity of his look and conversation. But such were always the

manners of Caesar towards women. He had wreathed a sprig of myrtle in her hair as she was singing. She

took it from her dark ringlets, and kissed it, and wept over it, and thought of the sweet legends of her own

dear Greece,of youths and girls, who, pining away in hopeless love, had been transformed into flowers by

the compassion of the Gods; and she wished to become a flower, which Caesar might sometimes touch,

though he should touch it only to weave a crown for some prouder and happier mistress.

She was roused from her musings by the loud step and voice of Cethegus, who was pacing furiously up and

"May all the Gods confound me, if Caesar be not the deepest traitor, or the most miserable idiot, that ever

Zoe shuddered. She drew nearer to the window. She stood concealed from observation by the curtain of fine

network which hung over the aperture, to exclude the annoying insects of the climate.

"And you too!" continued Cethegus, turning fiercely on his accomplice; "you to take his part against

"My dear Caius Cethegus, you will not understand me. I proposed the scheme; and I will join in executing it.

But policy is as necessary to our plans as boldness. I did not wish to startle Caesarto lose his

cooperationperhaps to send him off with an information against us to Cicero and Catulus. He was so

indignant at your suggestion that all my dissimulation was scarcely sufficient to prevent a total rupture."

"Indignant! The Gods confound him!He prated about humanity, and generosity, and moderation. By

Hercules, I have not heard such a lecture since I was with Xenochares at Rhodes."

"Caesar is made up of inconsistencies. He has boundless ambition, unquestioned courage, admirable sagacity.

Yet I have frequently observed in him a womanish weakness at the sight of pain. I remember that once one of

his slaves was taken ill while carrying his litter. He alighted, put the fellow in his place and walked home in a

fall of snow. I wonder that you could be so illadvised as to talk to him of massacre, and pillage, and

conflagration. You might have foreseen that such propositions would disgust a man of his temper."

"I do not know. I have not your selfcommand, Lucius. I hate such conspirators. What is the use of them? We

"Do not grind your teeth, my dear Caius; and lay down the carvingknife. By Hercules, you have cut up all

"No matter; we shall have couches enough soon,and down to stuff them with,and purple to cover

them,and pretty women to loll on them,unless this fool, and such as he, spoil our plans. I had something

"Impossible! You misconstrue the ordinary gallantries which he is in the habit of paying to every handsome

"Curse on his ordinary gallantries, and his verses, and his compliments, and his sprigs of myrtle! If Caesar

"Trust his destruction to me. We must use his talents and influencethrust him upon every dangermake

him our instrument while we are contendingour peaceoffering to the Senate if we failour first victim if

Catiline rushed to the window. Zoe was standing in the shade. He stepped out. She darted into the

roompassed like a flash of lightning by the startled Cethegusflew down the stairsthrough the

courtthrough the vestibulethrough the street. Steps, voices, lights, came fast and confusedly behind her;

but with the speed of love and terror she gained upon her pursuers. She fled through the wilderness of

unknown and dusky streets, till she found herself, breathless and exhausted, in the midst of a crowd of

gallants, who, with chaplets on their heads and torches in their hands, were reeling from the portico of a

The foremost of the throng was a youth whose slender figure and beautiful countenance seemed hardly

consistent with his sex. But the feminine delicacy of his features rendered more frightful the mingled

sensuality and ferocity of their expression. The libertine audacity of his stare, and the grotesque foppery of

his apparel, seemed to indicate at least a partial insanity. Flinging one arm round Zoe, and tearing away her

veil with the other, he disclosed to the gaze of his thronging companions the regular features and large dark

"Not so, by Hercules," said Marcus Coelius; "the girl is fairly our common prize: we will fling dice for her.

The Venus (Venus was the Roman term for the highest throw of the dice.) throw, as it ought to do, shall

"What a charming Greek accent she has! Come into the house, my little Athenian nightingale."

"If she were not evidently a Greek," said Coelius, "I should take her for a vestal virgin."

"And if she were a vestal virgin," cried Clodius fiercely, "it should not deter me. This way;no

"Struggling! screaming!" exclaimed a gay and commanding voice; "You are making very ungentle love,

The sound of his voice thrilled through the very heart of Zoe. With a convulsive effort she burst from the

grasp of her insolent admirer, flung herself at the feet of Caesar, and clasped his knees. The moon shone full

on her agitated and imploring face: her lips moved; but she uttered no sound. He gazed at her for an

instantraised herclasped her to his bosom. "Fear nothing, my sweet Zoe." Then, with folded arms, and a

Clodius staggered forward, flushed with wine and rage, and uttering alternately a curse and a hiccup.

"A jest! I am as serious as a Jew on the Sabbath. Insult you; for such a pair of eyes I would insult the whole

"Good Gods, Caesar!" said Marcus Coelius, interposing; "you cannot think it worth while to get into a brawl

"Why not? The Greek girls have used me as well as those of Rome. Besides, the whole reputation of my

gallantry is at stake. Give up such a lovely woman to that drunken boy! My character would be gone for ever.

No more perfumed tablets, full of vows and raptures. No more toying with fingers at the circus. No more

evening walks along the Tiber. No more hiding in chests or jumping from windows. I, the favoured suitor of

half the white stoles in Rome, could never again aspire above a freedwoman. You a man of gallantry, and

think of such a thing! For shame, my dear Coelius! Do not let Clodia hear of it."

While Caesar spoke he had been engaged in keeping Clodius at arm'slength. The rage of the frantic libertine

increased as the struggle continued. "Stand back, as you value your life," he cried; "I will pass."

"Not this way, sweet Clodius. I have too much regard for you to suffer you to make love at such

disadvantage. You smell too much of Falernian at present. Would you stifle your mistress? By Hercules, you

are fit to kiss nobody now, except old Piso, when he is tumbling home in the morning from the vintners."

Clodius plunged his hand into his bosom and drew a little dagger, the faithful companion of many desperate

The whole throng of revellers was in agitation. The street fluctuated with torches and lifted hands. It was but

for a moment. Caesar watched with a steady eye the descending hand of Clodius, arrested the blow, seized his

antagonist by the throat, and flung him against one of the pillars of the portico with such violence, that he

"Fair selfdefence, by Hercules!" said Marcus Coelius. "Bear witness, you all saw him draw his dagger."

He is not deadhe breathes," said Ligarius. " Carry him into the house; he is dreadfully bruised."

"By all the Gods, Caius! you have won your lady fairly. A splendid victory! You deserve a triumph."

"Intolerable. But come and sup with me on the Nones. You have no objection to meet the Consul?"

Cicero? None at all. We need not talk politics. Our old dispute about Plato and Epicurus will furnish us with

Caesar and Zoe turned away. As soon as they were beyond hearing, she began in great agitation:

"Caesar, you are in danger. I know all. I overheard Catiline and Cethegus. You are engaged in a project

"My beautiful Zoe, I live only for glory and pleasure. For these I have never hesitated to hazard an existence

which they alone render valuable to me. In the present case, I can assure you that our scheme presents the

"So much the worse. You do not knowyou do not understand me. I speak not of open peril, but of secret

treachery. Catiline hates you;Cethegus hates you;your destruction is resolved. If you survive the

contest, you perish in the first hour of victory. They detest you for your moderation; they are eager for blood

and plunder. I have risked my life to bring you this warning; but that is of little moment. Farewell!Be

"I wish not for your thanks, but for your safety;I desire not to defraud Valeria or Servilia of one caress,

extorted from gratitude or pity. Be my feelings what they may, I have learnt in a fearful school to endure and

to suppress them. I have been taught to abase a proud spirit to the claps and hisses of the vulgar;to smile on

suitors who united the insults of a despicable pride to the endearments of a loathsome fondness; to affect

sprightliness with an aching head, and eyes from which tears were ready to gush;to feign love with curses

on my lips, and madness in my brain. Who feels for me any esteem,any tenderness? Who will shed a tear

over the nameless grave which will soon shelter from cruelty and scorn the broken heart of the poor Athenian

girl? But you, who alone have addressed her in her degradation with a voice of kindness and respect,

farewell. Sometimes think of me,not with sorrow;no; I could bear your ingratitude, but not your

distress. Yet, if it will not pain you too much, in distant days, when your lofty hopes and destinies are

accomplished,on the evening of some mighty victory, in the chariot of some magnificent

triumph,think on one who loved you with that exceeding love which only the miserable can feel. Think

that, wherever her exhausted frame may have sunk beneath the sensibilities of a tortured spirit,in whatever

hovel or whatever vault she may have closed her eyes,whatever strange scenes of horror and pollution may

have surrounded her dying bed, your shape was the last that swam before her sight your voice the last

sound that was ringing in her ears. Yet turn your face to me, Caesar. Let me carry away one last look of those

features, and then "He turned round. He looked at her. He hid his face on her bosom, and burst into tears.

With sobs long and loud, and convulsive as those of a terrified child, he poured forth on her bosom the tribute

of impetuous and uncontrollable emotion. He raised his head; but he in vain struggled to restore composure to

the brow which had confronted the frown of Sylla, and the lips which had rivalled the eloquence of Cicero.

He several times attempted to speak, but in vain; and his voice still faltered with tenderness, when, after a

"My own dear Zoe, your love has been bestowed on one who, if he cannot merit, can at least appreciate and

adore you. Beings of similar loveliness, and similar devotedness of affection, mingled, in all my boyish

dreams of greatness, with visions of curule chairs and ivory cars, marshalled legions and laurelled fasces.

Such I have endeavoured to find in the world; and, in their stead, I have met with selfishness, with vanity,

with frivolity, with falsehood. The life which you have preserved is a boon less valuable than the affection

"Oh! Caesar," interrupted the blushing Zoe, "think only on your own security at present. If you feel as you

"Alas! alas! Caesar, were not all the same oaths sworn yesterday to Valeria? But I will trust you, at least so

far as to partake your present dangers. Flight may he necessary:form your plans. Be they what they may,

there is one who, in exile, in poverty, in peril, asks only to wander, to beg, to die with you."

"My Zoe, I do not anticipate any such necessity. To renounce the conspiracy without renouncing the

principles on which it was originally undertaken,to elude the vengeance of the Senate without losing the

confidence of the people,is, indeed, an arduous, but not an impossible, task. I owe it to myself and to my

country to make the attempt. There is still ample time for consideration. At present I am too happy in love to

They had reached the door of a stately palace. Caesar struck it. It was instantly opened by a slave. Zoe found

herself in a magnificent hall, surrounded by pillars of green marble, between which were ranged the statues of

The confidential freedman made his appearance, not without a slight smile, which his patron's good nature

"Arm my slaves, Endymion; there are reasons for precaution. Let them relieve each other on guard during the

night. Zoe, my love, my preserver, why are your cheeks so pale? Let me kiss some bloom into them. How

you tremble! Endymion, a flask of Samian and some fruit. Bring them to my apartments. This way, my sweet

This is the age of societies. There is scarcely one Englishman in ten who has not belonged to some

association for distributing books, or for prosecuting them; for sending invalids to the hospital, or beggars to

the treadmill; for giving plate to the rich, or blankets to the poor. To be the most absurd institution among so

many institutions is no small distinction; it seems, however, to belong indisputably to the Royal Society of

Literature. At the first establishment of that ridiculous academy, every sensible man predicted that, in spite of

regal patronage and episcopal management, it would do nothing, or do harm. And it will scarcely be denied

I do not attack the founders of the association. Their characters are respectable; their motives, I am willing to

believe, were laudable. But I feel, and it is the duty of every literary man to feel, a strong jealousy of their

proceedings. Their society can be innocent only while it continues to be despicable. Should they ever possess

the power to encourage merit, they must also possess the power to depress it. Which power will be more

frequently exercised, let every one who has studied literary history, let every one who has studied human

Envy and faction insinuate themselves into all communities. They often disturb the peace, and pervert the

decisions, of benevolent and scientific associations. But it is in literary academies that they exert the most

extensive and pernicious influence. In the first place, the principles of literary criticism, though equally fixed

with those on which the chemist and the surgeon proceed, are by no means equally recognised. Men are

rarely able to assign a reason for their approbation or dislike on questions of taste; and therefore they

willingly submit to any guide who boldly asserts his claim to superior discernment. It is more difficult to

ascertain and establish the merits of a poem than the powers of a machine or the benefits of a new remedy.

Hence it is in literature, that quackery is most easily puffed, and excellence most easily decried.

In some degree this argument applies to academies of the fine arts; and it is fully confirmed by all that I have

ever heard of that institution which annually disfigures the walls of Somerset House with an acre of spoiled

canvas. But a literary tribunal is incomparably more dangerous. Other societies, at least, have no tendency to

call forth any opinions on those subjects which most agitate and inflame the minds of men. The sceptic and

the zealot, the revolutionist and the placeman, meet on common ground in a gallery of paintings or a

laboratory of science. They can praise or censure without reference to the differences which exist between

them. In a literary body this can never be the case. Literature is, and always must be, inseparably blended

with politics and theology; it is the great engine which moves the feelings of a people on the most

momentous questions. It is, therefore, impossible that any society can be formed so impartial as to consider

the literary character of an individual abstracted from the opinions which his writings inculcate. It is not to be

hoped, perhaps it is not to be wished, that the feelings of the man should be so completely forgotten in the

duties of the academician. The consequences are evident. The honours and censures of this Star Chamber of

the Muses will be awarded according to the prejudices of the particular sect or faction which may at the time

predominate. Whigs would canvass against a Southey, Tories against a Byron. Those who might at first

protest against such conduct as unjust would soon adopt it on the plea of retaliation; and the general good of

literature, for which the society was professedly instituted, would be forgotten in the stronger claims of

Yet even this is not the worst. Should the institution ever acquire any influence, it will afford most pernicious

facilities to every malignant coward who may desire to blast a reputation which he envies. It will furnish a

secure ambuscade, behind which the Maroons of literature may take a certain and deadly aim. The editorial

WE has often been fatal to rising genius; though all the world knows that it is only a form of speech, very

often employed by a single needy blockhead. The academic WE would have a far greater and more ruinous

influence. Numbers, while they increase the effect, would diminish the shame, of injustice. The advantages of

an open and those of an anonymous attack would be combined; and the authority of avowal would be united

to the security of concealment. The serpents in Virgil, after they had destroyed Laocoon, found an asylum

from the vengeance of the enraged people behind the shield of the statue of Minerva. And, in the same

manner, everything that is grovelling and venomous, everything that can hiss, and everything that can sting,

The French academy was, of all such associations, the most widely and the most justly celebrated. It was

founded by the greatest of ministers: it was patronised by successive kings; it numbered in its lists most of the

eminent French writers. Yet what benefit has literature derived from its labours? What is its history but an

uninterrupted record of servile compliancesof paltry artificesof deadly quarrelsof perfidious

friendships? Whether governed by the Court, by the Sorbonne, or by the Philosophers, it was always equally

powerful for evil, and equally impotent for good. I might speak of the attacks by which it attempted to

depress the rising fame of Corneille; I might speak of the reluctance with which it gave its tardy confirmation

to the applauses which the whole civilised world had bestowed on the genius of Voltaire. I might prove by

overwhelming evidence that, to the latest period of its existence, even under the superintendence of the

allaccomplished D'Alembert, it continued to be a scene of the fiercest animosities and the basest intrigues. I

might cite Piron's epigrams, and Marmontel's memoirs, and Montesquieu's letters. But I hasten on to another

One of the modes by which our Society proposes to encourage merit is the distribution of prizes. The

munificence of the king has enabled it to offer an annual premium of a hundred guineas for the best essay in

prose, and another of fifty guineas for the best poem, which may be transmitted to it. This is very laughable.

In the first place the judges may err. Those imperfections of human intellect to which, as the articles of the

Church tell us, even general councils are subject, may possibly be found even in the Royal Society of

Literature. The French academy, as I have already said, was the most illustrious assembly of the kind, and

numbered among its associates men much more distinguished than ever will assemble at Mr Hatchard's to

rummage the box of the English Society. Yet this famous body gave a poetical prize, for which Voltaire was

a candidate, to a fellow who wrote some verses about THE FROZEN AND THE BURNING POLE.

Yet, granting that the prizes were always awarded to the best composition, that composition, I say without

hesitation, will always be bad. A prize poem is like a prize sheep. The object of the competitor for the

agricultural premium is to produce an animal fit, not to be eaten, but to be weighed. Accordingly he pampers

his victim into morbid and unnatural fatness; and, when it is in such a state that it would be sent away in

disgust from any table, he offers it to the judges. The object of the poetical candidate, in like manner, is to

produce, not a good poem, but a poem of that exact degree of frigidity or bombast which may appear to his

censors to be correct or sublime. Compositions thus constructed will always be worthless. The few

excellences which they may contain will have an exotic aspect and flavour. In general, prize sheep are good

for nothing but to make tallow candles, and prize poems are good for nothing but to light them.

The first subject proposed by the Society to the poets of England was Dartmoor. I thought that they intended

a covert sarcasm at their own projects. Their institution was a literary Dartmoor scheme;a plan for forcing

into cultivation the waste lands of intellect,for raising poetical produce, by means of bounties, from soil

too meagre to have yielded any returns in the natural course of things. The plan for the cultivation of

Dartmoor has, I hear, been abandoned. I hope that this may be an omen of the fate of the Society.

In truth, this seems by no means improbable. They have been offering for several years the rewards which the

king placed at their disposal, and have not, as far as I can learn, been able to find in their box one composition

which they have deemed worthy of publication. At least no publication has taken place. The associates may

perhaps be astonished at this. But I will attempt to explain it, after the manner of ancient times, by means of

About four hundred years after the Deluge, King Gomer Chephoraod reigned in Babylon. He united all the

characteristics of an excellent sovereign. He made good laws, won great battles, and whitewashed long

streets. He was, in consequence, idolised by his people, and panegyrised by many poets and orators. A book

was then a sermons undertaking. Neither paper nor any similar material had been invented. Authors were

therefore under the necessity of inscribing their compositions on massive bricks. Some of these Babylonian

records are still preserved in European museums; but the language in which they are written has never been

deciphered. Gomer Chephoraod was so popular that the clay of all the plains round the Euphrates could

scarcely furnish brickkilns enough for his eulogists. It is recorded in particular that Pharonezzar, the

One day the king was going in state from his palace to the temple of Belus. During this procession it was

lawful for any Babylonian to offer any petition or suggestion to his sovereign. As the chariot passed before a

vintner's shop, a large company, apparently halfdrunk, sallied forth into the street, and one of them thus

"Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever! It appears to thy servants that of all the productions of the earth good

wine is the best, and bad wine is the worst. Good wine makes the heart cheerful, the eyes bright, the speech

ready. Bad wine confuses the head, disorders the stomach, makes us quarrelsome at night, and sick the next

morning. Now therefore let my lord the king take order that thy servants may drink good wine.

"O King," said his monitor, "this is most easy. Let the king make a decree, and seal it with his royal signet:

and let it be proclaimed that the king will give ten sheasses, and ten slaves, and ten changes of raiment,

every year, unto the man who shall make ten measures of the best wine. And whosoever wishes for the

sheasses, and the slaves, and the raiment, let him send the ten measures of wine to thy servants, and we will

The project pleased Gomer Chephoraod. "Be it so," said he. The people shouted. The petitioners prostrated

themselves in gratitude. The same night heralds were despatched to bear the intelligence to the remotest

After a due interval the wines began to come in; and the examiners assembled to adjudge the prize. The first

vessel was unsealed. Its odour was such that the judges, without tasting it, pronounced unanimous

condemnation. The next was opened: it had a villainous taste of clay. The third was sour and vapid. They

proceeded from one cask of execrable liquor to another, till at length, in absolute nausea, they gave up the

The next morning they all assembled at the gate of the king, with pale faces and aching heads. They owned

that they could not recommend any competitor as worthy of the rewards. They swore that the wine was little

better than poison, and entreated permission to resign the office of deciding between such detestable potions.

Merolchazzar, the highpriest, muttered something about the anger of the Gods at the toleration shown to a

sect of impious heretics who ate pigeons broiled, "whereas," said he, "our religion commands us to eat them

roasted. Now therefore, O King," continued this respectable divine, "give command to thy men of war, and

let them smite the disobedient people with the sword, them, and their wives, and their children, and let their

houses, and their flocks, and their herds, be given to thy servants the priests. Then shall the land yield its

increase, and the fruits of the earth shall be no more blasted by the vengeance of Heaven."

"Nay," said the king, "the ground lies under no general curse from Heaven. The season has been singularly

good. The wine which thou didst thyself drink at the banquet a few nights ago, O venerable Merolchazzar,

was of this year's vintage. Dost thou not remember how thou didst praise it? It was the same night that thou

wast inspired by Belus and didst reel to and fro, and discourse sacred mysteries. These things are too hard for

me. I comprehend them not. The only wine which is bad is that which is sent to my judges. Who can expound

The king scratched his head. Upon which all the courtiers scratched their heads.

He then ordered proclamation to be made that a purple robe and a golden chain should be given to the man

An old philosopher, who had been observed to smile rather disdainfully when the prize had first been

"Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever! Marvel not at that which has happened. It was no miracle, but a natural

event. How could it be otherwise? It is true that much good wine has been made this year. But who would

send it in for thy rewards? Thou knowest Ascobaruch who hath the great vineyards in the north, and

Cohahiroth who sendeth wine every year from the south over the Persian Golf. Their wines are so delicious

that ten measures thereof are sold for an hundred talents of silver. Thinkest thou that they will exchange them

for thy slaves and thine asses? What would thy prize profit any who have vineyards in rich soils?"

"Blame them not," said the sage, "seeing that you have been the authors of the evil. They are men whose

lands are poor, and have never yielded them any returns equal to the prizes which the king proposed.

Wherefore, knowing that the lords of the fruitful vineyards would not enter into competition with them they

planted vines, some on rocks, and some in light sandy soil, and some in deep clay. Hence their wines are bad.

For no culture or reward will make barren land bear good vines. Know therefore, assuredly, that your prizes

There was a long silence. At length the king spoke. "Give him the purple robe and the chain of gold. Throw

the wines into the Euphrates; and proclaim that the Royal Society of Wines is dissolved."

"Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that

In a review of Italian literature, Dante has a double claim to precedency. He was the earliest and the greatest

writer of his country. He was the first man who fully descried and exhibited the powers of his native dialect.

The Latin tongue, which, under the most favourable circumstances, and in the hands of the greatest masters,

had still been poor, feeble, and singularly unpoetical, and which had, in the age of Dante, been debased by the

admixture of innumerable barbarous words and idioms, was still cultivated with superstitious veneration, and

received, in the last stage of corruption, more honours than it had deserved in the period of its life and vigour.

It was the language of the cabinet, of the university, of the church. It was employed by all who aspired to

distinction in the higher walks of poetry. In compassion to the ignorance of his mistress, a cavalier might now

and then proclaim his passion in Tuscan or Proven�al rhymes. The vulgar might occasionally be edified by a

pious allegory in the popular jargon. But no writer had conceived it possible that the dialect of peasants and

marketwomen should possess sufficient energy and precision for a majestic and durable work. Dante

adventured first. He detected the rich treasures of thought and diction which still lay latent in their ore. He

refined them into purity. He burnished them into splendour. He fitted them for every purpose of use and

magnificence. And he has thus acquired the glory, not only of producing the finest narrative poem of modern

times but also of creating a language, distinguished by unrivalled melody, and peculiarly capable of

furnishing to lofty and passionate thoughts their appropriate garb of severe and concise expression.

To many this may appear a singular panegyric on the Italian tongue. Indeed the great majority of the young

gentlemen and young ladies, who, when they are asked whether they read Italian, answer "yes," never go

beyond the stories at the end of their grammar,The Pastor Fido,or an act of Artaserse. They could as

soon read a Babylonian brick as a canto of Dante. Hence it is a general opinion, among those who know little

or nothing of the subject, that this admirable language is adapted only to the effeminate cant of sonnetteers,

The fact is that Dante and Petrarch have been the Oromasdes and Arimanes of Italian literature. I wish not to

detract from the merits of Petrarch. No one can doubt that his poems exhibit, amidst some imbecility and

more affectation, much elegance, ingenuity, and tenderness. They present us with a mixture which can only

"S'udian gli usignuoli, al primo albore, Egli asini cantar versi d'amore." (Tassoni; Secchia Rapita, canto i.

I am not, however, at present speaking of the intrinsic excellencies of his writings, which I shall take another

opportunity to examine, but of the effect which they produced on the literature of Italy. The florid and

luxurious charms of his style enticed the poets and the public from the contemplation of nobler and sterner

models. In truth, though a rude state of society is that in which great original works are most frequently

produced, it is also that in which they are worst appreciated. This may appear paradoxical; but it is proved by

experience, and is consistent with reason. To be without any received canons of taste is good for the few who

can create, but bad for the many who can only imitate and judge. Great and active minds cannot remain at

rest. In a cultivated age they are too often contented to move on in the beaten path. But where no path exists

they will make one. Thus the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Divine Comedy, appeared in dark and half barbarous

times: and thus of the few original works which have been produced in more polished ages we owe a large

proportion to men in low stations and of uninformed minds. I will instance, in our own language, the

Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe. Of all the prose works of fiction which we possess, these are, I will

not say the best, but the most peculiar, the most unprecedented, the most inimitable. Had Bunyan and Defoe

been educated gentlemen, they would probably have published translations and imitations of French

romances "by a person of quality." I am not sure that we should have had Lear if Shakspeare had been able to

But these circumstances, while they foster genius, are unfavourable to the science of criticism. Men judge by

comparison. They are unable to estimate the grandeur of an object when there is no standard by which they

can measure it. One of the French philosophers (I beg Gerard's pardon), who accompanied Napoleon to

Egypt, tells us that, when he first visited the great Pyramid, he was surprised to see it so diminutive. It stood

alone in a boundless plain. There was nothing near it from which he could calculate its magnitude. But when

the camp was pitched beside it, and the tents appeared like diminutive specks around its base, he then

perceived the immensity of this mightiest work of man. In the same manner, it is not till a crowd of petty

writers has sprung up that the merit of the great masterspirits of literature is understood.

We have indeed ample proof that Dante was highly admired in his own and the following age. I wish that we

had equal proof that he was admired for his excellencies. But it is a remarkable corroboration of what has

been said, that this great man seems to have been utterly unable to appreciate himself. In his treatise "De

Vulgari Eloquentia" he talks with satisfaction of what he has done for Italian literature, of the purity and

correctness of his style. "Cependant," says a favourite writer of mine,(Sismondi, Literature du Midi de

l'Europe.) "il n'est ni pur, ni correct, mais il est createur." Considering the difficulties with which Dante had

to struggle, we may perhaps be more inclined than the French critic to allow him this praise. Still it is by no

means his highest or most peculiar title to applause. It is scarcely necessary to say that those qualities which

escaped the notice of the poet himself were not likely to attract the attention of the commentators. The fact is,

that, while the public homage was paid to some absurdities with which his works may be justly charged, and

to many more which were falsely imputed to them, while lecturers were paid to expound and eulogise his

physics, his metaphysics, his theology, all bad of their kindwhile annotators laboured to detect allegorical

meanings of which the author never dreamed, the great powers of his imagination, and the incomparable

force of his style, were neither admired nor imitated. Arimanes had prevailed. The Divine Comedy was to

that age what St. Paul's Cathedral was to Omai. The poor Otaheitean stared listlessly for a moment at the

huge cupola, and ran into a toyshop to play with beads. Italy, too, was charmed with literary trinkets, and

From the time of Petrarch to the appearance of Alfieri's tragedies, we may trace in almost every page of

Italian literature the influence of those celebrated sonnets which, from the nature both of their beauties and

their faults, were peculiarly unfit to be models for general imitation. Almost all the poets of that period,

however different in the degree and quality of their talents, are characterised by great exaggeration, and as a

necessary consequence, great coldness of sentiment; by a passion for frivolous and tawdry ornament; and,

above all, by an extreme feebleness and diffuseness of style. Tasso, Marino, Guarini, Metastasio, and a crowd

of writers of inferior merit and celebrity, were spellbound in the enchanted gardens of a gaudy and

meretricious Alcina, who concealed debility and deformity beneath the deceitful semblance of loveliness and

health. Ariosto, the great Ariosto himself, like his own Ruggiero, stooped for a time to linger amidst the

magic flowers and fountains, and to caress the gay and painted sorceress. But to him, as to his own Ruggiero,

had been given the omnipotent ring and the winged courser, which bore him from the paradise of deception to

The evil of which I speak was not confined to the graver poets. It infected satire, comedy, burlesque. No

person can admire more than I do the great masterpieces of wit and humour which Italy has produced. Still I

cannot but discern and lament a great deficiency, which is common to them all. I find in them abundance of

ingenuity, of droll naivete, of profound and just reflection, of happy expression. Manners, characters,

opinions, are treated with "a most learned spirit of human dealing." But something is still wanting. We read,

and we admire, and we yawn. We look in vain for the bacchanalian fury which inspired the comedy of

Athens, for the fierce and withering scorn which animates the invectives of Juvenal and Dryden, or even for

the compact and pointed diction which adds zest to the verses of Pope and Boileau. There is no enthusiasm,

no energy, no condensation, nothing which springs from strong feeling, nothing which tends to excite it.

Many fine thoughts and fine expressions reward the toil of reading. Still it is a toil. The Secchia Rapita, in

some points the best poem of its kind, is painfully diffuse and languid. The Animali Parlanti of Casti is

perfectly intolerable. I admire the dexterity of the plot, and the liberality of the opinions. I admit that it is

impossible to turn to a page which does not contain something that deserves to be remembered; but it is at

least six times as long as it ought to be. And the garrulous feebleness of the style is a still greater fault than

It may be thought that I have gone too far in attributing these evils to the influence of the works and the fame

of Petrarch. It cannot, however, be doubted that they have arisen, in a great measure, from a neglect of the

style of Dante. This is not more proved by the decline of Italian poetry than by its resuscitation. After the

lapse of four hundred and fifty years, there appeared a man capable of appreciating and imitating the father of

Tuscan literatureVittorio Alfieri. Like the prince in the nursery tale, he sought and found the sleeping

beauty within the recesses which had so long concealed her from mankind. The portal was indeed rusted by

time;the dust of ages had accumulated on the hangings;the furniture was of antique fashion;and the

gorgeous colour of the embroidery had faded. But the living charms which were well worth all the rest

remained in the bloom of eternal youth, and well rewarded the bold adventurer who roused them from their

long slumber. In every line of the Philip and the Saul, the greatest poems, I think, of the eighteenth century,

we may trace the influence of that mighty genius which has immortalised the illstarred love of Francesca,

and the paternal agonies of Ugolino. Alfieri bequeathed the sovereignty of Italian literature to the author of

the Aristodemusa man of genius scarcely inferior to his own, and a still more devoted disciple of the great

Florentine. It must be acknowledged that this eminent writer has sometimes pushed too far his idolatry of

Dante. To borrow a sprightly illustration from Sir John Denham, he has not only imitated his garb, but

borrowed his clothes. He often quotes his phrases; and he has, not very judiciously as it appears to me,

imitated his versification. Nevertheless, he has displayed many of the higher excellencies of his master; and

his works may justly inspire us with a hope that the Italian language will long flourish under a new literary

dynasty, or rather under the legitimate line, which has at length been restored to a throne long occupied by

The man to whom the literature of his country owes its origin and its revival was born in times singularly

adapted to call forth his extraordinary powers. Religious zeal, chivalrous love and honour, democratic liberty,

are the three most powerful principles that have ever influenced the character of large masses of men. Each of

them singly has often excited the greatest enthusiasm, and produced the most important changes. In the time

of Dante all the three, often in amalgamation, generally in conflict, agitated the public mind. The preceding

generation had witnessed the wrongs and the revenge of the brave, the accomplished, the unfortunate

Emperor Frederic the Second,a poet in an age of schoolmen,a philosopher in an age of monks, a

statesman in an age of crusaders. During the whole life of the poet, Italy was experiencing the consequences

of the memorable struggle which he had maintained against the Church. The finest works of imagination have

always been produced in times of political convulsion, as the richest vineyards and the sweetest flowers

always grow on the soil which has been fertilised by the fiery deluge of a volcano. To look no further than the

literary history of our own country, can we doubt that Shakspeare was in a great measure produced by the

Reformation, and Wordsworth by the French Revolution? Poets often avoid political transactions; they often

affect to despise them. But, whether they perceive it or not, they must be influenced by them. As long as their

minds have any point of contact with those of their fellowmen, the electric impulse, at whatever distance it

This will be the case even in large societies, where the division of labour enables many speculative men to

observe the face of nature, or to analyse their own minds, at a distance from the seat of political transactions.

In the little republic of which Dante was a member the state of things was very different. These small

communities are most unmercifully abused by most of our modern professors of the science of government.

In such states, they tell us, factions are always most violent: where both parties are cooped up within a narrow

space, political difference necessarily produces personal malignity. Every man must be a soldier; every

moment may produce a war. No citizen can lie down secure that he shall not be roused by the alarumbell, to

repel or avenge an injury. In such petty quarrels Greece squandered the blood which might have purchased

for her the permanent empire of the world, and Italy wasted the energy and the abilities which would have

All this is true: yet there is still a compensation. Mankind has not derived so much benefit from the empire of

Rome as from the city of Athens, nor from the kingdom of France as from the city of Florence. The violence

of party feeling may be an evil; but it calls forth that activity of mind which in some states of society it is

desirable to produce at any expense. Universal soldiership may be an evil; but where every man is a soldier

there will be no standing army. And is it no evil that one man in every fifty should be bred to the trade of

slaughter; should live only by destroying and by exposing himself to be destroyed; should fight without

enthusiasm and conquer without glory; be sent to a hospital when wounded, and rot on a dunghill when old?

Such, over more than twothirds of Europe, is the fate of soldiers. It was something that the citizen of Milan

or Florence fought, not merely in the vague and rhetorical sense in which the words are often used, but in

sober truth, for his parents, his children, his lands, his house, his altars. It was something that he marched

forth to battle beneath the Carroccio, which had been the object of his childish veneration: that his aged father

looked down from the battlements on his exploits; that his friends and his rivals were the witnesses of his

glory. If he fell, he was consigned to no venal or heedless guardians. The same day saw him conveyed within

the walls which he had defended. His wounds were dressed by his mother; his confession was whispered to

the friendly priest who had heard and absolved the follies of his youth; his last sigh was breathed upon the

lips of the lady of his love. Surely there is no sword like that which is beaten out of a ploughshare. Surely this

state of things was not unmixedly bad; its evils were alleviated by enthusiasm and by tenderness; and it will

at least be acknowledged that it was well fitted to nurse poetical genius in an imaginative and observant mind.

Nor did the religious spirit of the age tend less to this result than its political circumstances. Fanaticism is an

evil, but it is not the greatest of evils. It is good that a people should be roused by any means from a state of

utter torpor;that their minds should be diverted from objects merely sensual, to meditations, however

erroneous, on the mysteries of the moral and intellectual world; and from interests which are immediately

selfish to those which relate to the past, the future, and the remote. These effects have sometimes been

produced by the worst superstitions that ever existed; but the Catholic religion, even in the time of its utmost

extravagance and atrocity, never wholly lost the spirit of the Great Teacher, whose precepts form the noblest

code, as His conduct furnished the purest example, of moral excellence. It is of all religions the most poetical.

The ancient superstitions furnished the fancy with beautiful images, but took no hold on the heart. The

doctrines of the Reformed Churches have most powerfully influenced the feelings and the conduct of men,

but have not presented them with visions of sensible beauty and grandeur. The Roman Catholic Church has

united to the awful doctrines of the one that Mr Coleridge calls the "fair humanities" of the other. It has

enriched sculpture and painting with the loveliest and most majestic forms. To the Phidian Jupiter it can

oppose the Moses of Michael Angelo; and to the voluptuous beauty of the Queen of Cyprus, the serene and

pensive loveliness of the Virgin Mother. The legends of its martyrs and its saints may vie in ingenuity and

interest with the mythological fables of Greece; its ceremonies and processions were the delight of the vulgar;

the huge fabric of secular power with which it was connected attracted the admiration of the statesman. At the

same time, it never lost sight of the most solemn and tremendous doctrines of Christianity,the incarnate

God,the judgment,the retribution,the eternity of happiness or torment. Thus, while, like the ancient

religions, it received incalculable support from policy and ceremony, it never wholly became, like those

The beginning of the thirteenth century was, as Machiavelli has remarked, the era of a great revival of this

extraordinary system. The policy of Innocent,the growth of the Inquisition and the mendicant orders,the

wars against the Albigenses, the Pagans of the East, and the unfortunate princes of the house of Swabia,

agitated Italy during the two following generations. In this point Dante was completely under the influence of

his age. He was a man of a turbid and melancholy spirit. In early youth he had entertained a strong and

unfortunate passion, which, long after the death of her whom he loved, continued to haunt him. Dissipation,

ambition, misfortunes had not effaced it. He was not only a sincere, but a passionate, believer. The crimes

and abuses of the Church of Rome were indeed loathsome to him; but to all its doctrines and all its rites he

adhered with enthusiastic fondness and veneration; and, at length, driven from his native country, reduced to

a situation the most painful to a man of his disposition, condemned to learn by experience that no food is so

bitter as the bread of dependence ("Tu proverai si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e come e duro calle Lo

and no ascent so painful as the staircase of a patron,his wounded spirit took refuge in visionary devotion.

Beatrice, the unforgotten object of his early tenderness, was invested by his imagination with glorious and

mysterious attributes; she was enthroned among the highest of the celestial hierarchy: Almighty Wisdom had

assigned to her the care of the sinful and unhappy wanderer who had loved her with such a perfect love.

("L'amico mio, e non della ventura." Inferno, canto ii.) By a confusion, like that which often takes place in

dreams, he has sometimes lost sight of her human nature, and even of her personal existence, and seems to

But those religious hopes which had released the mind of the sublime enthusiast from the terrors of death had

not rendered his speculations on human life more cheerful. This is an inconsistency which may often be

observed in men of a similar temperament. He hoped for happiness beyond the grave: but he felt none on

earth. It is from this cause, more than from any other, that his description of Heaven is so far inferior to the

Hell or the Purgatory. With the passions and miseries of the suffering spirits he feels a strong sympathy. But

among the beatified he appears as one who has nothing in common with them, as one who is incapable of

comprehending, not only the degree, but the nature of their enjoyment. We think that we see him standing

amidst those smiling and radiant spirits with that scowl of unutterable misery on his brow, and that curl of

bitter disdain on his lips, which all his portraits have preserved, and which might furnish Chantrey with hints

There is no poet whose intellectual and moral character are so closely connected. The great source, as it

appears to me, of the power of the Divine Comedy is the strong belief with which the story seems to be told.

In this respect, the only books which approach to its excellence are Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe.

The solemnity of his asseverations, the consistency and minuteness of his details, the earnestness with which

he labours to make the reader understand the exact shape and size of everything that he describes, give an air

of reality to his wildest fictions. I should only weaken this statement by quoting instances of a feeling which

pervades the whole work, and to which it owes much of its fascination. This is the real justification of the

many passages in his poem which bad critics have condemned as grotesque. I am concerned to see that Mr

Cary, to whom Dante owes more than ever poet owed to translator, has sanctioned an accusation utterly

unworthy of his abilities. "His solicitude," says that gentleman, "to define all his images in such a manner as

to bring them within the circle of our vision, and to subject them to the power of the pencil, renders him little

better than grotesque, where Milton has since taught us to expect sublimity." It is true that Dante has never

shrunk from embodying his conceptions in determinate words, that he has even given measures and numbers,

where Milton would have left his images to float undefined in a gorgeous haze of language. Both were right.

Milton did not profess to have been in heaven or hell. He might therefore reasonably confine himself to

magnificent generalities. Far different was the office of the lonely traveller, who had wandered through the

nations of the dead. Had he described the abode of the rejected spirits in language resembling the splendid

"An universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives,

and Nature breeds Perverse all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, unutterable, and worse Than

fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, Gorgons, and hydras, and chimaeras dire"

this would doubtless have been noble writing. But where would have been that strong impression of reality,

which, in accordance with his plan, it should have been his great object to produce? It was absolutely

necessary for him to delineate accurately "all monstrous, all prodigious things,"to utter what might to

others appear "unutterable,"to relate with the air of truth what fables had never feigned,to embody what

fear had never conceived. And I will frankly confess that the vague sublimity of Milton affects me less than

these reviled details of Dante. We read Milton; and we know that we are reading a great poet. When we read

Dante, the poet vanishes. We are listening to the man who has returned from "the valley of the dolorous

abyss;" ("Lavalle d'abisso doloroso."Inferno, cantoiv.)we seem to see the dilated eye of horror, to hear

the shuddering accents with which he tells his fearful tale. Considered in this light, the narratives are exactly

what they should be,definite in themselves, but suggesting to the mind ideas of awful and indefinite

wonder. They are made up of the images of the earth: they are told in the language of the earth.Yet the

whole effect is, beyond expression, wild and unearthly. The fact is, that supernatural beings, as long as they

are considered merely with reference to their own nature, excite our feelings very feebly. It is when the great

gulf which separates them from us is passed, when we suspect some strange and undefinable relation between

the laws of the visible and the invisible world, that they rouse, perhaps, the strongest emotions of which our

nature is capable. How many children, and how many men, are afraid of ghosts, who are not afraid of God!

And this, because, though they entertain a much stronger conviction of the existence of a Deity than of the

reality of apparitions, they have no apprehension that he will manifest himself to them in any sensible

manner. While this is the case, to describe superhuman beings in the language, and to attribute to them the

actions, of humanity may be grotesque, unphilosophical, inconsistent; but it will be the only mode of working

upon the feelings of men, and, therefore, the only mode suited for poetry. Shakspeare understood this well, as

he understood everything that belonged to his art. Who does not sympathise with the rapture of Ariel, flying

after sunset on the wings of the bat, or sucking in the cups of flowers with the bee? Who does not shudder at

the caldron of Macbeth? Where is the philosopher who is not moved when he thinks of the strange

connection between the infernal spirits and "the sow's blood that hath eaten her nine farrow?" But this

difficult task of representing supernatural beings to our minds, in a manner which shall be neither

unintelligible to our intellects nor wholly inconsistent with our ideas of their nature, has never been so well

performed as by Dante. I will refer to three instances, which are, perhaps, the most striking: the description

of the transformations of the serpents and the robbers, in the twentyfifth canto of the Inferno,the passage

concerning Nimrod, in the thirtyfirst canto of the same part, and the magnificent procession in the

The metaphors and comparisons of Dante harmonise admirably with that air of strong reality of which I have

spoken. They have a very peculiar character. He is perhaps the only poet whose writings would become much

less intelligible if all illustrations of this sort were expunged. His similes are frequently rather those of a

traveller than of a poet. He employs them not to display his ingenuity by fanciful analogies,not to delight

the reader by affording him a distant and passing glimpse of beautiful images remote from the path in which

he is proceeding, but to give an exact idea of the objects which he is describing, by comparing them with

others generally known. The boiling pitch in Malebolge was like that in the Venetian arsenal:the mound on

which he travelled along the banks of Phlegethon was like that between Ghent and Bruges, but not so

large:the cavities where the Simoniacal prelates are confined resemble the Fonts in the Church of John at

Florence. Every reader of Dante will recall many other illustrations of this description, which add to the

appearance of sincerity and earnestness from which the narrative derives so much of its interest.

Many of his comparisons, again, are intended to give an exact idea of his feelings under particular

circumstances. The delicate shades of grief, of fear, of anger, are rarely discriminated with sufficient accuracy

in the language of the most refined nations. A rude dialect never abounds in nice distinctions of this kind.

Dante therefore employs the most accurate and infinitely the most poetical mode of marking the precise state

of his mind. Every person who has experienced the bewildering effect of sudden bad tidings,the

stupefaction,the vague doubt of the truth of our own perceptions which they produce,will understand

the following simile:"I was as he is who dreameth his own harm,who, dreaming, wishes that it may be

all a dream, so that he desires that which is as though it were not." This is only one out of a hundred equally

striking and expressive similitudes. The comparisons of Homer and Milton are magnificent digressions. It

scarcely injures their effect to detach them from the work. Those of Dante are very different. They derive

their beauty from the context, and reflect beauty upon it. His embroidery cannot be taken out without spoiling

the whole web. I cannot dismiss this part of the subject without advising every person who can muster

sufficient Italian to read the simile of the sheep, in the third canto of the Purgatorio. I think it the most perfect

passage of the kind in the world, the most imaginative, the most picturesque, and the most sweetly expressed.

No person can have attended to the Divine Comedy without observing how little impression the forms of the

external world appear to have made on the mind of Dante. His temper and his situation had led him to fix his

observation almost exclusively on human nature. The exquisite opening of the eighth* canto of the Purgatorio

affords a strong instance of this. (I cannot help observing that Gray's imitation of that noble line

is one of the most striking instances of injudicious plagiarism with which I am acquainted. Dante did not put

this strong personification at the beginning of his description. The imagination of the reader is so well

prepared for it by the previous lines, that it appears perfectly natural and pathetic. Placed as Gray has placed

it, neither preceded nor followed by anything that harmonises with it, it becomes a frigid conceit. Woe to the

He leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky. His business is with man. To other writers, evening may

be the season of dews and stars and radiant clouds. To Dante it is the hour of fond recollection and passionate

devotion,the hour which melts the heart of the mariner and kindles the love of the pilgrim,the hour

when the toll of the bell seems to mourn for another day which is gone and will return no more.

The feeling of the present age has taken a direction diametrically opposite. The magnificence of the physical

world, and its influence upon the human mind, have been the favourite themes of our most eminent poets.

The herd of bluestocking ladies and sonneteering gentlemen seem to consider a strong sensibility to the

"splendour of the grass, the glory of the flower," as an ingredient absolutely indispensable in the formation of

The orthodox poetical creed is more Catholic. The noblest earthly object of the contemplation of man is man

himself. The universe, and all its fair and glorious forms, are indeed included in the wide empire of the

imagination; but she has placed her home and her sanctuary amidst the inexhaustible varieties and the

In tutte parti impera, e quivi regge; Quivi e la sua cittade, e l'alto seggio. (Inferno, canto i.)

Othello is perhaps the greatest work in the world. From what does it derive its power? From the clouds? From

the ocean? From the mountains? Or from love strong as death, and jealousy cruel as the grave? What is it that

we go forth to see in Hamlet? Is it a reed shaken with the wind? A small celandine? A bed of daffodils? Or is

it to contemplate a mighty and wayward mind laid bare before us to the inmost recesses? It may perhaps be

doubted whether the lakes and the hills are better fitted for the education of a poet than the dusky streets of a

huge capital. Indeed who is not tired to death with pure description of scenery? Is it not the fact, that external

objects never strongly excite our feelings but when they are contemplated in reference to man, as illustrating

his destiny, or as influencing his character? The most beautiful object in the world, it will be allowed, is a

beautiful woman. But who that can analyse his feelings is not sensible that she owes her fascination less to

grace of outline and delicacy of colour, than to a thousand associations which, often unperceived by

ourselves, connect those qualities with the source of our existence, with the nourishment of our infancy, with

the passions of our youth, with the hopes of our agewith elegance, with vivacity, with tenderness, with the

To those who think thus, the insensibility of the Florentine poet to the beauties of nature will not appear an

unpardonable deficiency. On mankind no writer, with the exception of Shakspeare, has looked with a more

penetrating eye. I have said that his poetical character had derived a tinge from his peculiar temper. It is on

the sterner and darker passions that he delights to dwell. All love excepting the halfmystic passion which he

still felt for his buried Beatrice, had palled on the fierce and restless exile. The sad story of Rimini is almost a

single exception. I know not whether it has been remarked, that, in one point, misanthropy seems to have

affected his mind, as it did that of Swift. Nauseous and revolting images seem to have had a fascination for

his mind; and he repeatedly places before his readers, with all the energy of his incomparable style, the most

There is another peculiarity in the poem of Dante, which, I think, deserves notice. Ancient mythology has

hardly ever been successfully interwoven with modern poetry. One class of writers have introduced the

fabulous deities merely as allegorical representatives of love, wine, or wisdom. This necessarily renders their

works tame and cold. We may sometimes admire their ingenuity; but with what interest can we read of beings

of whose personal existence the writer does not suffer us to entertain, for a moment, even a conventional

belief? Even Spenser's allegory is scarcely tolerable, till we contrive to forget that Una signifies innocence,

and consider her merely as an oppressed lady under the protection of a generous knight.

Those writers who have, more judiciously, attempted to preserve the personality of the classical divinities

have failed from a different cause. They have been imitators, and imitators at a disadvantage. Euripides and

Catullus believed in Bacchus and Cybele as little as we do. But they lived among men who did. Their

imaginations, if not their opinions, took the colour of the age. Hence the glorious inspiration of the Bacchae

and the Atys. Our minds are formed by circumstances: and I do not believe that it would be in the power of

the greatest modern poet to lash himself up to a degree of enthusiasm adequate to the production of such

Dante, alone among the poets of later times, has been, in this respect, neither an allegorist nor an imitator;

and, consequently, he alone has introduced the ancient fictions with effect. His Minos, his Charon, his Pluto,

are absolutely terrific. Nothing can be more beautiful or original than the use which he has made of the River

of Lethe. He has never assigned to his mythological characters any functions inconsistent with the creed of

the Catholic Church. He has related nothing concerning them which a good Christian of that age might not

believe possible. On this account there is nothing in these passages that appears puerile or pedantic. On the

contrary, this singular use of classical names suggests to the mind a vague and awful idea of some mysterious

revelation, anterior to all recorded history, of which the dispersed fragments might have been retained amidst

the impostures and superstitions of later religions. Indeed the mythology of the Divine Comedy is of the elder

and more colossal mould. It breathes the spirit of Homer and Aeschylus, not of Ovid and Claudian.

This is the more extraordinary, since Dante seems to have been utterly ignorant of the Greek language; and

his favourite Latin models could only have served to mislead him. Indeed, it is impossible not to remark his

admiration of writers far inferior to himself; and, in particular, his idolatry of Virgil, who, elegant and

splendid as he is, has no pretensions to the depth and originality of mind which characterise his Tuscan

worshipper, In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics. Their

minds are under the tyranny of ten thousand associations imperceptible to others. The worst writer may easily

happen to touch a spring which is connected in their minds with a long succession of beautiful images. They

are like the gigantic slaves of Aladdin, gifted with matchless power, but bound by spells so mighty that when

a child whom they could have crushed touched a talisman, of whose secret he was ignorant, they immediately

became his vassals. It has more than once happened to me to see minds, graceful and majestic as the Titania

of Shakspeare, bewitched by the charms of an ass's head, bestowing on it the fondest caresses, and crowning

it with the sweetest flowers. I need only mention the poems attributed to Ossian. They are utterly worthless,

except as an edifying instance of the success of a story without evidence, and of a book without merit. They

are a chaos of words which present no image, of images which have no archetype:they are without form

and void; and darkness is upon the face of them. Yet how many men of genius have panegyrised and imitated

The style of Dante is, if not his highest, perhaps his most peculiar excellence. I know nothing with which it

can be compared. The noblest models of Greek composition must yield to it. His words are the fewest and the

best which it is possible to use. The first expression in which he clothes his thoughts is always so energetic

and comprehensive that amplification would only injure the effect. There is probably no writer in any

language who has presented so many strong pictures to the mind. Yet there is probably no writer equally

concise. This perfection of style is the principal merit of the Paradiso, which, as I have already remarked, is

by no means equal in other respects to the two preceding parts of the poem. The force and felicity of the

diction, however, irresistibly attract the reader through the theological lectures and the sketches of

ecclesiastical biography, with which this division of the work too much abounds. It may seem almost absurd

to quote particular specimens of an excellence which is diffused over all his hundred cantos. I will, however,

instance the third canto of the Inferno, and the sixth of the Purgatorio, as passages incomparable in their kind.

The merit of the latter is, perhaps, rather oratorical than poetical; nor can I recollect anything in the great

Athenian speeches which equals it in force of invective and bitterness of sarcasm. I have heard the most

eloquent statesman of the age remark that, next to Demosthenes, Dante is the writer who ought to be most

But it is time to close this feeble and rambling critique. I cannot refrain, however, from saying a few words

upon the translations of the Divine Comedy. Boyd's is as tedious and languid as the original is rapid and

forcible. The strange measure which he has chosen, and, for aught I know, invented, is most unfit for such a

work. Translations ought never to be written in a verse which requires much command of rhyme. The stanza

becomes a bed of Procrustes; and the thoughts of the unfortunate author are alternately racked and curtailed

to fit their new receptacle. The abrupt and yet consecutive style of Dante suffers more than that of any other

poet by a version diffuse in style, and divided into paragraphs, for they deserve no other name, of equal

Nothing can be said in favour of Hayley's attempt, but that it is better than Boyd's. His mind was a tolerable

specimen of filigree work,rather elegant, and very feeble. All that can be said for his best works is that

they are neat. All that can be said against his worst is that they are stupid. He might have translated

"rime e aspre e chiocce, "Come si converrebbe al tristo buco." (Inferno, canto xxxii.)

I turn with pleasure from these wretched performances to Mr Cary's translation. It is a work which well

deserves a separate discussion, and on which, if this article were not already too long, I could dwell with

great pleasure. At present I will only say that there is no other version in the world, as far as I know, so

faithful, yet that there is no other version which so fully proves that the translator is himself a man of poetical

genius. Those who are ignorant of the Italian language should read it to become acquainted with the Divine

Comedy. Those who are most intimate with Italian literature should read it for its original merits: and I

believe that they will find it difficult to determine whether the author deserves most praise for his intimacy

Et vos, o lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte, Sic positae quoniam suaves miscetis odores. Virgil.

It would not be easy to name a writer whose celebrity, when both its extent and its duration are taken into the

account, can be considered as equal to that of Petrarch. Four centuries and a half have elapsed since his death.

Yet still the inhabitants of every nation throughout the western world are as familiar with his character and

his adventures as with the most illustrious names, and the most recent anecdotes, of their own literary history.

This is indeed a rare distinction. His detractors must acknowledge that it could not have been acquired by a

poet destitute of merit. His admirers will scarcely maintain that the unassisted merit of Petrarch could have

raised him to that eminence which has not yet been attained by Shakspeare, Milton, or Dante,that

eminence, of which perhaps no modern writer, excepting himself and Cervantes, has long retained

It is not difficult to discover some of the causes to which this great man has owed a celebrity, which I cannot

but think disproportioned to his real claims on the admiration of mankind. In the first place, he is an egotist.

Egotism in conversation is universally abhorred. Lovers, and, I believe, lovers alone, pardon it in each other.

No services, no talents, no powers of pleasing, render it endurable. Gratitude, admiration, interest, fear,

scarcely prevent those who are condemned to listen to it from indicating their disgust and fatigue. The

childless uncle, the powerful patron can scarcely extort this compliance. We leave the inside of the mail in a

storm, and mount the box, rather than hear the history of our companion. The chaplain bites his lips in the

presence of the archbishop. The midshipman yawns at the table of the First Lord. Yet, from whatever cause,

this practice, the pest of conversation, gives to writing a zest which nothing else can impart. Rousseau made

the boldest experiment of this kind; and it fully succeeded. In our own time Lord Byron, by a series of

attempts of the same nature, made himself the object of general interest and admiration. Wordsworth wrote

with egotism more intense, but less obvious; and he has been rewarded with a sect of worshippers,

comparatively small in number, but far more enthusiastic in their devotion. It is needless to multiply

instances. Even now all the walks of literature are infested with mendicants for fame, who attempt to excite

our interest by exhibiting all the distortions of their intellects, and stripping the covering from all the putrid

sores of their feelings. Nor are there wanting many who push their imitation of the beggars whom they

resemble a step further, and who find it easier to extort a pittance from the spectator, by simulating deformity

and debility from which they are exempt, than by such honest labour as their health and strength enable them

to perform. In the meantime the credulous public pities and pampers a nuisance which requires only the

treadmill and the whip. This art, often successful when employed by dunces, gives irresistible fascination to

works which possess intrinsic merit. We are always desirous to know something of the character and situation

of those whose writings we have perused with pleasure. The passages in which Milton has alluded to his own

circumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more interest, than any other lines in his poems. It

is amusing to observe with what labour critics have attempted to glean from the poems of Homer, some hints

as to his situation and feelings. According to one hypothesis, he intended to describe himself under the name

of Demodocus. Others maintain that he was the identical Phemius whose life Ulysses spared. This propensity

of the human mind explains, I think, in a great degree, the extensive popularity of a poet whose works are

In the second place, Petrarch was not only an egotist, but an amatory egotist. The hopes and fears, the joys

and sorrows, which he described, were derived from the passion which of all passions exerts the widest

influence, and which of all passions borrows most from the imagination. He had also another immense

advantage. He was the first eminent amatory poet who appeared after the great convulsion which had

changed, not only the political, but the moral, state of the world. The Greeks, who, in their public institutions

and their literary tastes, were diametrically opposed to the oriental nations, bore a considerable resemblance

to those nations in their domestic habits. Like them, they despised the intellects and immured the persons of

their women; and it was among the least of the frightful evils to which this pernicious system gave birth, that

all the accomplishments of mind, and all the fascinations of manner, which, in a highly cultivated age, will

generally be necessary to attach men to their female associates, were monopolised by the Phrynes and the

Lamais. The indispensable ingredients of honourable and chivalrous love were nowhere to be found united.

The matrons and their daughters confined in the harem,insipid, uneducated, ignorant of all but the

mechanical arts, scarcely seen till they were married,could rarely excite interest; afterwards their brilliant

rivals, half Graces, half Harpies, elegant and informed, but fickle and rapacious, could never inspire respect.

The state of society in Rome was, in this point, far happier; and the Latin literature partook of the superiority.

The Roman poets have decidedly surpassed those of Greece in the delineation of the passion of love. There is

no subject which they have treated with so much success. Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Horace, and Propertius, in

spite of all their faults, must be allowed to rank high in this department of the art. To these I would add my

favourite Plautus; who, though he took his plots from Greece, found, I suspect, the originals of his enchanting

Still many evils remained: and, in the decline of the great empire, all that was pernicious in its domestic

institutions appeared more strongly. Under the influence of governments at once dependent and tyrannical,

which purchased, by cringing to their enemies, the power of trampling on their subjects, the Romans sunk

into the lowest state of effeminacy and debasement. Falsehood, cowardice, sloth, conscious and unrepining

degradation, formed the national character. Such a character is totally incompatible with the stronger

passions. Love, in particular, which, in the modern sense of the word, implies protection and devotion on the

one side, confidence on the other, respect and fidelity on both, could not exist among the sluggish and

heartless slaves who cringed around the thrones of Honorius and Augustulus. At this period the great

renovation commenced. The warriors of the north, destitute as they were of knowledge and humanity,

brought with them, from their forests and marshes, those qualities without which humanity is a weakness and

knowledge a curse,energyindependencethe dread of shamethe contempt of danger. It would be

most interesting to examine the manner in which the admixture of the savage conquerors and the effeminate

slaves, after many generations of darkness and agitation, produced the modern European character;to trace

back, from the first conflict to the final amalgamation, the operation of that mysterious alchemy which, from

hostile and worthless elements, has extracted the pure gold of human nature to analyse the mass, and to

determine the proportion in which the ingredients are mingled. But I will confine myself to the subject to

which I have more particularly referred. The nature of the passion of love had undergone a complete change.

It still retained, indeed, the fanciful and voluptuous character which it had possessed among the southern

nations of antiquity. But it was tinged with the superstitious veneration with which the northern warriors had

been accustomed to regard women. Devotion and war had imparted to it their most solemn and animating

feelings. It was sanctified by the blessings of the Church, and decorated with the wreaths of the tournament.

Venus, as in the ancient fable, was again rising above the dark and tempestuous waves which had so long

covered her beauty. But she rose not now, as of old, in exposed and luxurious loveliness. She still wore the

cestus of her ancient witchcraft; but the diadem of Juno was on her brow, and the aegis of Pallas in her hand.

Love might, in fact, be called a new passion; and it is not astonishing that the first poet of eminence who

wholly devoted his genius to this theme should have excited an extraordinary sensation. He may be compared

to an adventurer who accidentally lands in a rich and unknown island; and who, though he may only set up an

illshaped cross upon the shore, acquires possession of its treasures, and gives it his name. The claim of

Petrarch was indeed somewhat like that of Amerigo Vespucci to the continent which should have derived its

appellation from Columbus. The Provencal poets were unquestionably the masters of the Florentine. But they

wrote in an age which could not appreciate their merits; and their imitator lived at the very period when

composition in the vernacular language began to attract general attention. Petrarch was in literature what a

Valentine is in love. The public preferred him, not because his merits were of a transcendent order, but

because he was the first person whom they saw after they awoke from their long sleep.

Nor did Petrarch gain less by comparison with his immediate successors than with those who had preceded

him. Till more than a century after his death Italy produced no poet who could be compared to him. This

decay of genius is doubtless to be ascribed, in a great measure, to the influence which his own works had

exercised upon the literature of his country. Yet it has conduced much to his fame. Nothing is more

favourable to the reputation of a writer than to be succeeded by a race inferior to himself; and it is an

advantage, from obvious causes, much more frequently enjoyed by those who corrupt the national taste than

Another cause has cooperated with those which I have mentioned to spread the renown of Petrarch. I mean

the interest which is inspired by the events of his lifean interest which must have been strongly felt by his

contemporaries, since, after an interval of five hundred years, no critic can be wholly exempt from its

influence. Among the great men to whom we owe the resuscitation of science he deserves the foremost place;

and his enthusiastic attachment to this great cause constitutes his most just and splendid title to the gratitude

of posterity. He was the votary of literature. He loved it with a perfect love. He worshipped it with an almost

fanatical devotion. He was the missionary, who proclaimed its discoveries to distant countries the pilgrim,

who travelled far and wide to collect its reliques the hermit, who retired to seclusion to meditate on its

beauties the champion, who fought its battlesthe conqueror, who, in more than a metaphorical sense, led

barbarism and ignorance in triumph, and received in the Capitol the laurel which his magnificent victory had

Nothing can be conceived more noble or affecting than that ceremony. The superb palaces and porticoes, by

which had rolled the ivory chariots of Marius and Caesar, had long mouldered into dust. The laurelled

fascesthe golden eaglesthe shouting legionsthe captives and the pictured citieswere indeed

wanting to his victorious procession. The sceptre had passed away from Rome. But she still retained the

mightier influence of an intellectual empire, and was now to confer the prouder reward of an intellectual

triumph. To the man who had extended the dominion of her ancient languagewho had erected the trophies

of philosophy and imagination in the haunts of ignorance and ferocitywhose captives were the hearts of

admiring nations enchained by the influence of his songwhose spoils were the treasures of ancient genius

rescued from obscurity and decaythe Eternal City offered the just and glorious tribute of her gratitude.

Amidst the ruined monuments of ancient and the infant erections of modern art, he who had restored the

broken link between the two ages of human civilisation was crowned with the wreath which he had deserved

from the moderns who owed to him their refinementfrom the ancients who owed to him their fame. Never

When we turn from this glorious spectacle to the private chamber of the poet,when we contemplate the

struggle of passion and virtue,the eye dimmed, the cheek furrowed, by the tears of sinful and hopeless

desire,when we reflect on the whole history of his attachment, from the gay fantasy of his youth to the

lingering despair of his age, pity and affection mingle with our admiration. Even after death had placed the

last seal on his misery, we see him devoting to the cause of the human mind all the strength and energy which

love and sorrow had spared. He lived the apostle of literature;he fell its martyr:he was found dead with

Those who have studied the life and writings of Petrarch with attention, will perhaps be inclined to make

some deductions from this panegyric. It cannot be denied that his merits were disfigured by a most unpleasant

affectation. His zeal for literature communicated a tinge of pedantry to all his feelings and opinions. His love

was the love of a sonnetteer:his patriotism was the patriotism of an antiquarian. The interest with which we

contemplate the works, and study the history, of those who, in former ages, have occupied our country, arises

from the associations which connect them with the community in which are comprised all the objects of our

affection and our hope. In the mind of Petrarch these feelings were reversed. He loved Italy, because it

abounded with the monuments of the ancient masters of the world. His native citythe fair and glorious

Florencethe modern Athens, then in all the bloom and strength of its youth, could not obtain, from the

most distinguished of its citizens, any portion of that passionate homage which he paid to the decrepitude of

Rome. These and many other blemishes, though they must in candour be acknowledged, can but in a very

slight degree diminish the glory of his career. For my own part, I look upon it with so much fondness and

pleasure that I feel reluctant to turn from it to the consideration of his works, which I by no means

Nevertheless, I think highly of the poetical powers of Petrarch. He did not possess, indeed, the art of strongly

presenting sensible objects to the imagination;and this is the more remarkable, because the talent of which

I speak is that which peculiarly distinguishes the Italian poets. In the Divine Comedy it is displayed in its

highest perfection. It characterises almost every celebrated poem in the language. Perhaps this is to be

attributed to the circumstance, that painting and sculpture had attained a high degree of excellence in Italy

before poetry had been extensively cultivated. Men were debarred from books, but accustomed from

childhood to contemplate the admirable works of art, which, even in the thirteenth century, Italy began to

produce. Hence their imaginations received so strong a bias that, even in their writings, a taste for graphic

delineation is discernible. The progress of things in England has been in all respects different. The

consequence is, that English historical pictures are poems on canvas; while Italian poems are pictures painted

to the mind by means of words. Of this national characteristic the writings of Petrarch are almost totally

destitute. His sonnets indeed, from their subject and nature, and his Latin Poems, from the restraints which

always shackle one who writes in a dead language, cannot fairly be received in evidence. But his Triumphs

absolutely required the exercise of this talent, and exhibit no indications of it.

Genius, however, he certainly possessed, and genius of a high order. His ardent, tender, and magnificent turn

of thought, his brilliant fancy, his command of expression, at once forcible and elegant, must be

acknowledged. Nature meant him for the prince of lyric writers. But by one fatal present she deprived her

other gifts of half their value. He would have been a much greater poet had he been a less clever man. His

ingenuity was the bane of his mind. He abandoned the noble and natural style, in which he might have

excelled, for the conceits which he produced with a facility at once admirable and disgusting. His muse, like

the Roman lady in Livy, was tempted by gaudy ornaments to betray the fastnesses of her strength, and, like

The paucity of his thoughts is very remarkable. It is impossible to look without amazement on a mind so

fertile in combinations, yet so barren of images. His amatory poetry is wholly made up of a very few topics,

disposed in so many orders, and exhibited in so many lights, that it reminds us of those arithmetical problems

about permutations, which so much astonish the unlearned. The French cook, who boasted that he could

make fifteen different dishes out of a nettletop, was not a greater master of his art. The mind of Petrarch was

a kaleidoscope. At every turn it presents us with new forms, always fantastic, occasionally beautiful; and we

can scarcely believe that all these varieties have been produced by the same worthless fragments of glass. The

sameness of his images is, indeed, in some degree, to be attributed to the sameness of his subject. It would be

unreasonable to expect perpetual variety from so many hundred compositions, all of the same length, all in

the same measure, and all addressed to the same insipid and heartless coquette. I cannot but suspect also that

the perverted taste, which is the blemish of his amatory verses, was to be attributed to the influence of Laura,

who, probably, like most critics of her sex, preferred a gaudy to a majestic style. Be this as it may, he no

sooner changes his subject than he changes his manner. When he speaks of the wrongs and degradation of

Italy, devastated by foreign invaders, and but feebly defended by her pusillanimous children, the effeminate

lisp of the sonnetteer is exchanged for a cry, wild, and solemn, and piercing as that which proclaimed "Sleep

no more" to the bloody house of Cawdor. "Italy seems not to feel her sufferings," exclaims her impassioned

poet; "decrepit, sluggish, and languid, will she sleep forever? Will there be none to awake her? Oh that I had

("Che suoi guai non par che senta; Vecchia, oziosa, e lenta. Dormira sempre, e non fia chi la svegli? Le man l'

Nor is it with less energy that he denounces against the Mahometan Babylon the vengeance of Europe and of

Christ. His magnificent enumeration of the ancient exploits of the Greeks must always excite admiration, and

cannot be perused without the deepest interest, at a time when the wise and good, bitterly disappointed in so

many other countries, are looking with breathless anxiety towards the natal land of liberty,the field of

Marathon,and the deadly pass where the Lion of Lacedaemon turned to bay. ("Maratona, e le mortali

His poems on religious subjects also deserve the highest commendation. At the head of these must be placed

the Ode to the Virgin. It is, perhaps, the finest hymn in the world. His devout veneration receives an

exquisitely poetical character from the delicate perception of the sex and the loveliness of his idol, which we

I could dwell with pleasure on these and similar parts of the writings of Petrarch; but I must return to his

amatory poetry: to that he entrusted his fame; and to that he has principally owed it.

The prevailing defect of his best compositions on this subject is the universal brilliancy with which they are

lighted up. The natural language of the passions is, indeed, often figurative and fantastic; and with none is

this more the case than with that of love. Still there is a limit. The feelings should, indeed, have their

ornamental garb; but, like an elegant woman, they should be neither muffled nor exposed. The drapery should

be so arranged, as at once to answer the purposes of modest concealment and judicious display. The

decorations should sometimes be employed to hide a defect, and sometimes to heighten a beauty; but never to

conceal, much less to distort, the charms to which they are subsidiary. The love of Petrarch, on the contrary,

arrays itself like a foppish savage, whose nose is bored with a golden ring, whose skin is painted with

grotesque forms and dazzling colours, and whose ears are drawn down his shoulders by the weight of jewels.

It is a rule, without any exception, in all kinds of composition, that the principal idea, the predominant

feeling, should never be confounded with the accompanying decorations. It should generally be distinguished

from them by greater simplicity of expression; as we recognise Napoleon in the pictures of his battles, amidst

a crowd of embroidered coats and plumes, by his grey cloak and his hat without a feather. In the verses of

Petrarch it is generally impossible to say what thought is meant to be prominent. All is equally elaborate. The

chief wears the same gorgeous and degrading livery with his retinue, and obtains only his share of the

indifferent stare which we bestow upon them in common. The poems have no strong lights and shades, no

background, no foreground;they are like the illuminated figures in an oriental manuscript,plenty of rich

tints and no perspective. Such are the faults of the most celebrated of these compositions. Of those which are

universally acknowledged to be bad it is scarcely possible to speak with patience. Yet they have much in

common with their splendid companions. They differ from them, as a Mayday procession of

chimneysweepers differs from the Field of Cloth of Gold. They have the gaudiness but not the wealth. His

muse belongs to that numerous class of females who have no objection to be dirty, while they can be tawdry.

When his brilliant conceits are exhausted, he supplies their place with metaphysical quibbles, forced

antitheses, bad puns, and execrable charades. In his fifth sonnet he may, I think, be said to have sounded the

lowest chasm of the Bathos. Upon the whole, that piece may be safely pronounced to be the worst attempt at

A strong proof of the truth of these criticisms is, that almost all the sonnets produce exactly the same effect

on the mind of the reader. They relate to all the various moods of a lover, from joy to despair:yet they are

perused, as far as my experience and observation have gone, with exactly the same feeling. The fact is, that in

none of them are the passion and the ingenuity mixed in just proportions. There is not enough sentiment to

dilute the condiments which are employed to season it. The repast which he sets before us resembles the

Spanish entertainment in Dryden's "Mock Astrologer", at which the relish of all the dishes and sauces was

overpowered by the common flavour of spice. Fish,flesh,fowl,everything at table tasted of nothing

The writings of Petrarch may indeed suffer undeservedly from one cause to which I must allude. His

imitators have so much familiarised the ear of Italy and of Europe to the favourite topics of amorous flattery

and lamentation, that we can scarcely think them original when we find them in the first author; and, even

when our understandings have convinced us that they were new to him, they are still old to us. This has been

the fate of many of the finest passages of the most eminent writers. It is melancholy to trace a noble thought

from stage to stage of its profanation; to see it transferred from the first illustrious wearer to his lacqueys,

turned, and turned again, and at last hung on a scarecrow. Petrarch has really suffered much from this cause.

Yet that he should have so suffered is a sufficient proof that his excellences were not of the highest order. A

line may be stolen; but the pervading spirit of a great poet is not to be surreptitiously obtained by a plagiarist.

The continued imitation of twentyfive centuries has left Homer as it found him. If every simile and every

turn of Dante had been copied ten thousand times, the Divine Comedy would have retained all its freshness.

It was easy for the porter in Farquhar to pass for Beau Clincher, by borrowing his lace and his pulvilio. It

Before I quit this subject I must defend Petrarch from one accusation which is in the present day frequently

brought against him. His sonnets are pronounced by a large sect of critics not to possess certain qualities

which they maintain to be indispensable to sonnets, with as much confidence, and as much reason, as their

prototypes of old insisted on the unities of the drama. I am an exotericutterly unable to explain the

mysteries of this new poetical faith. I only know that it is a faith, which except a man do keep pure and

undefiled, without doubt he shall be called a blockhead. I cannot, however, refrain from asking what is the

particular virtue which belongs to fourteen as distinguished from all other numbers. Does it arise from its

being a multiple of seven? Has this principle any reference to the sabbatical ordinance? Or is it to the order of

rhymes that these singular properties are attached? Unhappily the sonnets of Shakspeare differ as much in

this respect from those of Petrarch, as from a Spenserian or an octave stanza. Away with this unmeaning

jargon! We have pulled down the old regime of criticism. I trust that we shall never tolerate the equally

pedantic and irrational despotism, which some of the revolutionary leaders would erect upon its ruins. We

These sonnetfanciers would do well to reflect that, though the style of Petrarch may not suit the standard of

perfection which they have chosen, they lie under great obligations to these very poems,that, but for

Petrarch the measure, concerning which they legislate so judiciously, would probably never have attracted

notice; and that to him they owe the pleasure of admiring, and the glory of composing, pieces, which seem to

I cannot conclude these remarks without making a few observations on the Latin writings of Petrarch. It

appears that, both by himself and by his contemporaries, these were far more highly valued than his

compositions in the vernacular language. Posterity, the supreme court of literary appeal, has not only reversed

the judgment, but, according to its general practice, reversed it with costs, and condemned the unfortunate

works to pay, not only for their own inferiority, but also for the injustice of those who had given them an

unmerited preference. And it must be owned that, without making large allowances for the circumstances

under which they were produced, we cannot pronounce a very favourable judgment. They must be considered

as exotics, transplanted to a foreign climate, and reared in an unfavourable situation; and it would be

unreasonable to expect from them the health and the vigour which we find in the indigenous plants around

them, or which they might themselves have possessed in their native soil. He has but very imperfectly

imitated the style of the Latin authors, and has not compensated for the deficiency by enriching the ancient

language with the graces of modern poetry. The splendour and ingenuity, which we admire, even when we

condemn it, in his Italian works, is almost totally wanting, and only illuminates with rare and occasional

glimpses the dreary obscurity of the African. The eclogues have more animation; but they can only be called

poems by courtesy. They have nothing in common with his writings in his native language, except the eternal

pun about Laura and Daphne. None of these works would have placed him on a level with Vida or Buchanan.

Yet, when we compare him with those who preceded him, when we consider that he went on the forlorn hope

of literature, that he was the first who perceived, and the first who attempted to revive, the finer elegancies of

the ancient language of the world, we shall perhaps think more highly of him than of those who could never

He has aspired to emulate the philosophical eloquence of Cicero, as well as the poetical majesty of Virgil. His

essay on the Remedies of Good and Evil Fortune is a singular work in a colloquial form, and a most

scholastic style. It seems to be framed upon the model of the Tusculan Questions,with what success those

who have read it may easily determine. It consists of a series of dialogues: in each of these a person is

introduced who has experienced some happy or some adverse event: he gravely states his case; and a

reasoner, or rather Reason personified, confutes him; a task not very difficult, since the disciple defends his

position only by pertinaciously repeating it, in almost the same words at the end of every argument of his

antagonist. In this manner Petrarch solves an immense variety of cases. Indeed, I doubt whether it would be

possible to name any pleasure or any calamity which does not find a place in this dissertation. He gives

excellent advice to a man who is in expectation of discovering the philosopher's stone;to another, who has

formed a fine aviary;to a third, who is delighted with the tricks of a favourite monkey. His lectures to the

unfortunate are equally singular. He seems to imagine that a precedent in point is a sufficient consolation for

every form of suffering. "Our town is taken," says one complainant; "So was Troy," replies his comforter.

"My wife has eloped," says another; "If it has happened to you once, it happened to Menelaus twice." One

poor fellow is in great distress at having discovered that his wife's son is none of his. "It is hard," says he,

"that I should have had the expense of bringing up one who is indifferent to me." "You are a man," returns his

monitor, quoting the famous line of Terence; "and nothing that belongs to any other man ought to be

indifferent to you." The physical calamities of life are not omitted; and there is in particular a disquisition on

the advantages of having the itch, which, if not convincing, is certainly very amusing.

The invectives on an unfortunate physician, or rather upon the medical science, have more spirit. Petrarch

was thoroughly in earnest on this subject. And the bitterness of his feelings occasionally produces, in the

midst of his classical and scholastic pedantry, a sentence worthy of the second Philippic. Swift himself might

Of his Latin works the Epistles are the most generally known and admired. As compositions they are

certainly superior to his essays. But their excellence is only comparative. From so large a collection of letters,

written by so eminent a man, during so varied and eventful a life, we should have expected a complete and

spirited view of the literature, the manners, and the politics of the age. A travellera poeta scholara

lovera courtiera reclusehe might have perpetuated, in an imperishable record, the form and pressure

of the age and body of the time. Those who read his correspondence, in the hope of finding such information

as this, will be utterly disappointed. It contains nothing characteristic of the period or of the individual. It is a

series, not of letters, but of themes; and, as it is not generally known, might be very safely employed at public

schools as a magazine of commonplaces. Whether he write on politics to the Emperor and the Doge, or send

advice and consolation to a private friend, every line is crowded with examples and quotations, and sounds

big with Anaxagoras and Scipio. Such was the interest excited by the character of Petrarch, and such the

admiration which was felt for his epistolary style, that it was with difficulty that his letters reached the place

of their destination. The poet describes, with pretended regret and real complacency, the importunity of the

curious, who often opened, and sometimes stole, these favourite compositions. It is a remarkable fact that, of

all his epistles, the least affected are those which are addressed to the dead and the unborn. Nothing can be

more absurd than his whim of composing grave letters of expostulation and commendation to Cicero and

Seneca; yet these strange performances are written in a far more natural manner than his communications to

his living correspondents. But of all his Latin works the preference must be given to the Epistle to Posterity; a

simple, noble, and pathetic composition, most honourable both to his taste and his heart. If we can make

allowance for some of the affected humility of an author, we shall perhaps think that no literary man has left a

In conclusion, we may pronounce that the works of Petrarch were below both his genius and his celebrity;

and that the circumstances under which he wrote were as adverse to the development of his powers as they

The parish of St Dennis is one of the most pleasant parts of the county in which it is situated. It is fertile, well

wooded, well watered, and of an excellent air. For many generations the manor had been holden in tailmale

by a worshipful family, who have always taken precedence of their neighbours at the races and the sessions.

In ancient times the affairs of this parish were administered by a CourtBaron, in which the freeholders were

judges; and the rates were levied by select vestries of the inhabitant householders. But at length these good

customs fell into disuse. The Lords of the Manor, indeed, still held courts for form's sake; but they or their

stewards had the whole management of affairs. They demanded services, duties, and customs to which they

had no just title. Nay, they would often bring actions against their neighbours for their own private advantage,

and then send in the bill to the parish. No objection was made, during many years, to these proceedings, so

that the rates became heavier and heavier: nor was any person exempted from these demands, except the

footmen and gamekeepers of the squire and the rector of the parish. They indeed were never checked in any

excess. They would come to an honest labourer's cottage, eat his pancakes, tuck his fowls into their pockets,

and cane the poor man himself. If he went up to the great house to complain, it was hard to get the speech of

Sir Lewis; and, indeed, his only chance of being righted was to coax the squire's pretty housekeeper, who

could do what she pleased with her master. If he ventured to intrude upon the Lord of the Manor without this

precaution, he gained nothing by his pains. Sir Lewis, indeed, would at first receive him with a civil face; for,

to give him his due, he could be a fine gentleman when he pleased. "Good day, my friend," he would say,

"what situation have you in my family?" "Bless your honour!" says the poor fellow, "I am not one of your

honour's servants; I rent a small piece of ground, your honour." "Then, you dog," quoth the squire, "what do

you mean by coming here? Has a gentleman nothing to do but to hear the complaints of clowns? Here! Philip,

James, Dick, toss this fellow in a blanket; or duck him, and set him in the stocks to dry."

One of these precious Lords of the Manor enclosed a deerpark; and, in order to stock it, he seized all the

pretty pet fawns that his tenants had brought up, without paying them a farthing, or asking their leave. It was

a sad day for the parish of St Dennis. Indeed, I do not believe that all his oppressive exactions and long bills

Yet for a long time, in spite of all these inconveniences, St Dennis's was a very pleasant place. The people

could not refrain from capering if they heard the sound of a fiddle. And, if they were inclined to be riotous,

Sir Lewis had only to send for Punch, or the dancing dogs, and all was quiet again. But this could not last

forever; they began to think more and more of their condition; and, at last, a club of foulmouthed,

goodfor nothing rascals was held at the sign of the Devil, for the purpose of abusing the squire and the

parson. The doctor, to own the truth, was old and indolent, extremely fat and greedy. He had not preached a

tolerable sermon for a long time. The squire was still worse; so that, partly by truth and partly by falsehood,

the club set the whole parish against their superiors. The boys scrawled caricatures of the clergyman upon the

church door, and shot at the landlord with popguns as he rode a hunting. It was even whispered about that

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS AND ST GEORGE IN THE WATER. 50

the Lord of the Manor had no right to his estate, and that, if he were compelled to produce the original

titledeeds, it would be found that he only held the estate in trust for the inhabitants of the parish.

In the meantime the squire was pressed more and more for money. The parish could pay no more. The rector

refused to lend a farthing. The Jews were clamorous for their money; and the landlord had no other resource

than to call together the inhabitants of the parish, and to request their assistance. They now attacked him

furiously about their grievances, and insisted that he should relinquish his oppressive powers. They insisted

that his footmen should be kept in order, that the parson should pay his share of the rates, that the children of

the parish should be allowed to fish in the troutstream, and to gather blackberries in the hedges. They at last

went so far as to demand that he should acknowledge that he held his estate only in trust for them. His

distress compelled him to submit. They, in return, agreed to set him free from his pecuniary difficulties, and

to suffer him to inhabit the manorhouse; and only annoyed him from time to time by singing impudent

The neighbouring gentlefolks did not look on these proceedings with much complacency. It is true that Sir

Lewis and his ancestors had plagued them with lawsuits, and affronted them at county meetings. Still they

preferred the insolence of a gentleman to that of the rabble, and felt some uneasiness lest the example should

A large party of them met at the house of Lord Caesar Germain. Lord Caesar was the proudest man in the

county. His family was very ancient and illustrious, though not particularly opulent. He had invited most of

his wealthy neighbours. There was Mrs Kitty North, the relict of poor Squire Peter, respecting whom the

coroner's jury had found a verdict of accidental death, but whose fate had nevertheless excited strange

whispers in the neighbourhood. There was Squire Don, the owner of the great West Indian property, who was

not so rich as he had formerly been, but still retained his pride, and kept up his customary pomp; so that he

had plenty of plate but no breeches. There was Squire Von Blunderbussen, who had succeeded to the estates

of his uncle, old Colonel Frederic Von Blunderbussen, of the hussars. The colonel was a very singular old

fellow; he used to learn a page of Chambaud's grammar, and to translate Telemaque, every morning, and he

kept six French masters to teach him to parleyvoo. Nevertheless he was a shrewd clever man, and improved

his estate with so much care, sometimes by honest and sometimes by dishonest means, that he left a very

Lord Caesar poured out a glass of Tokay for Mrs Kitty. "Your health, my dear madam, I never saw you look

"Fine doings, indeed!" interrupted Von Blunderbussen; "I wish that we had my old uncle alive, he would

have had some of them up to the halberts. He knew how to usa cato'ninetails. If things go on in this way,

a gentleman will not be able to horsewhip an impudent farmer, or to say a civil word to a milk maid."

"Indeed, it's very true, Sir," said Mrs Kitty; "their insolence is intolerable. Look at me, for instance:a poor

lone woman! My dear Peter dead! I loved him:so I did; and, when he died, I was so hysterical you

cannot think. And now I cannot lean on the arm of a decent footman, or take a walk with a tall grenadier

behind me, just to protect me from audacious vagabonds, but they must have their nauseous

"This must be stopped," replied Lord Caesar. "We ought to contribute to support my poor brotherinlaw

against these rascals. I will write to Squire Guelf on this subject by this night's post. His name is always at the

If the people of St Dennis's had been angry before, they were wellnigh mad when they heard of this

conversation. The whole parish ran to the manorhouse. Sir Lewis's Swiss porter shut the door against them;

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS AND ST GEORGE IN THE WATER. 51

but they broke in and knocked him on the head for his impudence. They then seized the Squire, hooted at

him, pelted him, ducked him, and carried him to the watchhouse. They turned the rector into the street,

burnt his wig and band, and sold the churchplate by auction. They put up a painted Jezebel in the pulpit to

preach. They scratched out the texts which were written round the church, and scribbled profane scraps of

songs and plays in their place. They set the organ playing to pot house tunes. Instead of being decently

asked in church, they were married over a broomstick. But, of all their whims, the use of the new patent

This trap was constructed on a completely new principle. It consisted of a cleaver hung in a frame like a

window; when any poor wretch got in, down it came with a tremendous din, and took off his head in a

twinkling. They got the squire into one of these machines. In order to prevent any of his partisans from

getting footing in the parish, they placed traps at every corner. It was impossible to walk through the highway

at broad noon without tumbling into one or other of them. No man could go about his business in security.

Yet so great was the hatred which the inhabitants entertained for the old family, that a few decent, honest

people, who begged them to take down the steel traps, and to put up humane mantraps in their room, were

In the meantime the neighbouring gentry undertook a suit against the parish on the behalf of Sir Lewis's heir,

Everybody knows that Squire Guelf is more closely tied up than any gentleman in the shire. He could,

therefore, lend them no help; but he referred them to the Vestry of the Parish of St George in the Water.

These good people had long borne a grudge against their neighbours on the other side of the stream; and

There was an honest Irishman, a great favourite among them, who used to entertain them with rareeshows,

and to exhibit a magic lantern to the children on winter evenings. He had gone quite mad upon this subject.

Sometimes he would call out in the middle of the street"Take care of that corner, neighbours; for the love

of Heaven, keep clear of that post, there is a patent steel trap concealed thereabouts." Sometimes he would

be disturbed by frightful dreams; then he would get up at dead of night, open his window and cry "fire," till

the parish was roused, and the engines sent for. The pulpit of the Parish of St George seemed likely to fall; I

believe that the only reason was that the parson had grown too fat and heavy; but nothing would persuade this

honest man but that it was a scheme of the people at St Dennis's, and that they had sawed through the pillars

in order to break the rector's neck. Once he went about with a knife in his pocket, and told all the persons

whom he met that it had been sharpened by the knifegrinder of the next parish to cut their throats. These

extravagancies had a great effect on the people; and the more so because they were espoused by Squire

Guelf's steward, who was the most influential person in the parish. He was a very fairspoken man, very

attentive to the main chance, and the idol of the old women, because he never played at skittles or danced

with the girls; and, indeed, never took any recreation but that of drinking on Saturday nights with his friend

Harry, the Scotch pedlar. His supporters called him Sweet William; his enemies the Bottomless Pit.

The people of St Dennis's, however, had their advocates. There was Frank, the richest farmer in the parish,

whose great grandfather had been knocked on the head many years before, in a squabble between the parish

and a former landlord. There was Dick, the merryandrew, rather lightfingered and riotous, but a clever

droll fellow. Above all, there was Charley, the publican, a jolly, fat, honest lad, a great favourite with the

women, who, if he had not been rather too fond of ale and chuckfarthing, would have been the best fellow

"My boys," said Charley, "this is exceedingly well for Madam North;not that I would speak uncivilly of

her; she put up my picture in her best room, bless her for it! But, I say, this is very well for her, and for Lord

Caesar, and Squire Don, and Colonel Von;but what affair is it of yours or mine? It is not to be wondered

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS AND ST GEORGE IN THE WATER. 52

at, that gentlemen should wish to keep poor people out of their own. But it is strange indeed that they should

expect the poor themselves to combine against their own interests. If the folks at St Dennis's should attack us

we have the law and our cudgels to protect us. But why, in the name of wonder, are we to attack them? When

old Sir Charles, who was Lord of the Manor formerly, and the parson, who was presented by him to the

living, tried to bully the vestry, did not we knock their heads together, and go to meeting to hear Jeremiah

Ringletub preach? And did the Squire Don, or the great Sir Lewis, that lived at that time, or the Germains,

say a word against us for it? Mind your own business, my lads: law is not to be had for nothing; and we, you

Nevertheless the people of St George's were resolved on law. They cried out most lustily, "Squire Guelf for

ever! Sweet William for ever! No steel traps!" Squire Guelf took all the rascally footmen who had worn old

Sir Lewis's livery into his service. They were fed in the kitchen on the very best of everything, though they

had no settlement. Many people, and the paupers in particular, grumbled at these proceedings. The steward,

There had lived in this parish for many years an old gentleman, named Sir Habeas Corpus. He was said by

some to be of Saxon, by some of Norman, extraction. Some maintain that he was not born till after the time

of Sir Charles, to whom we have before alluded. Others are of opinion that he was a legitimate son of old

Lady Magna Charta, although he was long concealed and kept out of his birthright. Certain it is that he was a

very benevolent person. Whenever any poor fellow was taken up on grounds which he thought insufficient,

he used to attend on his behalf and bail him; and thus he had become so popular, that to take direct measures

The steward, accordingly, brought a dozen physicians to examine Sir Habeas. After consultation, they

reported that he was in a very bad way, and ought not, on any account, to be allowed to stir out for several

months. Fortified with this authority, the parish officers put him to bed, closed his windows, and barred his

doors. They paid him every attention, and from time to time issued bulletins of his health. The steward never

spoke of him without declaring that he was the best gentleman in the world; but excellent care was taken that

When this obstacle was removed, the Squire and the steward kept the parish in excellent order; flogged this

man, sent that man to the stocks, and pushed forward the lawsuit with a noble disregard of expense. They

were, however, wanting either in skill or in fortune. And everything went against them after their antagonists

Who does not know the name of Solicitor Nap? At what alehouse is not his behaviour discussed? In what

printshop is not his picture seen? Yet how little truth has been said about him! Some people hold that he

used to give laudanum by pints to his six clerks for his amusement. Others, whose number has very much

increased since he was killed by the gaol distemper, conceive that he was the very model of honour and

He was assuredly an excellent solicitor. In his way he never was surpassed. As soon as the parish began to

employ him, their cause took a turn. In a very little time they were successful; and Nap became rich. He now

set up for a gentleman; took possession of the old manorhouse; got into the commission of the peace, and

affected to be on a par with the best of the county. He governed the vestries as absolutely as the old family

had done. Yet, to give him his due, he managed things with far more discretion than either Sir Lewis or the

rioters who had pulled the Lords of the Manor down. He kept his servants in tolerable order. He removed the

steel traps from the highways and the corners of the streets. He still left a few indeed in the more exposed

parts of his premises; and set up a board announcing that traps and spring guns were set in his grounds. He

brought the poor parson back to the parish; and, though he did not enable him to keep a fine house and a

coach as formerly, he settled him in a snug little cottage, and allowed him a pleasant padnag. He

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS AND ST GEORGE IN THE WATER. 53

whitewashed the church again; and put the stocks, which had been much wanted of late, into good repair.

With the neighbouring gentry, however, he was no favourite. He was crafty and litigious. He cared nothing

for right, if he could raise a point of law against them. He pounded their cattle, broke their hedges, and

seduced their tenants from them. He almost ruined Lord Caesar with actions, in every one of which he was

successful. Von Blunderbussen went to law with him for an alleged trespass, but was cast, and almost ruined

by the costs of suit. He next took a fancy to the seat of Squire Don, who was, to say the truth, little better than

an idiot. He asked the poor dupe to dinner, and then threatened to have him tossed in a blanket unless he

would make over his estates to him. The poor Squire signed and sealed a deed by which the property was

assigned to Joe, a brother of Nap's, in trust for and to the use of Nap himself. The tenants, however, stood out.

They maintained that the estate was entailed, and refused to pay rents to the new landlord; and in this refusal

About the same time Nap took it into his head to match with quality, and nothing would serve him but one of

the Miss Germains. Lord Caesar swore like a trooper; but there was no help for it. Nap had twice put

executions in his principal residence, and had refused to discharge the latter of the two till he had extorted a

I have thought it good to set down in writing a memorable debate, wherein I was a listener, and two men of

pregnant parts and great reputation discoursers; hoping that my friends will not be displeased to have a record

both of the strange times through which I have lived, and of the famous men with whom I have conversed. It

chanced in the warm and beautiful spring of the year 1665, a little before the saddest summer that ever

London saw, that I went to the Bowling Green at Piccadilly, whither, at that time, the best gentry made

continual resorts. There I met Mr Cowley, who had lately left Barnelms. There was then a house preparing

for him at Chertsey; and till it should be finished, he had come up for a short time to London, that he might

urge a suit to his Grace of Buckingham touching certain lands of her Majesty's, whereof he requested a lease.

I had the honour to be familiarly acquainted with that worthy gentleman and most excellent poet, whose

death hath been deplored with as general a consent of all Powers that delight in the woods, or in verse, or in

After some talk, which it is not material to set down at large, concerning his suit and his vexations at the

court, where indeed his honesty did him more harm than his parts could do him good, I entreated him to dine

with me at my lodging in the Temple, which he most courteously promised. And, that so eminent a guest

might not lack a better entertainment than cooks or vintners can provide, I sent to the house of Mr John

Milton, in the Artillery Walk, to beg that he would also be my guest. For, though he had been secretary, first

to the Council of State, and, after that, to the Protector, and Mr Cowley had held the same post under the Lord

St Albans in his banishment, I hoped, notwithstanding that they would think themselves rather united by their

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 54

common art than divided by their different factions. And so indeed it proved. For, while we sat at table, they

talked freely of many men and things, as well ancient as modern, with much civility. Nay, Mr Milton, who

seldom tasted wine, both because of his singular temperance and because of his gout, did more than once

pledge Mr Cowley, who was indeed no hermit in diet. At last, being heated, Mr Milton begged that I would

open the windows. "Nay," said I, "if you desire fresh air and coolness, what should hinder us, as the evening

is fair, from sailing for an hour on the river?" To this they both cheerfully consented; and forth we walked,

Mr Cowley and I leading Mr Milton between us, to the Temple Stairs. There we took a boat; and thence we

The wind was pleasant; the evening fine; the sky, the earth, and the water beautiful to look upon. But Mr

Cowley and I held our peace, and said nothing of the gay sights around us, lest we should too feelingly

remind Mr Milton of his calamity; whereof, however, he needed no monitor: for soon he said, sadly, "Ah, Mr

Cowley, you are a happy man. What would I now give but for one more look at the sun, and the waters, and

"I know not," said Mr Cowley, "whether we ought not rather to envy you for that which makes you to envy

others: and that specially in this place, where all eyes which are not closed in blindness ought to become

fountains of tears. What can we look upon which is not a memorial of change and sorrow, of fair things

vanished, and evil things done? When I see the gate of Whitehall, and the stately pillars of the Banqueting

House, I cannot choose but think of what I have there seen in former days, masques, and pageants, and

dances, and smiles, and the waving of graceful heads, and the bounding of delicate feet. And then I turn to

thoughts of other things, which even to remember makes me to blush and weep;of the great black scaffold,

and the axe and block, which were placed before those very windows; and the voice seems to sound in mine

ears, the lawless and terrible voice, which cried out that the head of a king was the head of a traitor. There

stands Westminster Hall, which who can look upon, and not tremble to think how time, and change, and

death confound the councils of the wise, and beat down the weapons of the mighty? How have I seen it

surrounded with tens of thousands of petitioners crying for justice and privilege! How have I heard it shake

with fierce and proud words, which made the hearts of the people burn within them! Then it is blockaded by

dragoons, and cleared by pikemen. And they who have conquered their master go forth trembling at the word

of their servant. And yet a little while, and the usurper comes forth from it, in his robe of ermine, with the

golden staff in one hand and the Bible in the other, amidst the roaring of the guns and the shouting of the

people. And yet again a little while, and the doors are thronged with multitudes in black, and the hearse and

the plumes come forth; and the tyrant is borne, in more than royal pomp, to a royal sepulchre. A few days

more, and his head is fixed to rot on the pinnacles of that very hall where he sat on a throne in his life, and lay

in state after his death. When I think on all these things, to look round me makes me sad at heart. True it is

that God hath restored to us our old laws, and the rightful line of our kings. Yet, how I know not, but it seems

to me that something is wantingthat our court hath not the old gravity, nor our people the old loyalty.

These evil times, like the great deluge, have overwhelmed and confused all earthly things. And, even as those

waters, though at last they abated, yet, as the learned write, destroyed all trace of the garden of Eden, so that

its place hath never since been found, so hath this opening of all the floodgates of political evil effaced all

"Sir, by your favour," said Mr Milton, "though, from many circumstances both of body and of fortune, I

might plead fairer excuses for despondency than yourself, I yet look not so sadly either on the past or on the

future. That a deluge hath passed over this our nation, I deny not. But I hold it not to be such a deluge as that

of which you speak; but rather a blessed flood, like those of the Nile, which in its overflow doth indeed wash

away ancient landmarks, and confound boundaries, and sweep away dwellings, yea, doth give birth to many

foul and dangerous reptiles. Yet hence is the fulness of the granary, the beauty of the garden, the nurture of

"I remember well, Mr Cowley, what you have said concerning these things in your Discourse of the

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 55

Government of Oliver Cromwell, which my friend Elwood read to me last year. Truly, for elegance and

rhetoric, that essay is to be compared with the finest tractates of Isocrates and Cicero. But neither that nor any

other book, nor any events, which with most men have, more than any book, weight and authority, have

altered my opinion, that, of all assemblies that ever were in this world, the best and the most useful was our

Long Parliament. I speak not this as wishing to provoke debate; which neither yet do I decline."

Mr Cowley was, as I could see, a little nettled. Yet, as he was a man of a kind disposition and a most refined

courtesy, he put a force upon himself, and answered with more vehemence and quickness indeed than was his

wont, yet not uncivilly. "Surely, Mr Milton, you speak not as you think. I am indeed one of those who believe

that God hath reserved to himself the censure of kings, and that their crimes and oppressions are not to be

resisted by the hands of their subjects. Yet can I easily find excuse for the violence of such as are stung to

madness by grievous tyranny. But what shall we say for these men? Which of their just demands was not

granted? Which even of their cruel and unreasonable requisitions, so as it were not inconsistent with all law

and order, was refused? Had they not sent Strafford to the block and Laud to the Tower? Had they not

destroyed the Courts of the High Commission and the Star Chamber? Had they not reversed the proceedings

confirmed by the voices of the judges of England, in the matter of shipmoney? Had they not taken from the

king his ancient and most lawful power touching the order of knighthood? Had they not provided that, after

their dissolution, triennial parliaments should be holden, and that their own power should continue till of their

great condescension they should be pleased to resign it themselves? What more could they ask? Was it not

enough that they had taken from their king all his oppressive powers, and many that were most salutary? Was

it not enough that they had filled his councilboard with his enemies, and his prisons with his adherents? Was

it not enough that they had raised a furious multitude, to shout and swagger daily under the very windows of

his royal palace? Was it not enough that they had taken from him the most blessed prerogative of princely

mercy; that, complaining of intolerance themselves, they had denied all toleration to others; that they had

urged, against forms, scruples childish as those of any formalist; that they had persecuted the least remnant of

the popish rites with the fiercest bitterness of the popish spirit? Must they besides all this have full power to

"For military command, it was never known in any monarchy, nay, in any well ordered republic, that it was

committed to the debates of a large and unsettled assembly. For their other requisition, that he should give up

to their vengeance all who had defended the rights of his crown, his honour must have been ruined if he had

complied. Is it not therefore plain that they desired these things only in order that, by refusing, his Majesty

"Men have often risen up against fraud, against cruelty, against rapine. But when before was it known that

concessions were met with importunities, graciousness with insults, the open palm of bounty with the

clenched fist of malice? Was it like trusty delegates of the Commons of England, and faithful stewards of

their liberty and their wealth, to engage them for such causes in civil war, which both to liberty and to wealth

is of all things the most hostile. Evil indeed must be the disease which is not more tolerable than such a

medicine. Those who, even to save a nation from tyrants, excite it to civil war do in general but minister to it

the same miserable kind of relief wherewith the wizards of Pharaoh mocked the Egyptian. We read that,

when Moses had turned their waters into blood, those impious magicians, intending, not benefit to the

thirsting people, but vain and emulous ostentation of their own art, did themselves also change into blood the

water which the plague had spared. Such sad comfort do those who stir up war minister to the oppressed. But

here where was the oppression? What was the favour which had not been granted? What was the evil which

"These questions," said Mr Milton, austerely, "have indeed often deceived the ignorant; but that Mr Cowley

should have been so beguiled, I marvel. You ask what more the Parliament could desire? I will answer you in

one word, security. What are votes, and statutes, and resolutions? They have no eyes to see, no hands to strike

and avenge. They must have some safeguard from without. Many things, therefore, which in themselves were

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 56

peradventure hurtful, was this Parliament constrained to ask, lest otherwise good laws and precious rights

should be without defence. Nor did they want a great and signal example of this danger. I need not remind

you that, many years before, the two Houses had presented to the king the Petition of Right, wherein were set

down all the most valuable privileges of the people of this realm. Did not Charles accept it? Did he not

declare it to be law? Was it not as fully enacted as ever were any of those bills of the Long Parliament

concerning which you spoke? And were those privileges therefore enjoyed more fully by the people? No: the

king did from that time redouble his oppressions as if to avenge himself for the shame of having been

compelled to renounce them. Then were our estates laid under shameful impositions, our houses ransacked,

our bodies imprisoned. Then was the steel of the hangman blunted with mangling the ears of harmless men.

Then our very minds were fettered, and the iron entered into our souls. Then we were compelled to hide our

hatred, our sorrow, and our scorn, to laugh with hidden faces at the mummery of Laud, to curse under our

breath the tyranny of Wentworth. Of old time it was well and nobly said, by one of our kings, that an

Englishman ought to be as free as his thoughts. Our prince reversed the maxim; he strove to make our

thoughts as much slaves as ourselves. To sneer at a Romish pageant, to miscall a lord's crest, were crimes for

which there was no mercy. These were all the fruits which we gathered from those excellent laws of the

former Parliament, from these solemn promises of the king. Were we to be deceived again? Were we again to

give subsidies, and receive nothing but promises? Were we again to make wholesome statutes, and then leave

them to be broken daily and hourly, until the oppressor should have squandered another supply, and should

be ready for another perjury? You ask what they could desire which he had not already granted. Let me ask of

you another question. What pledge could he give which he had not already violated? From the first year of

his reign, whenever he had need of the purses of his Commons to support the revels of Buckingham or the

processions of Laud, he had assured them that, as he was a gentleman and a king, he would sacredly preserve

their rights. He had pawned those solemn pledges, and pawned them again and again; but when had he

redeemed them? 'Upon my faith,''Upon my sacred word,''Upon the honour of a prince,' came so

easily from his lips, and dwelt so short a time on his mind that they were as little to be trusted as the 'By the

"Therefore it is that I praise this Parliament for what else I might have condemned. If what he had granted

had been granted graciously and readily, if what he had before promised had been faithfully observed, they

could not be defended. It was because he had never yielded the worst abuse without a long struggle, and

seldom without a large bribe; it was because he had no sooner disentangled himself from his troubles than he

forgot his promises; and, more like a villainous huckster than a great king, kept both the prerogative and the

large price which had been paid to him to forego it; it was because of these things that it was necessary and

just to bind with forcible restraints one who could be bound neither by law nor honour. Nay, even while he

was making those very concessions of which you speak, he betrayed his deadly hatred against the people and

their friends. Not only did he, contrary to all that ever was deemed lawful in England, order that members of

the Commons House of Parliament should be impeached of high treason at the bar of the Lords; thereby

violating both the trial by jury and the privileges of the House; but, not content with breaking the law by his

ministers, he went himself armed to assail it. In the birthplace and sanctuary of freedom, in the House itself;

nay in the very chair of the speaker, placed for the protection of free speech and privilege, he sat, rolling his

eyes round the benches, searching for those whose blood he desired, and singling out his opposers to the

slaughter. This most foul outrage fails. Then again for the old arts. Then come gracious messages. Then come

courteous speeches. Then is again mortgaged his often forfeited honour. He will never again violate the laws.

He will respect their rights as if they were his own. He pledges the dignity of his crown; that crown which

had been committed to him for the weal of his people, and which he never named, but that he might the more

"The power of the sword, I grant you, was not one to be permanently possessed by Parliament. Neither did

that Parliament demand it as a permanent possession. They asked it only for temporary security. Nor can I see

on what conditions they could safely make peace with that false and wicked king, save such as would deprive

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 57

"For civil war, that it is an evil I dispute not. But that it is the greatest of evils, that I stoutly deny. It doth

indeed appear to the misjudging to be a worse calamity than bad government, because its miseries are

collected together within a short space and time, and may easily at one view be taken in and perceived. But

the misfortunes of nations ruled by tyrants, being distributed over many centuries and many places, as they

are of greater weight and number, so are they of less display. When the Devil of tyranny hath gone into the

body politic he departs not but with struggles, and foaming, and great convulsions. Shall he, therefore, vex it

for ever, lest, in going out, he for a moment tear and rend it? Truly this argument touching the evils of war

would better become my friend Elwood, or some other of the people called Quakers, than a courtier and a

cavalier. It applies no more to this war than to all others, as well foreign as domestic, and, in this war, no

more to the Houses than to the king; nay, not so much, since he by a little sincerity and moderation might

have rendered that needless which their duty to God and man then enforced them to do."

"Pardon me, Mr Milton," said Mr Cowley; "I grieve to hear you speak thus of that good king. Most unhappy

indeed he was, in that he reigned at a time when the spirit of the then living generation was for freedom, and

the precedents of former ages for prerogative. His case was like to that of Christopher Columbus, when he

sailed forth on an unknown ocean, and found that the compass, whereby he shaped his course, had shifted

from the north pole whereto before it had constantly pointed. So it was with Charles. His compass varied; and

therefore he could not tack aright. If he had been an absolute king he would doubtless, like Titus Vespasian,

have been called the delight of the human race. If he had been a Doge of Venice, or a Stadtholder of Holland,

he would never have outstepped the laws. But he lived when our government had neither clear definitions nor

strong sanctions. Let, therefore, his faults be ascribed to the time. Of his virtues the praise is his own.

"Never was there a more gracious prince, or a more proper gentleman. In every pleasure he was temperate, in

conversation mild and grave, in friendship constant, to his servants liberal, to his queen faithful and loving, in

battle grave, in sorrow and captivity resolved, in death most Christian and forgiving.

"For his oppressions, let us look at the former history of this realm. James was never accounted a tyrant.

Elizabeth is esteemed to have been the mother of her people. Were they less arbitrary? Did they never lay

hands on the purses of their subjects but by Act of Parliament? Did they never confine insolent and

disobedient men but in due course of law? Was the court of Star Chamber less active? Were the ears of

libellers more safe? I pray you, let not king Charles be thus dealt with. It was enough that in his life he was

tried for an alleged breach of laws which none ever heard named till they were discovered for his destruction.

Let not his fame be treated as was his sacred and anointed body. Let not his memory be tried by principles

found out ex post facto. Let us not judge by the spirit of one generation a man whose disposition had been

"Nay, but conceive me, Mr Cowley," said Mr Milton; "inasmuch as, at the beginning of his reign, he imitated

those who had governed before him, I blame him not. To expect that kings will, of their own free choice,

abridge their prerogative, were argument of but slender wisdom. Whatever, therefore, lawless, unjust, or

cruel, he either did or permitted during the first years of his reign, I pass by. But for what was done after that

he had solemnly given his consent to the Petition of Right, where shall we find defence? Let it be supposed,

which yet I concede not, that the tyranny of his father and of Queen Elizabeth had been no less rigorous than

was his. But had his father, had that queen, sworn like him, to abstain from those rigours? Had they, like him,

for good and valuable consideration, aliened their hurtful prerogatives? Surely not: from whatever excuse you

can plead for him he had wholly excluded himself. The borders of countries, we know, are mostly the seats of

perpetual wars and tumults. It was the same with the undefined frontiers, which of old separated privilege and

prerogative. They were the debatable land of our polity. It was no marvel if, both on the one side and on the

other, inroads were often made. But, when treaties have been concluded, spaces measured, lines drawn,

landmarks set up, that which before might pass for innocent error or just reprisal becomes robbery, perjury,

deadly sin. He knew not, you say, which of his powers were founded on ancient law, and which only on

vicious example. But had he not read the Petition of Right? Had not proclamation been made from his throne,

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 58

"For his private virtues they are beside the question. Remember you not," and Mr Milton smiled, but

somewhat sternly, "what Dr Cauis saith in the Merry Wives of Shakspeare? 'What shall the honest man do in

my closet? There is no honest man that shall come in my closet.' Even so say I. There is no good man who

shall make us his slaves. If he break his word to his people, is it a sufficient defence that he keeps it to his

companions? If he oppress and extort all day, shall he be held blameless because he prayeth at night and

morning? If he be insatiable in plunder and revenge, shall we pass it by because in meat and drink he is

temperate? If he have lived like a tyrant, shall all be forgotten because he hath died like a martyr?

"He was a man, as I think, who had so much semblance of virtues as might make his vices most dangerous.

He was not a tyrant after our wonted English model. The second Richard, the second and fourth Edwards, and

the eighth Harry, were men profuse, gay, boisterous; lovers of women and of wine, of no outward sanctity or

gravity. Charles was a ruler after the Italian fashion; grave, demure, of a solemn carriage, and a sober diet; as

Mr Cowley answered somewhat sharply: "I am sorry, Sir, to hear you speak thus. I had hoped that the

vehemence of spirit which was caused by these violent times had now abated. Yet, sure, Mr Milton, whatever

you may think of the character of King Charles, you will not still justify his murder?"

"Sir," said Mr Milton, "I must have been of a hard and strange nature, if the vehemence which was imputed to

me in my younger days had not been diminished by the afflictions wherewith it hath pleased Almighty God

to chasten my age. I will not now defend all that I may heretofore have written. But this I say, that I perceive

not wherefore a king should be exempted from all punishment. Is it just that where most is given least should

be required? Or politic that where there is the greatest power to injure there should be no danger to restrain?

But, you will say, there is no such law. Such a law there is. There is the law of selfpreservation written by

God himself on our hearts. There is the primal compact and bond of society, not graven on stone, or sealed

with wax, nor put down on parchment, nor set forth in any express form of words by men when of old they

came together; but implied in the very act that they so came together, presupposed in all subsequent law, not

to be repealed by any authority, nor invalidated by being omitted in any code; inasmuch as from thence are

"Neither do I well see wherefore you cavaliers, and, indeed, many of us whom you merrily call Roundheads,

distinguish between those who fought against King Charles, and specially after the second commission given

to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and those who condemned him to death. Sure, if his person were inviolable, it was as

wicked to lift the sword against it at Naseby as the axe at Whitehall. If his life might justly be taken, why not

"Thus much in general as touching the right. But, for the execution of King Charles in particular, I will not

now undertake to defend it. Death is inflicted, not that the culprit may die, but that the state may be thereby

advantaged. And, from all that I know, I think that the death of King Charles hath more hindered than

"First, he left an heir. He was in captivity. The heir was in freedom. He was odious to the Scots. The heir was

favoured by them. To kill the captive therefore, whereby the heir, in the apprehension of all royalists, became

forthwith kingwhat was it, in truth, but to set their captive free, and to give him besides other great

"Next, it was a deed most odious to the people, and not only to your party, but to many among ourselves; and,

as it is perilous for any government to outrage the public opinion, so most was it perilous for a government

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"Yet doth not this properly belong to our dispute; nor can these faults be justly charged upon that most

renowned Parliament. For, as you know, the high court of justice was not established until the House had

been purged of such members as were adverse to the army, and brought wholly under the control of the chief

"And who," said Mr Cowley, "levied that army? Who commissioned those officers? Was not the fate of the

Commons as justly deserved as was that of Diomedes, who was devoured by those horses whom he had

himself taught to feed on the flesh and blood of men? How could they hope that others would respect laws

which they had themselves insulted; that swords which had been drawn against the prerogatives of the king

would be put up at an ordinance of the Commons? It was believed, of old, that there were some devils easily

raised but never to be laid; insomuch that, if a magician called them up, he should be forced to find them

always some employment; for, though they would do all his bidding, yet, if he left them but for one moment

without some work of evil to perform, they would turn their claws against himself. Such a fiend is an army.

They who evoke it cannot dismiss it. They are at once its masters and its slaves. Let them not fail to find for it

task after task of blood and rapine. Let them not leave it for a moment in repose, lest it tear them in pieces.

"Thus was it with that famous assembly. They formed a force which they could neither govern nor resist.

They made it powerful. They made it fanatical. As if military insolence were not of itself sufficiently

dangerous, they heightened it with spiritual pride,they encouraged their soldiers to rave from the tops of

tubs against the men of Belial, till every trooper thought himself a prophet. They taught them to abuse

"Then it was that religion changed her nature. She was no longer the parent of arts and letters, of wholesome

knowledge, of innocent pleasures, of blessed household smiles. In their place came sour faces, whining

voices, the chattering of fools, the yells of madmen. Then men fasted from meat and drink, who fasted not

from bribes and blood. Then men frowned at stageplays, who smiled at massacres. Then men preached

against painted faces, who felt no remorse for their own most painted lives. Religion had been a polestar to

light and to guide. It was now more like to that ominous star in the book of the Apocalypse, which fell from

heaven upon the fountains and rivers and changed them into wormwood; for even so did it descend from its

high and celestial dwellingplace to plague this earth, and to turn into bitterness all that was sweet, and into

"Therefore it was not strange that such things should follow. They who had closed the barriers of London

against the king could not defend them against their own creatures. They who had so stoutly cried for

privilege, when that prince, most unadvisedly no doubt, came among them to demand their members, durst

not wag their fingers when Oliver filled their hall with soldiers, gave their mace to a corporal, put their keys

in his pocket, and drove them forth with base terms, borrowed half from the conventicle and half from the

alehouse. Then were we, like the trees of the forest in holy writ, given over to the rule of the bramble; then

from the basest of the shrubs came forth the fire which devoured the cedars of Lebanon. We bowed down

before a man of mean birth, of ungraceful demeanour, of stammering and most vulgar utterance, of

scandalous and notorious hypocrisy. Our laws were made and unmade at his pleasure; the constitution of our

Parliaments changed by his writ and proclamation; our persons imprisoned; our property plundered; our lands

and houses overrun with soldiers; and the great charter itself was but argument for a scurrilous jest; and for

all this we may thank that Parliament; for never, unless they had so violently shaken the vessel, could such

Then answered Mr Milton: "What you have now said comprehends so great a number of subjects, that it

would require, not an evening's sail on the Thames, but rather a voyage to the Indies, accurately to treat of all:

"First, as to the army. An army, as you have well set forth, is always a weapon dangerous to those who use it;

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yet he who falls among thieves spares not to fire his musquetoon, because he may be slain if it burst in his

hand. Nor must states refrain from defending themselves, lest their defenders should at last turn against them.

Nevertheless, against this danger statesmen should carefully provide; and, that they may do so, they should

take especial care that neither the officers nor the soldiers do forget that they are also citizens. I do believe

that the English army would have continued to obey the parliament with all duty, but for one act, which, as it

was in intention, in seeming, and in immediate effect, worthy to be compared with the most famous in

history, so was it, in its final consequence, most injurious. I speak of that ordinance called the "selfdenying",

and of the new model of the army. By those measures the Commons gave up the command of their forces

into the hands of men who were not of themselves. Hence, doubtless, derived no small honour to that noble

assembly, which sacrificed to the hope of public good the assurance of private advantage. And, as to the

conduct of the war, the scheme prospered. Witness the battle of Naseby, and the memorable exploits of

Fairfax in the west. But thereby the Parliament lost that hold on the soldiers and that power to control them,

which they retained while every regiment was commanded by their own members. Politicians there be, who

would wholly divide the legislative from the executive power. In the golden age this may have succeeded; in

the millennium it may succeed again. But, where great armies and great taxes are required, there the

executive government must always hold a great authority, which authority, that it may not oppress and

destroy the legislature, must be in some manner blended with it. The leaders of foreign mercenaries have

always been most dangerous to a country. The officers of native armies, deprived of the civil privileges of

other men, are as much to be feared. This was the great error of that Parliament: and, though an error it were,

"Hence came the power of the army and its leaders, and especially of that most famous leader, whom both in

our conversation today, and in that discourse whereon I before touched, you have, in my poor opinion, far

too roughly handled. Wherefore you speak contemptibly of his parts I know not; but I suspect that you are not

free from the error common to studious and speculative men. Because Oliver was an ungraceful orator, and

never said, either in public or private, anything memorable, you will have it that he was of a mean capacity.

Sure this is unjust. Many men have there been ignorant of letters, without wit, without eloquence, who yet

had the wisdom to devise, and the courage to perform, that which they lacked language to explain. Such men

often, in troubled times, have worked out the deliverance of nations and their own greatness, not by logic, not

by rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by calmness in danger, by fierce and stubborn resolution in all

adversity. The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their eloquence: and

such an one, in my judgment, was his late Highness, who, if none were to treat his name scornfully now

shook not at the sound of it while he lived, would, by very few, be mentioned otherwise than with reverence.

His own deeds shall avouch him for a great statesman, a great soldier, a true lover of his country, a merciful

"For his faults, let us reflect that they who seem to lead are oftentimes most constrained to follow. They who

will mix with men, and especially they who will govern them, must in many things obey them. They who will

yield to no such conditions may be hermits, but cannot be generals and statesmen. If a man will walk straight

forward without turning to the right or the left, he must walk in a desert, and not in Cheapside. Thus was he

enforced to do many things which jumped not with his inclination nor made for his honour; because the

army, on which alone he could depend for power and life, might not otherwise be contented. And I, for mine

own part, marvel less that he sometimes was fain to indulge their violence than that he could so often restrain

"In that he dissolved the Parliament, I praise him. It then was so diminished in numbers, as well by the death

as by the exclusion of members, that it was no longer the same assembly; and, if at that time it had made

itself perpetual, we should have been governed, not by an English House of Commons, but by a Venetian

"If in his following rule he overstepped the laws, I pity rather than condemn him. He may be compared to that

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Maeandrius of Samos, of whom Herodotus saith, in his Thalia, that, wishing to be of all men the most just, he

was not able; for after the death of Polycrates he offered freedom to the people; and not till certain of them

threatened to call him to a reckoning for what he had formerly done, did he change his purpose, and make

"Such was the case of Oliver. He gave to his country a form of government so free and admirable that, in near

six thousand years, human wisdom hath never devised any more excellent contrivance for human happiness.

To himself he reserved so little power that it would scarcely have sufficed for his safety, and it is a marvel

that it could suffice for his ambition. When, after that, he found that the members of his Parliament disputed

his right even to that small authority which he had kept, when he might have kept all, then indeed I own that

he began to govern by the sword those who would not suffer him to govern by the law.

"But, for the rest, what sovereign was ever more princely in pardoning injuries, in conquering enemies, in

extending the dominions and the renown of his people? What sea, what shore did he not mark with

imperishable memorials of his friendship or his vengeance? The gold of Spain, the steel of Sweden, the ten

thousand sails of Holland, availed nothing against him. While every foreign state trembled at our arms, we sat

secure from all assault. War, which often so strangely troubles both husbandry and commerce, never silenced

the song of our reapers, or the sound of our looms. Justice was equally administered; God was freely

"Now look at that which we have taken in exchange. With the restored king have come over to us vices of

every sort, and most the basest and most shameful,lust without loveservitude without loyaltyfoulness

of speechdishonesty of dealing grinning contempt of all things good and generous. The throne is

surrounded by men whom the former Charles would have spurned from his footstool. The altar is served by

slaves whose knees are supple to every being but God. Rhymers, whose books the hangman should burn,

pandars, actors, and buffoons, these drink a health and throw a main with the King; these have stars on their

breasts and gold sticks in their hands; these shut out from his presence the best and bravest of those who bled

for his house. Even so doth God visit those who know not how to value freedom. He gives them over to the

"I will not," said Mr Cowley, "dispute with you on this argument. But, if it be as you say, how can you

"Understand me rightly, Sir," said Mr Milton. "This nation is not given over to slavery and vice. We tasted

indeed the fruits of liberty before they had well ripened. Their flavour was harsh and bitter; and we turned

from them with loathing to the sweeter poisons of servitude. This is but for a time. England is sleeping on the

lap of Dalilah, traitorously chained, but not yet shorn of strength. Let the cry be once heardthe Philistines

be upon thee; and at once that sleep will be broken, and those chains will be as flax in the fire. The great

Parliament hath left behind it in our hearts and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just knowledge of our rights, a

scorn of vain and deluding names; and that the revellers of Whitehall shall surely find. The sun is darkened;

but it is only for a moment: it is but an eclipse; though all birds of evil omen have begun to scream, and all

ravenous beasts have gone forth to prey, thinking it to be midnight. Woe to them if they be abroad when the

"The king hath judged ill. Had he been wise he would have remembered that he owed his restoration only to

confusions which had wearied us out, and made us eager for repose. He would have known that the folly and

perfidy of a prince would restore to the good old cause many hearts which had been alienated thence by the

turbulence of factions; for, if I know aught of history, or of the heart of man, he will soon learn that the last

champion of the people was not destroyed when he murdered Vane, nor seduced when he beguiled Fairfax."

Mr Cowley seemed to me not to take much amiss what Mr Milton had said touching that thankless court,

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which had indeed but poorly requited his own good service. He only said, therefore, "Another rebellion!

Alas! alas! Mr Milton! If there be no choice but between despotism and anarchy, I prefer despotism."

"Many men," said Mr Milton, "have floridly and ingeniously compared anarchy and despotism; but they who

so amuse themselves do but look at separate parts of that which is truly one great whole. Each is the cause

and the effect of the other; the evils of either are the evils of both. Thus do states move on in the same eternal

cycle, which, from the remotest point, brings them back again to the same sad startingpost: and, till both

those who govern and those who obey shall learn and mark this great truth, men can expect little through the

future, as they have known little through the past, save vicissitudes of extreme evils, alternately producing

"When will rulers learn that, where liberty is not, security end order can never be? We talk of absolute power;

but all power hath limits, which, if not fixed by the moderation of the governors, will be fixed by the force of

the governed. Sovereigns may send their opposers to dungeons; they may clear out a senatehouse with

soldiers; they may enlist armies of spies; they may hang scores of the disaffected in chains at every cross

road; but what power shall stand in that frightful time when rebellion hath become a less evil than endurance?

Who shall dissolve that terrible tribunal, which, in the hearts of the oppressed, denounces against the

oppressor the doom of its wild justice? Who shall repeal the law of selfdefence? What arms or discipline shall

resist the strength of famine and despair? How often were the ancient Caesars dragged from their golden

palaces, stripped of their purple robes, mangled, stoned, defiled with filth, pierced with hooks, hurled into

Tiber? How often have the Eastern Sultans perished by the sabres of their own janissaries, or the bowstrings

of their own mutes! For no power which is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them. Small,

therefore, is the wisdom of those who would fly to servitude as if it were a refuge from commotion; for

anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny. That governments may be safe, nations must be free. Their

"When I was at Naples, I went with Signor Manso, a gentleman of excellent parts and breeding, who had

been the familiar friend of that famous poet Torquato Tasso, to see the burning mountain Vesuvius. I

wondered how the peasants could venture to dwell so fearlessly and cheerfully on its sides, when the lava was

flowing from its summit; but Manso smiled, and told me that when the fire descends freely they retreat before

it without haste or fear. They can tell how fast it will move, and how far; and they know, moreover, that,

though it may work some little damage, it will soon cover the fields over which it hath passed with rich

vineyards and sweet flowers. But, when the flames are pent up in the mountain, then it is that they have

reason to fear; then it is that the earth sinks and the sea swells; then cities are swallowed up; and their place

knoweth them no more. So it is in politics: where the people is most closely restrained, there it gives the

greatest shocks to peace and order; therefore would I say to all kings, let your demagogues lead crowds, lest

they lead armies; let them bluster, lest they massacre; a little turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of the state;

it shows indeed that there is a passing shower; but it is a pledge that there shall be no deluge."

"This is true," said Mr Cowley; "yet these admonitions are not less needful to subjects than to sovereigns."

"Surely," said Mr Milton; "and, that I may end this long debate with a few words in which we shall both

agree, I hold that, as freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally

necessary to preserve freedom. Even the vainest opinions of men are not to be outraged by those who propose

to themselves the happiness of men for their end, and who must work with the passions of men for their

means. The blind reverence for things ancient is indeed so foolish that it might make a wise man laugh, if it

were not also sometimes so mischievous that it would rather make a good man weep. Yet, since it may not be

wholly cured it must be discreetly indulged; and therefore those who would amend evil laws should consider

rather how much it may be safe to spare, than how much it may be possible to change. Have you not heard

that men who have been shut up for many years in dungeons shrink if they see the light, and fall down if their

irons be struck off? And so, when nations have long been in the house of bondage, the chains which have

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crippled them are necessary to support them, the darkness which hath weakened their sight is necessary to

preserve it. Therefore release them not too rashly, lest they curse their freedom and pine for their prison.

"I think indeed that the renowned Parliament, of which we have talked so much, did show, until it became

subject to the soldiers, a singular and admirable moderation, in such times scarcely to be hoped, and most

worthy to be an example to all that shall come after. But on this argument I have said enough: and I will

therefore only pray to Almighty God that those who shall, in future times stand forth in defence of our

liberties, as well civil as religious, may adorn the good cause by mercy, prudence, and soberness, to the glory

And so ended that discourse; and not long after we were set on shore again at the Temple Gardens, and there

parted company: and the same evening I took notes of what had been said, which I have here more fully set

down, from regard both to the fame of the men, and the importance of the subjectmatter.

The celebrity of the great classical writers is confined within no limits, except those which separate civilised

from savage man. Their works are the common property of every polished nation. They have furnished

subjects for the painter, and models for the poet. In the minds of the educated classes throughout Europe,

their names are indissolubly associated with the endearing recollections of childhood,the old

schoolroom,the dogeared grammar,the first prize,the tears so often shed and so quickly dried. So

great is the veneration with which they are regarded, that even the editors and commentators who perform the

lowest menial offices to their memory, are considered, like the equerries and chamberlains of sovereign

princes, as entitled to a high rank in the table of literary precedence. It is, therefore, somewhat singular that

their productions should so rarely have been examined on just and philosophical principles of criticism.

The ancient writers themselves afford us but little assistance. When they particularise, they are commonly

trivial: when they would generalise, they become indistinct. An exception must, indeed, be made in favour of

Aristotle. Both in analysis and in combination, that great man was without a rival. No philosopher has ever

possessed, in an equal degree, the talent either of separating established systems into their primary elements,

or of connecting detached phenomena in harmonious systems. He was the great fashioner of the intellectual

chaos; he changed its darkness into light, and its discord into order. He brought to literary researches the

same vigour and amplitude of mind to which both physical and metaphysical science are so greatly indebted.

His fundamental principles of criticism are excellent. To cite only a single instance:the doctrine which he

established, that poetry is an imitative art, when justly understood, is to the critic what the compass is to the

navigator. With it he may venture upon the most extensive excursions. Without it he must creep cautiously

along the coast, or lose himself in a trackless expanse, and trust, at best, to the guidance of an occasional star.

The general propositions of Aristotle are valuable. But the merit of the superstructure bears no proportion to

that of the foundation. This is partly to be ascribed to the character of the philosopher, who, though qualified

to do all that could be done by the resolving and combining powers of the understanding, seems not to have

possessed much of sensibility or imagination. Partly, also, it may be attributed to the deficiency of materials.

The great works of genius which then existed were not either sufficiently numerous or sufficiently varied to

enable any man to form a perfect code of literature. To require that a critic should conceive classes of

composition which had never existed, and then investigate their principles, would be as unreasonable as the

demand of Nebuchadnezzar, who expected his magicians first to tell him his dream and then to interpret it.

With all his deficiencies, Aristotle was the most enlightened and profound critic of antiquity. Dionysius was

far from possessing the same exquisite subtilty, or the same vast comprehension. But he had access to a much

greater number of specimens; and he had devoted himself, as it appears, more exclusively to the study of

elegant literature. His peculiar judgments are of more value than his general principles. He is only the

Quintilian applied to general literature the same principles by which he had been accustomed to judge of the

declamations of his pupils. He looks for nothing but rhetoric, and rhetoric not of the highest order. He speaks

coldly of the incomparable works of Aeschylus. He admires, beyond expression, those inexhaustible mines of

commonplaces, the plays of Euripides. He bestows a few vague words on the poetical character of Homer.

He then proceeds to consider him merely as an orator. An orator Homer doubtless was, and a great orator.

But surely nothing is more remarkable, in his admirable works, than the art with which his oratorical powers

are made subservient to the purposes of poetry. Nor can I think Quintilian a great critic in his own province.

Just as are many of his remarks, beautiful as are many of his illustrations, we can perpetually detect in his

thoughts that flavour which the soil of despotism generally communicates to all the fruits of genius.

Eloquence was, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulate in a despot the jaded

appetite for panegyric, an amusement for the travelled nobles and the blue stocking matrons of Rome. It is,

therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war; it is a contest of foils, not of swords. He appears to think more

of the grace of the attitude than of the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must be acknowledged, in justice

to Quintilian, that this is an error to which Cicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and of

Longinus seems to have had great sensibility, but little discrimination. He gives us eloquent sentences, but no

principles. It was happily said that Montesquieu ought to have changed the name of his book from "L'Esprit

des Lois" to "L'Esprit sur les Lois". In the same manner the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his

famous work, not "Longinus on the Sublime," but "The Sublimities of Longinus." The origin of the sublime

is one of the most curious and interesting subjects of inquiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. In our

own country it has been discussed, with great ability, and, I think, with very little success, by Burke and

Dugald Stuart. Longinus dispenses himself from all investigations of this nature, by telling his friend

Terentianus that he already knows everything that can be said upon the question. It is to be regretted that

Terentianus did not impart some of his knowledge to his instructor: for from Longinus we learn only that

sublimity means heightor elevation. (Akrotes kai exoche tis logon esti ta uoe.) This name, so

commodiously vague, is applied indifferently to the noble prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage of

Plato about the human body, as full of conceits as an ode of Cowley. Having no fixed standard, Longinus is

Modern writers have been prevented by many causes from supplying the deficiencies of their classical

predecessors. At the time of the revival of literature, no man could, without great and painful labour, acquire

an accurate and elegant knowledge of the ancient languages. And, unfortunately, those grammatical and

philological studies, without which it was impossible to understand the great works of Athenian and Roman

genius, have a tendency to contract the views and deaden the sensibility of those who follow them with

extreme assiduity. A powerful mind, which has been long employed in such studies, may be compared to the

gigantic spirit in the Arabian tale, who was persuaded to contract himself to small dimensions in order to

enter within the enchanted vessel, and, when his prison had been closed upon him, found himself unable to

escape from the narrow boundaries to the measure of which he had reduced his stature. When the means have

long been the objects of application, they are naturally substituted for the end. It was said, by Eugene of

Savoy, that the greatest generals have commonly been those who have been at once raised to command, and

introduced to the great operations of war, without being employed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres

which employ the time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle is equally sound. The great tactics of

criticism will, in general, be best understood by those who have not had much practice in drilling syllables

I remember to have observed among the French Anas a ludicrous instance of this. A scholar, doubtless of

great learning, recommends the study of some long Latin treatise, of which I now forget the name, on the

religion, manners, government, and language of the early Greeks. "For there," says he, "you will learn

everything of importance that is contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the trouble of reading two such

tedious books." Alas! it had not occurred to the poor gentleman that all the knowledge to which he attached

so much value was useful only as it illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would be as worthless

for any other purpose as the mythology of Caffraria, or the vocabulary of Otaheite.

Of those scholars who have disdained to confine themselves to verbal criticism few have been successful.

The ancient languages have, generally, a magical influence on their faculties. They were "fools called into a

circle by Greek invocations." The Iliad and Aeneid were to them not books but curiosities, or rather reliques.

They no more admired those works for their merits than a good Catholic venerates the house of the Virgin at

Loretto for its architecture. Whatever was classical was good. Homer was a great poet, and so was

Callimachus. The epistles of Cicero were fine, and so were those of Phalaris. Even with respect to questions

of evidence they fell into the same error. The authority of all narrations, written in Greek or Latin, was the

same with them. It never crossed their minds that the lapse of five hundred years, or the distance of five

hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy of a narration;that Livy could be a less veracious historian than

Polybius;or that Plutarch could know less about the friends of Xenophon than Xenophon himself.

Deceived by the distance of time, they seem to consider all the Classics as contemporaries; just as I have

known people in England, deceived by the distance of place, take it for granted that all persons who live in

India are neighbours, and ask an inhabitant of Bombay about the health of an acquaintance at Calcutta. It is to

be hoped that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass over Europe. But should such a calamity happen, it

seems not improbable that some future Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of England from Miss Porter's

It is surely time that ancient literature should be examined in a different manner, without pedantical

prepossessions, but with a just allowance, at the same time, for the difference of circumstances and manners.

I am far from pretending to the knowledge or ability which such a task would require. All that I mean to offer

is a collection of desultory remarks upon a most interesting portion of Greek literature.

It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been produced in the world are equally perfect

in their kind with the great Athenian orations. Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the

production of cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itself to the demand. The quantity may be diminished

by restrictions, and multiplied by bounties. The singular excellence to which eloquence attained at Athens is

to be mainly attributed to the influence which it exerted there. In turbulent times, under a constitution purely

democratic, among a people educated exactly to that point at which men are most susceptible of strong and

sudden impressions, acute, but not sound reasoners, warm in their feelings, unfixed in their principles, and

passionate admirers of fine composition, oratory received such encouragement as it has never since obtained.

The taste and knowledge of the Athenian people was a favourite object of the contemptuous derision of

Samuel Johnson; a man who knew nothing of Greek literature beyond the common schoolbooks, and who

seems to have brought to what he had read scarcely more than the discernment of a common schoolboy. He

used to assert, with that arrogant absurdity which, in spite of his great abilities and virtues, renders him,

perhaps the most ridiculous character in literary history, that Demosthenes spoke to a people of brutes;to a

barbarous people;that there could have been no civilisation before the invention of printing. Johnson was a

keen but a very narrowminded observer of mankind. He perpetually confounded their general nature with

their particular circumstances. He knew London intimately. The sagacity of his remarks on its society is

perfectly astonishing. But Fleet Street was the world to him. He saw that Londoners who did not read were

profoundly ignorant; and he inferred that a Greek, who had few or no books, must have been as uninformed

There seems to be, on the contrary, every reason to believe, that, in general intelligence, the Athenian

populace far surpassed the lower orders of any community that has ever existed. It must be considered, that to

be a citizen was to be a legislator,a soldier,a judge,one upon whose voice might depend the fate of

the wealthiest tributary state, of the most eminent public man. The lowest offices, both of agriculture and of

trade, were, in common, performed by slaves. The commonwealth supplied its meanest members with the

support of life, the opportunity of leisure, and the means of amusement. Books were indeed few: but they

were excellent; and they were accurately known. It is not by turning over libraries, but by repeatedly perusing

and intently contemplating a few great models, that the mind is best disciplined. A man of letters must now

read much that he soon forgets, and much from which he learns nothing worthy to be remembered. The best

works employ, in general, but a small portion of his time. Demosthenes is said to have transcribed six times

the history of Thucydides. If he had been a young politician of the present age, he might in the same space of

time have skimmed innumerable newspapers and pamphlets. I do not condemn that desultory mode of study

which the state of things, in our day, renders a matter of necessity. But I may be allowed to doubt whether the

changes on which the admirers of modern institutions delight to dwell have improved our condition so much

in reality as in appearance. Rumford, it is said, proposed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme for feeding his

soldiers at a much cheaper rate than formerly. His plan was simply to compel them to masticate their food

thoroughly. A small quantity, thus eaten, would, according to that famous projector, afford more sustenance

than a large meal hastily devoured. I do not know how Rumford's proposition was received; but to the mind, I

believe, it will be found more nutritious to digest a page than to devour a volume.

Books, however, were the least part of the education of an Athenian citizen. Let us, for a moment, transport

ourselves in thought, to that glorious city. Let us imagine that we are entering its gates, in the time of its

power and glory. A crowd is assembled round a portico. All are gazing with delight at the entablature; for

Phidias is putting up the frieze. We turn into another street; a rhapsodist is reciting there: men, women,

children are thronging round him: the tears are running down their cheeks: their eyes are fixed: their very

breath is still; for he is telling how Priam fell at the feet of Achilles, and kissed those hands,the

terriblethe murderous,which had slain so many of his sons. (kai kuse cheiras, deinas, anorophonous,

We enter the public place; there is a ring of youths, all leaning forward, with sparkling eyes, and gestures of

expectation. Socrates is pitted against the famous atheist, from Ionia, and has just brought him to a

contradiction in terms. But we are interrupted. The herald is crying"Room for the Prytanes." The general

assembly is to meet. The people are swarming in on every side. Proclamation is made"Who wishes to

speak?" There is a shout, and a clapping of hands: Pericles is mounting the stand. Then for a play of

Sophocles; and away to sup with Aspasia. I know of no modern university which has so excellent a system of

Knowledge thus acquired and opinions thus formed were, indeed, likely to be, in some respects, defective.

Propositions which are advanced in discourse generally result from a partial view of the question, and cannot

be kept under examination long enough to be corrected. Men of great conversational powers almost

universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration, which deceives, for the moment, both

themselves and their auditors. Thus we see doctrines, which cannot bear a close inspection, triumph

perpetually in drawingrooms, in debating societies, and even in legislative or judicial assemblies. To the

conversational education of the Athenians I am inclined to attribute the great looseness of reasoning which is

remarkable in most of their scientific writings. Even the most illogical of modern writers would stand

perfectly aghast at the puerile fallacies which seem to have deluded some of the greatest men of antiquity. Sir

Thomas Lethbridge would stare at the political economy of Xenophon; and the author of "Soirees de

Petersbourg" would be ashamed of some of the metaphysical arguments of Plato. But the very circumstances

which retarded the growth of science were peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of eloquence. From the

early habit of taking a share in animated discussion the intelligent student would derive that readiness of

resource, that copiousness of language, and that knowledge of the temper and understanding of an audience,

Horace has prettily compared poems to those paintings of which the effect varies as the spectator changes his

stand. The same remark applies with at least equal justice to speeches. They must be read with the temper of

those to whom they were addressed, or they must necessarily appear to offend against the laws of taste and

reason; as the finest picture, seen in a light different from that for which it was designed, will appear fit only

for a sign. This is perpetually forgotten by those who criticise oratory. Because they are reading at leisure,

pausing at every line, reconsidering every argument, they forget that the hearers were hurried from point to

point too rapidly to detect the fallacies through which they were conducted; that they had no time to

disentangle sophisms, or to notice slight inaccuracies of expression; that elaborate excellence, either of

reasoning or of language, would have been absolutely thrown away. To recur to the analogy of the sister art,

these connoisseurs examine a panorama through a microscope, and quarrel with a scenepainter because he

Oratory is to be estimated on principles different from those which are applied to other productions. Truth is

the object of philosophy and history. Truth is the object even of those works which are peculiarly called

works of fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same relation to history which algebra bears to arithmetic. The

merit of poetry, in its wildest forms, still consists in its truth,truth conveyed to the understanding, not

directly by the words, but circuitously by means of imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors.

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. The admiration of the multitude does not make Moore

a greater poet than Coleridge, or Beattie a greater philosopher than Berkeley. But the criterion of eloquence is

different. A speaker who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question, who displays every grace of style, yet

produces no effect on his audience, may be a great essayist, a great statesman, a great master of composition;

but he is not an orator. If he miss the mark, it makes no difference whether he have taken aim too high or too

The effect of the great freedom of the press in England has been, in a great measure, to destroy this

distinction, and to leave among us little of what I call Oratory Proper. Our legislators, our candidates, on

great occasions even our advocates, address themselves less to the audience than to the reporters. They think

less of the few hearers than of the innumerable readers. At Athens the case was different; there the only

object of the speaker was immediate conviction and persuasion. He, therefore, who would justly appreciate

the merit of the Grecian orators should place himself, as nearly as possible, in the situation of their auditors:

he should divest himself of his modern feelings and acquirements, and make the prejudices and interests of

the Athenian citizen his own. He who studies their works in this spirit will find that many of those things

which, to an English reader, appear to be blemishes,the frequent violation of those excellent rules of

evidence by which our courts of law are regulated,the introduction of extraneous matter,the reference to

considerations of political expediency in judicial investigations,the assertions, without proof,the

passionate entreaties,the furious invectives,are really proofs of the prudence and address of the

speakers. He must not dwell maliciously on arguments or phrases, but acquiesce in his first impressions. It

requires repeated perusal and reflection to decide rightly on any other portion of literature. But with respect to

works of which the merit depends on their instantaneous effect the most hasty judgment is likely to be best.

The history of eloquence at Athens is remarkable. From a very early period great speakers had flourished

there. Pisistratus and Themistocles are said to have owed much of their influence to their talents for debate.

We learn, with more certainty, that Pericles was distinguished by extraordinary oratorical powers. The

substance of some of his speeches is transmitted to us by Thucydides; and that excellent writer has doubtless

faithfully reported the general line of his arguments. But the manner, which in oratory is of at least as much

consequence as the matter, was of no importance to his narration. It is evident that he has not attempted to

preserve it. Throughout his work, every speech on every subject, whatever may have been the character of the

dialect of the speaker, is in exactly the same form. The grave king of Sparta, the furious demagogue of

Athens, the general encouraging his army, the captive supplicating for his life, all are represented as speakers

in one unvaried style, a style moreover wholly unfit for oratorical purposes. His mode of reasoning is

singularly elliptical,in reality most consecutive,yet in appearance often incoherent. His meaning, in

itself sufficiently perplexing, is compressed into the fewest possible words. His great fondness for antithetical

expression has not a little conduced to this effect. Every one must have observed how much more the sense is

condensed in the verses of Pope and his imitators, who never ventured to continue the same clause from

couplet to couplet, than in those of poets who allow themselves that license. Every artificial division, which is

strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, has the same tendency. The natural and perspicuous expression

which spontaneously rises to the mind will often refuse to accommodate itself to such a form. It is necessary

either to expand it into weakness, or to compress it into almost impenetrable density. The latter is generally

It is scarcely necessary to say that such speeches could never have been delivered. They are perhaps among

the most difficult passages in the Greek language, and would probably have been scarcely more intelligible to

an Athenian auditor than to a modern reader. Their obscurity was acknowledged by Cicero, who was as

intimate with the literature and language of Greece as the most accomplished of its natives, and who seems to

have held a respectable rank among the Greek authors. Their difficulty to a modern reader lies, not in the

words, but in the reasoning. A dictionary is of far less use in studying them than a clear head and a close

attention to the context. They are valuable to the scholar as displaying, beyond almost any other

compositions, the powers of the finest of languages: they are valuable to the philosopher as illustrating the

morals and manners of a most interesting age: they abound in just thought and energetic expression. But they

do not enable us to form any accurate opinion on the merits of the early Greek orators.

Though it cannot be doubted that, before the Persian wars, Athens had produced eminent speakers, yet the

period during which eloquence most flourished among her citizens was by no means that of her greatest

power and glory. It commenced at the close of the Peloponnesian war. In fact, the steps by which Athenian

oratory approached to its finished excellence seem to have been almost contemporaneous with those by

which the Athenian character and the Athenian empire sunk to degradation. At the time when the little

commonwealth achieved those victories which twenty five eventful centuries have left unequalled,

eloquence was in its infancy. The deliverers of Greece became its plunderers and oppressors. Unmeasured

exaction, atrocious vengeance, the madness of the multitude, the tyranny of the great, filled the Cyclades with

tears, and blood, and mourning. The sword unpeopled whole islands in a day. The plough passed over the

ruins of famous cities. The imperial republic sent forth her children by thousands to pine in the quarries of

Syracuse, or to feed the vultures of Aegospotami. She was at length reduced by famine and slaughter to

humble herself before her enemies, and to purchase existence by the sacrifice of her empire and her laws.

During these disastrous and gloomy years, oratory was advancing towards its highest excellence. And it was

when the moral, the political, and the military character of the people was most utterly degraded, it was when

the viceroy of a Macedonian sovereign gave law to Greece, that the courts of Athens witnessed the most

The causes of this phenomenon it is not, I think, difficult to assign. The division of labour operates on the

productions of the orator as it does on those of the mechanic. It was remarked by the ancients that the

Pentathlete, who divided his attention between several exercises, though he could not vie with a boxer in the

use of the cestus, or with one who had confined his attention to running in the contest of the stadium, yet

enjoyed far greater general vigour and health than either. It is the same with the mind. The superiority in

technical skill is often more than compensated by the inferiority in general intelligence. And this is peculiarly

the case in politics. States have always been best governed by men who have taken a wide view of public

affairs, and who have rather a general acquaintance with many sciences than a perfect mastery of one. The

union of the political and military departments in Greece contributed not a little to the splendour of its early

history. After their separation more skilful generals and greater speakers appeared; but the breed of statesmen

dwindled and became almost extinct. Themistocles or Pericles would have been no match for Demosthenes in

the assembly, or for Iphicrates in the field. But surely they were incomparably better fitted than either for the

There is indeed a remarkable coincidence between the progress of the art of war, and that of the art of

oratory, among the Greeks. They both advanced to perfection by contemporaneous steps, and from similar

causes. The early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, were merely a militia. It was found that in both

employments practice and discipline gave superiority. (It has often occurred to me, that to the circumstances

mentioned in the text is to be referred one of the most remarkable events in Grecian history; I mean the silent

but rapid downfall of the Lacedaemonian power. Soon after the termination of the Peloponnesian war, the

strength of Lacedaemon began to decline. Its military discipline, its social institutions, were the same.

Agesilaus, during whose reign the change took place, was the ablest of its kings. Yet the Spartan armies were

frequently defeated in pitched battles,an occurrence considered impossible in the earlier ages of Greece.

They are allowed to have fought most bravely; yet they were no longer attended by the success to which they

had formerly been accustomed. No solution of these circumstances is offered, as far as I know, by any ancient

author. The real cause, I conceive, was this. The Lacedaemonians, alone among the Greeks, formed a

permanent standing army. While the citizens of other commonwealths were engaged in agriculture and trade,

they had no employment whatever but the study of military discipline. Hence, during the Persian and

Peloponnesian wars, they had that advantage over their neighbours which regular troops always possess over

militia. This advantage they lost, when other states began, at a later period, to employ mercenary forces, who

were probably as superior to them in the art of war as they had hitherto been to their antagonists.) Each

pursuit therefore became first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as the professors of each became more

expert in their particular craft, they became less respectable in their general character. Their skill had been

obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested views. Thus, the soldiers forgot that

they were citizens, and the orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his famous

contemporaries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary troops who, in their time, overran Greece; or

those who, from similar causes, were some centuries ago the scourge of the Italian republics,perfectly

acquainted with every part of their profession, irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, but

defending without love, and destroying without hatred. We may despise the characters of these political

Condottieri; but is impossible to examine the system of their tactics without being amazed at its perfection.

I had intended to proceed to this examination, and to consider separately the remains of Lysias, of Aeschines,

of Demosthenes, and of Isocrates, who, though strictly speaking he was rather a pamphleteer than an orator,

deserves, on many accounts, a place in such a disquisition. The length of my prolegomena and digressions

compels me to postpone this part of the subject to another occasion. A Magazine is certainly a delightful

invention for a very idle or a very busy man. He is not compelled to complete his plan or to adhere to his

subject. He may ramble as far as he is inclined, and stop as soon as he is tired. No one takes the trouble to

recollect his contradictory opinions or his unredeemed pledges. He may be as superficial, as inconsistent, and

as careless as he chooses. Magazines resemble those little angels, who, according to the pretty Rabbinical

tradition, are generated every morning by the brook which rolls over the flowers of Paradise,whose life is a

song,who warble till sunset, and then sink back without regret into nothingness. Such spirits have nothing

to do with the detecting spear of Ithuriel or the victorious sword of Michael. It is enough for them to please

How I became a prophet it is not very important to the reader to know. Nevertheless I feel all the anxiety

which, under similar circumstances, troubled the sensitive mind of Sidrophel; and, like him, am eager to

vindicate myself from the suspicion of having practised forbidden arts, or held intercourse with beings of

another world. I solemnly declare, therefore, that I never saw a ghost, like Lord Lyttleton; consulted a gipsy,

like Josephine; or heard my name pronounced by an absent person, like Dr Johnson. Though it is now almost

as usual for gentlemen to appear at the moment of their death to their friends as to call on them during their

life, none of my acquaintance have been so polite as to pay me that customary attention. I have derived my

knowledge neither from the dead nor from the living; neither from the lines of a hand, nor from the grounds

of a teacup; neither from the stars of the firmament, nor from the fiends of the abyss. I have never, like the

Wesley family, heard "that mighty leading angel," who "drew after him the third part of heaven's sons,"

scratching in my cupboard. I have never been enticed to sign any of those delusive bonds which have been

the ruin of so many poor creatures; and, having always been an indifferent horse man, I have been careful not

My insight into futurity, like that of George Fox the quaker, and that of our great and philosophic poet, Lord

Byron, is derived from simple presentiment. This is a far less artificial process than those which are employed

by some others. Yet my predictions will, I believe, be found more correct than theirs, or, at all events, as Sir

I prophesy then, that, in the year 2824, according to our present reckoning, a grand national Epic Poem,

worthy to be compared with the Iliad, the Aeneid, or the Jerusalem, will be published in London.

Men naturally take an interest in the adventures of every eminent writer. I will, therefore, gratify the laudable

curiosity, which, on this occasion, will doubtless be universal, by pre fixing to my account of the poem a

Richard Quongti will be born at Westminster on the 1st of July, 2786. He will be the younger son of the

younger branch of one of the most respectable families in England. He will be linearly descended from

Quongti, the famous Chinese liberal, who, after the failure of the heroic attempt of his party to obtain a

constitution from the Emperor Fim Fam, will take refuge in England, in the twentythird century. Here his

descendants will obtain considerable note; and one branch of the family will be raised to the peerage.

Richard, however, though destined to exalt his family to distinction far nobler than any which wealth or titles

can bestow, will be born to a very scanty fortune. He will display in his early youth such striking talents as

will attract the notice of Viscount Quongti, his third cousin, then secretary of state for the Steam Department.

At the expense of this eminent nobleman, he will be sent to prosecute his studies at the university of

Tombuctoo. To that illustrious seat of the muses all the ingenuous youth of every country will then be

attracted by the high scientific character of Professor Quashaboo, and the eminent literary attainments of

Professor Kissey Kickey. In spite of this formidable competition, however, Quongti will acquire the highest

honours in every department of knowledge, and will obtain the esteem of his associates by his amiable and

unaffected manners. The guardians of the young Duke of Carrington, premier peer of England, and the last

remaining scion of the ancient and illustrious house of Smith, will be desirous to secure so able an instructor

for their ward. With the Duke, Quongti will perform the grand tour, and visit the polished courts of Sydney

and Capetown. After prevailing on his pupil, with great difficulty, to subdue a violent and imprudent passion

which he had conceived for a Hottentot lady, of great beauty and accomplishments indeed, but of dubious

A PROPHETIC ACCOUNT OF A GRAND NATIONAL EPIC POEM, TO BE ENTITLED "THE WELLINGTONIAD," AND TO BE PUBLISHED A.D. 2824. 71

character, he will travel with him to the United States of America. But that tremendous war which will be

fatal to American liberty will, at that time, be raging through the whole federation. At New York the

travellers will hear of the final defeat and death of the illustrious champion of freedom, Jonathon

Higginbottom, and of the elevation of Ebenezer Hogsflesh to the perpetual Presidency. They will not choose

to proceed in a journey which would expose them to the insults of that brutal soldiery, whose cruelty and

rapacity will have devastated Mexico and Colombia, and now, at length, enslaved their own country.

On their return to England, A.D. 2810, the death of the Duke will compel his preceptor to seek for a

subsistence by literary labours. His fame will be raised by many small productions of considerable merit; and

he will at last obtain a permanent place in the highest class of writers by his great epic poem.

The celebrated work will become, with unexampled rapidity, a popular favourite. The sale will be so

beneficial to the author that, instead of going about the dirty streets on his velocipede, he will be enabled to

The character of this noble poem will be so finely and justly given in the Tombuctoo Review for April 2825,

that I cannot refrain from translating the passage. The author will be our poet's old preceptor, Professor

"In pathos, in splendour of language, in sweetness of versification, Mr Quongti has long been considered as

unrivalled. In his exquisite poem on the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus all these qualities are displayed in their

greatest perfection. How exquisitely does that work arrest and embody the undefined and vague shadows

which flit over an imaginative mind. The cold worldling may not comprehend it; but it will find a response in

the bosom of every youthful poet, of every enthusiastic lover, who has seen an Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus

by moonlight. But we were yet to learn that he possessed the comprehension, the judgment, and the fertility

"It is difficult to conceive a plot more perfect than that of the 'Wellingtoniad.' It is most faithful to the

manners of the age to which it relates. It preserves exactly all the historical circumstances, and interweaves

Thus far the learned Professor of Humanity in the university of Tombuctoo. I fear that the critics of our time

will form an opinion diametrically opposite as to these every points. Some will, I fear, be disgusted by the

machinery, which is derived from the mythology of ancient Greece. I can only say that, in the twentyninth

century, that machinery will be universally in use among poets; and that Quongti will use it, partly in

conformity with the general practice, and partly from a veneration, perhaps excessive, for the great remains of

classical antiquity, which will then, as now, be assiduously read by every man of education; though Tom

Moore's songs will be forgotten, and only three copies of Lord Byron's works will exist: one in the possession

of King George the Nineteenth, one in the Duke of Carrington's collection, and one in the library of the

British Museum. Finally, should any good people be concerned to hear that Pagan fictions will so long retain

their influence over literature, let them reflect that, as the Bishop of St David's says, in his "Proofs of the

Inspiration of the Sibylline Verses," read at the last meeting of the Royal Society of Literature, "at all events,

Some readers of the present day may think that Quongti is by no means entitled to the compliments which his

Negro critic pays him on his adherence to the historical circumstances of the time in which he has chosen his

subject; that, where he introduces any trait of our manners, it is in the wrong place, and that he confounds the

customs of our age with those of much more remote periods. I can only say that the charge is infinitely more

applicable to Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. If, therefore, the reader should detect, in the following abstract of the

plot, any little deviation from strict historical accuracy, let him reflect, for a moment, whether Agamemnon

would not have found as much to censure in the Iliad,Dido in the Aeneid,or Godfrey in the Jerusalem.

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Let him not suffer his opinions to depend on circumstances which cannot possibly affect the truth or

falsehood of the representation. If it be impossible for a single man to kill hundreds in battle, the

impossibility is not diminished by distance of time. If it be as certain that Rinaldo never disenchanted a forest

in Palestine as it is that the Duke of Wellington never disenchanted the forest of Soignies, can we, as rational

men, tolerate the one story and ridicule the other? Of this, at least, I am certain, that whatever excuse we have

for admiring the plots of those famous poems our children will have for extolling that of the "Wellingtoniad."

I shall proceed to give a sketch of the narrative. The subject is "The Reign of the Hundred Days."

The poem commences, in form, with a solemn proposition of the subject. Then the muse is invoked to give

the poet accurate information as to the causes of so terrible a commotion. The answer to this question, being,

it is to be supposed, the joint production of the poet and the muse, ascribes the event to circumstances which

have hitherto eluded all the research of political writers, namely, the influence of the god Mars, who, we are

told, had some forty years before usurped the conjugal rights of old Carlo Buonaparte, and given birth to

Napoleon. By his incitement it was that the emperor with his devoted companions was now on the sea,

returning to his ancient dominions. The gods were at present, fortunately for the adventurer, feasting with the

Ethiopians, whose entertainments, according to the ancient custom described by Homer, they annually

attended, with the same sort of condescending gluttony which now carries the cabinet to Guildhall on the 9th

of November. Neptune was, in consequence, absent, and unable to prevent the enemy of his favourite island

from crossing his element. Boreas, however, who had his abode on the banks of the Russian ocean, and who,

like Thetis in the Iliad, was not of sufficient quality to have an invitation to Ethiopia, resolves to destroy the

armament which brings war and danger to his beloved Alexander. He accordingly raises a storm which is

most powerfully described. Napoleon bewails the inglorious fate for which he seems to be reserved. "Oh!

thrice happy," says he, "those who were frozen to death at Krasnoi, or slaughtered at Leipsic. Oh, Kutusoff,

bravest of the Russians, wherefore was I not permitted to fall by thy victorious sword?" He then offers a

prayer to Aeolus, and vows to him a sacrifice of a black ram. In consequence, the god recalls his turbulent

subject; the sea is calmed; and the ship anchors in the port of Frejus. Napoleon and Bertrand, who is always

called the faithful Bertrand, land to explore the country; Mars meets them disguised as a lancer of the guard,

wearing the cross of the legion of honour. He advises them to apply for necessaries of all kinds to the

governor, shows them the way, and disappears with a strong smell of gunpowder. Napoleon makes a pathetic

speech, and enters the governor's house. Here he sees hanging up a fine print of the battle of Austerlitz,

himself in the foreground giving his orders. This puts him in high spirits; he advances and salutes the

governor, who receives him most loyally, gives him an entertainment, and, according to the usage of all epic

hosts, insists after dinner on a full narration of all that has happened to him since the battle of Leipsic.

Napoleon carries his narrative from the battle of Leipsic to his abdication. But, as we shall have a great

Napoleon describes his sojourn at Elba, and his return; how he was driven by stress of weather to Sardinia,

and fought with the harpies there; how he was then carried southward to Sicily, where he generously took on

board an English sailor, whom a manofwar had unhappily left there, and who was in imminent danger of

being devoured by the Cyclops; how he landed in the bay of Naples, saw the Sibyl, and descended to

Tartarus; how he held a long and pathetic conversation with Poniatowski, whom he found wandering

unburied on the banks of Styx; how he swore to give him a splendid funeral; how he had also an affectionate

interview with Desaix; how Moreau and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fled at the sight of him. He relates that he

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then reembarked, and met with nothing of importance till the commencement of the storm with which the

The scene changes to Paris. Fame, in the garb of an express, brings intelligence of the landing of Napoleon.

The king performs a sacrifice: but the entrails are unfavourable; and the victim is without a heart. He prepares

to encounter the invader. A young captain of the guard,the son of Maria Antoinette by Apollo,in the

shape of a fiddler, rushes in to tell him that Napoleon is approaching with a vast army. The royal forces are

drawn out for battle. Full catalogues are given of the regiments on both sides; their colonels,

The king comes forward and defies Napoleon to single combat. Napoleon accepts it. Sacrifices are offered.

The ground is measured by Ney and Macdonald. The combatants advance. Louis snaps his pistol in vain. The

bullet of Napoleon, on the contrary, carries off the tip of the king's ear. Napoleon then rushes on him sword in

hand. But Louis snatches up a stone, such as ten men of those degenerate days will be unable to move, and

hurls it at his antagonist. Mars averts it. Napoleon then seizes Louis, and is about to strike a fatal blow, when

Bacchus intervenes, like Venus in the third book of the Iliad, bears off the king in a thick cloud, and seats him

in an hotel at Lille, with a bottle of Maraschino and a basin of soup before him. Both armies instantly

Neptune, returned from his Ethiopian revels, sees with rage the events which have taken place in Europe. He

flies to the cave of Alecto, and drags out the fiend, commanding her to excite universal hostility against

Napoleon. The Fury repairs to Lord Castlereagh; and, as, when she visited Turnus, she assumed the form of

an old woman, she here appears in the kindred shape of Mr Vansittart, and in an impassioned address exhorts

his lordship to war. His lordship, like Turnus, treats this unwonted monitor with great disrespect, tells him

that he is an old doting fool, and advises him to look after the ways and means, and leave questions of peace

and war to his betters. The Fury then displays all her terrors. The neat powdered hair bristles up into snakes;

the black stockings appear clotted with blood; and, brandishing a torch, she announces her name and mission.

Lord Castlereagh, seized with fury, flies instantly to the Parliament, and recommends war with a torrent of

eloquent invective. All the members instantly clamour for vengeance, seize their arms which are hanging

round the walls of the house, and rush forth to prepare for instant hostilities.

In this book intelligence arrives at London of the flight of the Duchess d'Angouleme from France. It is stated

that this heroine, armed from head to foot, defended Bordeaux against the adherents of Napoleon, and that

she fought hand to hand with Clausel, and beat him down with an enormous stone. Deserted by her followers,

she at last, like Turnus, plunged, armed as she was, into the Garonne, and swam to an English ship which lay

A yet bolder flight than any which has been mentioned follows. The Duke of Wellington goes to take leave of

the duchess; and a scene passes quite equal to the famous interview of Hector and Andromache. Lord Douro

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Neptune, trembling for the event of the war, implores Venus, who, as the offspring of his element, naturally

venerates him, to procure from Vulcan a deadly sword and a pair of unerring pistols for the Duke. They are

accordingly made, and superbly decorated. The sheath of the sword, like the shield of Achilles, is carved, in

exquisitely fine miniature, with scenes from the common life of the period; a dance at Almack's a boxing

match at the Fives court, a lord mayor's procession, and a man hanging. All these are fully and elegantly

The Duke is received at Brussels by the King of the Netherlands with great magnificence. He is informed of

the approach of the armies of all the confederate kings. The poet, however, with a laudable zeal for the glory

of his country, completely passes over the exploits of the Austrians in Italy, and the discussions of the

congress. England and France, Wellington and Napoleon, almost exclusively occupy his attention. Several

days are spent at Brussels in revelry. The English heroes astonish their allies by exhibiting splendid games,

similar to those which draw the flower of the British aristocracy to Newmarket and Moulsey Hurst, and

which will be considered by our descendants with as much veneration as the Olympian and Isthmian contests

by classical students of the present time. In the combat of the cestus, Shaw, the lifeguardsman, vanquishes the

Prince of Orange, and obtains a bull as a prize. In the horserace, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Uxbridge

ride against each other; the Duke is victorious, and is rewarded with twelve operagirls. On the last day of

Mars, seeing the English army thus inactive, hastens to rouse Napoleon, who, conducted by Night and

Silence, unexpectedly attacks the Prussians. The slaughter is immense. Napoleon kills many whose histories

and families are happily particularised. He slays Herman, the craniologist, who dwelt by the

lindenshadowed Elbe, and measured with his eye the skulls of all who walked through the streets of Berlin.

Alas! his own skull is now cleft by the Corsican sword. Four pupils of the University of Jena advance

together to encounter the Emperor; at four blows he destroys them all. Blucher rushes to arrest the

devastation; Napoleon strikes him to the ground, and is on the point of killing him, but Gneisenau, Ziethen,

Bulow, and all the other heroes of the Prussian army, gather round him, and bear the venerable chief to a

distance from the field. The slaughter is continued till night. In the meantime Neptune has despatched Fame

to bear the intelligence to the Duke, who is dancing at Brussels. The whole army is put in motion. The Duke

Picton, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Prince of Orange, engage Ney at Quatre Bras. Ney kills the Duke of

Brunswick, and strips him, sending his belt to Napoleon. The English fall back on Waterloo. Jupiter calls a

council of the gods, and commands that none shall interfere on either side. Mars and Neptune make very

eloquent speeches. The battle of Waterloo commences. Napoleon kills Picton and Delancy. Ney engages

Ponsonby and kills him. The Prince of Orange is wounded by Soult. Lord Uxbridge flies to check the

carnage. He is severely wounded by Napoleon, and only saved by the assistance of Lord Hill. In the

meantime the Duke makes a tremendous carnage among the French. He encounters General Duhesme and

vanquishes him, but spares his life. He kills Toubert, who kept the gaminghouse in the Palais Royal, and

Maronet, who loved to spend whole nights in drinking champagne. Clerval, who had been hooted from the

stage, and had then become a captain in the Imperial Guard, wished that he had still continued to face the

more harmless enmity of the Parisian pit. But Larrey, the son of Esculapius, whom his father had instructed

in all the secrets of his art, and who was surgeongeneral of the French army, embraced the knees of the

destroyer, and conjured him not to give death to one whose office it was to give life. The Duke raised him,

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But we must hasten to the close. Napoleon rushes to encounter Wellington. Both armies stand in mute amaze.

The heroes fire their pistols; that of Napoleon misses, but that of Wellington, formed by the hand of Vulcan,

and primed by the Cyclops, wounds the Emperor in the thigh. He flies, and takes refuge among his troops.

The flight becomes promiscuous. The arrival of the Prussians, from a motive of patriotism, the poet

Things are now hastening to the catastrophe. Napoleon flies to London, and, seating himself on the hearth of

the Regent, embraces the household gods and conjures him, by the venerable age of George III., and by the

opening perfections of the Princess Charlotte, to spare him. The Prince is inclined to do so; when, looking on

his breast, he sees there the belt of the Duke of Brunswick. He instantly draws his sword, and is about to stab

the destroyer of his kinsman. Piety and hospitality, however, restrain his hand. He takes a middle course, and

condemns Napoleon to be exposed on a desert island. The King of France reenters Paris; and the poem

This is a book which enjoys a great and increasing popularity: but, while it has attracted a considerable share

of the public attention, it has been little noticed by the critics. Mr Mitford has almost succeeded in mounting,

unperceived by those whose office it is to watch such aspirants, to a high place among historians. He has

taken a seat on the dais without being challenged by a single seneschal. To oppose the progress of his fame is

now almost a hopeless enterprise. Had he been reviewed with candid severity, when he had published only

his first volume, his work would either have deserved its reputation, or would never have obtained it. "Then,"

as Indra says of Kehama, "then was the time to strike." The time was neglected; and the consequence is that

Mr Mitford like Kehama, has laid his victorious hand on the literary Amreeta, and seems about to taste the

precious elixir of immortality. I shall venture to emulate the courage of the honest Glendoveer "When now

He saw the Amreeta in Kehama's hand, An impulse that defied all selfcommand, In that extremity, Stung

him, and he resolved to seize the cup, And dare the Rajah's force in Seeva's sight, Forward he sprung to tempt

In plain words, I shall offer a few considerations, which may tend to reduce an overpraised writer to his

The principal characteristic of this historian, the origin of his excellencies and his defects, is a love of

singularity. He has no notion of going with a multitude to do either good or evil. An exploded opinion, or an

unpopular person, has an irresistible charm for him. The same perverseness may be traced in his diction. His

style would never have been elegant; but it might at least have been manly and perspicuous; and nothing but

the most elaborate care could possibly have made it so bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh phrases,

strange collocations, occasional solecisms, frequent obscurity, and, above all, by a peculiar oddity, which can

no more be described than it can be overlooked. Nor is this all. Mr Mitford piques himself on spelling better

than any of his neighbours; and this not only in ancient names, which he mangles in defiance both of custom

and of reason, but in the most ordinary words of the English language. It is, in itself, a matter perfectly

indifferent whether we call a foreigner by the name which he bears in his own language, or by that which

corresponds to it in ours; whether we say Lorenzo de Medici, or Lawrence de Medici, Jean Chauvin, or John

Calvin. In such cases established usage is considered as law by all writers except Mr Mitford. If he were

always consistent with himself, he might be excused for sometimes disagreeing with his neighbours; but he

proceeds on no principle but that of being unlike the rest of the world. Every child has heard of Linnaeus;

therefore Mr Mitford calls him Linne: Rousseau is known all over Europe as Jean Jacques; therefore Mr

Had Mr Mitford undertaken a History of any other country than Greece, this propensity would have rendered

his work useless and absurd. His occasional remarks on the affairs of ancient Rome and of modern Europe

are full of errors: but he writes of times with respect to which almost every other writer has been in the

wrong; and, therefore, by resolutely deviating from his predecessors, he is often in the right.

Almost all the modern historians of Greece have shown the grossest ignorance of the most obvious

phenomena of human nature. In their representations the generals and statesmen of antiquity are absolutely

divested of all individuality. They are personifications; they are passions, talents, opinions, virtues, vices, but

not men. Inconsistency is a thing of which these writers have no notion. That a man may have been liberal in

his youth and avaricious in his age, cruel to one enemy and merciful to another, is to them utterly

inconceivable. If the facts be undeniable, they suppose some strange and deep design, in order to explain

what, as every one who has observed his own mind knows, needs no explanation at all. This is a mode of

writing very acceptable to the multitude who have always been accustomed to make gods and daemons out of

men very little better or worse than themselves; but it appears contemptible to all who have watched the

changes of human characterto all who have observed the influence of time, of circumstances, and of

associates, on mankindto all who have seen a hero in the gout, a democrat in the church, a pedant in love,

or a philosopher in liquor. This practice of painting in nothing but black and white is unpardonable even in

the drama. It is the great fault of Alfieri; and how much it injures the effect of his compositions will be

obvious to every one who will compare his Rosmunda with the Lady Macbeth of Shakspeare. The one is a

wicked woman; the other is a fiend. Her only feeling is hatred; all her words are curses. We are at once

shocked and fatigued by the spectacle of such raving cruelty, excited by no provocation, repeatedly changing

its object, and constant in nothing but in its in extinguishable thirst for blood.

In history this error is far more disgraceful. Indeed, there is no fault which so completely ruins a narrative in

the opinion of a judicious reader. We know that the line of demarcation between good and bad men is so

faintly marked as often to elude the most careful investigation of those who have the best opportunities for

judging. Public men, above all, are surrounded with so many temptations and difficulties that some doubt

must almost always hang over their real dispositions and intentions. The lives of Pym, Cromwell, Monk,

Clarendon, Marlborough, Burnet, Walpole, are well known to us. We are acquainted with their actions, their

speeches, their writings; we have abundance of letters and well authenticated anecdotes relating to them: yet

what candid man will venture very positively to say which of them were honest and which of them were

dishonest men? It appears easier to pronounce decidedly upon the great characters of antiquity, not because

we have greater means of discovering truth, but simply because we have less means of detecting error. The

modern historians of Greece have forgotten this. Their heroes and villains are as consistent in all their sayings

and doings as the cardinal virtues and the deadly sins in an allegory. We should as soon expect a good action

from giant Slaygood in Bunyan as from Dionysius; and a crime of Epaminondas would seem as

incongruous as a fauxpas of the grave and comely damsel called Discretion, who answered the bell at the

This error was partly the cause and partly the effect of the high estimation in which the later ancient writers

have been held by modern scholars. Those French and English authors who have treated of the affairs of

Greece have generally turned with contempt from the simple and natural narrations of Thucydides and

Xenophon to the extravagant representations of Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius, and other romancers of the same

class,men who described military operations without ever having handled a sword, and applied to the

seditions of little republics speculations formed by observation on an empire which covered half the known

world. Of liberty they knew nothing. It was to them a great mysterya superhuman enjoyment. They ranted

about liberty and patriotism, from the same cause which leads monks to talk more ardently than other men

about love and women. A wise man values political liberty, because it secures the persons and the

possessions of citizens; because it tends to prevent the extravagance of rulers, and the corruption of judges;

because it gives birth to useful sciences and elegant arts; because it excites the industry and increases the

comforts of all classes of society. These theorists imagined that it possessed something eternally and

intrinsically good, distinct from the blessings which it generally produced. They considered it not as a means

but as an end; an end to be attained at any cost. Their favourite heroes are those who have sacrificed, for the

mere name of freedom, the prosperitythe securitythe justicefrom which freedom derives its value.

There is another remarkable characteristic of these writers, in which their modern worshippers have carefully

imitated thema great fondness for good stories. The most established facts, dates, and characters are never

suffered to come into competition with a splendid saying, or a romantic exploit. The early historians have left

us natural and simple descriptions of the great events which they witnessed, and the great men with whom

they associated. When we read the account which Plutarch and Rollin have given of the same period, we

scarcely know our old acquaintance again; we are utterly confounded by the melo dramatic effect of the

These are the principal errors into which the predecessors of Mr Mitford have fallen; and from most of these

he is free. His faults are of a completely different description. It is to be hoped that the students of history

may now be saved, like Dorax in Dryden's play, by swallowing two conflicting poisons, each of which may

The first and most important difference between Mr Mitford and those who have preceded him is in his

narration. Here the advantage lies, for the most part, on his side. His principle is to follow the contemporary

historians, to look with doubt on all statements which are not in some degree confirmed by them, and

absolutely to reject all which are contradicted by them. While he retains the guidance of some writer in whom

he can place confidence, he goes on excellently. When he loses it, he falls to the level, or perhaps below the

level, of the writers whom he so much despises: he is as absurd as they, and very much duller. It is really

amusing to observe how he proceeds with his narration when he has no better authority than poor Diodorus.

He is compelled to relate something; yet he believes nothing. He accompanies every fact with a long

statement of objections. His account of the administration of Dionysius is in no sense a history. It ought to be

entitled"Historic doubts as to certain events, alleged to have taken place in Sicily."

This scepticism, however, like that of some great legal characters almost as sceptical as himself; vanishes

whenever his political partialities interfere. He is a vehement admirer of tyranny and oligarchy, and considers

no evidence as feeble which can be brought forward in favour of those forms of government. Democracy he

hates with a perfect hatred, a hatred which, in the first volume of his history, appears only in his episodes and

reflections, but which, in those parts where he has less reverence for his guides, and can venture to take his

In taking up these opinions, I have no doubt that Mr Mitford was influenced by the same love of singularity

which led him to spell "island" without an "s," and to place two dots over the last letter of "idea." In truth,

preceding historians have erred so monstrously on the other side that even the worst parts of Mr Mitford's

book may be useful as a corrective. For a young gentleman who talks much about his country, tyrannicide,

and Epaminondas, this work, diluted in a sufficient quantity of Rollin and Berthelemi, may be a very useful

The errors of both parties arise from an ignorance or a neglect of the fundamental principles of political

science. The writers on one side imagine popular government to be always a blessing; Mr Mitford omits no

opportunity of assuring us that it is always a curse. The fact is, that a good government, like a good coat, is

that which fits the body for which it is designed. A man who, upon abstract principles, pronounces a

constitution to be good, without an exact knowledge of the people who are to be governed by it, judges as

absurdly as a tailor who should measure the Belvidere Apollo for the clothes of all his customers. The

demagogues who wished to see Portugal a republic, and the wise critics who revile the Virginians for not

having instituted a peerage, appear equally ridiculous to all men of sense and candour.

That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.

Neither the inclination nor the knowledge will suffice alone; and it is difficult to find them together.

Pure democracy, and pure democracy alone, satisfies the former condition of this great problem. That the

governors may be solicitous only for the interests of the governed, it is necessary that the interests of the

governors and the governed should be the same. This cannot be often the case where power is intrusted to one

or to a few. The privileged part of the community will doubtless derive a certain degree of advantage from

the general prosperity of the state; but they will derive a greater from oppression and exaction. The king will

desire an useless war for his glory, or a parcauxcerfs for his pleasure. The nobles will demand monopolies

and lettresdecachet. In proportion as the number of governors is increased the evil is diminished. There are

fewer to contribute, and more to receive. The dividend which each can obtain of the public plunder becomes

less and less tempting. But the interests of the subjects and the rulers never absolutely coincide till the

subjects themselves become the rulers, that is, till the government be either immediately or mediately

But this is not enough. "Will without power," said the sagacious Casimir to Milor Beefington, "is like

children playing at soldiers." The people will always be desirous to promote their own interests; but it may be

doubted, whether, in any community, they were ever sufficiently educated to understand them. Even in this

island, where the multitude have long been better informed than in any other part of Europe, the rights of the

many have generally been asserted against themselves by the patriotism of the few. Free trade, one of the

greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular. It may

be well doubted, whether a liberal policy with regard to our commercial relations would find any support

from a parliament elected by universal suffrage. The republicans on the other side of the Atlantic have

recently adopted regulations of which the consequences will, before long, show us,

"How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed, When vengeance listens to the fool's request."

The people are to be governed for their own good; and, that they may be governed for their own good, they

must not be governed by their own ignorance. There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish

popular government as to abolish all the restraints in a school, or to untie all the straitwaistcoats in a

Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that in which supreme power resides in the

whole body of a well informed people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, in

some measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the name of a great statesman, whose

principle it is to extend the power of the people in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give

them every facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may render it safe to trust them with absolute

power. In the mean time, it is dangerous to praise or condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, from the

despotism of St Petersburg to the democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a form of government which

If, however, there be any form of government which in all ages and all nations has always been, and must

always be, pernicious, it is certainly that which Mr Mitford, on his usual principle of being wiser than all the

rest of the world, has taken under his especial patronagepure oligarchy. This is closely, and indeed

inseparably, connected with another of his eccentric tastes, a marked partiality for Lacedaemon, and a dislike

of Athens. Mr Mitford's book has, I suspect, rendered these sentiments in some degree popular; and I shall,

The shades in the Athenian character strike the eye more rapidly than those in the Lacedaemonian: not

because they are darker, but because they are on a brighter ground. The law of ostracism is an instance of

this. Nothing can be conceived more odious than the practice of punishing a citizen, simply and professedly,

for his eminence;and nothing in the institutions of Athens is more frequently or more justly censured.

Lacedaemon was free from this. And why? Lacedaemon did not need it. Oligarchy is an ostracism of

itself,an ostracism not occasional, but permanent, not dubious, but certain. Her laws prevented the

development of merit instead of attacking its maturity. They did not cut down the plant in its high and palmy

state, but cursed the soil with eternal sterility. In spite of the law of ostracism, Athens produced, within a

hundred and fifty years, the greatest public men that ever existed. Whom had Sparta to ostracise? She

produced, at most, four eminent men, Brasidas, Gylippus, Lysander, and Agesilaus. Of these, not one rose to

distinction within her jurisdiction. It was only when they escaped from the region within which the influence

of aristocracy withered everything good and noble, it was only when they ceased to be Lacedaemonians, that

they became great men. Brasidas, among the cities of Thrace, was strictly a democratical leader, the favourite

minister and general of the people. The same may be said of Gylippus, at Syracuse. Lysander, in the

Hellespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, were liberated for a time from the hateful restraints imposed by the

constitution of Lycurgus. Both acquired fame abroad; and both returned to be watched and depressed at

home. This is not peculiar to Sparta. Oligarchy, wherever it has existed, has always stunted the growth of

genius. Thus it was at Rome, till about a century before the Christian era: we read of abundance of consuls

and dictators who won battles, and enjoyed triumphs; but we look in vain for a single man of the first order of

intellect,for a Pericles, a Demosthenes, or a Hannibal. The Gracchi formed a strong democratical party;

Marius revived it; the foundations of the old aristocracy were shaken; and two generations fertile in really

Venice is a still more remarkable instance: in her history we see nothing but the state; aristocracy had

destroyed every seed of genius and virtue. Her dominion was like herself, lofty and magnificent, but founded

on filth and weeds. God forbid that there should ever again exist a powerful and civilised state, which, after

existing through thirteen hundred eventful years, should not bequeath to mankind the memory of one great

Many writers, and Mr Mitford among the number, have admired the stability of the Spartan institutions; in

fact, there is little to admire, and less to approve. Oligarchy is the weakest and the most stable of

governments; and it is stable because it is weak. It has a sort of valetudinarian longevity; it lives in the

balance of Sanctorius; it takes no exercise; it exposes itself to no accident; it is seized with an hypochondriac

alarm at every new sensation; it trembles at every breath; it lets blood for every inflammation: and thus,

without ever enjoying a day of health or pleasure, drags on its existence to a doting and debilitated old age.

The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of its existence by the sacrifice of happiness at

home and dignity abroad. They cringed to the powerful; they trampled on the weak; they massacred their

helots; they betrayed their allies; they contrived to be a day too late for the battle of Marathon; they attempted

to avoid the battle of Salamis; they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their lives and liberties, to be

a second time driven from their country by the Persians, that they might finish their own fortifications on the

Isthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to which exertions in their cause had reduced their

preservers, in order to make them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned their walls to

defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; they commenced the Peloponnesian war in

violation of their engagements with Athens; they abandoned it in violation of their engagements with their

allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placed themselves under their protection; they

bartered, for advantages confined to themselves, the interest, the freedom, and the lives of those who had

served them most faithfully; they took with equal complacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the

bribes of Persia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained from no injury, and they

revenged none. Above all, they looked on a citizen who served them well as their deadliest enemy. These are

Nor were the domestic institutions of Lacedaemon less hateful or less contemptible than her foreign policy. A

perpetual interference with every part of the system of human life, a constant struggle against nature and

reason, characterised all her laws. To violate even prejudices which have taken deep root in the minds of a

people is scarcely expedient; to think of extirpating natural appetites and passions is frantic: the external

symptoms may be occasionally repressed; but the feeling still exists, and, debarred from its natural objects,

preys on the disordered mind and body of its victim. Thus it is in conventsthus it is among ascetic

sectsthus it was among the Lacedaemonians. Hence arose that madness, or violence approaching to

madness, which, in spite of every external restraint, often appeared among the most distinguished citizens of

Sparta. Cleomenes terminated his career of raving cruelty by cutting himself to pieces. Pausanias seems to

have been absolutely insane; he formed a hopeless and profligate scheme; he betrayed it by the ostentation of

his behaviour, and the imprudence of his measures; and he alienated, by his insolence, all who might have

served or protected him. Xenophon, a warm admirer of Lacedaemon, furnishes us with the strongest evidence

to this effect. It is impossible not to observe the brutal and senseless fury which characterises almost every

Spartan with whom he was connected. Clearchus nearly lost his life by his cruelty. Chirisophus deprived his

army of the services of a faithful guide by his unreasonable and ferocious severity. But it is needless to

multiply instances. Lycurgus, Mr Mitford's favourite legislator, founded his whole system on a mistaken

principle. He never considered that governments were made for men, and not men for governments. Instead

of adapting the constitution to the people, he distorted the minds of the people to suit the constitution, a

scheme worthy of the Laputan Academy of Projectors. And this appears to Mr Mitford to constitute his

peculiar title to admiration. Hear himself: "What to modern eyes most strikingly sets that extraordinary man

above all other legislators is, that in so many circumstances, apparently out of the reach of law, he controlled

and formed to his own mind the wills and habits of his people." I should suppose that this gentleman had the

advantage of receiving his education under the ferula of Dr Pangloss; for his metaphysics are clearly those of

the castle of Thundertentronckh: "Remarquez bien que les nez ont ete faits pour porter des lunettes, aussi

avons nous des lunettes. Les jambes sont visiblement institues pour etre chaussees, et nous avons des

chausses. Les cochons etant faits pour etre manges, nous mangeons du porc toute l'annee."

At Athens the laws did not constantly interfere with the tastes of the people. The children were not taken

from their parents by that universal stepmother, the state. They were not starved into thieves, or tortured into

bullies; there was no established table at which every one must dine, no established style in which every one

must converse. An Athenian might eat whatever he could afford to buy, and talk as long as he could find

people to listen. The government did not tell the people what opinions they were to hold, or what songs they

were to sing. Freedom produced excellence. Thus philosophy took its origin. Thus were produced those

models of poetry, of oratory, and of the arts, which scarcely fall short of the standard of ideal excellence.

Nothing is more conducive to happiness than the free exercise of the mind in pursuits congenial to it. This

happiness, assuredly, was enjoyed far more at Athens than at Sparta. The Athenians are acknowledged even

by their enemies to have been distinguished, in private life, by their courteous and amiable demeanour. Their

levity, at least, was better than Spartan sullenness and their impertinence than Spartan insolence. Even in

courage it may be questioned whether they were inferior to the Lacedaemonians. The great Athenian

historian has reported a remarkable observation of the great Athenian minister. Pericles maintained that his

countrymen, without submitting to the hardships of a Spartan education, rivalled all the achievements of

Spartan valour, and that therefore the pleasures and amusements which they enjoyed were to be considered as

so much clear gain. The infantry of Athens was certainly not equal to that of Lacedaemon; but this seems to

have been caused merely by want of practice: the attention of the Athenians was diverted from the discipline

of the phalanx to that of the trireme. The Lacedaemonians, in spite of all their boasted valour, were, from the

But we are told that crimes of great enormity were perpetrated by the Athenian government, and the

democracies under its protection. It is true that Athens too often acted up to the full extent of the laws of war

in an age when those laws had not been mitigated by causes which have operated in later times. This

accusation is, in fact, common to Athens, to Lacedaemon, to all the states of Greece, and to all states

similarly situated. Where communities are very large, the heavier evils of war are felt but by few. The

ploughboy sings, the spinningwheel turns round, the weddingday is fixed, whether the last battle were lost

or won. In little states it cannot be thus; every man feels in his own property and person the effect of a war.

Every man is a soldier, and a soldier fighting for his nearest interests. His own trees have been cut downhis

own corn has been burnthis own house has been pillagedhis own relations have been killed. How can he

entertain towards the enemies of his country the same feelings with one who has suffered nothing from them,

except perhaps the addition of a small sum to the taxes which he pays? Men in such circumstances cannot be

generous. They have too much at stake. It is when they are, if I may so express myself, playing for love, it is

when war is a mere game at chess, it is when they are contending for a remote colony, a frontier town, the

honours of a flag, a salute, or a title, that they can make fine speeches, and do good offices to their enemies.

The Black Prince waited behind the chair of his captive; Villars interchanged repartees with Eugene; George

II. sent congratulations to Louis XV., during a war, upon occasion of his escape from the attempt of Damien:

and these things are fine and generous, and very gratifying to the author of the Broad Stone of Honour, and

all the other wise men who think, like him, that God made the world only for the use of gentlemen. But they

spring in general from utter heartlessness. No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which

render all interchange of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate

each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without

hatred. War is never lenient, but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in selfdefence, they

must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the hand of the

It is true that among the dependencies of Athens seditions assumed a character more ferocious than even in

France, during the reign of terrorthe accursed Saturnalia of an accursed bondage. It is true that in Athens

itself, where such convulsions were scarcely known, the condition of the higher orders was disagreeable; that

they were compelled to contribute large sums for the service or the amusement of the public; and that they

were sometimes harassed by vexatious informers. Whenever such cases occur, Mr Mitford's scepticism

vanishes. The "if," the "but," the "it is said," the "if we may believe," with which he qualifies every charge

against a tyrant or an aristocracy, are at once abandoned. The blacker the story, the firmer is his belief, and he

never fails to inveigh with hearty bitterness against democracy as the source of every species of crime.

The Athenians, I believe, possessed more liberty than was good for them. Yet I will venture to assert that,

while the splendour, the intelligence, and the energy of that great people were peculiar to themselves, the

crimes with which they are charged arose from causes which were common to them with every other state

which then existed. The violence of faction in that age sprung from a cause which has always been fertile in

The effect of slavery is completely to dissolve the connection which naturally exists between the higher and

lower classes of free citizens. The rich spend their wealth in purchasing and maintaining slaves. There is no

demand for the labour of the poor; the fable of Menenius ceases to be applicable; the belly communicates no

nutriment to the members; there is an atrophy in the body politic. The two parties, therefore, proceed to

extremities utterly unknown in countries where they have mutually need of each other. In Rome the oligarchy

was too powerful to be subverted by force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies, though

constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contest against men who possessed the whole

property of the state. Hence the necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society, and to

take away every motive of industry; the abolition of debts, and the agrarian lawspropositions absurdly

condemned by men who do not consider the circumstances from which they sprung. They were the desperate

remedies of a desperate disease. In Greece the oligarchical interest was not in general so deeply rooted as at

Rome. The multitude, therefore, often redressed by force grievances which, at Rome, were commonly

attacked under the forms of the constitution. They drove out or massacred the rich, and divided their property.

If the superior union or military skill of the rich rendered them victorious, they took measures equally violent,

disarmed all in whom they could not confide, often slaughtered great numbers, and occasionally expelled the

whole commonalty from the city, and remained, with their slaves, the sole inhabitants.

From such calamities Athens and Lacedaemon alone were almost completely free. At Athens the purses of

the rich were laid under regular contribution for the support of the poor; and this, rightly considered, was as

much a favour to the givers as to the receivers, since no other measure could possibly have saved their houses

from pillage and their persons from violence. It is singular that Mr Mitford should perpetually reprobate a

policy which was the best that could be pursued in such a state of things, and which alone saved Athens from

Lacedaemon, cursed with a system of slavery more odious than has ever existed in any other country, avoided

this evil by almost totally annihilating private property. Lycurgus began by an agrarian law. He abolished all

professions except that of arms; he made the whole of his community a standing army, every member of

which had a common right to the services of a crowd of miserable bondmen; he secured the state from

sedition at the expense of the Helots. Of all the parts of his system this is the most creditable to his head, and

These considerations, and many others of equal importance, Mr Mitford has neglected; but he has yet a

heavier charge to answer. He has made not only illogical inferences, but false statements. While he never

states, without qualifications and objections, the charges which the earliest and best historians have brought

against his favourite tyrants, Pisistratus, Hippias, and Gelon, he transcribes, without any hesitation, the

grossest abuse of the least authoritative writers against every democracy and every demagogue. Such an

accusation should not be made without being supported; and I will therefore select one out of many passages

which will fully substantiate the charge, and convict Mr Mitford of wilful misrepresentation, or of negligence

scarcely less culpable. Mr Mitford is speaking of one of the greatest men that ever lived, Demosthenes, and

"In earliest youth Demosthenes earned an opprobrious nickname by the effeminacy of his dress and manner."

Does Mr Mitford know that Demosthenes denied this charge, and explained the nickname in a perfectly

different manner? (See the speech of Aeschines against Timarchus.) And, if he knew it, should he not have

stated it? He proceeds thus: "On emerging from minority, by the Athenian law, at fiveandtwenty, he

earned another opprobrious nickname by a prosecution of his guardians, which was considered as a

dishonourable attempt to extort money from them." In the first place Demosthenes was not fiveandtwenty

years of age. Mr Mitford might have learned, from so common a book as the Archaeologia of Archbishop

Potter, that at twenty Athenian citizens were freed from the control of their guardians, and began to manage

their own property. The very speech of Demosthenes against his guardians proves most satisfactorily that he

was under twenty. In his speech against Midias, he says that when he undertook that prosecution he was quite

a boy. (Meirakullion on komide.) His youth might, therefore, excuse the step, even if it had been considered,

as Mr Mitford says, a dishonourable attempt to extort money. But who considered it as such? Not the judges

who condemned the guardians. The Athenian courts of justice were not the purest in the world; but their

decisions were at least as likely to be just as the abuse of a deadly enemy. Mr Mitford refers for confirmation

of his statement to Aeschines and Plutarch. Aeschines by no means bears him out; and Plutarch directly

contradicts him. "Not long after," says Mr Mitford, "he took blows publicly in the theater" (I preserve the

orthography, if it can be so called, of this historian) "from a petulant youth of rank, named Meidias." Here are

two disgraceful mistakes. In the first place, it was long after; eight years at the very least, probably much

more. In the next place the petulant youth, of whom Mr Mitford speaks, was fifty years old. (Whoever will

read the speech of Demosthenes against Midias will find the statements in the text confirmed, and will have,

moreover, the pleasure of becoming acquainted with one of the finest compositions in the world.) Really Mr

Mitford has less reason to censure the carelessness of his predecessors than to reform his own. After this

monstrous inaccuracy, with regard to facts, we may be able to judge what degree of credit ought to be given

to the vague abuse of such a writer. "The cowardice of Demosthenes in the field afterwards became

notorious." Demosthenes was a civil character; war was not his business. In his time the division between

military and political offices was beginning to be strongly marked; yet the recollection of the days when

every citizen was a soldier was still recent. In such states of society a certain degree of disrepute always

attaches to sedentary men; but that any leader of the Athenian democracy could have been, as Mr Mitford

says of Demosthenes, a few lines before, remarkable for "an extraordinary deficiency of personal courage," is

absolutely impossible. What mercenary warrior of the time exposed his life to greater or more constant

perils? Was there a single soldier at Chaeronea who had more cause to tremble for his safety than the orator,

who, in case of defeat, could scarcely hope for mercy from the people whom he had misled or the prince

whom he had opposed? Were not the ordinary fluctuations of popular feeling enough to deter any coward

from engaging in political conflicts? Isocrates, whom Mr Mitford extols, because he constantly employed all

the flowers of his schoolboy rhetoric to decorate oligarchy and tyranny, avoided the judicial and political

meetings of Athens from mere timidity, and seems to have hated democracy only because he durst not look a

popular assembly in the face. Demosthenes was a man of a feeble constitution: his nerves were weak, but his

spirit was high; and the energy and enthusiasm of his feelings supported him through life and in death.

So much for Demosthenes. Now for the orator of aristocracy. I do not wish to abuse Aeschines. He may have

been an honest man. He was certainly a great man; and I feel a reverence, of which Mr Mitford seems to have

no notion, for great men of every party. But, when Mr Mitford says that the private character of Aeschines

was without stain, does he remember what Aeschines has himself confessed in his speech against Timarchus?

I can make allowances, as well as Mr Mitford, for persons who lived under a different system of laws and

morals; but let them be made impartially. If Demosthenes is to be attacked on account of some childish

improprieties, proved only by the assertion of an antagonist, what shall we say of those maturer vices which

that antagonist has himself acknowledged? "Against the private character of Aeschines," says Mr Mitford,

"Demosthenes seems not to have had an insinuation to oppose." Has Mr Mitford ever read the speech of

Demosthenes on the Embassy? Or can he have forgotten, what was never forgotten by anyone else who ever

read it, the story which Demosthenes relates with such terrible energy of language concerning the drunken

brutality of his rival? True or false, here is something more than an insinuation; and nothing can vindicate the

historian, who has overlooked it, from the charge of negligence or of partiality. But Aeschines denied the

story. And did not Demosthenes also deny the story respecting his childish nickname, which Mr Mitford has

nevertheless told without any qualification? But the judges, or some part of them, showed, by their clamour,

their disbelief of the relation of Demosthenes. And did not the judges, who tried the cause between

Demosthenes and his guardians, indicate, in a much clearer manner, their approbation of the prosecution? But

Demosthenes was a demagogue, and is to be slandered. Aeschines was an aristocrat, and is to be panegyrised.

These passages, all selected from a single page of Mr Mitford's work, may give some notion to those readers,

who have not the means of comparing his statements with the original authorities, of his extreme partiality

and carelessness. Indeed, whenever this historian mentions Demosthenes, he violates all the laws of candour

and even of decency; he weighs no authorities; he makes no allowances; he forgets the best authenticated

facts in the history of the times, and the most generally recognised principles of human nature. The

opposition of the great orator to the policy of Philip he represents as neither more nor less than deliberate

villany. I hold almost the same opinion with Mr Mitford respecting the character and the views of that great

and accomplished prince. But am I, therefore, to pronounce Demosthenes profligate and insincere? Surely

not. Do we not perpetually see men of the greatest talents and the purest intentions misled by national or

factious prejudices? The most respectable people in England were, little more than forty years ago, in the

habit of uttering the bitterest abuse against Washington and Franklin. It is certainly to be regretted that men

should err so grossly in their estimate of character. But no person who knows anything of human nature will

Mr Mitford is not more consistent with himself than with reason. Though he is the advocate of all oligarchies,

he is also a warm admirer of all kings, and of all citizens who raised themselves to that species of sovereignty

which the Greeks denominated tyranny. If monarchy, as Mr Mitford holds, be in itself a blessing, democracy

must be a better form of government than aristocracy, which is always opposed to the supremacy, and even to

the eminence, of individuals. On the other hand, it is but one step that separates the demagogue and the

If this article had not extended itself to so great a length, I should offer a few observations on some other

peculiarities of this writer,his general preference of the Barbarians to the Greeks,his predilection for

Persians, Carthaginians, Thracians, for all nations, in short, except that great and enlightened nation of which

Mr Mitford has remarked, with truth and spirit, that "any history perfectly written, but especially a Grecian

history perfectly written should be a political institute for all nations." It has not occurred to him that a

Grecian history, perfectly written, should also be a complete record of the rise and progress of poetry,

philosophy, and the arts. Here his work is extremely deficient. Indeed, though it may seem a strange thing to

say of a gentleman who has published so many quartos, Mr Mitford seems to entertain a feeling, bordering on

contempt, for literary and speculative pursuits. The talents of action almost exclusively attract his notice; and

he talks with very complacent disdain of "the idle learned." Homer, indeed, he admires; but principally, I am

afraid, because he is convinced that Homer could neither read nor write. He could not avoid speaking of

Socrates; but he has been far more solicitous to trace his death to political causes, and to deduce from it

consequences unfavourable to Athens, and to popular governments, than to throw light on the character and

"From whose mouth issued forth Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools Of Academics, old and

new, with those Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect Epicurean, and the Stoic severe."

He does not seem to be aware that Demosthenes was a great orator; he represents him sometimes as an

aspirant demagogue, sometimes as an adroit negotiator, and always as a great rogue. But that in which the

Athenian excelled all men of all ages, that irresistible eloquence, which at the distance of more than two

thousand years stirs our blood, and brings tears into our eyes, he passes by with a few phrases of

commonplace commendation. The origin of the drama, the doctrines of the sophists, the course of Athenian

education, the state of the arts and sciences, the whole domestic system of the Greeks, he has almost

completely neglected. Yet these things will appear, to a reflecting man, scarcely less worthy of attention than

This, indeed, is a deficiency by no means peculiar to Mr Mitford. Most people seem to imagine that a detail

of public occurrences the operations of siegesthe changes of administrationsthe treatiesthe

conspiraciesthe rebellionsis a complete history. Differences of definition are logically unimportant; but

practically they sometimes produce the most momentous effects. Thus it has been in the present case.

Historians have, almost without exception, confined themselves to the public transactions of states, and have

left to the negligent administration of writers of fiction a province at least equally extensive and valuable.

All wise statesmen have agreed to consider the prosperity or adversity of nations as made up of the happiness

or misery of individuals, and to reject as chimerical all notions of a public interest of the community, distinct

from the interest of the component parts. It is therefore strange that those whose office it is to supply

statesmen with examples and warnings should omit, as too mean for the dignity of history, circumstances

which exert the most extensive influence on the state of society. In general, the under current of human life

flows steadily on, unruffled by the storms which agitate the surface. The happiness of the many commonly

depends on causes independent of victories or defeats, of revolutions or restorations,causes which can be

regulated by no laws, and which are recorded in no archives. These causes are the things which it is of main

importance to us to know, not how the Lacedaemonian phalanx was broken at Leuctra,not whether

Alexander died of poison or by disease. History, without these, is a shell without a kernel; and such is almost

all the history which is extant in the world. Paltry skirmishes and plots are reported with absurd and useless

minuteness; but improvements the most essential to the comfort of human life extend themselves over the

world, and introduce themselves into every cottage, before any annalist can condescend, from the dignity of

writing about generals and ambassadors, to take the least notice of them. Thus the progress of the most

salutary inventions and discoveries is buried in impenetrable mystery; mankind are deprived of a most useful

species of knowledge, and their benefactors of their honest fame. In the meantime every child knows by heart

the dates and adventures of a long line of barbarian kings. The history of nations, in the sense in which I use

the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical. Thucydides, as far as he goes, is an

excellent writer; yet he affords us far less knowledge of the most important particulars relating to Athens than

Plato or Aristophanes. The little treatise of Xenophon on Domestic Economy contains more historical

information than all the seven books of his Hellenics. The same may be said of the Satires of Horace, of the

Letters of Cicero, of the novels of Le Sage, of the memoirs of Marmontel. Many others might be mentioned;

I would hope that there may yet appear a writer who may despise the present narrow limits, and assert the

rights of history over every part of her natural domain. Should such a writer engage in that enterprise, in

which I cannot but consider Mr Mitford as having failed, he will record, indeed, all that is interesting and

important in military and political transactions; but he will not think anything too trivial for the gravity of

history which is not too trivial to promote or diminish the happiness of man. He will portray in vivid colours

the domestic society, the manners, the amusements, the conversation of the Greeks. He will not disdain to

discuss the state of agriculture, of the mechanical arts, and of the conveniences of life. The progress of

painting, of sculpture, and of architecture, will form an important part of his plan. But, above all, his attention

will be given to the history of that splendid literature from which has sprung all the strength, the wisdom, the

Of the indifference which Mr Mitford shows on this subject I will not speak; for I cannot speak with fairness.

It is a subject on which I love to forget the accuracy of a judge, in the veneration of a worshipper and the

gratitude of a child. If we consider merely the subtlety of disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect

energy and elegance of expression which characterise the great works of Athenian genius, we must

pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we say when we reflect that from hence have

sprung directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the vast

accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero; the withering fire of Juvenal; the plastic imagination of

Dante; the humour of Cervantes; the comprehension of Bacon; the wit of Butler; the supreme and universal

excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country

and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against

violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring,

encouraging, consoling; by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless bed of Pascal; in the tribune of

Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on the scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence on private

happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits

in which she has taught mankind to engage: to how many the studies which took their rise from her have been

wealth in poverty,liberty in bondage,health in sickness,society in solitude? Her power is indeed

manifested at the bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools of philosophy. But these are not her

glory. Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages pain, wherever it brings gladness to eyes which

fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep,there is exhibited, in its

The dervise, in the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to his comrade the camels with their load of

jewels and gold, while he retained the casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold at one

glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is no exaggeration to say that no external advantage is to

be compared with that purification of the intellectual eye which gives us to contemplate the infinite wealth of

the mental world, all the hoarded treasures of its primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet

unexplored mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have for more than twenty

centuries been annihilated; her people have degenerated into timid slaves; her language into a barbarous

jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but

her intellectual empire is imperishable. And when those who have rivalled her greatness shall have shared her

fate; when civilisation and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents; when the sceptre

shall have passed away from England; when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain labour to

decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief; shall hear savage hymns chaunted to

some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple; and shall see a single naked fisherman

wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts;her influence and her glory will still survive,fresh in

eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which they

11. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS AND ST GEORGE IN THE WATER., page = 53

12. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR JOHN MILTON, TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR., page = 57

14. A PROPHETIC ACCOUNT OF A GRAND NATIONAL EPIC POEM, TO BE ENTITLED "THE WELLINGTONIAD," AND TO BE PUBLISHED A.D. 2824., page = 74